“In that Holy of Holies, the law of God was kept inside the ark, but under the mercy seat. And so that is how we treasure our commitment to the law—under the mercy.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 67
Literacy Where It Counts
“What is evangelical faith? It is spiritual literacy. The natural man does not understand the things of the spirit because they are spiritual discerned.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 65
Either One Works
“If [technology and progress] are forms of wealth, then we know that they are good things, blessings from God, and we also know that they are very dangerous things. The Bible does teach us what our orientation toward wealth should be—that of glad suspicion, or maybe, on our gloomy days, suspicious gladness.”
Ploductivity, p. 57
Accumulated Man Hours
“Wealth is a function of accumulated man hours. And in another way, wealth is the ability to command the labor of another—the ability to tap into some portion of those available man hours. This accumulation of man hours can come in one of two forms, or in a combination of the two. The first is a large enough population size to all any specialist to be summoned, and the second is the incarnation of a specialist’s knowledge in a tool.”
Ploductivity, pp. 51-52
The Gratitude Key
“The key is gratitude that is expressed and not just dialed in. We know how to dial it in. We all know, for example, how to say grace at the beginning of meals. That is something we just do, and wouldn’t dream of not doing. But suppose the head of the home stopped the meal in the middle, and told everybody that the food was really, really good, and why don’t we say grace for a second time? That would seem odd, weird, contrived, and perhaps . . . more grateful. It would highlight how the initial grace we say is something said on cruise control.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, pp. 63-64
So Don’t Mess It Up
“Remember, wealth is a blessing, and what you do with it matters. What you do with wealth will either keep it a compounding blessing, or it will wreck everything. But when it is first poured out on you, it is a blessing.”
Ploductivity, p. 51
Imitative Builders
“When the Spirit moves among God’s people, they start to build. This is because they are imitating Him, and He is building us. We are living stones. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to be doing the work we are doing.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, pp. 61-62
Impersonal Laws Do Nothing
“We are accustomed to think about the world in quasi-Deistic terms. Sure, God made everything some time long ago, but things happen now because of impersonal natural laws, right? Gravity pulls things to the floor, centrifugal force pulls them out to the edges, and the law of supply and demand determines the cost of zippers. But the biblical doctrine is actually one of creation and ongoing providence. All of it is personal.”
Ploductivity, p. 49
Name Against Name
“In Deuteronomy, the people of God were told to exterminate the Canaanites. This was a God-ordained ethnic cleansing. Particularly they were to go after the idolatrous worship, and note this—and ‘destroy the names of them out of that place’ (Dt. 12:3). But nature abhors a vacuum even here, and this was done so that the name of God might be established in the land (Dt. 12:5). God was going to select a place to put His name.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 59
Organized Poverty
“Grinding poverty can certainly come about through natural disasters—famines and so on—but the thing we really need to be on guard against is organized and coercive poverty, by which I mean socialism.”
Ploductivity, p. 48