christian living on Big Picture

You've got to think about big things while you're doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.

In photography, a still image communicates meaning. Sometimes referred to as freeze frame, these images provide details that lead to greater insight. Use of space, body language, facial expression, an...

In his wonderful book, God’s Big Picture , Vaughan Roberts gives readers an overview of the Bible, focusing on the importance of context for developing a deeper understanding of holy scripture. In ...

In his wonderful book, God’s Big Picture, Vaughan Roberts gives readers an overview of the Bible, focusing on the importance of context for developing a deeper understanding of holy scripture. In this...

Context Standard Letter Format Recall the Greco-Roman letter form that Paul uses in Ephesians: Salutation and Greeting Thanksgiving Body Exhortations/Encouragements Closing/Farewell...

While sexual sin, financial scandals, and toxic work environments hurt pastoral credibility, a more subtle, and probably more common danger is carelessness with the truth. Intellectual integrity matte...

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. . . . We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiah...

One day an ad from one of my favorite stores showed up in my email inbox. Splashed across the top in big letters was the phrase “JOY MAKERS.” Of course, the ad was pointing shoppers to deals on toys, ...

In the book A Peculiar Glory , John Piper describes how he maintained a traditional view of scripture, even after he went on to advanced theological studies in California and Germany. He describes hi...

God made man small and the universe big to say something about himself.

"Nothing discernible to the eye of the spirit is more brilliant or obscure than man; nothing is more formidable, complex, mysterious, and infinite. There is a prospect greater than the sea, and i...

Be humble. The world is bigger than your view of the world. And certainly, God is much bigger than your view of God.

Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

When I think of vision, I have in mind the ability to see above and beyond the majority.

Presence is experienced as a unitary whole. Think, for example, about the experience of sitting on the top of a hill, far from the polluting lights of a city, gazing at a dark, starry sky. Unless you ...

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

Vision is the ability to see God’s presence, to perceive God’s power, to focus on God’s plan In spite of the obstacles….Vision is the ability to see above and beyond the majority. Vision is perception...

One helpful, practical tool to understand our blind spot is what’s called the Johari Window, an image developed as a counseling tool in the 1950s. Subjects were given a list of fifty-six adjectives, a...

If you see a thing whole—it seems that it’s always beautiful. Planets, lives… But up close a world’s all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life is a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You ne...

The New Testament insists that we put Jesus at the centre of the picture and work outwards from there.

In thinking about His many blessings, you view God’s work from a new perspective.

There Are No Ordinary Things J. R. R. Tolkien tells a short story about an ordinary fellow who just wants to finish a painting. Over time, he is constantly distracted by the requests of his neighbors...

The world is a work of art, set before all for contemplation, so that through it the wisdom of Him who created it should be known …"

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

We should also note that while Jesus had the biggest work assignment in human history-he had been invited to "save the world"-he never spent weeks writing a vision statement with steps for s...

The child became a man and the man became a preacher whose sermons were full of commonplace things: seeds and nets, coins and fishes, lilies of the field, and birds of the air. Wherever he was, he had...

A Multi-faceted Church Who loses by the church and parachurch’s lack of unity and cooperation? Absolutely everyone : congregations, ministry organizations, ministry leaders, individual believers . ....

In his excellent book, Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World, Mike Cosper questions the desacralizing (removal of the holy) nature of secular life. Life is divested of mys...

We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the culture of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail.

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, ve...