Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Wholeness
Evangelical Outpost reviews a book on work and leisure:
Rest is not necessarily a state of inactivity, but rather a state of letting other power handle the burden. I rest in God's hands so that even when I am active, He does the "work" and I still rest.
Secondly, God defines culture, not us. If we rest in God's hands, whether in activity or inactivity, then God can do His work to define our culture, but if we depend on our philosophy, the our culture will be as corrupt as we are.
But what most amazes me about this is how hard we seem to work to justify doing what we want to do, instead of learning what God wants us to do and doing it - even when we think we can't He can, if we will but let Him.
He contrasts leisure with the world of work, which looks at life though utilitarian glasses.I could not disagree more. Firstly I think God calls us to be whole creatures, not divided into such realms. I think this confuses "rest" with "work."
[...]
These experiences are what foster our ability for leisure, and on Pieper’s thesis, as leisure develops, so does culture. He sees the two as almost synonymous, defining culture as human achievement that transcends utility: poetry, art, music, education. Piper argues that the greatest capacity for culture comes from philosophy, because it is contemplation of reality. Though culture is not more important than our real need to work, it should be our capacity for leisure which defines us.
Rest is not necessarily a state of inactivity, but rather a state of letting other power handle the burden. I rest in God's hands so that even when I am active, He does the "work" and I still rest.
Secondly, God defines culture, not us. If we rest in God's hands, whether in activity or inactivity, then God can do His work to define our culture, but if we depend on our philosophy, the our culture will be as corrupt as we are.
But what most amazes me about this is how hard we seem to work to justify doing what we want to do, instead of learning what God wants us to do and doing it - even when we think we can't He can, if we will but let Him.
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