world on Persuasion

Most leaders focus on how to succeed in a task. A far better approach is to focus on who you are.

As popularized in Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s fascinating book by the same name, nudges are small changes in the environment around us that make it easier for us to make the choices we want to ...

Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intellige...

It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference.

Culture is shaped by the primary medium of an era. Marshall McLuhan is widely known as the father of media studies. He coined the famous phrase “the medium is the message” in 1965. And while some to...

The standard account of power says there’s only one kind of power in the world and we, the good people, must get on the right side of it, using it to bring justice into the world. Power is power. It i...

Beauty will save the world.

We praise You, Heavenly Father for sending us Your Word to instruct and convict us. You also sent Your Holy Spirit to guide and encourage us as we learn more about Your Word. Help us today to gain new...

You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

To frame is to put a language boundary around our experience. It is to name what happens in particular ways, to say how we see the world, and to see the world how we say it is. Framing includes tellin...

In his book The Allure of Gentleness , Dallas Willard includes a thought-provoking excerpt from Richard Robinson, a prominent atheist thinker from the mid-20th century. In his work An Atheist’...

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. that by testing you may discern what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect. Risen C...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? On the Road to Jerusalem Luke 13 begins with Jesus teaching on the nature of the kingdom of God and it concludes with our passage, in w...

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks tells a true story in one of his books about peacemaking in what is arguably one of the world's most difficult places to achieve it: the Middle East. One evening in the early ...

Caesar hoped to reform men by changing institutions, and laws; Christ wished to remake institutions, and lesson laws by changing men.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? On the Road to Jerusalem Luke 13 begins with Jesus teaching on the nature of the kingdom of God and it concludes with ...

A remarkable aspect of your mental life is that you are rarely stumped.

Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it.

Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909), an American Unitarian minister and writer, who lived and worked in Boston, Massachusetts, and inspired many by his story Ten Times One Is Ten : I’m only one, but I ...

Bruce Larson had an unusual way of convincing people to turn their lives over to Jesus Christ.  When he was working in New York City, he would walk a man or woman downtown to the front of the RCA buil...

Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories.

But could you imagine how valuable it would be to be able to change people’s thoughts, actions, behaviors across a whole host of areas from one to another? This is precisely the question Dan and Chip...

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Textual Overview By the time we reach Acts 16, we’ve come a long way from resurrection morning. The good news about Jesus Christ has burst out of the tomb, out of Jerusalem, out of Judea, out of Juda...

Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don’t be conformed to this world, bu...

The purpose of that empire, like every empire, whether Babylon among the Jews, Rome in the time of Jesus, or the US empire . . . is to coercively extract wealth for the sake of the center. Zacchaeus s...

Go now, as people who bear witness to the power of God in the world. Go, bearing God’s peace to the places and people who you will encounter. Go, as representatives of Christ’s salvation, in the power...