We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

7238087616_35883243a9_z

Speaking of “the Poor”

D. L. Mayfield wrote this guest post on Love is What You Do titled The Language of Poverty. How do we think of and interact with “the poor” on a daily basis? Here’s some good insights should impact our lives as Kingdom people.

From the article:

Words like “the poor” mean something. They are rich, compelling phrases that ask us to stop what we are doing and sit for a minute in the real world. For there is a veil here, one that we have been building up ever since the beginning of time: that the whole world is a set of isolated peoples, far-away issues, unknown and unavoidable tragedies. We are ourselves oppressed by our own world which is manic in its pursuit to ensure us that yes indeed we are happy with things the way they are. But some of us are not convinced. Because, deep down, we know. There is still the divide to bridge, there is still the call for the people of God to rise up and take notice, to welcome, to care for the poor.

Image by Alex Proimos. Sourced via Flickr.

Category:
Tags: ,

Related Reading

The Call to Suffer

Paul tells us that in all our relations, we are to “have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had” (Phil 2:5). Though he was “in very nature God,” he didn’t cling to this status. Rather, for our sake he set aside his divine prerogatives, took on the nature of a servant and “humbled himself…

The Incarnation as an Example of Cross-Cultural Love

Beautiful Faces of Palestine via Compfight Christena Cleveland wrote an excellent piece about the radical cross-cultural nature of the incarnation.  I’ve never thought of it quite this way before, but the incarnation is the most profound instance of entering into another culture in a selfless way. Moving outside of our “cultural comfort zone” to more…

The Right to Remain Silent

A reader (Thanks Adam) sent us this reflection written by Jason Hess on how we as Christians sometimes use the freedom of speech in ways that are in opposition with our call to love. How we live is infinitely more important than what we say, and sometimes our free speech is a detriment to bringing…

Warfare and Sickness

Is sickness something we should come against as spiritual warfare or is sickness just something that is part of our life until the Kingdom of God comes? Greg deals with the answer to this question.

Sermon: The Pygmy Way

Last weekend Greg preached about the history of Woodland Hills Church as a part of the church’s 20th anniversary. It’s a pretty fun walk down memory lane as well as a challenge to follow the “pygmy way” even when it looks silly. If you’d like to download the sermon you can find it here.

Sermon Clip: Tough To Love

Learning how to love the people in our life that we find challenging to deal with is often very difficult. This week in Heart Smart Greg Boyd looks at some biblical examples and instructions on how to love our enemies in the same way we love our friends. Full Sermon Here: http://whchurch.org/sermons-media/sermon/tough-to-love