Jesus Is Not Colorblind

by Cole Brown
The Gospel Coalition

If you met me in the mid ’90s you would have found me walking the halls of my high school in bright purple jeans and a famous white T-shirt that read, “Love Sees No Color.” Thankfully, the clothing was a fad that quickly passed away. Unfortunately, the idea that colorblindness is a virtue still remains.

A colorblind mentality contradicts both the nature of the God we worship and also the Scriptures we treasure. It does this in at least six ways.

1. To be colorblind is to be blind to God’s image on display

One implication of Genesis 1:27 is that God’s image can’t be fully reflected by males alone or females alone. Rather, the qualities of each gender reflect a different aspect of who God is and, when brought together, offer a fuller reflection.

The same can be said of our ethnic and cultural differences. This is why Christianity can fit in any culture (since all cultures reflect God’s image imperfectly) and also why our expression of Christianity often must be adapted when transferred from one culture to another (since all cultures reflect God’s image uniquely). Thus, to be colorblind is to be willfully blind to God’s image as it is distinctly revealed in each ethnicity and culture.

2. To be colorblind is to be blind to another’s identity

Our ethnicities and cultures aren’t accidents. They’re part of God’s sovereign plan for us. They’re part of who we are, our identity. And, as Acts 17:26–27 makes clear, they also shape our life experiences according to God’s intentions.

Some use Galatians 3:28 to argue that our ethnic identity disappears once we are united to Christ. Yet this is clearly not what Paul is communicating, as he himself so deeply valued his identity as an ethnic Jew that he wrote he would rather personally be cut off from Christ than see “my people, those of my own race” without Christ (Rom. 9:2–4).

When one person tells a person of another ethnicity, “I don’t see color,” they might as well be saying, “I don’t see that part of you that is incredibly important to you and your culture, your family history, your life experience, and your personal identity.” This is the equivalent of saying, “I don’t see you”—intended or not.

3. To be colorblind is to be blind to the uniting power of the gospel

It’s ironic that so many of us want to avoid seeing our differences when God goes out of his way to call attention to our differences. Galatians 3:28, Ephesians 2:14–16, Revelation 5:9, and Revelation 7:9 are just some of the passages where God calls attention to our ethnic and cultural differences in order to demonstrate the unifying power of Christ and his gospel.

We are not the same.

We are different.

And that’s what makes our unity in Christ all the more glorious.

One of the reasons colorblindness is attractive is because part of us believes that the basis for unity is similarity. But it’s not. The basis for our unity is Christ. Our differences don’t hinder that truth; they magnify it.

If you don’t notice the differences in musical notes, you can’t hear the beauty of harmony when different notes are artfully brought together. In the same way, if you don’t notice the differences in our ethnicities, you can’t behold the beauty of the gospel when different ethnicities are powerfully brought together.

4. To be colorblind is to be blind to injustice

God is just. This doesn’t mean he’s only committed to justly judging those who perpetrate injustice (though he is); it also means he’s aware of those who suffer injustice. He is present with them in their pain. In passages such as Psalm 146 and Amos 5:21–24, it seems God even grants special favor to those society mistreats.

As people created in his image, we are to reflect the same qualities. Of course, millions of Christians take this call seriously, which is why so many are committed to fighting injustices such as sex trafficking, abortion, and issues related to homelessness.

This is good. But it’s not good enough.

Because if we are colorblind, we will by definition be incapable of seeing injustice everywhere it resides. We won’t notice that certain groups are policed, tried, or incarcerated differently than others; nor will we see the correlation between skin tone and which neighborhoods, businesses, and people our banks, real-estate agencies, or governments strategically invest and disinvest in; nor will we note the discrepancies in public education and employment opportunities that result. Seeing disparities between racial groups requires us to actually see color.

5. To be colorblind is to be unable to fight injustice

Once a race-based injustice is recognized, it requires a solution that is correspondingly race-based. Only color-conscious strategies—not colorblind strategies—can successfully address color-based inequities.

This is certainly the model we see in Acts 6:1–7. Though the categories of race as we know them hadn’t yet been invented, the early church ran into a related issue that provides insight into how Christians might handle contemporary racial injustice. The division was based on the cultural categories of Hebraic Jews and Hellenistic Jews. Hellenistic Jews observed that while the Hebraic widows were receiving the necessary financial support from the church, the Hellenistic widows were not. They were being neglected despite the fact that Hellenistic Jews contributed to the church just like Hebraic Jews.

The apostles didn’t respond to this injustice with a culture-blind (or, for our purposes, colorblind) solution. They appointed seven Spirit-filled men to ensure both groups received equitable resources. And yet they didn’t randomly select just any Spirit-filled men. They intentionally chose seven Spirit-filled men who were also Hellenestic. Without question, there were Spirit-filled Hebraic Jews who could have fulfilled the job requirement. Yet the apostles chose to confront the injustice from a color-conscious perspective. They did this to bring justice where there was injustice, ensuring not only that Hellenistic widows would receive the same support as the Hebraic widows, but also that the Hellenistic community as a whole would have power and influence within the church.

6. To be colorblind is to be missionally ineffective

Paying attention to the categories of ethnicity and culture is key to being an effective missionary. Paul describes this famously in 2 Corinthians 9:19–23, where he explains that he became a Jew to the Jews, and one without the law to those without the law, so that “by all means [he] might save some.” The distinction between the Jews and those not under the law isn’t merely religious; it’s also ethnic. Those “not having the law” were Gentiles, a catch-all ethnic category for those who weren’t ethnic Jews.

Thus, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul is saying that he not only notices ethnic differences, but also that those ethnic differences guide his gospel ministry to each respective group. This isn’t racism. This is the exact opposite of racism. Paul so values those of other ethnicities and so recognizes their unique identity that he gladly lays aside his own identity to make the message comprehensible and compelling to those who aren’t like him.

There is only one alternative to this approach. If we don’t intentionally adapt to those who aren’t like us to ensure the gospel is heard, we will require that others adapt to us to hear the gospel. It’s clear which approach most accurately reflects the image of the God who laid aside his privileges and came for those unlike him.

That shirt I wore in the ’90s said “Love Sees No Color,” but our Bible says just the opposite. Let us love the way our barrier-crossing Savior loves us.

Seven Things to Pray for Your Children

by Jon Bloom
Desiring God Blog

Some years back a good friend shared with me seven Scripture texts that he and his wife prayed for their two daughters from the time they were infants. The girls are now grown. And it’s beautiful to see how God has answered and still is answering the faithful, specific prayers of faith-filled parents in the lives of these young, godly women.

I have frequently used these prayers when praying for my own children. And I commend them to you.

But, of course, prayers are not magic spells. It’s not a matter of just saying the right things and our children will be blessed with success.

Some parents earnestly pray and their children become gifted leaders or scholars or musicians or athletes. Others earnestly pray and their children develop a serious disability or disease or wander through a prodigal wilderness or just struggle more than others socially or academically or athletically. And the truth is, God is answering all these parents’ prayers, but for very different purposes.

That’s why Scriptures like John 9:1–3 are in the Bible. We must not too quickly assess God’s purposes because they can be the opposite of our perceptions. God measures success differently than we do, which is why he often answers our prayers in ways we don’t expect.

So, pray for your children. Jesus promises us that if we ask, seek, and knock, the Father will give us good in return (Luke 11:9–13), even if the good isn’t apparent for forty years. And because Jesus regularly asked those who came to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51), we know that he wants us to be specific with our requests.

So, here are seven helpful, specific things to pray for your children.

1. That Jesus will call them and no one will hinder them from coming.

Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away. (Matthew 19:13–15)

2. That they will respond in faith to Jesus’s faithful, persistent call.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

3. That they will experience sanctification through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit and will increasingly desire to fulfill the greatest commandments.

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37–39)

4. That they will not be unequally yoked in intimate relationships, especially marriage.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)

5. That their thoughts will be pure.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:8)

6. That their hearts will be stirred to give generously to the Lord’s work.

All the men and women, the people of Israel, whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done brought it as a freewill offering to the Lord. (Exodus 35:29)

7. That when the time is right, they will GO!

And Jesus came and said to 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.” (Matthew 28:18–20)

The Real Reason You Love Music

by Gavin Ortlund
The Gospel Coalition

I love music. I have more than 500 CDs of Dave Matthews Band concerts, and I have vivid memories of specific moments in my life listening to them. For example, I remember listening to the long buildup of “Seek Up” in June 2004, while driving to a dinner event at the church I was working at in Chattanooga. It is burned into my memory as if it were yesterday.

Many of us have similar memories. When we think about favorite music—whether classical or country, Beethoven or Bono—we have memories and associations that touch on the deepest emotions and experiences of life.

Recently I wondered: Why? As someone who studies theology, I’m interested in the philosophy of music. What does music mean? Is it merely pleasant—“auditory cheesecake,” as Steven Pinker puts it—or does it actually have a significance that corresponds to its effect on us?

As a thought experiment, here are two different ways to answer this question.

1. In a nihilistic worldview, music is like an opiate to a dying man.

Neuroscientists note that music accesses the same parts of the brain as sex, food, and addictive drugs. At the same time, they recognize that there is no obvious evolutionary basis for our enjoyment of music (as there conceivably is, for instance, with food, sex, and sleep). It’s not clear how music could help our ancestors survive. So, from an evolutionary standpoint, why do we like it?

One of the most popular theories on the market says it’s all about anticipation: the brain expects what is coming next, and gets dopamine when it’s right. In other words, it’s about pattern recognition. Another hypothesis is that music mirrors speech, and thus essentially fools our brains into reacting the way we react to speech (in which we often mirror the emotions of the person speaking). These ways of trying to explain music all approach it as essentially what Stephen Jay Gould called an “evolutionary spandrel”—something not directly the result of an adaptive process, but rather its byproduct. It’s a kind of “spin off” of evolution. In other words: it’s an accident.

Most of us find these explanations deeply unsatisfying, even if they tell part of the story. Just listen to this and try to imagine: I only like this because it helped animals survive. If the tides had rolled in differently, I might not like it.



Beautiful music like this communicates a sense of transcendence and significance. Music whispers, I mean something. I am telling you about something Profound and Beautiful. But meaning and transcendence are, of course, precisely what a nihilistic worldview disallows. Thus, when nihilism is confronted by the power conveyed through, say, the work of Hans Zimmer, it must ultimately interpret this experience as illusory.

If reality is blind and indifferent, and human life is ultimately meaningless and insignificant, then music is, in a way, deceiving you. It is like an opiate: its value is numbing you, directing you away from reality.

2. If a Trinity spawned the world, music is like a window to a man in a cellar.

One way to define music is an organized combination of melody, harmony, and rhythm. But surely this can’t encapsulate all music means, any more than love simply means chemicals in the brain, or time means the noises of a clock. What is the essence of music?

If a triune God created the world as a work of art—not out of necessity, but out of love and freedom—then music can be understood, along with everything beautiful in the world, as a faint reflection of the pre-temporal glory of God. It is a tiny echo of what was happening before time and space.
                                                 
Viewed in this way, music is not a distraction away from reality, but rather a clue toward it. It is not like an opiate to a man on his deathbed, but like a window to a man in a cellar—a light shining into the darkness, revealing something beyond. In this respect I associate music with art, reason, and sex. They are like little windows through which transcendence touches our lives, whispering to us of a world we have never dreamed.

Something of this worldview is implicit in Johann Sebastian Bach’s famous quip: “I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.” This is an eloquent way of expressing a non-physicalist view of music. It’s more than the notes. It’s something God is doing through the notes.

A friend recently reminded me that J. R. R. Tolkien portrayed the world’s creation in The Silmarillion as, essentially, a work of music:

Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lyres, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words began to fashion the theme of Iluvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.

What effects the transition from the “Void” to a state of “not void” is, basically, harmony. And Tolkien portrays the intrusion of evil as a kind of discord and monotonous unity, with Melkor’s desire for self-glory producing a “clamorous unison as of many trumpets braving upon a few notes.”

What does all this mean? Perhaps not that music proves God (though that may also be true, for all I know—smarter philosophers than I, like this one or this one, have used aesthetic considerations to further theism). What I am saying is more like this: If you believe in God, you have a framework for enjoying music that is more satisfying to heart and mind, and more authentic to the actual experience of that enjoyment.

So imagine that man in the cellar. It’s dark. Stuffy. He has no clue what the outside world is like. He has never seen redwood trees soaring into the sky, or thundering cascading waterfalls, or the night sky lit up with stars. He knows nothing of this. But he can look up and see the light pouring in through the window, and sense that there “must be something more.”

What if music, and the nostalgic stab of longing it provokes, is like that window? What if we are the man in the cellar?

Lost in Space

By William Lane Craig
Reasonable Faith

Q:
Dear Dr. Craig,

I am having difficulty bringing myself to earnestly believe in Christianity. I have believed in the past with the intensity of a zealot, but of late I look to the stars and find that I cannot bring myself to truly believe in Christ as God. I believe in God, and I rationally believe this God to be one, but I cannot believe that God could truly concern himself with us in this way, that He would dangle the heavens above our heads and deny us from reaching them. The earth is a speck in a galaxy that is naught but a speck in the void, a void we can never reach or explore. We are certainly not alone in the universe. How can I believe, not in a personal God, but in a God that is focused on humanity? It feels as though all is in flux, and that I am only riding the currents of society which is lain on subjective ground. All in this modern age is subjective, and if mankind is not alone in the universe then all that we are is subjective as well. If that makes sense. I was truly happy when I believed, and I truly want to. Belief in some vague 'deity' is no help to me however. I seek Christ but I am pulled away. What am I to do, Dr. Craig? You're a much smarter man than I am. Your thoughts on this could help me greatly.

My deepest thanks,
Tom

United States

***
A:
Tom, I resonate with how you feel. When I look at photographs revealing to us the incomprehensible immensity of the universe and our virtually infinitesimal tininess by comparison, I feel almost overwhelmed by our utter insignificance. A sort of vertigo sets in, with  an attendant loss of confidence in human significance.

But it’s clear that this reaction to our physical size relative to the cosmos is purely emotional. Rationally, one of the implications of the study of the fine-tuning of the universe for embodied, conscious agents like ourselves is that the universe must be as old as it is in order for us to have evolved. For the heavy elements like carbon that compose our bodies need to be forged in the interior of the stars and then distributed throughout the cosmos by supernovae explosions in order to form planets where carbon-based life forms may come to exist. But now think: if the universe must be as old as it is, then, since it has been constantly expanding since its inception in the Big Bang, it must also be as big as it is. Thus, far from undercutting the significance of human life, the enormous size of the cosmos is actually a function of human life!  Unbelievable! The very size of the cosmos which dwarfs us is actually testimony to the Creator’s care for us, to fine-tune a universe suitable for our existence.

Moreover, maybe we are not alone in the cosmos. That we are, indeed, alone in the universe may be the almost inevitable conclusion on naturalism, but on theism—which is implied by the origin and fine-tuning of the universe—it’s not at all improbable that the Creator has created embodied, conscious agents throughout the cosmos. If they, too, have fallen into sin, then God will have a plan for their salvation as well—who knows, perhaps even multiple incarnations of the cosmic Christ! If the second person of the Trinity can assume a human nature in addition to his divine nature, then why not also multiple natures? The vast and perhaps unbridgeable distances separating intelligent life forms may actually be a manifestation of God’s mercy. The record of homo sapiens on this planet is pretty appalling. It may be a really good thing that extraterrestrial life forms are safely sequestered from homo sapiens as we launch out into space, lest the contagion of our violence and evil spread.

Such moral considerations prompt an additional point: a thing’s moral worth is not measured by its physical size. I recall the great philosopher Frederick Copleston once commenting that a single human person is worth more than the entire physical universe put together. That is self-evidently true: a moral agent like a human person has intrinsic moral value, whereas mere matter and radiation, no matter how much of it, is morally neutral, having no intrinsic value. This point alone changes everything. One little girl or boy outranks the cosmos in terms of moral worth. So why shouldn’t God be concerned? What does size matter?

Moreover, why not take the enormity of the cosmos to redound to the majesty and greatness of the God who created it? I think of God like a cosmic artist extravagantly splashing His canvas with colors and shapes that may serve no practical purpose but are aesthetically beautiful. He isn’t playing with us by “dangl[ing] the heavens above our heads and deny[ing] us from reaching them.” No, He’s putting on a show! And as mankind probes the mysteries of the cosmos, we come to see more and more the beauty and grandeur of the mind which created it. We need not be able to achieve intergalactic space travel in order to study the depths of the cosmos scientifically and to learn its laws and marvels. Aren’t you glad all this is out there for us to probe?  I am!

So I don’t see how the daunting size of the cosmos does anything rationally to undermine belief in the incarnation. Scripture has always emphasized what enormous act of condescension this was on Christ’s part, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2.6-8). That point is only driven home by what we’ve talked about.

Your final reflections, Tom, on the subjectivity of modern society are even more beside the point. You’re thinking like a naturalist, not like a theist, who has an objective basis for what we believe. I think you need to shake yourself loose of the non-rational, emotional way in which you’re reacting to the size of the cosmos and think rationally about it. Perhaps you need to review the evidence for Jesus and his resurrection. Then the size of the cosmos may actually lead you to praise and worship of God and Christ.

- William Lane Craig

Does God Know How a Pineapple Tastes?

by William Lane Craig
Reasonable Faith

Q:
Dr. Craig,

I have recently been studying Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument. As you know, it suggests that there is a kind of knowledge that is a posteriori -- an experiential knowledge that cannot be had until the relevant experience is had. This kind of knowledge is usually described as a "what it is like" kind of knowledge. As Locke points out, I can only know what the taste of pineapple is like when I have actually tasted pineapple. I tend to agree with this intuition concerning knowledge. But, it raises a few questions for me regarding God's omniscience: 1. If God is omniscient (and I believe He is), how do we account for His having this kind of a posteriori knowledge? Should we conclude that God could have this knowledge without experience because of His infinite cognitive abilities as compared to our finite abilities? 2. Does the statement of the Hebrews penman in Hebrews 5:8: "Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered;" have any bearing on this question? Does this verse teach that Jesus, though God, gained experiential knowledge by taking human form? If so, would this imply that God lacked this kind of knowledge prior to Jesus' becoming flesh? 3. Does God know what it is like for a sinner to revel in sin or to desire to sin? Could He know that feeling without feeling that feeling? 4. Could God have been justified in creating man if He did not first have this "what it is like" (intentional) knowledge? Thank you for your work. It has been a tremendous help to my faith!

Nathan

United States

***
A:
These are difficult questions, Nathan, which we discuss in my class on divine omniscience.

Divine omniscience is defined in terms of propositional knowledge, e.g., for any proposition p, if p, then God knows that p and does not believe not-p.  Such a definition is meant to capture the intuitive idea that God knows all truths and believes no falsehoods. This kind of knowledge is knowledge “that ____.”

By contrast the kind of knowledge you are talking about (what it is like) is non-propositional knowledge.  It is not true or false. For example, knowing how a pineapple tastes is not true or false and so is non-propositional. There is something to be known here, but it is not a truth.

Omniscience, being defined in terms of propositional knowledge, does not require God to have non-propositional knowledge. He must know all truths about how a pineapple tastes, e.g., that a pineapple tastes tart, that a pineapple tastes refreshing, etc., but He needn’t have non-propositional knowledge of how a pineapple tastes.

It once seemed to me that God does not have the sort of non-propositional knowledge you describe because He lacks the requisite experiences. But then I got to thinking about a remark by David Lewis that there must be some sort of mental state that someone who is experiencing the taste of a watermelon is in. You could be in such a mental state without actually eating the watermelon. So why, it occurred to me, couldn’t God put Himself into such a mental state so as to know how a watermelon tastes?  It seems to me that this is clearly possible. In that case God could have non-propositional knowledge of tastes, colors, feels, sounds, etc., in addition to His propositional knowledge of such things. God’s greatness is thereby exalted, for it turns out that God’s cognitive excellence is even greater than omniscience!

So in answer to your questions:

1. “If God is omniscient, how do we account for His having this kind of a posteriori knowledge?” God’s non-propositional knowledge is not a function of His omniscience. His omniscience gives Him all propositional knowledge. If He has as well non-propositional knowledge such as you describe, it will be a function of His ability to assume the same mental state as someone having such an experience. Does God have “this knowledge without experience”? Yes and no; He can have the experience of tasting a pineapple but without actually eating a pineapple or having taste buds. Is this because of “His infinite cognitive abilities as compared to our finite abilities?” No, we can imagine a neuroscientist’s stimulating a person’s brain such that the person is put into a mental state of tasting a pineapple. God could do this Himself at will.  Of course, to have the unlimited range of non-propositional knowledge you’re thinking of, God’s cognitive abilities must be infinite.

2. “Does the statement in Hebrews 5:8: "Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered;" have any bearing on this question?” No, because in this case we’re talking about knowledge which the incarnate Son had in his human nature. Jesus obviously knew, e.g., what roast lamb tastes like. But I’m suggesting that such non-propositional knowledge may not be limited to the Son. Moreover, “learning obedience” isn’t a matter of acquiring non-propositional knowledge; it’s an idiom for the moral sanctification of his human nature.

3. “Does God know what it is like for a sinner to revel in sin or to desire to sin? Could He know that feeling without feeling that feeling?” As explained, I once doubted that God has this sort of non-propositional knowledge, since it is impossible for Him to sin.  He could know every truth about how sinners feel, but He would not know how it feels to revel in sin. But now I’m inclined to think that God could have such non-propositional knowledge.  For there is surely a mental state had by someone reveling in sin, and by putting Himself in that mental state God could know just how such a person feels. God would not Himself revel in sin or desire sin, but He would know how someone who does feels.

4. “Could God have been justified in creating man if He did not first have this ‘what it is like’ knowledge?” Well, why not? Why wouldn’t propositional knowledge be enough, in particular, knowledge of all true counterfactual propositions concerning creaturely free choices (middle knowledge)?

- William Lane Craig

How to Cultivate Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride on Your Team

by David DeSteno
Harvard Business Review

As a leader, what traits should you cultivate in your employees? Grit – the ability to persevere in the face of challenges? Sure. A willingness to accept some sacrifices and work hard toward a successful future are essential for the members of any team. But I believe there’s another component that matters just as much: grace. I don’t mean the ability to move elegantly or anything religious. Rather, I mean qualities of decency, respect, and generosity, all of which mark a person as someone with whom others want to cooperate.

Consider the results of Google’s Project Oxygen, a multiyear research initiative designed to identify the manager qualities that enhanced a team’s success. What they found is that yes, driving a team to be productive and results-oriented mattered, but so did being even-keeled, making times for one-on-one meetings, working with a team in the trenches to solve problems, and taking an interest in employees’ social lives. In fact, these “character” qualities outranked sheer drive and technical expertise when it came to predicting success.

This makes sense. Innovation typically requires team effort. Expertise has to be combined to solve problems, necessitating cooperation. And cooperation requires a willingness to share credit and support one another as opposed to always striving to take credit for oneself.

So as a manager, what’s the best way to instill grit and grace in your team? My research shows that it’s about cultivating three specific emotions: gratitude, compassion, and pride.

These three emotions not only increase patience and perseverance, but also build social bonds. For most of human evolutionary history, the ability to succeed rested almost entirely on the ability to form relationships. People needed to be honest, fair, and diligent – qualities that required a willingness to inhibit selfish desires to profit at the expense of others. And it was moral emotions like gratitude, compassion, and an authentic pride that motivated these actions. For example, research has shown that when people feel grateful, they’re willing to devote more effort to help others, to be loyal even at a cost to themselves, and to split profits equally with partners rather than take more money for themselves. When they feel compassion, they’re willing to devote time, effort, and money to aid others. And when they feel proud – an authentic pride based on their abilities as opposed to a hubristic one – they’ll work harder to help colleagues solve problems. And all of these behaviors draw others to us. People who express gratitude, compassion, and pride are viewed positively by those around them.

These emotions also build grit. They increase the value people place on future goals relative to present ones, and thereby pave the way to perseverance. Work from my lab, for example, shows that people induced to feel grateful show double the patience when it comes to financial rewards. They’re twice as willing to forgo an immediate smaller profit so that they can invest it for a longer-term gain. In a similar vein, people made to feel pride or compassion are willing to persevere more than 30% longer on challenging tasks compared to those feeling other positive emotions, such as happiness, precisely because pride and compassion induce them to place greater value on future rewards.

Unlike using willpower to keep your nose to the grindstone, using these emotions also helps solve an increasingly common problem of professional life: loneliness. Today, loneliness has become an epidemic in the U.S., with 53% of American workers regularly reporting feeling isolated in their public lives — an immense problem given the toll loneliness takes on the both physical and mental health. Regularly feeling gratitude, compassion, and pride — because these emotions automatically make people behave in more communal and supportive ways — builds social connections. For example, people assigned to engage in simple interventions to feel and express gratitude show enhanced feelings of social connection and relationship satisfaction over time.

Because of the connection between these emotions and grit and social connection, managers who cultivate gratitude, compassion, and pride in their team will see increased productivity and wellbeing of their workers. As one example, Adam Grant and Francesca Gino examined perseverance in an environment that is rife with more rejection than almost any other: fundraising. Over a two-week period, they recorded the number of calls fundraisers made in an effort to solicit donations for a university. Between the first and second week, however, half of the fundraisers received a visit from the university’s director of annual giving, during which she expressed her appreciation for their work. To get a sense of how this expression of gratitude affected the fundraisers, Gino and Grant had them report how valued and appreciated they felt by their superiors.

Whereas the average performance of both groups had been virtually the same during the first week of the study, those who had heard the grateful message upped their fundraising efforts by 50% during the second week. What’s particularly interesting here is the way the benefits of gratitude and pride can feed off one another. In another study on fundraisers, Grant and Amy Wrzesniewski found that the gratitude managers expressed toward their employees stoked the employees’ pride, which in turn, bolstered their efforts.

Compassion, too, builds dedication. Surveying over 200 people working in different units within a large long-term care facility, Sigal Barsade and Mandy O’Neil found that those who worked in units characterized by higher feelings of social attachment, trust, acceptance, and support — a composite that could easily be called empathy and compassion — not only showed superior performance and engagement, but also increased work satisfaction, less exhaustion, and lower absenteeism.

Gratitude, compassion, and pride make us more willing to cooperate with and invest in others. But because they accomplish this feat by increasing the value the mind places on future gains, they also nudge us to invest in our own futures. In so doing, they make both teams, and the individuals who comprise them, more successful and resilient.

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David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and the author of Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride.

God’s Call to Leave This American Mess

by John Piper
desiringGod.org

What does the present political climate in America have to do with world evangelization?

Recently I preached a message on the Great Commission as part of the annual missions focus at Bethlehem Baptist Church. During the first service Sunday morning, I said something in particular that I had not said in the other two services. I regularly pray, when I preach, that the Holy Spirit will bring things to my mind that may not be in the sermon notes, but may be powerfully appointed for someone in the audience. This is one way I think about the gift of prophecy.

I was acknowledging that leaving America, with all its comforts and securities, may be hard for some of you who are being called by God to be part of the thousands who will teach the nations to observe “all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). Then, quite outside my notes, I said, “But then again, some of you may be looking for a reason to leave America, the mess is so great.” I smiled. People laughed.

At that point, instead of returning to my notes, I felt impelled to press in on that, and what came to my mind was that God has used messes and stresses before to move his people out of their comforts into missions. I mentioned the situation in Acts 8.

Really Bad at Home

Jesus had told the apostles in Acts 1:8, just before he ascended to heaven, that he was going to send the Holy Spirit to empower them to be his witnesses “in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

But so far as we see in the book of Acts, no one had budged out of Jerusalem by the beginning of chapter 8 — let alone made their way to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.

What was God’s way of getting his people moving out of their homeland into world missions? Answer: It got really bad at home.

Stephen was one of the greatest spokesmen for the Christian faith in Jerusalem. The leaders “could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking” (Acts 6:10). So, they killed him.

The result?

There arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. . . . Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. (Acts 8:1, 4)

Thus the global mission of the Christian church was launched. It had to get so dangerous at home that Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth finally looked feasible.
That’s what I said in the first service at Bethlehem and then returned to my notes.

Disillusioned About America

Whether that was a word of “prophecy” for a particular person in that service, I am not sure. But I write about it here because I believe it is so relevant to this moment in our history, as thousands of young people wonder about the future of America. Many voting-age young people are disillusioned and perplexed about this country’s political climate. There are no heroes. No great statesmen. No champions of a vision worth living and dying for.

What God showed me in that moment is that he has a great calling for his people in this very moment of American history — this very messy, muddy, demoralizing moment. His calling is that we lift up our eyes.

First, lift them up to his triumphant, all-commanding smile as he says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18).

Then, lift them up far beyond the little scope of American politics to all the nations and all the peoples of the world, and look with joy at the all-authoritative promise:

      All the ends of the earth shall remember  
            and turn to the Lord,   
      and all the families of the nations  
            shall worship before you.   
      For kingship belongs to the Lord,  
            and he rules over the nations. (Psalm 22:27–28)

Then, lift them up above the pathetic inability of political figures to answer straightforward questions. Lift them up against the incapacity of politicians who will not let their “Yes” be “Yes” and their “No” be “No.”

Let your eyes land on the crystal clear, uncompromising, unchanging command: “Go, in my complete authority, to make disciples of all the peoples of the world. Bring them to faith. Baptize them. Teach them to live in accord with everything I taught you. I will be with you always, to the end of the age.”

The Moment for Missions

Every moment is a moment for world missions. Because Jesus reigns at every moment. And his commission stands at every moment. But some moments are like a thunderclap of awakening to reality. America is not our home. Political power is not our strategy. Privilege and political freedom in this age is not the birthright of the new birth. “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).

If God must wake us up by means of disillusioning developments at “home,” it may or may not mean that there is a bright future for America. But it certainly means this: God has far greater purposes for the worship of his Son, Jesus Christ, among the nations of this world than can be hindered by anything that happens in America.

Indeed. Not only will our mess not hinder his mission. I am calling thousands of Jesus’s followers to hear in it a call to the nations, just like the believers in Acts 8 saw God’s hand in the catastrophe in Jerusalem. They didn’t just leave. They left on mission. “Those who were scattered went about preaching the word” (Acts 8:4).

Lift Up Your Eyes

If this sounds like a call to abandon a sinking ship, consider this:

1. There are thousands of other ships (peoples) whose sinking condition is a thousand times more dire than America’s. Many of them have no access to the truth that millions in America hear and squander.

2. God knows exactly who should stay and who should go. All the inertia is for staying. I am lifting my voice for going. There is not one chance in a million that too many will go. I hope you will be one of them.

3. God’s method of making America well may be utterly different from the calculations which prioritize staying over going. Giving, losing, dying, and leaving are his way of getting, gaining, living, and arriving home. My own guess would be that if America gave 100,000 twenty-somethings and seventy-somethings (and a few in between) to the unreached peoples, God would rise up and clean this house.

For my own part, there are few moments when I feel more alive than when I am working for the cause of world missions. Preaching during Bethlehem’s missions focus was a huge privilege. Being a part of founding the CROSS student missions conference is one of the greatest privileges of my life. Writing this article makes my spine tingle with expectation and hope.

If you are discouraged, personally or politically, join me in lifting up your eyes. Christ has all authority over the world. His mission will be finished. Join him in it. Light will dawn in your heart.