John R.W. Stott on Being Salt and Light

The world is evidently a dark place, with little or no light of its own, since an external source of light is needed to illumine it. True, it is "always talking about its enlightenment," but much of its boasted light is in reality darkness. The world also manifests a constantly tendency to deteriorate. The notion is not that the world is tasteless and that Christians can make it less insipid ("The thought of making the world palatable to God is quite impossible"), but that it is putrefying. It cannot stop itself from going bad. Only salt introduced from outside can do this. The church, on the other hand, is set in the world with a double role, as salt to arrest--or at least to hinder--the process of social decay, and as light to dispel the darkness.

What message do we have, then, for such people who feel themselves strangled by 'the system', crushed by the machine of modern technocracy, overwhelmed by political, social and economic forces which control them and over which they have no control? They feel themselves victims of a situation they are powerless to change. What can they do? It is in the soil of this frustration that revolutionaries are being bred, dedicated to the violent overthrow of the system. It is from the very same soil that revolutionaries of Jesus can arise, equally dedicated activists--even more so--but committed rather to spread his revolution of love, joy and peace. And this peaceful revolution is more radical than any programme of violence, both because its standards are incorruptible and because it changes people as well as structures. Have we lost our confidence? Then listen to Luther: "With his single word I can be more defiant and more boastful than they with all their power, swords and guns."

John R.W. Stott, Christian Counter-Culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (InterVarsity Press, 1978), pgs. 58-59, 64.

John Murray on the Cultural Mandate

There is an indication in Genesis 1 and 2 of the variety which would have characterized his labours in a state of confirmed integrity. The other mandates—the replenishing of the earth and subduing it—involved labour also. Even in the genial conditions which would have obtained in an uncursed earth it is not difficult to imagine the labour entailed in geographical expansion and the necessity of making adequate provision for sustenance and comfort in this process of expansion. But more significant in respect of labour is the mandate to subdue the earth. This means nothing if it does not mean the harnessing and utilizing of the earth’s resources and forces. We are not to suppose that the earth is represented as offering resistance to man’s dominion and that the subduing was to be that of conquering alien and recalcitrant powers. But the subduing of the earth must imply the expenditure of thought and skill and energy in bringing the earth and its resources under such control that they would be channeled to the promotion of certain ends which they were suited and designed to fulfil but which would not be fulfilled part from the exercise of man’s design and labour. In the sense in which Jesus spoke of the Sabbath as made for man and not man for the Sabbath, so we may not say that the earth and its resources were made for man and not man for them; he was to exercise dominion over them, they were not to rule over him The earth and its resources were to be brought into the service of his well-being, enjoyment and pleasure.

John Murray, Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1957), 36-37.

On the Harmony Between Different Disciplines

The human mind has a wonderful faculty for the condensation of perfectly valid arguments, and what seems like an instinctive belief may turn out to be the result of many logical steps. Or, rather it may be that the belief in a personal God is the result of a primitive revelation, and that the theistic proofs are only the logical confirmation of what was originally arrived at by a different means. At any rate, the logical confirmation of the belief in God is a vital concern to the Christian; at this point as at many others religion and philosophy are connected in the most intimate possible way. True religion can make no peace with a false philosophy, any more than with a science that is falsely-so-called; a thing cannot possibly be true in religion and false in philosophy or in science. All methods of arriving at truth, if they be valid methods, will arrive at a harmonious result.

Machen, John Gresham. Christianity and Liberalism. ReformedAudio.org, 1923. p. 51.

On Prayer

Prayer . . . is a confessing of impotence and need, an acknowledging of helplessness and dependence, and an invoking of the mighty power of God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. . . . God means us . . . to recognize and confess our impotence, and to tell him that we rely on him alone, and to plead with him to glorify his name. It is his way regularly to withhold his blessings until his people start to pray. “You do not have, because you do not ask” (Jas 4:2). “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7). But if you and I are too proud or lazy to ask, we need not expect to receive. This is the universal rule . . . God will make us pray before he blesses our labors in order that we may constantly learn afresh that we depend on God for everything.

Packer, J.I. Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012. 118-119. 

Work in the Bible

One of the great gifts of the Reformed/Puritan tradition is what sociologist Noah Webster referred to as the Protestant Work Ethic. This is the idea that work is something sacred to the Lord, and that whatever vocation we take up, whether it is in business, the arts, the sciences, law, etc., we must work hard and pursue our vocation to the glory of God. There is certainly much in the Bible that speaks to this topic, which is why I want to give a small compendium of relevant Bible verses.

Proverbs 6:6-11:

Go to the ant, O sluggard; 

consider her ways, and be wise. 

Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, 

she prepares her bread pin summer 

and gathers her food in harvest.

How long will you lie there, O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep?

A little sleep, a little slumber,

a little folding of the hands to rest,

and poverty will come upon you like a robber,

and want like an armed man.  

Proverbs 14:23:
In all toil there is profit,
but mere talk tends only to poverty 

Ecclesiastes 9:10: Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. 

Ephesians 4:28: Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 

Colossians 3:17, 23-24: And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him... Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.

1 Thessalonians 4:10-12: But we urge you, brothers... to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

2 Thessalonians 3:6-12: Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

Divine Self-Portraits

Understand this: we are both tiny and massive. We are nothing more than molded clay given breath, but we are nothing less than divine self-portraits, huffing and puffing along the mountain ranges of epic narrative arcs prepared for us by the Infinite Word Himself. Swell with pride and gratitude, for you are tiny and given much. You are as spoken by God as the stars. You stand in history with stories stretching out both behind and before. We should want to live our chapters well, but doing so requires that we know the chapters that led up to us in our time and our moment; it requires that we open our eyes and consciously begin to shape those chapters that are coming after.

N.D. Wilson, Death by Living: Life Is Meant to Be Spent (Thomas Nelson, 2013), p. 6.