January 6, 2026
What Will You Leave Behind?
Someday we will lay down our WOMBATs and our treasured accomplishments. What will matter most then? Clinging to Christ and the cross.
Articles for tag: materialism
November 1, 2021
Hard Truths for Modern Times
By Megan Rawlings Our world is in chaos. It seems as if major bad news breaks every day! As this chaos occurs, society seems increasingly to be motivated by materialism and comfort. When the church was young, the people of Galatia turned away from God, and this did not escape Paul’s attention. In fact, he penned one of his harshest letters to the Christians there. While reading that letter, I realized Paul’s reprimand is applicable to us in modern times. I’ll borrow from his Epistle to the Galatians to state some hard truths surrounding our current status. I am astonished
January 17, 2021
Jan 24 | Singular Servants
In this latter half of Matthew 6, Jesus employed at least 18 different metaphors or images to drive home his point. He spoke of treasures, moths, vermin, and thieves. He spoke of eyes, light, darkness, masters, money . . .
November 11, 2019
Lesson for Nov. 17, 2019: Warning! (Isaiah 5:18-28)
Dr. Mark Scott wrote this treatment of the International Sunday School Lesson. Scott teaches preaching and New Testament at Ozark Christian College, Joplin, Missouri. This lesson treatment is published in issue no. 12 (weeks 45-48; November 10—December 1, 2019) of The Lookout magazine, and is also available online at www.lookoutmag.com. ________ Lesson Aim: Turn away from sin, or judgment will come. ________ By Mark Scott The real irritating thing about the bearded guy who carries the sign, “Turn or Burn” is not the beard or the guy—it is the truth of the sign. As much as we may think the sign’s content
March 22, 2017
The Weight of What We Love
By Jim Tune We carry a lot of extra weight with us. No, I”m not talking about the extra pounds around our middle. I”m thinking of our loves. Augustine once described wealth as a weight. “My weight is my love,” he wrote. “Wherever I am carried, my love is carrying me.” This makes sense. We all want money, but we recognize that those who love money must worry about how to accumulate, protect, and manage it. James K. A. Smith helps us understand what Augustine meant. “Our orienting loves are like a kind of gravity””carrying us in the direction to
April 7, 2016
WHAT’S NEXT?: Get Rid of Three Spiritual Diseases
We asked several Christian leaders, “What should churches served by CHRISTIAN STANDARD strive to be or do or look like in the next decades?” ____ By Dusty Rubeck I would like to see our churches focus on eradicating three crippling spiritual diseases in the next 20 years. 1. Biblical Illiteracy I”ve been involved in ministry leadership since 1983. Over that time I have seen a steady decline in basic biblical knowledge. While it is most pronounced in our youth, it is evident at all age levels. This must change. We must move from biblical relevance to biblical revelation and transformation. Active study and
July 10, 2014
Better Leadership, Healthy Churches, Money Matters
By Ben Merold (From our series “The Best or Worst Advice I’ve Ever Received.”) The best advice I ever received came after I moved to Southern California in 1969, during the peak of a Pentecostal movement in that area. The movement was very sophisticated in its approach and seemed to touch every segment of that society. There were many good things about this, but there were also things that became very divisive to the work of a New Testament church. As a result, I went through a lengthy period of pressure and frustration in my ministry. One morning I accepted
June 23, 2014
Where Will We Go Without God?
By Richard Knopp Those who refute the possibility of cosmic intelligence””they won”t allow that God created the universe””make several demands on those who do believe. Are their demands reasonable? And do they abide by them themselves? Many Christians are aware that apologetics involves “defending” the faith. Peter says we are to be ready always to “make a defense [Greek, apologia] to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15, New American Standard Bible). The need for apologetics is illustrated by the disturbing number of churched young people who are wandering
February 11, 2014
Living with Open Hands
By Mark A. Taylor The topic was consumerism, and I was ready with my questions for the three CHRISTIAN STANDARD writers who formed the panel at our Beyond the Standard BlogTalkRadio program last month. But soon they took the conversation much deeper than my concerns about defining wealth and deciding how much of our money we should give away. “Consumerism is a byproduct of bad thinking,” said E.G. “Jay” Link, head of Stewardship Ministries based in Mooresville, Indiana. “You can”t resolve the big issues of life simply by resolving to spend less. The basic issue is: I own nothing.” Link
April 4, 2010
Living Simply Isn”t So Simple
By Jim Herbst “I think I can. I think I can,” I said to myself. “I think I can live a simpler life.” Fresh from rereading the latest edition of Ronald Sider”s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, and other similar works, I entered the Christmas shopping season with a fierce conviction to simplify and have a better influence on the world”s poor. No longer could I preach against materialism with a clear conscience while knowing every room in my home is packed with material clutter. You may already know the harsh statistics. The U.S. accounts for 6 percent of
April 19, 2009
FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Personal Faith and Church Function
By LeRoy Lawson David J. Wolpe, Why Faith Matters (New York: HarperOne, 2008). Kevin G. Ford, Transforming Church: Bringing Out the Good to Get to the Great (Carol Stream: Tyndale House, 2007). While armies duke it out in the Middle East and intellectuals debate it out on college campuses and ordinary blokes like you and me duck for cover and wonder whom to believe, the calm, understated reassurance Rabbi David Wolpe offers is like the balm in Gilead we used to sing about in church. The noted leader of the conservative Sinai Temple in Los Angeles has earned a respectful
May 13, 2007
Commerce Without Morality
By Francis Nash Jesus called Christians to be salt and light in the world. We have often said the body of Christ should act as the conscience of the community. We are here to bring hope for eternity and help for the present. If you surveyed the general public about issues important to Christians, they would probably list abortion, stem-cell research, pornography, and homosexual marriage. Those are the ones we hear about in the news. While there are Scripture references leading us to speak out on these social problems, Jesus never actually mentioned any of them, specifically. But Jesus did
February 7, 2007
Now More Than Ever
By Mark A. Taylor Twenty years or so ago George Alder wrote a column for The Lookout about working mothers. It was far more common those days than now for Christian ministers, writers, and other speakers to claim that God made wives to stay at home because Dad should earn the living. But Alder saw a different angle. He agreed that the effect on a family can be profound when a mother goes to work. But he pointed out that working dads force adjustments on family members too. After all, the stay at home mom/drive to work dad pattern familiar
