Randy Alcorn

Giving infuses life with joy. It interjects an eternal dimension into even the most ordinary day. That’s just one reason you couldn’t pay me enough not to give. The joy Nanci and I experience comes in envisioning what God is doing in people’s lives for eternity through what we’ve given to Him.

Some crises turn out well. The loved one recovers from the accident, the son comes to Christ, the daughter comes home. We may clearly see God’s hand in allowing the whole ordeal to happen. Other times the crisis ends in apparent tragedy.

I spent a few hours with Carol King (see picture), who was dying of cancer. She joked that imminent death had changed her shopping habits.

Let me first say, before I speculate, what I know for sure. As I’m sure you know, Scripture teaches that it is God that opens and closes the womb, and that children are a blessing of the Lord (Psalm 127).

An orthodox understanding of the deity of Christ compels us to say he could not have failed in his mission. Indeed, if he could have failed, he is not all powerful and therefore he was not and is not God.

The Treasure Principle: You can’t take it with you, but... you can send it on ahead.

Yes clearly God did know, but ultimately he also knew he would be more glorified and the universe itself would be a better place and God’s people redeemed would be better after being redeemed, and after the curse is lifted.

There is little we can do about the sins others do to us, other than forgive them. There is much we can do about our sins against God and others—confess and repent and embrace the forgiveness of God and call on his power to live differently.

This is the course syllabus for Contemporary Social Ethics.