What can the music of John Coltrane tell us about the relationship of art to God, and of our own work in general to God? We can all learn quite a lot from Coltrane, actually. And what we can see in his approach to his music applies not just to music...
In Ecclesiastes, the author takes the position of a practical secularist. And he asks, “If this life is all there is, then is life meaningless?” The writer says if this life is all there is, if there’s no God and no meaning that you have to submit to...
Today’s sermon comes from a series on the life of Jesus described in the gospel of Luke. Luke gives us many of Jesus’ teachings on what it means to be a disciple. In short, a disciple is one who applies the gospel to absolutely every single area of l...
Consider how much of your time, how much of your life, is built around your work. Yet, so many of the books and materials that look at what it means to live as Christians only focus on our evenings and our weekends. How are we to be a Christian on th...
Some of you may know I was actually a teacher at graduate school seminary for five years. Then I said, “Get me back in the ministry,” where there is no grading papers and no one knows whether people are learning or not. But the gospel changes everyth...
If you’re Christian, what is the rationale for being an actor? Why should Christians be actors? How should Christians who are actors or writers or choreographers or directors think about their faith and their work? To answer that, we need to look at...
The gospel affects how you do your work, how you do your job, and how you pursue your vocation. But how? If we’re going to understand what Paul says in this passage, we need to look at 1) some background work and historical context, 2) practical pri...
How does the gospel affect your work? We’re in a series where we’re asking, “What happens when you take the gospel, the basic message of Jesus Christ, out of the church and into the world?” One of the things that happens is it affects the way in whi...
When we talk about creativity, we mean artists of course. But we also actually mean entrepreneurs—whose creativity is as important to what they do as anything else. So thinking about creativity, what does Christianity have to say to it? The answer is...
How can practicing the law be shaped by the Christian faith? And how can we reimagine lawyering? If you’re reimagining the legal profession, you don’t want to just be a Christian who happens to also be a lawyer. You want the way you practice the law...
A lot of people have an incredibly negative view of marketing and advertising. Not too long ago, I heard somebody say that advertising is the first profession: in the Garden of Eden, the serpent said, “you need that apple.” They were saying that mark...
The Bible says probably 20 times more things about money than it does about sex, maybe more than that. So if you’re trying to know the Bible, you’re gonna know a little bit of something about money. We all have our own filters. We all have mental map...
Isaiah 60 describes the new heavens and the new earth. It’s looking to the end of time when God makes everything right—paradise restored. And in this passage, all the nations of the world are bringing their work products. What is gold and silver? Wh...
Living the Christian life is not a matter of willpower and self-effort. Because of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we have the potential for radical and organic growth and change. 2 Peter talks about moving from selfishness to unselfishness, from ensl...
The friendship between Jonathan and David is rightly famous. Because we have so much information about the life of David, the narrative arcs are long. So to follow David’s friendship with Jonathan, you have to see it over multiple passages. We’re goi...
