The point of marketing is not to convince people to buy your stuff. It’s to help you find the people who need your work. Don’t create something for everyone. Create something for someone.
I once saw a conversation between Michael Hyatt and an upset fan.
The fan started complaining about how Michael didn’t really care about people and all he cared about was money. He started to attack how my friend had conducted himself on his blog and podcast. The fan ranted and protested, and as I watched this go down on Twitter, I wondered what Michael might be thinking or feeling. I know what I would’ve been feeling at that point: a strong need to defend myself. However, when I saw Michael’s response I was blown away.
He said quite simply, “I’m not for everyone.”
Did you know that your work is not for everyone?
That is actually the point of it. Most of us get into creative work, whether that’s starting a business or painting a picture or trying to write a book, not because we want to make something for everyone but because we want to make something for someone.
We want to create something that has never been created before. We want to write something that has never been written, not like this, ever. But at some point along the journey, we lose our way. We start to think about who might not like it. And as we consider those who don’t like it, we start to hedge and play it safe. We remove any of the strong language that could potentially lead to people disapproving of it. They might unsubscribe or ask for a refund, we think, so we do whatever we can to avoid any kind of criticism.
But here’s the problem: the kind of work that doesn’t deserve criticism doesn’t deserve praise. Read that again and let it sink in.
The kind of work that doesn’t deserve criticism doesn’t deserve praise.
If you don’t do something worth criticizing, then you aren’t doing something worth appreciating. So as we venture forth to make our things and share them with the world, we have to consider a few questions before we begin.
Who am I not trying to reach?
Before we think about who this work is for, I wonder if it would be a better strategy to consider who this is absolutely not for.
Who is going to disapprove of this?
Who is going to hate it?
In fact, in the “growth hacker” marketing community, thinking about who will absolutely hate this is one way to stir up buzz about the product.
If this thing is not worth hating at least by someone, is it even worth creating?
Few of the precious liberties so loudly decried as “Stolen!” are taken without consent. Most often, the responsible party’s name can be read aloud from the signature line of a contract. Such contracts spell out in explicit detail the terms in which the signatory’s liberties were voluntarily surrendered.
The three largest debt-contracts are the mortgage, car loan, and student loan.
Renting, driving a used car, and getting a degree online, are superior alternatives to the traditional debt-contract solutions. By deploying them, and paying cash for everything else, you’ll enjoy more liberty than the masters who sell debt-contracts as products to formalize the slavery of those who sign them.
Three Upgrades and Emancipation, Too
What’s better? To not be a slave, or to live better than the masters who seek to enslave you?
1 —Better Housing
The best second home is a hotel room anywhere you want to be. The best first home is a rental. Renters:
May live anywhere they want.
Can move at a moments notice.
Are not responsible for maintenance.
Don’t have to insure or replace what they don’t own.
If you have the cash, keep that 42% in your pocket or buy a better version of a 3-year-old car that someone else bought new. If you don’t have the cash, then save up to buy a four-year-old car for 49% of its original purchase price, or a five-year-old car for 60% off!
Better still, if you’re renting (see #1) move close to work where you don’t need a car for transportation.
3 — Better Education
If a college degree is good, then getting one twice as fast at 1/10th the cost is excellent. Or, get two online degrees in the usual four years for 20% of the cost of one. Or, get your bachelors and masters degree in four years for 90% off of each!
Best education of all: homeschool, GED out of high-school, get a degree (or two) online, figure out your purpose(s) in life and become an apprentice of some real-world masters. You’ll be engaged with life, in your teens, in ways your peers won’t be until their 40’s, if ever. You’ll even have a few degrees to show the weenies who think education is a membership rather than a transformation.
Delayed Gratification?
If you want to work a few decades in slavery, then the debt-free alternatives in this article would delay your gratification, forever.
If, however, you’d prefer to live fully engaged in your highest purposes the solutions in this article are light-speed travel in comparison with the norm.
Pay Cash or Don’t Buy
The solutions to the three largest debt-contracts come from a five-word rule-of-thumb principle: Pay cash, or don’t buy. By following this rule-of-thumb, all debt contracts are avoided, including the three largest described in the first solution.
Debt-Contracts are Products
Debt-contracts are not the cause of slavery. They’re products created to address the shortcomings of ignorance and a lack of determination to remain debt-free.
The Slave’s Problems are The Master’s Solutions (And Products)
Those who buy debt-contracts purchase their own slavery. The slave’s problems are the master’s solutions. They’re sold to the debtor to shortcut the personal development required to remain at liberty.
Liberty is purchased at the expense of the acquisition of knowledge of the debt-free alternatives to all such mechanisms of slavery.
Do you not know that, if you present yourselves to anyone as an obedient slave, you are a slave of the one whom you obey? — Romans 6:16
One of the conclusions coming out of writing “12 Things to Consider Before Starting a Virtual Community” is how powerful these new platforms are. The forum software I’ve purchased and installed on DivineCoucil.org could handle the needs of a large corporation (And actually does serve in that capacity for many large companies). Under the right circumstances, one forum could easily be shared by multiple groups, just as branches or departments are handled on one corporate forum.
McGillespie Private Forum
To fully exploit the many wonderful features of the platform, I’ll be setting up private forums for McGillespie on the DivineCoucil.org forum.
You might have noticed a new “Forum” menu item on the top of this McGillespie blog page. That will take you to the DivineCouncil forum where you can interact with myself, and other McGillespie readers, on things such as articles, courses, books, products, etc.
Features & Benefits
There’s a special resource manager setup to disseminate materials and make it easy to find things. Each resource can be reviewed, and have discussions formed around them, so people know how they can be used, the ideal audience, attributions, etc.
There’s also a live chat area, so you might be able to catch fellow listeners online for a brief chat while you’re on the forum.
Better Than Facebook
Facebook is fun, but if you’re tired of conversations scrolling off the screen (and other FB pitfalls) the private forum environment is more conducive to organized and focused discussions that can be searched later by yourself and others.
So, if you’re looking for a more private and trusted environment for discussions around this material you have another option available in which to do that.
What Next?
Over 50 people have signed-up to the forum in the first week, and the platform will scale up to as large as it needs to be.
Once you’ve signed up for the forum, please e-mail me at tg@McGillespie.com to request access to the McGillespie private forum area so you’ll have access to the entire forum.
I’m Looking forward to seeing you there, and please bear with me as I make this into a seamless experience for all visitors!
After more than two months of prayer, council, and “counting the cost” over on the FaithLife forum, the DivineCouncil.org website and forum is up and running!
We hope DC will be the first, and a role model sister-site, around the territory mapped out by Michael Heiser in his recent book, the Unseen Realm.
Facebook is fun, but if you’re tired of conversations scrolling off the screen (and other FB pitfalls) the forum part of the site is built on a wonderful platform that enables the best means of discussions, fellowship, resource sharing, and live chat, available, today.
We love the new forum, and yet DC is a full-blown website, blog, etc. It’s a multi-author website (with three contributing writers, so far). If there are any believing writers, artists, photographers, small group leaders, etc. looking for a place to share, DivineCouncil.org could serve as an outlet for you.
We pray it may fill a need for the Kingdom, empower small groups, and be a worthy site for the Church.
Over 50 people have already signed on to the forum in the first week!
Grandma GG died on the twelfth day of Christmas, 2017.
In Catholic tradition, the following day is the Epiphany, the feast of the three kings, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the Magi. So, the original “12 Days” are not a children’s memory and forfeit game turned into a Christmas carol.
And yet, when a friend reminded me of the day, the first memory I had was of Timothy and Lucas singing that song in the shower of our ski lodge hotel, over the holiday. If there’s anything more beautiful than the sound of children singing it’s the sound of my children singing.
When we drove home, Timothy had the gifts of each day of the song memorized. Then, like my father did so many times, I changed things around on them. To show the boys they’re not stuck with the official version of things, I made up new gifts for the first four days and sang a new carol.
By the time we were done, our version had 12 strummers strumming, three french breads, two lady bugs, and a fish swimming in a glass jar.
Charlie’s Option ‘C’
It was a small change to a lovely song. But, small changes like that, initiated by my father, were at the core of why he and mom lived such an extraordinary life. The conventional was just one possible starting point for my father; a brilliant engineer certain that no one had the whole game figured out. As he would often say, that made running with the herd a most dangerous proposition.
As my cousin Keith put it, if there were options A and B for everyone else, my father had an option C to consider. Tell him that there’s two sides to every coin and he’d probably smile and point out that you missed the third side. You forget about the edge. That’s technically a third side.
I can just hear him saying, “Remember, Terry, nobody’s got the whole game figured out. The instant someone tells you they do, ‘Run!’.”
And yet, for all his insights, when visiting with them in Tokyo my father said the reason they were able to travel everywhere and do such fun things was because of my mom. He just went to work every day, as usual. Mom took care of the blizzard of details it took the relocate, setup another house, figure out the local markets, and pay the bills.
The Shenanigans Continue …
The Shenanigans of the Gillespie’s, the McNally’s, and now the Arbelaez’, continue with the next generation. We sing the beautiful songs given us with the audacity to change the lyrics. The melody eventually goes, too, and the composers are forgotten. New life sings its own version of ancient songs. And nothing but the Grace of God is so assured that it should be immune from re-examination or re-canted with the joy of a personal imprint.
In Everything I Do
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy… in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture…1
And so it was that my brother and I were able to study music and architecture. Everything I do is on the shoulders of my parents, and on my knees, for the glory of our Father in heaven. The sacrifices they made, and the small changes to the norm my dad would always make, compounded into an enveloping blanket of possibilities my brother and I had the luxury of taking for granted.
An Artful Life
Possibilities are the breeding ground of creativity. The fruit of creativity is an artful life and, hopefully, the appreciation of the liberties that make it possible.
My parents were always there to help. Only because I was so sure of that, did I rarely need it. It was a premise in our relationship and bestowed a freedom to compose an extraordinary life. May the compositions of Isabel and I be a worthy extension of their legacy.
The Highest Privilege
When friends used to ask about my childhood I didn’t know what to say. What’s the opposite of a shitty childhood? Whatever that is, that was us.
Such discussions now involve notions of privilege and what that might be. From my parents, I know the answer: the highest earthly privilege, of all, is to be born into a household with a loving father and mother.
I can’t say it enough, and can’t stop thinking it: everything I do only makes sense when viewed as an extension of them. While others may try to discard their heritage, or apologize for it, I will spend the rest of my life being thankful for, and exploring the depths of, my own.
Geraldine Marie Gillespie
An excellent wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm,
all the days of her life.2
My father found this in my mother, Geraldine Marie Gillespie. And because their lives reflected its importance, I eventually found the same in Isabel. So, Isabel was the perfect one to give my mother her most favorite title of all: Grandma GG.
It was a name quickly conjured to avoid confusion with Martha, the other grandmother living in our house at the time. And, though the role of grandmother is rarely exceeded in stature or importance, it was a role my mother never expected to play. But, as I was to learn in the hours after her death, there was even more than that bundled up into Grandma GG’s favorite title.
A Catatonic Epiphany
For the last three years of her life, I’d prayed to know the purpose of my mother’s increased suffering, being confined to a bed for the past 10 years, and even losing her words.
Then, as befitting the 12th day of Christmas, I was lead on the track of a catatonic epiphany to a small group meeting at our church. Perhaps only around other believers could something as heart-warming, yet terrifying, be revealed: that my mother’s highest purposes in life were identical to her work, which was, in turn, identical to her highest calling. All three of these cherished insights lined up into one for Grandma GG. Her purposes, work, and calling were, all three, the same. They were inextricably bound up, and poured into, her three great loves: my father, my brother, and me.
The rareness of all three of these lining up —something that perhaps only a wife and mother of her time were afforded — is partly why I missed them.
A Mother’s Grief
Seen from that vantage point, it became more understandable that she had the strokes that put her in the bed shortly after my father, and then brother, died. Two-thirds of her life purposes had just left the planet. Her husband and firstborn son, were gone.
For those who haven’t walked that path, there’s no way to comprehend the loss. What I know of it are from the sounds of her weeping over my brother; cries I’d often wished could become unheard as they resonated through every dimension in a way that only a mother’s grief could.
Mom held on, in part, to save me from what she felt that day. She couldn’t bear for the same to happen to me.
A Secret Project
Maybe every child has a feeling their parents are working on a secret project that’s never revealed or talked about. You know they’re up to something; you just don’t know what it is. Then, one day, you realize that the secret project they’ve been working on, all this time, is you.
Every grocery bag, pair of sneakers, uniform, piano lesson, field trip, monthly check for Catholic school … and every drop-off and pick-up and late-night vigil waiting for you to come home, is one more stitch in the patchwork of a quilt they’re making, but don’t expect to use, for their own warmth. They’re sowing the soil, and tending to trees for decades, in hopes that it will bear the most delicious fruit the world has ever seen. And yet they’re perfectly content to die having never taken a bite.
The Unbearable Absence of Reservation
We pour ourselves out for our children, not because they’ve earned it, but because our love for them comes with an almost unbearable absence of reservation. It’s the only fitting metaphor we have of God’s love for us.
What Christ did for all, we seek to do for our children, within the realms of our limited authority: To guide them away from error and onto the path of their most complete fruition. And when they fall short, to plead forgiveness for their youthful trespasses and cancel any records of debt that might stand against them with legal demands.
Charlie’s 10% Solution
My dad said their marriage worked because he put 10% of everything he had into it. My mom wholeheartedly agreed with him on that, adding that the other 90% came from her.
A New Plague
The late 70’s were a tough time for my parent’s marriage. A new legal option of No-fault divorce was creeping across the country like a plague, leaving broken families in its wake. The machinery of separation was put into motion with a 9-syllable incantation: “ir·rec·on·cil·a·ble dif·fer·ences” were not corporate mergers gone awry, but a legal pretense for parents to live in separate houses.
Neutrality & Fairness
I remember my mom saying they couldn’t handle being Switzerland with all the couples they’d known who’d become separate and warring nations; the kids pulled around new artificial zones that, unlike the Vietnam news stories on TV, were anything but demilitarized.
So, there were arguments, and dishes thrown, and frustrations we felt, but didn’t understand. That’s how my brother and I knew that, just because we were born into it, didn’t make our parent’s marriage a guarantee.
We also learned that people playing fair with each other was a recipe for disaster; that it took a lot more than mere fairness to be happy. Only when they became resigned to giving more than received did a peace, that surpasses all understanding, come to our house.
Wedding Song
As sung in the wedding folk song, popular at the time:
Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again.
But, the circle of the exchange in those lyrics spins faster than the inputs of the wedded couple. It’s that invisible extra energy the songwriter is asking about in the question, “Do you believe in something, that you’ve never seen before?”.
Grief is the Precious, Cut Short
I’ve learned from the deaths of my immediate family that the greatest cause for grief is when something precious is cut short of its expected completeness. And though I grieve for my mother, and still for my father and brother, I’m unable to view their lives as having been cut short; each for their own reasons.
Dad’s Bucket List(s)
In a conversation with my dad, a year before he died, he told me that when he was 10-years-old he made a list of things he’d dreamed of doing. By his mid-40’s he’d gotten to the end of that list, and made another. By the time of our conversation, he said he’d checked everything off that second list, as well.
The memory of that exchange was particularly comforting when he died, unexpectedly, a year later. How could his life be viewed as having been cut short if, by his own handwritten lists, he’d completed everything he’d set out to do?
Uncle Tim
When my dad’s brother came to visit, last year, I told him that story. He said he felt the same way and that his number was 75. Seven months later, nine days after Grandma GG, my Uncle Tim met his number.
Mom’s Unexpected Life
As for my mother, she never expected to get to do most of the things she, and my father, did. She raised two boys, traveled the world, got her high school diploma (about the same time we did), worked for a while to see what that was like, learned ikebana painting with the Japanese, and played golf with my father to her hearts content in their dream home, designed by their son, on the 5th hole of a private golf course in South Carolina. All of this, with her husband who’d retired at the age of 53.
It wasn’t until after my father died that I realized that Grandma GG was another artist in the family. Her opinions on logos, and colors, and ideas for business names, were always refreshing. And the grandchildren on her lap were the vitamins she took for her last eight years.
The fullness of Grandma GG’s life is the license we have to limit our grief to that of a life, not cut short, but fully lived.
Death ≠ Life Incomplete
A life is not devoid of purpose, nor incomplete, due merely to the fact that it has ended. If that were so, there is no hope for any of us, nor has there ever been.
I know this is not so, if only because of the memories I draw from them. My father may have helped me make more decisions, after his death, than before it. And though I believe it to be a mere fractal of a larger truth, there’s an undeniable life continued, here and now, in our memories, alone.
They Don’t Feel Gone
Staring at the bed of all the photos of my family it doesn’t make sense that they’re all gone. They don’t feel gone. After another series a fleeting moments, Isabel and my photos will be added to the pile. Then, it will be Timothy and Lucas staring at our pictures with this same odd feeling.
Memory is Proof of Life
Among the dead are those whose memories and past deeds are still having more of an impact on my life, today, than anyone currently living, ever will. So, the separation of who is here, and who is gone, becomes a more ambiguous proposition with each passing year.
After all, if memory of the once living is of no importance, then why punish a murderer? The victim’s gone and justice won’t bring them back. But, murderers are punished because the living will not put their memories away. The bell of the victims life will not be un-rung. And neither will the absence of justice be forgotten, or un-factored in to the righteous behavior of the survivors.
I believe the soul is sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and continues a new life in the unseen realm, as the body falls away. Still, unbelievers can take comfort in the memories of loved ones who’ve died, and the life contained in their memory of them.
In the first few years, not a day went by without a citation of the fourth commandment, in one direction or another. We eventually got the hang of it in seeing the final years of Grandma GG’s life through. Her care was part of our purpose, while she was in the final stages of completing hers. We were like mirrors pointed at each other, each unaware of the reflections compounding into infinity.
Through the Eyes of Visitors
But, our children, and others, saw those reflections.
Every once in a while we’d get an outside perspective on our lives, through the eyes of visitors. It was like having a puppy and a friend stops by, two months later, and breaks the news to you that what you’re calling a puppy has become a dog.
As friends and family passed on condolences, one of the first things they’d say is how wonderful it was that Grandma GG spent her final years with her family.
They’re right, it was wonderful. But, it was just as wonderful to spend the long beginning of my life, with her.
End of the Rainbow
In retrospect, the struggles I had in caring for my mom were like a man complaining about a rock in his shoe while walking to the end of a rainbow. The treasure, waiting to be collected, is more than one house can hold. Part of that treasure is the proof that Grandma GG’s highest calling was met, so that even 1/3rd of its fulfillment was more than enough to reap for the care she needed.
Another part is that our boys woke up, everyday of their four and eight-year lives, with a grandparent living in the same house.
“God’s law is an unspeakably good and precious thing, and to live within it is to live the life that is eternal. To be sure, (God’s) law is not the source of rightness, but it is forever the course of rightness.3
The Potency of Holiness
Our bodies know the differences between darkness and light better than our minds. While surprised that a candle has lit up the whole gymnasium, our bodies have already started walking towards it.
Light is more than the absence of darkness. And holiness is more than the absence of sin. If sin is the drum of water we drink from, then holiness is the teaspoon of bleach that makes the whole drum potable.
Her Inheritance
My moms inheritance is in answering her highest calling. It was poured out into her three men, into her new family, and also for those who saw her race, finished well.
And like the story of the thief on the cross, who had no hope before that fateful day, may the retelling of her story inspire other families to stick together and light their own candles with the fire within. And may a spoonful of that be credited to the account of Grandma GG’s inheritance in the Kingdom of God.
In Our Muscle Memory
Grandma GG is still in our muscle memory and in the walls of the house. While writing these words, I’ve kept the room monitor on in my office in case Grandma GG needs something. Isabel and I still hear the bell she used to ring, and the pitch of her voice, calling for something. We’re still quiet on the phone so as not to wake her, and we keep feeling the need to break away from dinners with friends, because mom’s been alone for too long.
The Smirk on Lucas’ Face
Grandma GG did not abide orders or directives. There was a certain way she’d purse her lips and stare when orders were detected. That’s when you knew there wasn’t a thing in the world that could move her. You’d just settled the matter; nothing would move her until she was good and ready.
One day, while giving an order to our two-year-old, I looked over to see something that brought chills of deja’vu. Lucas had the same eyes, and curled up smirk, I’ve seen on my mothers face for fifty years. I knew immediately the battle lines were drawn, and he had the upper hand. My mother’s will-not-abide smirk had been transmuted right onto Lucas’ defiant face.
I can only imagine the deep-rooted pig-headedness originating from ancient celtic roots that is now a weapon in his arsenal. And, boy, it’s a good one. Grandma GG would love knowing that she had left her Lucas Michael, so well-armed. As foreboding a look as it is, I love seeing her smirk on Lucas’ face. Even though I know what I’m in for.
Timothy’s Willy Wonka House
“When you love someone you go to the ends of the earth for them.”
— Aunt Bernie
Timothy doesn’t have Grandma GG’s defiant smirk. What he inherited from Grandma GG is waking up for the first eight years of his life with grandparents living in the same house. He has the cookies and candy in her drawer, her birthday gifts, the coca-cola Santa Claus kisses, and grandparents’s day at school.
When watching the original Willy Wonka, Timothy saw nothing odd in all the grandparents in the bed. To him, it was a matter-of-fact depiction of the way all families live. Families take care of one another, come what may, and no one is left behind.
Conclusion
Prior to my mom’s passing, Isabel had never experienced the death of an immediate family member. Now, as a reluctant veteran, perhaps she’d agree that death, compared to life, is a simple thing.
Death doesn’t give meaning to life; it just imposes a deadline on the project to perfect the soul our bodies are bound to, for a while. The body gives out, and the soul is released, to forever be what it became under the care of our earthly stewardship.
The greatest gift of life is the chance to shape, and try to perfect, the state of our immortal souls.
May we prepare for death like a bel canto singer navigates through the passagio of the upper-middle voice; switching over to a new set of involuntary muscles so the voice may gracefully ascend into its highest range.
But, She’s Ours!
Two weeks after she died, Lucas asked, “When are they going to send Grandma GG back?”
“What do you mean, Lucas?”, Isabel asked.
“When are they going to be done working on her body … (counting on his fingers) … “1-day, 2-days, 3-days, 4-days, 5-days?”
“She’s not coming back, Lucas. We have to go see her.”
“But, she’s ours!”, he said.
Then, last week, Lucas asked the same question. When Isabel told him Grandma GG was gone he yelled, “But, she’s ours! Why can’t they fix her body and send her back?!” before crying for five minutes; an eternity for a four-your-old.
Yes, honey. She’s ours.
And we will never forget her, nor the last time we saw her, this morning as she prepared for her journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.4
Songbirds, P.S.
Alright, mom. These words hardly begin to summarize your life. But, you’d be happy with a few highlights in your son’s voice. It must have been awesome to get out of that bed and stretch out into a walk!
Remember when Dad borrowed Wendell’s RV and we camped and drove across the whole country? Dad wore out those Fleetwood Mac tapes and almost killed us on the mesa verde mountain curves.
My least favorite song is the one I can’t get out of my head. It reminds me of you and dad. You guys are together, now, like you imagined for all those years watching the golf channel. Every time that bell rings it feels like you’re still here. I’m glad, we’re glad, that, “For you, there’ll be no more crying.”
For you, the sun will be shining.
And I feel that you’re with us
And It’s alright, I know it’s right.
My songbirds are singing, like they know the score.
And I love you, I love you, I love you, like never before.
The expectation that your job & spiritual calling must be identical is false. Fortunately, the mysteries of the relationship between the two are revealed with delightful clarity through a careful reading of the Bible. Even non-Christians can gain insights into their own work and aspirations by considering what the Bible has to say about them.
After clarifying the biblical meanings of words like talents, spiritual gifts, natural abilities, job, and spiritual calling, this article will describe 7 ways to integrate your job and spiritual calling.
Total Integration in Perspective
Large overlaps between job and spiritual calling have been more the exception, than the rule, throughout church history. Typically, those who’ve found their calling (At last!) are already making a living with natural abilities. Current jobs then become a platform from which to direct that calling.
However improbable, total integration is a possibility. Apart from traditional clergy and dedicated pastors and worship leaders, the luxuries of a sophisticated division of labor and access to investment capital have made the total integration of job and spiritual calling more possible than ever. However, utmost care must be taken so that believer’s expectations are set with respect to all the factors involved. Where your job and spiritual calling fit on the continuum between “Total Integration” and “No overlap” is a reflection of divine design.
Talents vs. Spiritual Gifts
Talents are the natural abilities you have prior to conversion.
“Talents have to do with techniques and methods; gifts have to do with spiritual abilities. Talents depend on natural power, gifts on spiritual endowment.1
A spiritual gift is …
… a God-given special ability, given to every believer at conversion by the Holy Spirit, to share his love and strengthen the body of Christ.2
Believers Have Both
A believer has both the natural talents they were born with and the spiritual gifts received at conversion. Both are at their disposal in everything they do. The spiritual gifts, however, are a special empowerment for the fulfillment of your calling.
Job vs. Spiritual Calling
A job is whatever you do to make a living. Prior to conversion, you have only your natural talents to perform this work. A job may provide the platform from which to direct your calling. However, it does not define your calling nor is it the same as your calling.3
A spiritual calling is a …
… commissioning from God to make a significant difference on this earth. It’s the banner of your life that you carry and wave for God’s glory.3
Spiritual gifts empower the fulfillment of this calling. What God has called you to do, he has empowered you to do.
7 Ways to Integrate Your Job & Spiritual Calling
The relationship between your job and spiritual calling will fall on a continuum between “no overlap” and “identical”.
Working out this relationship can only begin when you …
1 — Answer the Call, Obedience Precedes Results
The first way to integrate your job and spiritual calling is to answer the call. Obedience precedes, and is more important than, results (which are for God to judge). Feelings about not being ready are irrelevant. If you’ve been called, you’re ready to start.
The way to answer the call is probably the same way you found your calling in the first place:
Move forward with confirmation and stay with your holy passion.4
Let external circumstances sharpen, but never stop, the answer to your calling. A sobering view on one consequence of this obedience comes from John Bevere in “Driven by Eternity”:
One believer’s effectiveness may be limited by another’s obedience.
We’re all parts of the body. When one part is not working, the whole body is affected.
Deployable vs. Employable
All gifts and callings are deployable. Not all are employable. Deploy anyway. Even the Apostle Paul continued his trade of tent-making while pursuing his calling of preaching the Gospel.5
Deployment, with no expectation of remuneration or employment, is the best way to discover what the relationship between your job and calling is meant to be.
2 — Connect with an Existing Ministry of Your Church
If your calling fits naturally into an existing ministry of your church then BINGO! Figure out where best to plug in and you’re off to the races!
Do you have a list of all the ministries of your church?
Does your calling fit naturally into one of them?
Are you the missing piece to helping that ministry to continue, grow or thrive?
Are they stuck, or not exploring the possibilities, in the area of your spiritual gifts because someone just like you hasn’t shown up, yet?
Could your calling be part of a ministry your church has been wanting to move forward on but nobody like you has showed up?
The only way to get these answers is to ask. Depending on the size of your church you might have to ask leaders at multiple levels. Even the lead pastor may not be the person with the answer. Keep asking until you know for sure.
Your church is the ideal platform from which to answer your spiritual calling. So ideal, in fact, that it’s best not to move on to other ways until you’ve thoroughly explored this option.
3— Partnering
… when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit.
— Philippians 4:14–17 (ESV)
The Philippians partnered with Paul sending help for his needs. In return, Paul “seeks the fruit that increases to their credit”.
Working with another church is the next best thing to working from within your church. The relationship between the churches will be naturally strengthened through your work. It may even inspire your church to join in. That shouldn’t be your motivation, of course; just a possible outcome to keep in mind.
4 — Donations
Many callings, and the goals of some large charities and non-profits, are fueled largely (or solely) through donations. This could be as simple as putting a donate button on a website or just saying, “Yes”, when asked if you could use some funding.
Don’t be afraid to ask. Be a squeaky wheel for a divine purpose!
5 — Attract (And ask for) Sponsorships
Think of getting sponsorships as making sales for God. You must become lucid on your goals and mission. You’ll also need to list the benefits of success to your sponsor.
What is the specific mission you’re asking to be sponsored?
Who are you going to help?
How are you going to help them?
What will helping them look like? What impact will it have on them and the community where you live?
What will be the benefits to the sponsor if you succeed in your mission?
Is anyone else partnering with you, already? Who else are you working with?
Don’t underestimate the value of your sponsor’s logo on the T-shirts or hats of people performing excellent work in the local community. Seen from your sponsors point of view, your work may be the best representation of their core values apart from the product or service they provide.
6 — Start a Non-Profit
I’ve been watching this process unfold with Dr. Michael Heiser. After many years, and with great reluctance, Mike’s enlisted help from readers to form a non-profit named after a retreat as named in one of his books. It’s called Miqlat. They’re already doing great work that wouldn’t be as effective, or possible, if performed through a different entity.
Even with all the material and talents available to Mike starting your own non-profit is a daunting prospect. As you’d see from following Miqlat’s’ journey, nobody has all the skills necessary to accomplish all the many tasks and projects required to get one of these off the ground. If this option is for you, let providence enable it to unfold as it should.
7 — Identical or Bust!
The total integration of your job & spiritual calling is the exception, rather than the rule. Still, I can’t leave this option out because it is possible. It’s the defining relationship for traditional clergy, some pastors, some worship and ministry leaders, and many who are called as missionaries.
Now that you understand the difference between jobs and spiritual callings you know that one of them may suffer terribly if the roles are forced, in any way. You are seeking to discover the divine design of the relationship rather than imposing it.
Non-Clergy Example
A better example for those reading this article, however, is probably the example of Dr. Michael Heiser described in the previous way. He has kept his income going through teaching, being a “scholar in residence” at Logos Software (FaithLife Corp.) and is now, slowly, trying to get donations to his new Miqlat non-profit to cover his expenses. This may, at last, free him up to work solely on creating the content that he’s been called to create.
Another example are the many individual employees of FaithLife Corp. I’m sure many of their jobs and spiritual callings are exactly in line with each other.
That’s not to say that one must be as prepared as Mike, or a happy employee of FaithLife, to achieve total integration of job and spiritual calling. In fact, such integration may not be possible or meant to happen, at all. And, if it doesn’t, it’s by no means an indication of failure. It’s more likely an indication of divine design.
This total integration option is best taken to prayer and balanced with the providence of where you live, what your talents and gifts are, and the particulars of your calling.
If You Insist …
The reason for this stubborn belief is the sophisticated division of labor and availability of capital often present in developed countries. For those who absolutely insist that their job and spiritual calling can be identical you’ll need to take on the burdens of understanding all the factors involved. You’ll also need to read up, or take some courses, on entrepreneurship.
More is Expected and Required
Though beyond the scope of this article here’s some great advice from Gary North on taking a run at the possibility of total integration between your job and spiritual calling.
Gary starts with an expanded definition of calling. He defines it as whatever your answer is to this question …
What is the most important thing you can do in which you would be most difficult to replace?
With your answer to that question firmly in mind, Gary recommends asking yourself these followup questions with respect to the marketplace in which you’ll be working:
Where do you have a clear-cut advantage over your competitors?
Is this advantage visible to others?
Can you leverage this outside your present job?
Can this leverage extend beyond your retirement?
Can this leverage extend beyond your death?
What are the technical tools of your leverage?
Are you skilled in the use of these tools?
Are your competitors equally skilled?
As you can see by the questions, you’re now faced with, not only the work of your calling, but interfacing directly with all the forces of the marketplace. Unless entrepreneurship is part of your calling these requirements will degrade your effectiveness.
In good faith, I can only recommend this option for believer’s whose gifts are designed for it. Frankly, any option that would completely stop you subverts Way #1: “Answer the Call, Obedience Precedes Results”.
Conclusion
Large overlaps between your job and spiritual calling are the exception, not the rule. The expectation that they must be identical (Or forced to be identical) is a myth. If that prevents you from answering your calling then myth has spawned tragedy.
In partial summary:
Let nothing discourage you (Including this article)!
What you’ve been called to do, you’ve been empowered to do.
Obedience is more important than results.
Every calling is deployable. Not every calling is employable.
The relationship between a deployable and employable is not completely in your control.
Even the Apostle Paul continued his trade of tent-making while engaged in his calling of preaching the Gospel.5
Your calling will almost certainly involve the participation of others in order to be brought to fruition.
Your calling will present different challenges depending on the economic realities of where you live.
The relationship between deployable and employable will be greatly affected by the location in which you pursue your calling.
Like a brilliant diamond, your calling will need the 5 C’s applied to be made into the masterpiece it was intended to be. It will need to be expertly cut, clarified, colored, carat weighted, and confidence added.
What you’ve been called to do, you’ve been empowered to do!
Check Out My Online Course, “Your Life, On Purpose”
In my upcoming course, “Your Life, on Purpose” I explore and remove the biggest obstacles to discovering and living on purpose. The most prevalent worldviews are compared, word puzzles resolved, and terms further clarified and integrated into a coherent understanding. Upon completing the course terms like purpose, career, meaning, vocation, avocation, success, mission, goal, values, worldview, destiny, gifts, spiritual gifts, spiritual calling, etc. will inform, rather than confuse.
For a free sample module of “Your Life, On Purpose“, and to stay updated on the release of the full course, please sign up for e-mail updates, below. As an added bonus you’ll receive the password for McGillespie’s Free-Resource Library.
Leslie B. Flynn, 19 Gifts of the Spirit. Colorado Springs: Cook Communications, 1974, 1994, 17 – 18. ↩
Rees, Erik; Rees, Erik. S.H.A.P.E.: Finding and Fulfilling Your Unique Purpose for Life (p. 34). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. ↩
Rees, Erik; Rees, Erik. S.H.A.P.E.: Finding and Fulfilling Your Unique Purpose for Life (p. 22). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. ↩
Dave Patterson, Sermon #3 of “The Big 4” at The Father’s House, January 29, 2017 ↩
“…and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. 4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. Acts 18:3 (ESV). ↩
Knowing what I wanted to write about. At the heart of good writing is angst and anger. I write to keep the former from turning into a toxic form of the latter. I’m thankful for angst. It impels me to read, think, and write to achieve clarity on what’s causing it.
Over-learning subjects that are important to me. I’ve taken many writing courses, such as Stephen King’s “On Writing”, Julia Cameron’s “Artist Way”, and Jeff Goin’s “Intentional Blogging”.
Having a keen desire to master the “active literacies” of writing, argumentation, and public speaking to write the script of my own life.
Reading Personality
I love being immersed in a great story! That’s why I read so much non-fiction: The greatest stories ever told are about what really happens; what people really do.
My reading is non-fiction, punctuated by ecstatic binges of fiction (Which I’ll only read if recommended by a friend). If you often say, “You can’t make this stuff up!” or, “If this happened in a movie or book no one would believe it!”, perhaps you’d enjoy reading more non-fiction, as well.
Introversion over Extraversion (59%)
Intuition over Sensing (50%)
Feeling over Thinking (31%)
Judging over Perceiving (25%)
I’ve take more extensive versions of the MBPT but have misplaced the results. Those results are probably more accurate on the percentages. Still, I’m consistently an INFJ and, more rarely, INFP. That would be consistent with the above results as the “Judging” dominance is only 25% over “Perceiving”.
‘Careers’
The online test says INFJ’s might excel in “careers” around: Education, Law, Psychology, Psychotherapy, Arts and Humanities, Graphics Design and Multimedia, Humanities, Social Services, Health Care, Early Childhood Education, Librarian.
Note: I put quotes around “career” because it’s a silly word when applied to most people. There are lifetime occupations and callings. But, most people change jobs an average of six times over a lifetime. My experience in corporate America was that the word “career” is used to keep the employee motivated, and invested, in long term benefits that may, or may not, ever materialize. I’m all for people respecting the big picture of the company they work for. The word, “career”, however, is often a lying word used to sell something.
Communication Skills
To help others wherever possible, and even when it seems impossible, is what fills an INFJ’s life with meaning and serves as their main motivation. This is their main orientation in the world, and it defines how they relate to events and to people around them.
In communication INFJs come across as thoughtful, supportive, and caring. Communication with an INFJ is pleasant and easy, since they are inherently well-disposed towards the other party. They are attentive and empathetic to other people’s feelings. Whenever one communicates with an INFJ, he or she instantly feels just how much they care about the people they know.
INFJs find it easy to communicate with people of various types and on variety of topics. However, INFJs can occasionally come across as somewhat reserved in their communication. Yet what they do when they appear reserved is taking time to sort out their feelings and thoughts of other people or current events.
An INFJ’s everyday social circle is unlikely to be extensive. It mostly consists of close friends, colleagues, and family members.
Those who work in the same field (e.g. coworkers or colleagues) are often reliant on, or interested in, an INFJ’s expert opinion of counsel on professional subjects. An INFJ is perfectly capable of maintaining an eventful business communication agenda involving an exchange of ideas and opinions, as well as practical solutions.
BookGeome Project
This BookGeome personality chart is based on uses of dialogue, descriptions, prose, and pacing in fictional writing. Amber Helt explains how to use the chart. Though I write non-fiction I went through the exercise for the sake of completeness.
DIALOGUE — Expressive (E) vs. Stoic (S)
DESCRIPTIONS — Detailed (D) vs. Concise (C)
PROSE — Hefty (H) vs. Breezy (B)
MOTION — Patient (P) vs. Kinetic (K)
That would make me either an SCBP or an SCHP. That type, they say, is suited to write on subjects of Education, Business, Economics, Religion, Self-Help or Performing Arts. Those are, in fact, many of the subjects I’ve written about in the past.
Weaknesses
My current weaknesses are in editing and speed of publication. I often write thousands of words per day but don’t publish thousands of words per day. My ratio of written-to-published words is about 5-to-1 and that’s too high. The ideal is probably closer to 2-to-1. My ratio is too high for three reasons:
Lack of brain dominance leads to indecisiveness in the editing process. The many options for phrasing, wording, ordering of paragraphs and sentences, feel more like solving a math problem than editing words. A hypothetical audience would probably see little difference in drafts after the first two.
Fear of being wrong about something important. The material I write about is often deep territory. There’s usually much research and reading that goes into it.
Fear of burning through the attention span of the reader before imparting the important points of the piece. This impels me to spend more time — too much time — in the editing phase.
Remedy
Publish more under deadline. I imposed an artificial deadline on this essay for just that reason. The less time I stew over editing choices — after the first two drafts — the better. Happily for all, needless words are omitted by the second draft.
My Writing Personality(s)
Within Jeff Goin’s blogging types, the strongest, for me, is that of an Artist. Almost equally strong is Professor. Only with a subject firmly “in hand” does the personality of a prophet creep in.
Journalist? Only if an important job requires it. My book, The Creature from Galt’s Gulch, required a journalistic personality. Since it’s not my natural personality I find it difficult to write follow-up articles.
Star? None.
Artist
I gravitate towards creativity, beauty, music, art, and entrepreneurship. I appreciate all mediums in which they present.
Beauty and functionality are rarely seen apart from one another. The shape and skin of a dolphin is as beautiful as the jet plane or submarine that mimics it. The reverse is equally true: That which achieves a high level of functionality is inevitably beautiful.
By starting with art, an artist need give up nothing of functionality.
Professor
Writing in the role of a consultant often requires the personality of the “Professor”. The challenge is to impart the information, professionally, without sucking the “voice” out of it. Even dry material is more easily digested when presented in a unique voice.
I like “Playing the professor” as it forces me break things down into implementable steps. That turns data into knowledge, making wisdom possible, and action (Or silence), possible, as well.
Anything that solves a problem is also beautiful, especially to the one with the problem!
Prophet
With artistic eyes, and the eyeglasses of the professor, I can sometimes look out at the landscape of the subject and make predictions. Such “prophecies” are not outcomes I wish to be so. They’re outcomes I think likely to occur given the trajectory of the predicting elements of the matter at hand.
Only a fool would underestimate the power of man’s free will. Even in the Bible, foreknowledge is not predestination.
Voice
Take away the voice and all that’s left are facts and data. Even formal expression is more interesting, and easier to digest, when presented in a unique voice.
The journey to find my voice has been the greatest adventure of my life. Every part of it has thickened the connection between my inner thoughts and outer reality.
It’s a great thing to read and understand everything one can to improve our own lives. It’s a much greater thing to parlay that work into something to inspire, lighten the load of, or shorten the path for, others.
Things that can do that are, in my view, masterpieces.
Writers must know their writing personality. They must also discover, and write with, their unique voice. But, what about non-writers? Why would such things matter to them?
In short, because the “active literacies” of writing, argumentation, and public speaking enable you to write the script of your own life. And, at the core of their mastery is knowledge of writing personality and voice.
7 Great Reasons
Write the main script of your own life, authentically, and in your own voice.
“Get out of your head” by connecting your inner intellectual life with your outer reality.
Help others by “giving voice” to their concerns. Influence them to take action on their own dear purposes or beliefs.
Bypass the procrastination that comes from worrying that what you’ve written (or haven’t yet written) will “come off” as inauthentic.
Recruit allies to your work, projects, interests, purposes, and calling.
Write faster, better, and more effectively having removed these primary introspective blocks.
Ignorance of writing personality and voice are the primary introspective blocks to expression. With their removal the road to mastery of the active literacies is clear.
The Active Literacies
Any role requiring you to influence, share with, or teach others can be accomplished more effectively with mastery of what J.T. Gatto calls the “active literacies“.
America was literate beyond anybody’s wildest dreams, and not merely book-literate. Americans (Circa 1840) were broadly proficient in the formidable “active literacies” of writing, argumentation, and public speaking; things which had actually been a crime to teach ordinary people under British colonial rule.
— John Taylor Gatto, “Weapons of Mass Instruction”, pp. 17
We all are vaguely aware that literacy is at the heart of an intellectual inner life, but what we don’t understand is that is, prior to the First World War, literacy was commonly divided into passive literacy, reading, and active literacy, speaking and writing. And none of us are aware that in Colonial days, that to teach active literacy to ordinary people was a crime! Why? Because reading, you’re locked in your own head and you still have the benefit of being able to read the boss’s instructions about what to do. But if you can speak well, as our current President can, or write well, you can reach way beyond your own skull and recruit allies. That’s a no-no for ordinary people;, they’re supposed to be so inarticulate, or their writing will look so funny with ink blots and things in it, that no one treats them seriously.
Knowledge Workers
Knowledge workers are workers whose main capital is knowledge. Examples include software engineers, physicians, pharmacists, architects, engineers, scientists, public accountants, lawyers, and academics, whose job is to “think for a living”.1
As a consultant I know, firsthand, how knowledge workers must often become functional writers. They must excel at expressing the results of their work to merely deliver it. Aside from formal occupations, knowledge work is almost unavoidable, nowadays. If you spend three or more hours a day behind a computer, chances are good you also need to write, or talk about, what you’ve accomplished. Words fly faster, higher, and more effectively, when the writer is resonating with their own personality and voice.
Writing vs. Reading Personality
What you read is not necessarily how you’ll write. You might read science fiction, romance novels, how-to’s, or biographies. That doesn’t mean your writing personality will fit one of those styles.
Of course, everything you read informs your writing. But, don’t feel compelled to match the styles or personalities of what you read.
The Path of My Discovery
I found my writing personality and voice by:
Writing (and singing) lyrics and songs. I find it easier to remember melodies than lyrics. When I can’t remember lyrics I make them up to fit the melody.
Knowing what I wanted to write about. That’s something you can find out with relative ease. In the case of the knowledge worker, for example, the subjects are often given to you or dictated by the work. If you’re writing the script(s) of your life, however, this will take more introspection.
Over-learning subjects that are important to me. Toward that end I’ve taken many writing courses. I enjoyed Stephen King’s “On Writing”, Julia Cameron’s “Artist Way”, and Jeff Goin’s “Intentional Blogging”.
People are Blind to Their Own Strengths
People are the first to recognize their own weaknesses and last to recognize their strengths. Writing personality and voice have positive and negative attributes. Your writing will only improve if you recognize both. StrengthsFinder 2.0 is a great way to get started on finding your strengths. I also recommend taking a Meyers Briggs personality test.
The Artist … writes and creates because they love beauty.
A Prophet … tells us the hard truth about the world or themselves.
The Journalist … asks questions, assimilates the answers, and shares it with others.
The Professor … teaches by taking something complex and breaking it up into small, actionable steps.
The Star … is someone readers want to be around or be like.
If you’re not sure what personality you gravitate towards try giving samples of your writing to a few people you trust. Ask them for the first three adjectives that come to mind when they read them. Then ask them if your writing matches your actual personality. What’s missing? What’s not missing and rings authentic to the real you?
Use Your Voice
Take away your voice and all that’s left are facts and data. Even formal expression is more interesting, and easier to digest, when presented in a unique voice.
What makes your voice distinct from all others?
What impression do you want to give your readers/listeners?
Can you add a story (Or a joke) to illustrate the point?
Can you tell a joke to lighten up the mood?
Would a sarcastic comment get listeners to perk up?
Would a self-effacing comment add humility to an impression of arrogance that you don’t feel?
The deep introspection involved in the journey to find your voice is worth it. Everything you learn thickens the connection of your inner intellectual life with your outer reality. What slowly begins to emerge is the masterpiece only you can be.
Davenport, Thomas H. (2005). Thinking For A Living: How to Get Better Performance and Results From Knowledge Workers. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. ISBN 1-59139-423-6. ↩
… that life can be optimized with respect to a minimum of seven areas. Delete any one of them from the equations of your awareness and your life will degrade, sooner or later. Since these areas are irreducible I call them the Seven Matters of Life.
I believe …
… that words are how the truth comes to us. They’re also how it can be taken away. Seen only as symbols and grammar, truth and lies are made from the same raw material. Your only hope is discernment. Your life depends on it.
… in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all that is unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
“Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler.”
— Albert Einstein
I’ve found that life can be optimized with respect to a minimum of seven areas. Delete any one of them from the equations of your awareness and your life will degrade, sooner or later. Since these areas are irreducible I call them the Seven Matters of Life. They are: Personal, Health, Spiritual, Business, Family, Law, & Government.
The Seven Matters exert an inevitable, if not invisible, influence on our lives. As with natural laws describing gravity, time, the speed of light, etc. they persist whether we ignore them or not. We “escape” them only through acknowledgement and mastery.
My writing is an informational vortex swirling around the Seven Matters. Ideally, it serves as a generational boost to reduce the time needed to put your own life on optimal track.

Within the metatron cube are many other shapes. For example, it contains all five platonic solids.

In this revolving view the cubic relationships of the same fractal are emphasized.

Fractals can represent infinity by putting the same fractal within itself. Here’s what a metatron cube looks like with each sphere filled with its own metatron cube:

Working Portrait
Please don’t mistake the colorful portrait, below, as “New Age” philosophy with its nauseating relativism. To the contrary, it’s a working portrait of the seven matters at the core of each person. Though we’re all unique, and at differing levels of development, our design is specific and persistent.

Notice these aspects of the portrait:
The seven inner-spheres of the core correspond closely to the seven matters of life.
The “matter” at the center is Spirit; a reference to the spirit inside you and to God.
Each sphere is a fractal identical to the others, and to the whole.
The outer spheres represent personal interactions with the external world. They are the natural outward reach stemming from the inner core.
To the extent the inner-core is balanced, so is the person, and so are interactions with the external world.
Everyone has these “matters” in their life, in one formation or another. My choice of their positions is, therefore, a kind of self-portrait. Change the position of the “matters”, especially the one in the core, and the resulting life of the person will be quite different.
I’ll refer to the author as Rosenberg to distinguish him from the apostle Paul.
“Again I am raising a difficult subject, but again, it’s something that needs to be said. And my title is true. The Bible – the holy book of more or less all Christians – has become an idol. And yes, I do mean idol as in “false god.”
A book, no matter how good, remains a book and should be treated as a book. A deity is something far different.
Not every Christian uses the Bible as an idol of course, but many millions do – probably a majority in North America – including nearly all of the TV preachers.
The Bible is 66 books with ~40 authors written over ~1500 years put between one cover and referred to as “a book”. None of the books are deities nor are they above, or outside of, Reality.
A Christian may hold the Bible to be the most important “book” in the world but it’s not a substitute for God unless He’s absent from their lives (which is probably the crux of the matter, here).
What is an Idol?
An idol is something you hold above reality.
The Bible uses the word “idol” to refer to that which a man holds above, or in place of, God. Since only that which created Reality could be above (outside, beyond) it, Rosenberg’s use of the word is roughly the same.
A true God – a creator of the universe, for example – should be held above reality, since he created reality. If, however, we hold something else above reality, we make it an idol. A created thing should be considered a part of reality, not held above it.
So, when I say the Bible has become an idol, I mean people hold it above reality, putting it into the position of a god.”
The Bible refers to the gods being worshipped in the OT and NT (represented in stone, wood, or gold idols) as real and created by God.1 These created gods, as well as the Bible, “should be considered to be part of reality, not held above it”.
Not a Book-Based Religion?
As long as the relationships between people and their Creator are replaced (avoided) with rituals we’ll be stuck with the word, “religion”.
“Christianity very clearly did not start as book-based. When Jesus “preached the good news,” he quoted just a small number of scriptures and usually as a necessity, answering people who questioned him. And several of those were of the “you’ve heard it said… but I say” variety. He read a few lines from Isaiah in his hometown synagogue once, but we see very little more than that.
Even the very literate Paul uses Greek poets in his sermons almost as much as Old Testament passages. (He uses some scriptures in his writings.)”
The New Testament refers to the Old Testament 2,572 times including allusions, echoes, citations, and quotations.2 Here’s the total breakout as well as that for Jesus and Paul.
Jesus’ use of the OT is consistent with, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Mt 5:17) One astounding aspect of that fulfillment was His abiding by the laws while supplanting them with grace.4 His scripture was the Septuagint (A Greek translation of the Hebrew canon made in 250 BC.).
While Jesus fulfilled the laws, Paul documented much of that fulfillment in canonical extension, later to become known as the New Testament. Paul’s use of the Septuagint is consistent with writing eight to thirteen of the 27 books of the NT.
Stating the Obvious, Extrapolating the Unnecessary5
Those writing, copying, and assembling books of the New Testament did not, themselves, have access to completed copies. To therefore conclude, somehow, that books not yet written were unimportant to those writing them is to extrapolate the unnecessary after stating the obvious.
In that sense, neither is Judaism a book-based religion. The Old Testament was written and assembled into canon over a period of ~1000 years. It was then translated into Greek to make it accessible to Jews who had been in exile so long they’d lost touch with their own language. Does a project requiring 33 generations to complete imply apathy?
The first Christians valued Christ over everything. Their first independent actions were to spread the word about Him and what He’d just done. They weren’t apathetic about writing things down. A remarkable aspect of the NT is how little time had passed from the actual events to the time the 27 books were written and then assembled into canon. They were documenting what they’d witnessed while simultaneously risking their lives to spread a faith that would become the largest in the world.
I do agree with Rosenberg that the apostles and first Christians weren’t risking their lives for a book (or books) but for what they’d just seen. Also, even without completed copies of what has become the New Testament the early Christians were, no doubt, more effective and consistent than most modern Christians.
Facing the Bible
Those of us who’ve read the book know the laws in the Old Testament that no one follows anymore. We know how the apostles disagreed. But – and this is where idolatry comes in – millions of us pretend that we saw nothing and move on. Or if we’re trying to be very religious, we come up with creative interpretations to resolve the flaws.
Conjuring up “creative interpretations to resolve the flaws” is worse than a waste of time. It degrades integrity and faith. It also avoids some of the best opportunities for spiritual growth.
Do the “Bible is the word of God people” think the Author needs their help in deflecting attention away from weak parts of an otherwise stellar attempt to reach mankind?
The Laws that No One Follows Anymore
I’m no expert on Judaism. Still, I doubt that anyone, other than Jesus and a few prophets and priests, managed to abide by all 613 commandments of the law.
There are orthodox Jews who still believe they must abide by most of the laws. They claim to be excused from the sacrificial laws (159 of the 613) because the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. But, how were they released from the remaining 454? If they don’t recognize Jesus as their messiah how (and when) did these laws become inactive?
And let me be clear on this: Trying to prove everything by the Bible is a deviation from actual growth. If you’ve done this for any length of time, you’ve hindered yourself.
Rosenberg may be referring to the often lazy habit of quoting Biblical text as self-proving. To a non-believer this is recursive reasoning. It’s much more effective to quote applicable verses and explain why you think they’re true in the context of the discussion.
A larger point to understand is that the Bible doesn’t contain all knowledge. Such would be like a map with a scale of 1-to-1: accurate but useless. There are no microwaves, jet planes, toasters, CAD design programs, or even hidden codes in every 70th (or whatever) letter predicting the third Reich. Neither does Ezekiel contain the design plans for an alien spacecraft. The sooner a Christian is disabused of the notion that everything is in the Bible, the better.
The Bible is what God deemed sufficient for the realms it covers. It was not intended to be exhaustive. Exhaustive knowledge is a utopian myth. Humans have to work for knowledge just as they have to work to get food from the ground.
Doing, Or Not Doing?
Readers of the book really should know these things. The core of the New Testament – the recorded words of Jesus – require people to do the things he taught. The “Bible as word of God” people, on the other hand, spend endless hours arguing about who Jesus was, comparing scriptures, finding hidden meanings, proving their interpretations right, and proving the interpretations of others wrong. And so they bypass doing.
Though admonished by one commenter to “stick to subjects he knows about”, Rosenberg could just as well be paraphrasing Paul in 1 Timothy 1:3–7:
“As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.”6
The Sad Part
“The central requirement for any follower of Jesus is to love. Everything else comes second. Jesus not only taught this again and again; he exhibited it in his life. Christians, however, consistently push it aside in favor of other things. (I could tell you stories, but you probably have your own.)”
Indeed, “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Ga 5:14)
“The really sad part of this is that the Bible idolaters – or at least a great number of them – do have experience with the divine impulse, of contact or at least innate yearning for a transcendent ultimate. But they never develop these things, because they’re busy idolizing a mere book, following the traditions and commandments of men.“
Jesus condemned the Pharisees for treating the OT in exactly this way. How much worse for a Christian to do the same with the completed Bible?
What’s Rosenberg Getting At?
Rosenberg sees the Bible as a valuable resource. He greatly appreciates the impact that Judeo-Christian ethics have had on western civilization. He believes there’s a creator of the universe distinct from the created. He has a “divine impulse” and “innate yearning for a transcendent ultimate”. So, why would someone so philosophically, though not theologically, aligned with Christianity be frustrated enough to write about Christians using the Bible as an idol?
At the risk of being presumptuous I’ll put into my own words what I think are some of Rosenberg’s points. If doing so would make fellow Christians consider them then it will have been worth the effort:
Because of the enormous, yet squandered, human potential of a third of humanity. If a small fraction of that number patterned their thoughts, will, abilities, beliefs, and expectations on the full range of Jesus’ teachings the world would be so dramatically transformed it might be mistaken for heaven.
Because millions of Christians who claim Jesus as their role-model either don’t take him seriously enough, or are afraid to discover, let alone implement, the full breadth of His teachings.
Because the Book of Acts describes the behaviors and experiences of Christians before there was a Book of Acts. And yet, the first Christians were more Christ-like, with limited access to fragments of text, than modern Christians are with a completed New Testament.
The Christian Difference
Voltaire is credited with saying, “Show me your redeemed life, and I’ll believe in your Redeemer”. And then there’s the rhetorical question that, “If you were jailed for being a Christian would there be enough evidence to convict you?”.
There’s nothing different about people living inconsistently with their own stated beliefs. You can find them in every house and on every street-corner in the world. Christians are supposed to stand out in such a way as there’s no doubt that something is different about them. Why else would anyone care to learn more about their beliefs?
Can we blame non-believers for concluding that a redemption without fruit is no redemption, at all?
The Christian difference occurs in believers who call Jesus a role model and have the courage to act consistency with the goal of becoming more like Him.
That means diving into his teachings and exposing yourself to the full-spectrum of what you find. No picking and choosing what you, or those around you, might be comfortable with. No strip-mining the supernatural out of the events. No arrogant presumptions that God needs your protection of His Bible because someone sent you a list of “flaws” on Facebook.
Set a goal of nothing short of putting on the mind of Christ. “Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’: aim at Earth and you will get neither.”7
Faith without Works
Faith without works is trust without transformation. It’s an attempt to be oriented towards the Creator without “power according to his glorious might”. (Col 1:11) In daily life, it’s hope without joy.
Transformation of Character and Supernatural Power
Dallas Willard, speaking on “Being Church” said:
“When the kingdom of God is present, power flows. And what characterize the people of Christ throughout the ages is transformation of character and supernatural power. Those two things always follow. When Jesus brought the kingdom he brought manifestation.”
That’s what the early Christians had and what many of today’s Christians don’t have. That’s what’s at the core of Judeo-Christian ethics that have transformed the world.
The early Christians weren’t risking their lives for unfinished scrolls on parchment or papyrus. And they weren’t risking their lives because Jesus was a smart guy who’d just laid some awesome philosophy on them. They risked their lives to remain true to what they’d just witnessed: Jesus performing miracles all over the place, raising people from the dead and then rising, himself, from being dead. And if that wasn’t enough, walking around and eating meals with them while detailing how He’d just fulfilled their scriptures. It was the resurrected Jesus that told them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”8
In that sense, I agree with Rosenberg, that Christianity is not a book-based religion. It’s a relationship with God centered around His presence in our actual lives. Without transformation of character and supernatural power there will be no great works. But, with them?
“My contention is that, if our theology really derives from the biblical text, we must reconsider our selective supernaturalism and recover a biblical theology of the unseen world. This is not to suggest that the best interpretation of a passage is always the most supernatural one. But the biblical writers and those to whom they wrote were predisposed to supernaturalism. To ignore that outlook or marginalize it will produce Bible interpretation that reflects our mind-set more than that of the biblical writers.” Heiser, M. S. (2015). The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (First Edition, p. 18). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press. ↩
Jackson, J. G. (Ed.). (2015). New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife. ↩
There are four relationships that are used: Citation, Quotation, Allusion, and Echo. These terms are understood as: Citation: An explicit reference to scripture with a citation formula (e.g. “It is written,” or “the Lord says,” or “the prophet says”). Quotation: A direct reference to scripture, largely matching the verbatim wording of the source but without a quotation formula Allusion: An indirect but intentional reference to scripture, likely intended to invoke memory of the scripture. Echo: A verbal parallel evokes or recalls a scripture (or series of scriptures) to the reader, but likely without authorial intention to reproduce exact words. ↩
“For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Ro 6:14). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society. ↩
“Yes – as I have said many times in classes: Scholars have a habit of embracing the obvious (redaction) and then extrapolating to the unnecessary (XYZ “universally accepted” critical theory that actually has significant weaknesses – as though there were no other options).” http://drmsh.com/does-higher-criticism-attempt-to-destroy-the-bible/ ↩
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (1 Ti 1:3–7). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society. ↩
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Mt 28:18–20). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society. ↩
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Ge 1:28). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.” ↩
Your Optimal Life Equation (YOLE) is an algebraic formula to describe, contemplate, and re-calibrate the optimality of one’s life. The relationships of the major elements are shown as well as the potential impacts a change may have. The equation is introduced, here, and referred to throughout the “The Outliers Handbook“.
When I got the idea to describe an Optimal life with an algebraic formula the flaws in the approach were obvious: The units don’t match and assigning one number to something that, by its very nature, is multi-dimensional is absurd. Such absurdities are built-in to something else passed on as knowledge, every day . . . the IQ. Who in the world thinks something as multi-faceted as intelligence can be fully captured and described by an integer? It can’t. And yet, the IQ is still, somehow, useful. So is YOLE.
Cross-discipline metaphors are useful for the same reason any metaphor can be: Patterns in nature are like other patterns in nature. Sometimes, the same fractal pattern in one natural structure is duplicated exactly in another. Fractals prove that stupefying complexity can emerge from utter simplicity. The reverse is not true.
Those who have no problem “dividing” a mountain by a triangle or seeing the golden ratio in a conch shell or human face may find YOLE useful. It doesn’t reach fractal-like perfection (Yet) but Your Optimal Life Equation may show how some of the major elements of life may be changed to lead to a more optimally functioning one.
Where all people have S,W,V,G,H,T,El,j,c and at least one Pg. Not every person has Pr, Pb or EB.
Key
Talking Through the Equation
The sum total of your Strengths and Weaknesses is all you have to maintain everything you Value, your Goals, the People in your life (H), and the Things you own. The results of that division is multiplied by the purposeful roles you play in the lives of others, the purpose of your business activities, and whatever you most desire or worship (Your God). The resulting numerator is what you bring into (Is divided by) your larger environment: The physical or virtual stage of your life and business. The major elements of your Environment are physical location, legal jurisdiction and community. Your business may have a separate environment with its own physical location, legal jurisdiction and community.
Small Changes Can Have a Huge Impact
The legal jurisdiction of one’s physical body and business could be the sole determining factor of whether one is at liberty to accomplish anything, at all. Likewise, the wrong community could leave one alone and bereft of the amplifications (And enjoyment) that a strong and thriving community can provide.
Whether or not one has an immediate family, an optional component of Pr , will have a huge impact on the nature of the most purposeful roles in one’s life.
What You Control . . .
You determine the inputs and amounts of most variables. You may have little to no control over some of them, in the short-term. You can have some degree of control over most of them, eventually. It’s daunting to realize how most of the important aspects of life are the direct result of personal choice. The sheer amount of decisions one could make to optimize life is probably why people rarely take full control over all the elements they could potentially control. Of course, depending on resources available (Strengths) an attempt to control everything might lead to a failure to control anything.
. . . and What You Don’t
Your unique disposition of strengths and weaknesses is part of your natural disposition at birth. You have huge latitude in honing and deploying strengths. You also have many options for minimizing the impacts of natural weaknesses. However, it’s still mostly a matter of playing smarter with the hand you’ve been dealt.
Likewise, you don’t choose to live on “The grid” of planet earth. You choose where to locate the various elements of your life on that grid.
You don’t choose the members of your local (And virtual) communities. You choose the location and subjects around which those communities are organized, and possibly united.
On Values
Values present a cost to maintain and uphold. Hold to as few of the best values in life while tending to values. Discard bad values and replace merely good values with great ones. Great values are consistent with Purpose(s) and decrease net costs to Strengths.
On Goals
Goals are costly to achieve. Achieving goals is usually a good thing. A great thing, however, is achieving great goals. Great goals align with the purposes of your life. Discrimination between good and great goals requires awareness of purpose(s).
On People (H)
People can be among the greatest sources of abundance on earth. They can also be the most taxing. The task here is to have the right balance of people in your life. Those congruent with your purposes will bring abundance to your life (And you to theirs) even if they’re taxing. For one thing, people tend to motivate growth. Growth makes us stronger and leaves us with more strengths to optimize life. Therefore, the tax of people in our lives may be a large cost in the short-term and change the fundamental balance of the equation in the long-term. People are a “Capital” investment in the grandest sense of the world.
On Things
Things, or possessions, require some combination of storage, maintenance, insurance, licensing, money, time, registration, bill processing (Registration renewal, licensing updates, etc.) and on and on. The least number of Things you need to accomplish purpose(s) the better.
On Purpose(s)
Ants, snails, and bugs may have one purpose. People have multiple purposes. The popular myth that people have just one purpose is harmful and tends to thwart the discovery of what one’s purposes may be. There’s a purpose for every role, family member, business activity, ongoing responsibility and activity in your life. The YOLE encapsulates them all into the roles you play in the lives of others, business purposes, and God (Pr,b,g).
On Environment(s)
Personal and Business environments might be separate. Therefore, the equation allows for both E and EB. Each have their own components of physical location, legal jurisdiction and community.
Location has a dramatic affect on the prevailing Law, Jurisdiction, and Community with which you’re interacting with in time. However, physical location is not a static, one-time-only, choice. With cyberspace, jet travel, dual-citizenship, and multi-state and national entities a person’s Environment is no longer determined solely by physical Location. Of course, if your E and EB are tied to one physical location then it makes the equation easier to “Calculate”. The cost of that simplicity will probably increase as technocratic mechanisms of control and taxation become more refined and perfected. Also, as such mechanisms are refined and perfected E, EB, and their subcomponents will tend to merge into one. The more completely merged, the more each component will be the same for more people. Physical locations will always vary but characteristics of legal jurisdiction and community may become so similar that distinctions are of little importance. In some ways this can be seen as one drives across the US stopping into the “Same” fast-food franchises in every state.
Environments are multi-locational and sometimes virtual. Where is the PT (Perpetual Traveler) located if his business is in one country, money in another, investments in another and body in another? His body can only be in one location at a time, of course. But will he be there long enough to be viewed as a resident (Legal jurisdiction)? Even so, his business may be in a different jurisdiction. Complex combinations can grow out of varied components of E and EB.
Reality has ~10 Dimensions, Not Four
Theoretical physicists now presume Reality presents in 10 dimensions. That’s six more than most people assume comprise the Reality in which their life is taking place. To distinguish the standard four from the 10 I’ll use the convention of uppercase Reality (10) and lowercase reality (4). I might turn YOLE into a graphic to account for Reality. For now, think of E as not limited to the dimensions of X,Y,Z and Time/Space but extending into dimensions that may or may not be discernible to the five senses.
People with a keener sense of dimensions, beyond the four, may possess either a physical, intellectual or theological strength. Some choices of Pg enable such awareness and some preclude it. Since anything that obscures the full dimensions of Reality is a handicap one can better optimize life with a Pg that enables full awareness.
What God?
Desire provides powerful insight into purpose. People align their lives with what they most desire in the moment. What people most desire can be described as their god of the moment.
There are as many gods (Idols) as there are nouns in the dictionary: Money, alcohol, sex, prestige, control over others, Buddha, Allah, nature, Lucifer or the Holy Trinity of the God of the Bible, etc. Gods are swapped in and out over time. Whatever one desires most during a given period is the god of that period. Sex in the morning, money in the afternoon, control over others at night . . . gods tend to become the sole purpose of one’s life for the time period they are most desired. During that period everything about the person tends to be oriented around obtaining or reveling in (Worshipping) whatever it is. Such desires effect physical, mental and spiritual changes in the person experiencing them. In a sense, we become what we most desire.
Business (Job) vs. Calling
If what you do for a living is also the highest purpose of your life, i.e., your business or job is also your calling, then Pb will be a higher “Number” or of greater magnitude, to be more accurate.. The components of your business environment (EB) will still have a large impact on the equation but the first main numerator of the equation will tend to offset any negatives that may be components of EB.
Some Output Examples
O = (((S + W) / (V + G + H + T)) * Pr,b,g) / (El,j,c * EBl,j,c)
Strength(s) and Purpose(s) are the positive inputs used to optimize life. Their number, amount, deployment and alignment determine the positive “Numbers” of the equation, after which, everything gets divided.
By minimizing the impact of your weaknesses the impact of your strengths is greater.
Choose only the highest quality Values to uphold or maintain because any value presents a cost to your strengths to maintain. Replace merely good values with great values.
Choose only the highest quality goals to accomplish because any goal presents an achievement cost to your strengths. Replace merely good goals with great goals. Great goals still tax your strengths but are also components of Purpose and, therefore, counterbalance the equation.
Surround yourself with high quality people. All roles and relationships tax your strengths but the right people are components of Purpose and counterbalance the equation.
The less Things you own (Store, maintain, insure, move, sell, buy) the better. Anything that owns you must go. Such things make an optimal life impossible unless the purpose of your life is Thing(s).
If you have no Purpose(s) the chance of optimizing life falls to zero.
If you get stronger (Or deploy existing strengths more efficiently) you can support more Values, Goals, People and Things in your life. However, the least number of these you have, ideally keeping only those that will be factored with purpose(s), the more optimal your life.
If the impact of your weaknesses are lessened you can support more Values, Goals, People and Things in your life because the tax (Direct subtraction) to your strengths is lessened.
This is a short list of example outputs from YOLE. It is, by no means, exhaustive.
On and On It Goes
There’s no end to the complexities of even one human life. The YOLE can be referred to in the middle of a storm (When nothing seems clear because everything is happening fast) or tranquil waters (When everything is fine and you want to focus on what small changes might have the best impact). Whatever the context it can show how some of major elements of life may be changed to enable one’s life to function more optimally. In “The Outliers Handbook” I refer to the equation in the context of the subjects and areas of life being addressed.
