Resources on Worldliness
“The present form of this world is passing away.” 1 Corinthians 7:31 The Smartest Guys in the Room chronicles the fall of corporate giant Enron. In one revealing scene, the company’s CEO, Jeffrey Skilling, is contemplating resigning. The years of criminal misconduct, lying, and falsifying financial records have caught up with him and his company. Stock princes plummet. Disaster looms, and he knows it. Into his office walks Ken Lay, Enron’s chairman of the board. What pressing issue is on his mind? In his hands are fabric swatches for the company’s new $45 million corporate jet. Which does the CEO prefer?* There’s a lesson here: Don’t be consumed by the trivial when you are surrounded by issues of monumental consequence.…
Read MoreJohn Calvin was right when he pegged the human heart an idol factory. We can manufacture a stream of objects in which we put our trust instead of the true and living God. Matthew Henry shows us just how easy it is to multiply our idols: “Pride makes a god of self, covetousness makes a god of money, sensuality makes a god of the belly; whatever is esteemed or loved, feared or served, delighted in or depended on, more than God, that (whatever it is) we do in effect make a god of.”* ______ *Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. 1 (Macdonald, orig. published 1706), 358-359.
Read MoreA warning against worldliness from French Protestant pastor and poet Antoine de Chandieu (1534-1591): Never having and always desiring, Such are the consequences for him who loves the world. The more he abounds in honor and riches, The more he is seen aspiring for more. He does not enjoy what belongs to him: He wants, he values, he adores what other people have. When he has everything, it is then that he has nothing. Because having everything, he desires everything still. – from Scott M. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors: Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536-1609 (Oxford: 2013), 98.
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