David Peterson

Somebody told me once, half in jest, that while the big houses are in MCCUTCHANVILLE the real money is in DARMSTADT. Now like I say, there was an element of jesting in what they were saying. No doubt there are people in Darmstadt who are overextended when it comes to their lifestyle and there are people in McCutchanville who are savers. They were alluding, however, to the long-standing German heritage of Darmstadt with its culture of debt avoidance and frugal living. I found that this remains the culture in Germany today. While preparing for our trip to Germany we were told cash is king over there because Germans generally avoid debt. There is an old word for living within one’s means and saving for the future, prudence. It is related to the word “wise”. It has to do with living in such a way that your actions lead to a better life. Now that my kids are grown and preparing for life on their own I’ve told them that if they begin saving now, investing while they’re young, they can have...

They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts (Romans 2:15 NIV). To be human is to be immersed in life (in existence, in the reality around us). There is no God’s eye view from which we can stand and with pure objectivity observe reality. To be sure, we have gained much by our attempts to stand back and analyze reality. We’ve been doing this in various ways since the beginning of human existence. With the scientific revolution there came tremendous gains from our ability to analyze the natural world but with it also a false sense of our ability to be objective and an exaggeration of the role of detachment in knowing. Don’t get me wrong. I believe in reason. However, knowing involves more than our cognitive faculty. There is what the ancients called the heart, a faculty often ignored by moderns. What is “heart”? For the biblical writers heart refers to the whole person immersed in reality. It refers to the whole self, intellect, emotions and will. Significantly,...