America’s Greatest Missionary?
- Posted by Steve K. on January 14th, 2008 filed in Mission(s)
- 2 Comments »
Bill Gates is back in the news this week with the posting of his “official retirement video.” I was reminded of a blog post from last year by Bob Roberts Jr., which suggested Bill Gates was “America’s Greatest Missionary.”
According to Roberts, “Just about the time we would ’spiritualize’ and ‘missionalize’ all humanitarian behavior as ‘Christian,’ someone like Bill and Melinda Gates comes along and winds up putting all of us to shame. (Of course, most of us don’t have their millions and billions to do stuff with.) They are, no doubt, being ‘incarnational’ with people that are hurting and I would say they are definitely living a ‘missional’ life compared to most wealthy Christians. Undoubtedly, they would also want to ‘transform’ certain realities.
“This forces us to ask the question, what makes our work different—really different?”
Roberts concludes, “I think the difference lies in the process and what we believe is the end game.”
Read the whole thing and let’s join Bob in praying for Bill Gates!
January 14th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
BINGO! “end game” is it. I was going to say, if giving lots of money makes you missional, Bill Gates is going to be sitting next to God in heaven, along with Warren Buffet, and most of us will be lucky to even make it to heaven if that’s how we’re all going to be scaled. But the reality is that their work means little without Christ. We are commanded to look after the orphans and the widows, without any other suggested purpose other than to look after their well being, as they are not able to do this alone, at least back in those days.
Back on track… It’s actually kind of sad to know that so much finances are going to something which has no eternal value. I was just talking to my sister today about how many people there may be out there who are planning to give to my wife and I on a monthly basis, but just haven’t started yet. If they would all take the minute to sit down and set it up, we might be on the field months earlier, having impact ‘today’ instead of ‘tomorrow.’
January 25th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Gates’ newest venture, sustainable farming… with Bono of course…
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/01/25/davos.main/index.html?eref=rss_world