Transcript Chapter 1 An Overview of Managerial Finance

The Call
Os Guinness
1998
Chapters 1-9
Introduction
 “…truth does matter, all claims have
consequences, and contrast is the
mother of clarity.” (p. viii)
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Introduction
 The “Big Three” Answers
 1. The Eastern Answer
 2. The Secularist Answer
 3. The Biblical Answer
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Introduction
 1. The Eastern Answer
 Hinduism and Buddhism
 “…freedom is not freedom to be an
individual but freedom from individuality—
through detachment and renunciation by
one path or another” (p. viii)
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Introduction
 2. The Secularist Answer
 Includes atheists, agnostics, naturalists,
and humanists
 “We don’t discover it [purpose]—we
decide it.” (p. ix)
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Introduction
 3. The Biblical Answer
 Common to Christians and Jews
 The major force that defines purpose that is
characteristic in Western civilizations.
 Final reality is not:
 chance
 an impersonal ground of being
 Final reality is:
 an infinite, personal, creator God in whose image we
are created and with whom we are called to have a
relationship.
 Our Purpose is “who we are created to be and who we
are called to be” (p. ix)
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The Ultimate Way (Chapter 1)
 3 Factors of the Search for Significance
 One of our deepest issues
 We can live purposeful lives
 Thwarted by no consensus of what the
purpose of life is
(p. 3)
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The Ultimate Way (Chapter 1)
 Knowing who we are NOT is a first step
in knowing who we ARE
(p. 6)
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Seekers Sought (Chapter 2)
 True Seekers
 They have a sense of purpose and
idealism
 Something has caused them to look for
the answers
(p. 10)
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Seekers Sought (Chapter 2)
 True Seekers
 4 Perspectives
 The pursuit is the end
 Desire is evil
 Eros
 Agape
(pp. 11-14)
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Seekers Sought (Chapter 2)
 God is the Bridge
(p. 14)
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Seekers Sought (Chapter 2)
 Seekers and Sought
(p. 16)
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The Haunting Question (Chapter 3)
 Our own identity
 Responsibility
(p. 18-19)
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The Haunting Question (Chapter 3)
 Calling
 “The notion of calling, or vocation, is vital
to each of us because it touches on the
modern search for a basis for individual
identity and an understanding of
humanness itself” (p. 20)
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The Haunting Question (Chapter 3)
 Human Individuality
 “constrained to be”
 “the courage to be”
 “constituted to be”
 “called to be”
(p. 21-26)
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Everyone, Everywhere, Everything (Ch 4)
 “Calling is the truth that God calls us to
himself so decisively that everything
we are, everything we do, and
everything we have is invested with a
special devotion, dynamism, and
direction lived out as a response to his
summons and service” (p. 29)
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4 Essential Strands of “Calling”
 In the Old Testament
 1. calling has a simple, straightforward
meaning of to communicate
 2. “to call” = to name = to make
 In the New Testament
 3. calling = salvation
 4. calling = discipleship
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Primary and Secondary callings
 Primary Calling
 “. . . as followers of Christ is by him, to
him, and for him” (p. 31)
 Secondary Calling
 “. . . considering who God is as sovereign,
is that everyone, everywhere, and in
everything should think, speak, live, and
act entirely for him” (p. 31)
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The challenge
 1. Hold the two ideas of primary and
secondary calling together
 2. Keep them in the right order:
primary calling comes first
 Distortions:
 The Catholic Distortion
 The Protestant Distortion
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The Catholic Distortion
 The “two-tier” view of life
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spiritual dualism: spiritual is better than secular
elitism
higher versus lower
sacred versus secular
perfect versus permitted
contemplation versus action
 Only “full-time Christian ministers” have a calling
 Monasticism
 from reforming mission to relaxing effect
 Abraham Kuyper:
 “There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which
Jesus Christ does not cry out, ‘This is mine! This belongs to me!’”
(p. 35)
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By Him, to Him, for Him (Ch 5)
 Studs Terkel, Working:
 Found that most people “live somewhere
between a grudging acceptance of their
job and an active dislike for it” (p. 36)
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The Protestant Distortion
 Secular form of dualism
 Elevates the secular at the expense of the
spiritual
 calling = vocation = work = trade = employment
= occupation
 “The original demand that each Christian should
have a calling was boiled down to the demand
that each citizen should have a job” (p. 39)
 Work is entirely good => the Protestant work
ethic
 the problem: the notion of “calling” without a
foundation in the Caller
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Do What You Are (Chapter 6)
 “God normally calls us along the line of our
giftedness, but the purpose of giftedness is
stewardship and service, not selfishness” (p. 45)
 “To make the choice of career or profession on
selfish grounds, without a true sense of calling, is
‘probably the greatest single sin any young person
can commit, for it is the deliberate withdrawal from
allegiance to God of the greatest part of time and
strength’” (p. 46)
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John Cotton’s 3 criteria for choosing a
job
 1. Warrantable calling – for our own
and the public good
 2. We are gifted for the job
 3. We are guided toward it by God
“Giftedness that is ‘ours for others’ is
therefore not selfishness but service
that is perfect freedom” (p. 47)
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Key distinctions to remember
 1. the individual/particular call versus the
corporate/general call
 2. our original, ordinary calling versus a
later, special calling
 3. central to the calling versus peripheral to
the calling
 4. clarity of calling versus the mystery of
calling
 Soren Kierkegaard: life is lived forward but
understood backward (p. 52)
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A time to stand (ch 7)
 “the church’s deepest challenge is . . .
spiritual and theological and comes to a head
where behavior expresses belief and deeds
express words” (p. 57)
 “Calling is certainly a truth that touches our
personal lives intimately, but it also touches
cultural life potently. Calling is more than
purely cultural, but it is also more than
purely personal” (p. 58)
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Let God be God (ch 8)
 The revealed truth: “I am who I am”
 “Words are the deepest, fullest expression in
which God now discloses himself to us,
beginning which his calling us. So it is in
listening to him, trusting him, and obeying
him when he calls that we ‘let God be God’ in
all of his awe and majesty” (p. 64)
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The dimensions of God’s primary call
 There are always two dimensions to
the call:
 Summons and invitation
 Law and grace
 Demand and offer
 “Disciples are not so much those who
follow as those who must follow” (p.
65)
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The Audience of One (Ch 9)
 “A life lived listening to the decisive call
of God is a life lived before one
audience that trumps all others—the
Audience of One” (p. 70)
 Two different orientations:
 The Puritans: an “inner-directed world”
 Modern Society: “other-directed”
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General Charles Gordon
 “I live before the Audience of One.
Before others I have nothing to prove,
nothing to gain, nothing to lose” (p.
74)
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Coming up . . .
November 8: Guiness chapters 10-18
On the horizon:
11/22: Critical Essay #3 (PPT format)
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