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.

Who is Your Family?

Lifting women out of poverty

Gates Foundation via Compfight

Living in the tension of the already and the not yet is a blog written by Americans living in India who have chosen to live among the poor at their same economic level. They’ve written a post called On Miracles and Justice through Community. It contains a challenge to rethink who our family is. Check it out!

Here’s an excerpt from the post:

The redefinition of family and responsibility for our fellow human beings is at the very heart of the Kingdom Jesus preached. He scandalized his listeners by declaring that his mother and brother and sisters were not merely his biological kin, but included all those who did the will of God. He revolutionized our concept of the “neighbor” whom we are to love as we love ourselves to include not just those who are ethnically, religiously, or geographically close to us but even those who are our enemies. Many people were offended by these teachings because they believed that Jesus was devaluing the relationships between parents and children, or between people of the same nation or religion. Those people didn’t understand him. He was actually telling us that we owe that same level of committed care and compassion to whoever is in need of it, whether they’re biological family or not.

Related Reading

The Warfare We Have Inherited

Image by Chris Sardegna Jesus’ miracles over nature, as well as his healings, exorcisms and especially his resurrection, were definite acts of war that accomplished and demonstrated his victory over Satan. These acts routed demonic forces and thereby established the kingdom of God in people’s lives and in nature. But their primary significance was eschatological. People…

Counter-Cultural Community

Jessica Lucia via Compfight On Tuesday Greg tweeted, “We inevitably acclimate to our environment. We can’t hope to be counter-cultural unless we’re embedded in a counter-cultural community.” Surely almost all Christian leaders would agree with this. But what does a counter-cultural community look like? How do we relate to one another and to the world…

Be the Change Now

Ghandi once said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” It’s a profoundly Kingdom teaching. It seems to me, however, that few people adopt Ghandi’s philosophy. It’s far easier to focus our attention on how others should change. It’s far easier to spend our energy assigning blame for the problems of society…

When Good Choices Are Not Enough

J J via Compfight Our friend Rachel Held Evans posted on the CNN Belief Blog in response to a blog on Dave Ramsey’s website entitled The 20 Things Rich People Do Every Day. Rachel points out, rightly, that Dave Ramsey has helped many people get rid of debt and make wise financial changes in their lives. But…

“You” Means “Y’all”

  Mrs Logic via Compfight Justin Hiebert over at Empowering Missional wrote a piece last week titled The Bible isn’t for you. Justin rightly points out that our individualistic mindset has caused us to misread huge portions of the Bible. He challenges us to read the Bible as a community rather than as individuals. It seems…

Podcast: When Does Life Begin?

Greg confronts a highly controversial topic from a Kingdom perspective.  http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0455.mp3