Arts and Culture on Character

Quote

Author

Dwight L. Moody

Keywords

If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of me.

Quote

Author

David F. Wells

Keywords

In our postmodern culture which is TV dominated, image sensitive, and morally vacuous, personality is everything and character is increasingly irrelevant.

blog

How Our Work Shapes Us

Author

Kara Martin

Keywords

Note: This was originally posted on February 15, 2017 on the Stirring Our Affections website. Does our working shape us? Depending on what you do, you might answer that readily in the affirmativ...

Jesus Christ said more about money than about any other single thing because, when it comes to a man’s real nature, money is of first importance. Money is an exact index to a man’s true character. All...

illustration

The Elderly Contractor

Author

Source Unknown

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 127:1, Matthew 25:23, Luke 16:10, Ecclesiastes 9:10, Proverbs 22:29, 1 Corinthians 3:13-14, Galatians 6:7

An elderly master carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He w...

illustration

Our Stories Shape Our Values

Author

Dan B. Allender

Keywords

Scripture

Revelation 12:11, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Acts 22:3-8, John 1:46-47, Isaiah 61:1-3, Psalm 78:4

A close friend who started a financial loan business took thirty of his executives to the poverty- and violence-filled section of Montreal where he grew up in order to introduce them to the section of...

blog

Working with God through Our Work

Author

Kara Martin

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 5:16-17, Colossians 1:17-20

Note from TPW: Kara Martin addresses life in the secular workplace, sharing insights to help you lead your congregations to understand their faith and work and also to bring the Kingdom into your o...

illustration

An Unexpected Friendship

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 6:2, Psalm 34:18, Proverbs 19:11, Colossians 3:13, Ephesians 4:32, Luke 6:37

Sometimes moments of forgiveness and friendship come from unexpected places. In 2018, the comedian Pete Davidson appeared on the “Weekend Update” segment of Saturday Night Live (SNL). Davidson made a ...

illustration

Digging Down Deep

Author

Bianca Juarez Olthoff

Keywords

Scripture

John 15:5, Proverbs 12:3, Isaiah 61:3, Matthew 13:5-6, Ephesians 3:17-19

I’m more of an aboveground type of girl, as in, I like the stuff you can see. Flowers, trees, and vegetation symbolize life, growth, and transformation. The problem with focusing on external manifesta...

illustration

Nelson Mandela and a Presidency of Reconciliation

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 12:18, Philemon 1:15-16, Matthew 18:15, Romans 5:10, Colossians 1:20, Matthew 5:23-24

What does true forgiveness and reconciliation look like? The world was given such an image the day Nelson Mandela was sworn in as President of South Africa. What was so significant was not just that a...

Quote

Author

Phillip E. Johnson

Keywords

We're not trying to prove the character of God through science. That's a bad idea. What I'm trying to do is clear away the misunderstandings, the debris that prevent people from accepting ...

illustration

How Stories are being used by Companies to Shape Character

Author

David Rose

Keywords

Why a story? We all think of our lives as stories, each with a main character (us) theme, and plot (interesteing so far, but as yet unfinished). We also love to hear stories about others and even abou...

illustration

Virtue as Part of Our Story

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue reconnected thinking about ethics back to virtue by connecting virtue to the story a life is a part of. In order to know how we ought to live, we first need to answ...

Quote

Author

Erik Erikson

Keywords

I must register a certain impatience with the faddish equation, never suggested by me, of the term identity with the question, “Who am I?” This question nobody would ask himself except in a more or le...

illustration

What Did Jesus Leave to Grow?

Author

H. G. Wells

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 9:6-7, Philippians 2:9-11, Mark 1:16-20, Matthew 11:28-30, John 10:10

H.G. Wells, himself an atheist, makes this point about the nature of greatness as it relates to Jesus: A historian like myself, who doesn’t even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centering...

illustration

Staying Quiet in a Noisy World

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 5:8, Ephesians 6:12, Proverbs 4:23, Matthew 26:41, Psalm 46:10, 1 Kings 19:11-12, John 10:10

In the Critically acclaimed 2018 horror film A Quiet Place , Earth faces an alien invasion unlike any other. In the movie, the aliens behave like merciless monsters, using their lightning-fast sp...

liturgy

Adapted from Isaiah 40:28-31 (Bullock)

Author

Scott B. Bullock

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 40:28-31

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the...

liturgy

Lord Jesus—the same yesterday, today

Author

Richard Herman

Scripture

Matthew 5:9, Ephesians 4:32, James 5:15-16, John 14:27, Psalm 34:18

Lord Jesus—the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, and the author of change, who’s constantly doing “a new thing,” which makes us sit up and take notice. We admit, we’d be more comfortable with a pred...

liturgy

Adapted from 1 Chronicles 29:10-13

Keywords

Scripture

1 Chronicles 29:10-13

Praise be to you, Lord, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in h...

liturgy

Holy and gracious God, may your Holy

Keywords

Holy and gracious God, may your Holy Spirit give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that, with the eyes of our hearts enlightened, we may know the hope to which Christ has called us, the riches ...

liturgy

Prayer of Adoration Lord—you’re

Keywords

Scripture

1 Timothy 3:16, John 1:14, 1 Timothy 1:15, 1 Peter 1:23, James 4:10, 1 John 1:9

Prayer of Adoration Lord—you’re sufficient in everything. You can create without us; save without our assistance; bring good out of evil, hope from despair and restore what we mess up. You’re soverei...

Quote

Author

Kosuke Koyama

Keywords

God walks “slowly” because he is love. If he is not love he would have gone much faster. Love has its speed. It is an inner speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the tec...

Quote

Author

John Ortberg

Keywords

God does lead his people on roundabout ways. He does not move hastily. He is never in a hurry. It is one of his most irritating qualities.

Quote

Author

Augustine of Hippo

Keywords

God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.

Quote

Author

Tertullian

Keywords

Nothing that is God’s is obtainable by money.

illustration

Our Manicured Personas

Author

Tony Reinke

Keywords

Identity

The rise of both video spectacles and marketed consumables is no accidental marriage. Images capture our attention and lure us because they implicitly ask us to try on various costumes of identity, to...

illustration

A Collection of Potential Someones

Author

Jonathan Franzen

Keywords

Identity

One of the characters in popular contemporary novelist Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom, Joey Berglund, reflects on life and identity by referring to selfhood as “a collection of contradictory potenti...

illustration

There and Back Again, A Human Tale

Author

Alan Jones

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 15:11-32

Let us begin with a question. Do you really know how to enjoy the world? Do you know how to enjoy yourself? One of the greatest parables in the New Testament has to do with the search for enjoyment an...

illustration

Stories Teach Us about How the World Works

Author

Steven Sloman

Keywords

A good story goes beyond just describing what actually happened. It tells us about how the world works more broadly, in ways that pertain to things that didn’t actually happen or at least haven’t happ...

illustration

The Dickensian Approach to Storytelling (Or, Rather, the Biblical Approach)

Author

Mark D. Roberts

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:, John 1:1-3

Sometimes great stories introduce the protagonist in the very first paragraph. In Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, for example, we are immediately introduced to Pip, the central figure of the nov...

blog

illustration

illustration

blog

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

liturgy

liturgy

liturgy

liturgy

liturgy

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus

Numbers

Deuteronomy

Joshua

Judges

Ruth

1 Samuel

2 Samuel

1 Kings

2 Kings

1 Chronicles

2 Chronicles

Nehemiah

Esther

Job

Psalm

Proverbs

Ecclesiastes

Song of Solomon

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Lamentations

Ezekiel

Daniel

Hosea

Joel

Amos

Jonah

Micah

Habakkuk

Zephaniah

Haggai