Engaging God's World Summary

Cornelius Plantinga Jr. made me ask myself a lot of questions while reading his book Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living. My first question was how am I going to read a book about Calvinism, when I’m not exactly sure what Calvinism is? To say I was skeptical of this book is an understatement. My thoughts have always been that people believe and view things differently and that's ok. It may be the way they were raised or someone that came into their life and showed them something different. I believe that as long as we all agree that there is only one God and he created us therefore, we should live our lives according to His purpose, then the rest of that “stuff” can be what it is, just stuff. I found …show more content…
We must serve our awesome God. When God came to earth as a man, Jesus, he didn’t just enjoy it, he worked, he served others. There are so many examples in the Bible of serving others. 1 Peter 4:10, Matthew 20:28, Proverbs 11:25, 1 Corinthians 9:19. My favorite two verses that explain servantship so well are Acts 20:35, “.... It is more blessed to give than receive” and Luke 6:38, “...For the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” We as mankind are selfish creatures, and that is not how God created us in the beginning to be, sin caused us to become selfish. God created us to love one another and to carry each other's burdens ergo we must serve each other and our God. Plantinga puts it this way: “According to God’s intelligence, the way to thrive is to help others to thrive; the way to flourish is to cause others to flourish; the way to fulfill yourself is to spend yourself” (pg. 22). Look at a husband and wife relationship… when one is serving the other (without the expectation of a counteraction), does that relationship not flourish? Is there not peace within in the home when this is happening? We were each created with a purpose, and when we serve others without the intention of reciprocation, we are closer to being what God made us. Which is exactly what Ephesians 2:10 says, we were created for …show more content…
I truly believe that to understand this world, we must review the three important things that happened with mankind: we were created, we failed and God offers redemption to us. I also believe that in order to fulfill our own purpose of why God created us, we must have a servant attitude. Serving others is serving God himself since He is the creator of everything we see. And lastly, I believe that every human being on this earth has the potential to be redeemed by God. To be redeemed, that person needs only to ask and then follow God. These statements have helped me to push past the first layer of my relationship that I have with God and dive deeper into the things that I need to know, understand and do to strengthen my relationship with Him