Writing on the Wall | Brannon McAllister » Links & Quotations

The Interdependence of Work

Brannon — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:57:18 +0000

“Civilization is sharing in the work of others. Look at the chair you sit in. Imagine making it yourself–even if you had the skills, you’d need the tools. Do you have the skill to make the tools? And even if you had the skills for that, could you mine the ore to get the metal? And if you had the skills to do that, how would you get the ore down from the mountain? Would you make the truck? In other words, to simply make a chair from scratch, in a sense is a lifetime of work for one person. But through the work of others, you can buy it with the fruit of a few hours labor. Civilization is sharing in work of others. Your paycheck, whatever it is, can buy you the use of far more than you could possibly make for yourself in the time it took to earn the check. Work makes us interdependent. Work is cultivating the resources of the material and human universe…. Work is the form in which we make ourselves useful to others; civilization is the form in which others make themselves useful to us. Work unifies the human race and carries out the will of God.”

-Lester DeKoster, Work

The Moment: Photosynth of Oath of Office

Brannon — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 18:46:19 +0000

CNN.com – Special Reports – The 44th President – The Moment.

Check this out. A truly amazing concept.

NYC Storefronts

Brannon — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 04:29:38 +0000

What a great set of Flickr images!

New Affection

Brannon — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:22:23 +0000

“The love of God and the love of the world, are two affections, not merely in a state of rivalship, but in a state of enmity – and that so irreconcilable, that they cannot dwell together in the same bosom. We have already affirmed how impossible it were for the heart, by any innate elasticity of its own, to cast the world away from it; and thus reduce itself to a wilderness. The heart is not so constituted; and the only way to dispossess it of an old affection, is by the expulsive power of a new one.”

Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

Fullness

Brannon — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:54:47 +0000

“On the most basic levels, I desire fullness, and fleshly lusts seduce me by attaching themselves to this basic desire. They exploit the empty spaces in me, and they promise that fulness will be mine if I give in to their demands. When my soul sits empty and is aching for something to fill it, such deceptive promises are extremely difficult to resist.

Consequently, the key to mortifying fleshly lusts is to eliminate the emptiness within me and replace it with fullness; and I accomplish this by feasting on the gospel. Indeed, it is in the gospel that I experience a God who glorifies Himself by filling me with His fullness. . . . This is the God of the gospel, a God who is satisfied with nothing less than my experience of fullness in Him! . . .

Indeed, as I perpetually feast on Christ and all His blessings found in the gospel, I find that my hunger for sin diminishes and the lies of lust simply lose their appeal. Hence, to the degree that I am full, I am free. Eyes do not rove, nor do fleshly lusts rule, when the heart is fat with the love of Jesus!”

- Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer for Christians (2008), 45-46.

HT: Of First Importance

Henri Nouwen on the Prodigal Son

Brannon — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:17:42 +0000

“At issue here is the question: ‘To whom do I belong? To God or to the world?’ Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down. Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me.

As long as I keep running about asking: ‘Do you love me? Do you really love me?’ I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with ‘ifs.’ The world says: ‘Yes I love you if you are good-looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you if you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much, and buy much.’ There are endless ‘ifs’ hidden in the world’s love. These ‘ifs’ enslave me, since it is impossible to respond adequately to all of them. The world’s love is and always be conditional. As long as I keep looking for my true self in the world of conditional love, I will remain ‘hooked’ to the world–trying, failing, and trying again. It is a world that fosters addictions because what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest cravings of my heart.

I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found. Why do I keep ignoring the place of true love and persist in looking for it elsewhere? Why do I keep leaving home where I am called the child of God, the Beloved of my Father? I am constantly surprised at how I keep taking the gifts God has given me–my health, my intellectual and emotional gifts–and keep using them to impress people, receive affirmation and praise, and compete for rewards, instead of developing them for the glory of God. Yes, I often carry them off to a ‘distant coutnry’ and put them in the service of an exploiting world that does not know their true value. It’s almost as if I want to prove myself and to my world that I do not need God’s love, that I can make a life on my own, that I want to be fully independent. Beneath it all is the great rebellion, the radical ‘No’ to the Father’s love, the unspoken curse: ‘I wish you were dead.’ The prodigal son’s ‘No’ reflects Adam’s original rebellion: his rejection of God in whose lvoe we are created by and by whose love we are sustained. It is the rebellion that places me outside the garden, out of reach of the tree of life. It is the rebellion that makes me dissipate myself in a ‘distant country.’”

-Henri Nouwen

The Return of the Prodigal Son

35 Beautiful Album Covers

Brannon — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 20:23:23 +0000

Check out Smashing Magazine’s post on 35 Beautiful Album Covers.

HT: Brent Thomas

New Mars Hill Website

Brannon — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 20:20:42 +0000

Check out the cleanly designed new site for Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

N.T. Wright on Heaven

Brannon — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 05:53:33 +0000

I came across this interview in Time this morning. A link off of Colossians Three Sixteen’s Weekly Town Crier.

It therefore comes as a something of a shock that Wright doesn’t believe in heaven — at least, not in the way that millions of Christians understand the term. In his new book, Surprised by Hope (HarperOne), Wright quotes a children’s book by California first lady Maria Shriver called What’s Heaven, which describes it as “a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk… If you’re good throughout your life, then you get to go [there]… When your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you heaven to be with him.” That, says Wright is a good example of “what not to say.” The Biblical truth, he continues, “is very, very different.” -Time

Click here to read the full text.

The Most Excellent Way

Brannon — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 05:52:07 +0000

God has also shown great love to people through his plan of redemption. Following this good pattern, love should also be at the heart of all excellent art created by disciples of Jesus. This is the most excellent way. An artist filled with the Spirit, skill, and ability, asking what it means to love the Church and the watching world as one uniquely gifted, is likely an artist who is making the invisible kingdom visible. -Charlie Peacock