What's the difference between the G-20 and the A-100? The G-20 are meeting right now in London in a gathering of the leaders of the top economic powers on earth. Mission? Seek to build a global consensus strategy regarding the economic crisis that belts the planet. Probability of success? If media prognostications are indicative, the U.S. push for stimulus packages from the rest of the G-20 will be rejected by them, as will their push for the U.S. to join them in greater regulatory control of financial institutions. Bottom-line—the G-20 leaders will seek to at least agree to provide greater funding for the International Monetary Fund, in a show of unity in this time of economic uncertainty.
And the A-100? Those are the nearly one hundred nations that are represented here on the campus of Andrews University. And on this International Student Weekend we recognize the mosaic of giftedness that God has gathered here from around the globe. My friend Najeeb Nakhle, director of International Student Services here at the university, gave me a breakdown of where our 835 international students hail from. Arranged according to the thirteen divisions of our world church, they come from: East-Central Africa 39; Euro-Africa 35; Euro-Asia 12; Inter-American 199; North American 120; Northern Asia-Pacific 127; South American 80; South Pacific 11; Southern Africa-Indian Ocean 45; Southern Asia 16; Southern Asia-Pacific 28; Trans-European 37; West-Central Africa 41; citizenship not listed 45. And so today Pioneer joins in celebrating the young adults of the church who are citizens of the world!
But how different the mission of the A-100 from the G-20! True, their assignment is just as global. But how radically different their quest, as depicted in the messianic Psalm 110: “Your [Messiah] troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy splendor your young will come to you like dew from the morning’s womb” (v 3). I love that promise—on the day of earth’s final battle the young of the world will pour into the Messiah’s army for his endtime mission! They will be as pervasive and extensive as “dew from the morning’s womb.”
It reminds me of that prediction: “With such an army of workers as our youth, rightly trained, might furnish, how soon the message of a crucified, risen, and soon-coming Saviour might be carried to the whole world! How soon might end come—the end of suffering and sorrow and sin!” (Education 271)
So let the G-20 be about their business. International Student Sabbath today is a clarion reminder that the Father’s business is banking on the investment of these bright young scholars for Christ. Then with joy let us celebrate the God who has already called them and who is even now mobilizing the young for his final mission!
“Even now hedge fund titans rake in billions.” A friend sent me this piece that appeared in the business section of The New York Times on Wednesday. The headline would catch anybody’s eye, given the massive economic downturn that we and the rest of the world are enduring right now. The article was accompanied by a photo gallery of the top ten hedge fund managers and their estimated earnings for 2007 and 2008. While the markets were melting down, apparently the earnings of these ten men were still mounting up. The top three: James H. Simons, head of the Renaissance Technologies fund, earned $2.5 billion last year; John A. Paulson, “who rode to riches by betting against the housing market,” earned $2 billion over the same period; and George Soros, a familiar name on the wealthiest Americans lists, accumulated $1.1 billion from his hedge fund. Total take last year for the top 25 managers—$11.6 billion (half of the $22.5 billion they earned in 2007). “The managers’ compensation, which was breathtaking in the best of times, is eye-popping after a year when hedge funds lost 18 percent on average, and investors withdrew money en masse” (
“Sex discrimination is destined to continue in the scorching fires of Hell, according to a study approved by the Vatican which suggests that men are most likely to commit lustful sins whereas women are beholden to pride.” The headline to this report on the London Times website last week would catch anybody’s eye: “We’re all sinners but the gates to Hell are marked His and Hers.” Who would’ve thunk it! (
Can a picture of death grace the cover of anything? The latest Newsweek magazine (January 12, 2009) ran two two-page spreads back to back before the title page of its cover story on the war between Israel and the Hamas. Both spreads are pictures of death. Both innocent victims. In the first you gaze down as a worker gently lowers the body of four-year-old Lama Hardan, who’d been taking out the trash beside her home in Gaza “when an Israeli air raid struck.” Little Lama is wrapped in a yellow shroud up to her neck, her dark curly hair and peaceful, slumbering face belying the tragedy. In the second two-page spread mourners are gathered around a body shrouded by the flag of Israel. Irit Sheetrit, 39, from Ashdod was with her sister “driving home from the gym when a Hamas rocket hit.” Bent over her body is a sobbing man with tissue clutched in hand. Two portraits of death—and both can break your heart. Because whether you’re four-years-old or thirty-nine or 85 . . . it doesn’t matter, does it? Death is the cold, heart-breaking reality every inhabitant of this planet must live with 24/7—victim or survivor. Obviously, you and I are still survivors. But our day will come, too. Only there will be no two-page spread announcing our demise. The fact is we live in a culture mesmerized by death. But movie plots, talking heads, late night comedians and MTV singers notwithstanding, nobody stares at our common mortal enemy long enough to find an answer. What happens when a child or a woman or a man dies? What does death feel like? Where does death lead? How can I live, how can I die without fearing death? Every religion on earth has struggled for the answers, but stunningly nearly every one of them has stumbled short of the truth. But the truth can be discovered. That’s why I’d like to invite you to join me in a frank and candid, but hopefully hope-filled exploration (expose, perhaps, is too strong a word) of death. Right here at this website. For the next few weeks. Click on to a new twin miniseries, “The Truth about Death” and then “The Truth about Hell.” Please tell your friends about the podcasts, email the link to those who need to know. Because without the truth, fear is our default. And nothing buries hope faster than fear. Just ask the God who’s had to live and die himself.