Whole Life Offering Book Excerpt 2 of 6: Philanthropy is a New Testament Term

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Pastor Foley

The term “philanthropy” is not only the ancient description of the exploits of a Greek god. It is also how the Bible itself explicitly chooses to name the Christian God’s relationship to humanity, in Titus 3:4 (KJV): “But after that the kindness and philanthropy of God our Savior toward man appeared.”

Regrettably, the term “philanthropy” is quite literally lost in translation, as it is typically rendered only as “love” in most versions.

That is unfortunate because it prevents us from understanding the specific kind of love, which has been extended—namely, “phil-anthropy”, or friendship love toward human beings—a comprehensive attitude and pattern of direct contact, warm relationship, and unfailing and unwarranted beneficence on the part of the divine toward human beings. “Love” simply struggles to be able to carry that freight.

A new word had to be created to do so—“phil-anthropy”–and Paul, the apostle and first great Christian theologian, pressed it into service in his letter to Titus to convey news he considered extraordinary about the divine.

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, The Whole Life Offering: Christianity as Philanthropy, scheduled for release in January 2011.)

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Whole Life Offering Book Excerpt 1 of 6: The Divine Origins of Philanthropy

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Pastor Foley

Were Christianity to select a single word to describe the breadth and depth of the relationship between God and human beings, it could do worse than “philanthropic”.

In fact, not only is Christ still called Philanthropos—“The Philanthropist”—in the liturgy of the Orthodox Church, but the term actually owes its 5th century B.C.E. Greek origins to a god.

Prometheus is imprisoned by Zeus, the king of the gods, for “philanthropy”—specifically, his deep, personal friendship with human beings. Cries the bound Prometheus, “Look at me, the unlucky god who is chained up for exaggerated affection for the mortal beings”.

The term “philanthropy” originates, thus, not with reference to human acts of beneficence toward humanity but rather with a god’s love of human beings who, it is worth noting, are depicted as incapable of reciprocating anything of value in return.

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, The Whole Life Offering: Christianity as Philanthropy, scheduled for release in January 2011.)

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Exclusive Excerpts from the Forthcoming Whole Life Offering Book

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Pastor Foley

Even as you read this post, I’m happily typing away on my second book, entitled The Whole Life Offering: Christianity as Philanthropy.

I’m writing the book with the goal of equipping individual Christians, pastors, and ministry leaders with a thoroughly biblical perspective on philanthropy.

The core idea is this: philanthropy is so much more than financial giving. It originates with God’s gift of Christ to us and comes to fruition in each of us as we offer our whole lives to Him by comprehensively mirroring to the world His love and care.

The book is due to be released in January 2011, Lord permitting, but over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing with you excerpts from the book’s Introduction so you can see why I’m so excited about what I’m learning and writing.

I debuted some of this material in Toronto during a retreat with my dear brothers and sisters from Voice of the Martyrs/Canada, and in September I’ll be teaching the first seminars on it in Cambodia (at Child Evangelism Fellowship’s Asia/Pacific Conference) and Memphis (in a one day event for the Memphis Leadership Foundation). I’d love to have your prayers for that travel and for both events, as well as for future events in the planning stage to share the material more broadly.

I hope you enjoy and are challenged by the excerpts over the next few weeks. They’ll culminate in my sharing a new “Whole Life Offering Ten” list to replace the “Transformational Giving Ten” I wrote a few years back. The TG Ten list has worn well, praise God, but I’ve had a desire since I wrote it to create a list that could be equally useful to individual Christians, pastors, churches, and Christian nonprofits rather than just, as in the case of the TG Ten, Christian nonprofits.

Good times, these. I’m counting on your prayers and comments over the weeks to come, so thanks in advance for your generosity in sharing both. You know that I pray regularly for you as a practitioner of Transformational Giving—for the fruitfulness of your own ministry as well as for your reproduction as you share the TG principles in your sphere of influence. You and I are tied together at the hip in this work, and for that I am especially grateful to God.

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