If you have been a reader of this blog, for any period of time, you will know that I am greatly pleased to be enjoying the same Christian fellowship as Dr. Wayne Grudem.
Wayne, as he prefers to be called outside of academia, has just completed a four year journey through his best selling seminary textbook, Systematic Theology.
Graciously, as a wonderful gift to the church, across the world, this whole series is available on audio recordings here, complete with notes!
My wife and I have been missing Wayne's class, as we have been serving as Class Leaders, for Scottsdale Bible Church's Class 100, during the 9:45 hour.
Thankfully, our Class 100 has gotten so big, we had to move the time to 11:15, so that we could move to a larger classroom.
To our joy, this has now allowed us to be back in Wayne's Sunday School Class.
Having completed his Systematic Theology, Wayne has embarked on 4 week series, sharing with us a project that he is working on with Dr. Barry Asmus, entitled "Harnessing the Power of God's Truth to Transform Nations".
During the next four weeks, Wayne will be sharing with us 50 factors, within nations, that lead to sustained economic growth, or continual poverty.
This is quite a departure from his Systematic Theology, but fascinating nonetheless. Here are a few very interesting tidbits from today's class:
- Until 1500 A.D. there existed, in the world, almost zero economic growth.
- Martin Luther's reformation changed all this! Frankly, I would have never put that one together. But you must listen to his reasoning's.
- From 1500-1750, economic growth started, and by the end of 1750 rich nations had 5 times more wealth than poor nations.
- Today, rich nations enjoy a per capita income ratio that is 400:1! Why?
Wayne believes that many of these answers may be found in God's word. Today, he contrasted rich nations, with poor nations, in the following ways:
- their belief in God, or not
- their moral accountability before God, or not.
- their society's honoring truthfulness, and honoring one's word, or not.
- their belief in good/evil, or belief that everyone is basically good.
- their belief in significant individual responsibility, or minimal individual responsibility.
It was fascinating to contemplate how Christianity, and its handed down values, has changed the world. I look forward to the following three weeks.
Here is the link to Wayne's audio message from today. I highly recommend you give it a listen. You will also find Dr. Grudem's 8 page reference material linked there as well.
