A LIFE WORTH LIVING
Jesus disarms the Powers.
ST ANGER
Jesus effects change in us.
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Jesus bears divine wrath instead of us.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOB
A Christian response to suffering.
5 1 Corinthians 11:17–34.
4 Mark 14:25.
1 “Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God” [Mark 14:25]. Jesus is talking about the resurrection.
2 James 2:8.
1 This is not to say that the wine does not also mean the blood that Jesus shed on the cross [eg. Mark 14:24].
1 “Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God” [Mark 14:25]. Jesus is talking about the resurrection, which is where fault lines between ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’ are healed, and where Witness@Work (and Paul) begins. ‘But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith’ [1 Corinthians 15:12–14].
5 Colossians 4:6.
2 Our Worship@Work course explores this further.
3 This is not to say that the wine does not also mean the blood that Jesus shed on the cross [eg. Mark 14:24].
22 After writing this, I read something similar by Ivan Illich [David Cayley, The Rivers North of the Future: The Testament of Ivan Illich as told to David Cayley (Toronto: Anansi 2005), 50-55]. Perhaps I had unconsciously encountered this somewhere in the secondary literature.
18 There is no end of books on redeeming Capitalism; for example: Kenneth J. Barnes, Redeeming Capitalism (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2018). Invariably, such works appeal to ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’. But because ethics flows from worship [Brian Brock, Singing the Ethos of God: On the Place of Scripture in Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2007)], and worship culminates in the eucharist, Bread of Hope appeals to the latter.
17 For an attempt at this, see this Bread of Hope video (on the Powers for the Worship@Work course).
7 Although we didn’t think the Charity Commission would look too kindly on ‘Wine of Hope’.
5 Stanley Hauerwas, ‘My Neighbour, My Nation, and the Presidential Election’, lecture delivered at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London on Monday 31 October, 2016.
2 The handbook refers to Bread of Hope’s officers and employees in these ‘corporate’ terms (under I/6.2) in a way that transcends Bread of Hope (the charity). This is a necessary component of our ethos statement, which justifies our occupational requirement to recruit only Christians for particular roles. (Note the multiple connotations of ‘corporate’. Here it connotes the ‘church’, elsewhere, ‘business’.)
1 From I/2 Origins: village v. factory in Bread of Hope’s handbook.
3 ‘Equality’ is shorthand for saying that ‘generosity mitigates inequality’. Whereas Bread of Hope focuses on generosity, others focus on equality; for example: Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone (London: Penguin, 2009).
2 OECD (2013), OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264191655-en, 10, 29—32.
8 This fulfils what Christians call the creation mandate in Genesis 1:28.‘God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground”’ [NIV].
7 This touches on recent notions of resilience. For example, see Southwick, S.M. & Bonanno, George & Masten, A.S. & Panter-Brick, Catherine & Yehuda, Rachel, ‘Resilience definition, theory and challenges’ in European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 5 (2014), 1-14. One of the authors of this paper (Rachel Yehuda) further understands resilience in terms of growth; and another (Catherine Panter-Brick) notes the importance of hope for resilience.
3 In Bille August’s adaptation of Les Misérables, the Bishop is very angry as he forgives Jean Valjean for stealing the silver. In the language of passions and affections, the passion of anger, here, has the affectionate, and therefore godly, end of forgiveness. Perhaps we could even say that the passion of anger fuels the affection of forgiveness [Les Misérables, dir. by Bille August (Entertainment Film Distributors, 1998)].
2 In the first half of the twentieth century, people might have used the word ‘nerves’, as in ‘he really gets on my nerves’. Now we might also say that he stresses me out. See Jill Kirby, Feeling the strain: A cultural history of stress in twentieth-century Britain (Manchester: MUP, 2019).
1 For resources on stress management, we recommend www.drsunil.com.
3 ‘That social, political, judicial and economic structures can become demonic is evident to anybody who has considered that the state, which in Romans 13 is the minister of God, in Revelation 13 has become an ally of the devil. Similarly, the moral law which God gave for human good led to human bondage and was exploited by “the elemental spirits of the universe”. Every good gift of God can be perverted to human use.’ John R. W. Stott, God’s New Society: The Message of Ephesians (Leicester: IVP, 1979), 274.
9 Tim Keller, Forgive: Why Should I And How Can I? (London: Hodder, 2022), 9 (final paragraph).
8 Justice can also make it easier to forgive, Everett L. Worthington, A Just Forgiveness: Responsible Healing without Excusing Injustice (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), 87–88.
7 A literal translation of Ephesians 4:26 gives, ‘Be angry but don’t miss the mark’; see also Tim Keller, Forgive: Why Should I And How Can I? (London: Hodder, 2022), 184–185. And His Holiness The Dalai Lama observes, ‘… there can be two kinds of anger. One form of anger, which is motivated by compassion, is in a real sense very constructive’ [Donald W. Wiseman and James Wiseman, O.S.B., eds., The Gethsemani Encounter: A Dialogue on the Spiritual Life by Buddhist and Christian Monastics (New York: Continuum, 1999), 191].
6 The ‘With Bible” edition considers: 1 Corinthians 13:5; John 20:24–31; Jeremiah 31:34; Genesis 8:1.
5 Roy F. Baumeister, Julie Juola Exline, and Kristin L. Sommer, ‘The Victim Role, Grudge Theory, and Two Dimensions of Forgiveness’ in Everett L. Worthington, ed., Dimensions of Forgiveness: Psychological Research and Theological Perspectives (Radnor: Templeton Foundation Press, 1987), 85f. There are not only different dimensions of forgiveness, but different varieties altogether. ‘We should now refer to “forgivenesses”, to alert us to the variety of forms that forgiveness can take, and not speak of “forgiveness”, as if we are referring to one phenomenon that always takes the same form …’ Anthony Bash, Just Forgiveness: Exploring the Bible, Weighing the Issues (London: SPCK, 2011), 38.
4 The ‘With Bible’ edition frames ‘bettering oneself’ in terms of ‘being worthy’. In those terms, we can invite worthiness in our relationships. And in this way, we can offer up or dedicate our relationships to God. This fulfils our ‘priestly’ calling to perfect creation. Sometimes this is called ‘the creation mandate’. We are called to add worth to the world in innumerable ways. We can do so by turning one thing into another: grapes into wine; grain into bread; wilderness into garden [Genesis 1:28]; finances into spreadsheets; even grief into growth. We can also turn less than worthy relationships into something better when we invite worthiness.
