For God so loved the world that He sent His Son.
John 3
A friend saw a bumper sticker the other day. It read: “JESUS LOVES YOU. Then again, he loves everybody”. While intended to be humorous, the sticker uncovers a dilemma we face in our relationship with God. We want to be overwhelmed by His love for us. It should inspire and provoke our worship. But if every player gets a trophy is mine still special? If God loves everyone, am I still special? Yes, but we need to stop thinking that God’s love elevates us over others. Throughout the Bible we are told that God does not select people because they are worthy but precisely because they are not. His love should humble us not inflate us. And it should also lead to worship. God does not love us under compulsion or duty. He chooses to love you. As Skye Jethani notes, “If God loves everyone are you still special? No, but He is.” Reflecting on God’s love should lead us to see His unequaled value, not ours.
Questioning Questions: In a lecture on Public Faith, Michael Ramsden suggested that we follow Jesus’s example of asking questions of those who disagree with us. He noted that Jesus seldom directly answered questions, instead he questioned both the questions and the questioners. Ramsden went on to note that Jesus was not asking questions because he lacked information. He was asking questions to help others see things more clearly.
The Gini Coefficient: Back in the second half of the 20th century, an Italian statistician established a metric to measure the distribution of wealth. The coefficient varies between 0 (where income – or net worth – is evenly distributed), and 1 (where all value is held by one person). The Gini Coefficient in the US was .43 in 1990 and is .48 today, which means income inequality is growing. At the moment, the wealthiest 10% of the US own 84% of the assets. It is worth keeping an eye on this number.
To Be Read (AGAIN): For years I’ve asked others what they are reading. That may be the wrong question. What I should be asking is, “What books have you read more than once?”
Two Reading Surprises: In advance of asking others what they have read two or more times, I jotted down my list. Mere Christianity, Les Miserables, The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, Letters from a Birmingham Jail, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Frankenstein, The Great Divorce, The Weight of Glory, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Two things seem noteworthy about my list: first, I reread the same authors (Lewis, Tolkien, Dostoevsky); and second, only one nonfiction book made the list, Letters from a Birmingham Jail.
The Decline of Sex: A new report suggests that Americans are having sex less than ever before. There are some obvious reasons for this – e.g., the population is getting older and more people are single. But what surprised researchers is the growing number of 18-29 year old males not having sex. Speculation abounds. After all, we live in a time of “plenary affirmation of sexual experimentation of almost any sort.” Many factors are being pointed to – i.e., a decline of “couplehood,” the loss of courtship, etc. I wonder if/when anyone might think – as the Bible suggests – that sex is a powerful but somewhat fragile gift that can be broken, and that a decline in sexual intimacy is one of the downsides of the sexual revolution.
Not the Same: If you read much of the “all religions are the same” literature, you see the same arguments repeated. For example, “Confucius said ‘do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.’ Jesus said, ‘Do unto others what you want them to do for you.’ Those are essentially the same.” Sorry, but no. Both the Silver Rule (Confucius) and the Golden (Jesus) are laudable. But one says, do not harm your enemy. The other says, serve them. John Dickson writes, “The difference is between choosing not to punch my enemy in the nose and deciding to build my enemy a hospital.”
The Idol of Politics: Chicago has a new mayor, Lori Lightfoot. We need to pray for her (I Tim. 2:2). And we need to hold realistic expectations. Like all idols, politics overpromises and under-delivers. It’s a given that Lightfoot will disappoint everyone who holds outsized expectations.
Quotes Worth Requoting:
- God designed the “human machine” to run on Himself. He is the fuel our spirits are designed to burn, the food on which we are designed to feed. There is no other. C.S. Lewis
- I recently contacted my bank to announce that I now identify as a billionaire and expect to have my account adjusted accordingly. R.R. Reno
The Pour Over: About six months ago, our youngest son and some of his friends started a thrice-weekly email designed to offer a summary of current events from a Christian perspective. It’s clever, free and growing. (I tell him I enjoy it but find the tone a bit snarky. He tells me I miss their target demographic by about thirty years). If you want to pretend to be a millennial, or just see what some of them are reading, you can see it and/or sign up by clicking here.
Closing Prayer: O Lord, from whom all good things do come; grant to us, your humble servants, that by your holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by your merciful guiding may perform the same, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. –The Gelasian Sacramentary