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The Luxury Narrative :: Weekend Reading List

Grace alone can save, and this grace is the direct gift of God, unmediated by any earthly institution. The elect cannot by any act of their own evoke it; but they can prepare their hearts to receive it, and cherish it when received. — R.H. Tawny

Every year, just after Thanksgiving, American consumers are caught up in the largest shopping weekend for U.S. retail. Once a single day named “Black,” the event now starts early Thanksgiving morning and slithers its way to Cyber Monday. Though the weekend of feckless spending is falling out of style, with declining sales since 2012 and retailers like REI opting out of the torrent of brick-and-mortar shoppers, U.S. consumers spent $9 billion last year — not counting online sales.

One of the fastest-growing categories in retail over the past decade is luxury goods. High-end clothes, watches, and electronics (case-in-point:Apple) are commanding an ever-increasing amount of consumer spending globally.

Most people own things that they don’t really need. It is worth thinking about why. — Paul Bloom.

“Certain consumer behaviors seem irrational, wasteful, even evil. What drives people to possess so much more than they need?” asks Yale physiology professor Paul Bloom. “The arguments against [luxury goods] are based on an incomplete theory of psychology, one that misses the depth of the pleasures they provide.”

Modern research around luxury goods tends to focus either on the way they create an image (I have a nice car, so I make more money and will be a better mate) or the way consumers respond to higher-quality products (this bespoke suit feels better than a cheap one). Bloom argues that we desire luxury goods for deeper reasons than aesthetics or image-refinement.

In a recent article Bloom cites Geoffrey Miller’s Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior: “Someone who doesn’t want to pay $30,000 for the Rolex President watch can go online and, for $1,200, buy a knockoff so finely made that only an expert can tell the difference.” Miller notes the two watches are almost identical in their features including a Swiss ETA 25-jewel movement, a micro-laser-etched crown on the dial, a quad-wrapped 18k gold forged case, unique serial numbers, and a Rolex brand hologram sticker.

Bloom concludes, “If the fake Rolexes are indistinguishable from the real ones, they would work just as well if one’s goal is to impress others.” Similarly the knock-offs are water- and shock-resistant: the quality decrease is nearly imperceivable. So why would someone pay a $29,000 premium? Research shows that the history of an object is connected to the pleasure we receive from it. Psychologists call this the endowment effect.

From this perspective, the lure of such goods is not limited to their utility or beauty or to our beliefs that possessing them will impress people. Part of the lure is that we believe these items have a certain sort of history. The pleasure we get from these objects is genuine and aesthetic, not mostly sensory. — Paul Bloom

Brands are getting better about telling their stories. We’ve become accustomed to turning over everything from bags of coffee to bracelet price tags to find out more about the story of their creation. Notice the marketing around BMW’s new i3: “A vision to completely reimagine the future of mobility and rethink what it means to drive an electric vehicle…” scroll to read more.

Our nature is to flood our lives with the stories of objects in order to gain and project an understanding of who we are. Oakley’s and Under Armor – we’re strong and fast. Helly Hansen – we sail and explore. Warby Parker – we are smart and mid-century modern. Materialism pollutes our true identity with fickle narratives.

The authors of Scripture believed we are part of a meta-story — the story of a God who created and loves us, a God who was willing to sacrifice everything to reunite our story into his own. They also argue that we are, by nature, disconnected from this story. Our souls are searching for deeper stories and histories.

Forgoing a luxury good, or the surplus of any goods in general, could be an act of discipleship. In Religion and the Rise of Capitalism historian R.H. Tawney concludes:

Like an engineer, who, to direct the oncoming tide, dams all channels except the one through which it is to pour, like a painter who makes light visible by plunging all that is not light in gloom, the Christian attunes his heart to the voice from Heaven by an immense effort of concentration and abnegation. To win all, he renounces all. When earthly props have been cast down, the soul stands in the presence of God.

Today’s Reading
1 Chronicles 1-2 (Listen – 11:18)
Hebrews 8 (Listen – 2:22)

This Weekend’s Readings
1 Chronicles 3-4 (Listen – 8:52) Hebrews 9 (Listen – 4:40)
1 Chronicles 5-6 (Listen – 12:23) Hebrews 10 (Listen – 5:33)

The Weekend Reading List
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Admiring the Love of God :: Throwback Thursday

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. — Hebrews 7.25

By Thomas Jacombe

We are more apprehensive of the love of the Son, than we are of the love of the Father. I would not speak any thing to diminish the love of the Son; God forbid! It was wonderful, superlative love! Only I would heighten your apprehensions of the Father’s love in the great work of our redemption.

Admire the love of the Father.

Redemption was not only brought about only by Christ, the Father had a great hand in it. Therefore it is said, “The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand:” and, “I have found a ransom.” “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

God set his thoughts on work for wretched man, struck up a covenant with his Son, and therein laid the foundation for man’s recovery. Let angels and men and all creatures adore God’s love. That you would return love for love — return your drop for God’s ocean! We must “honor the Son, even as we honor the Father;” and we must love the Father, as we love the Son.

And then admire the love of the Son too.

He is willing to engage in this covenant. He knew the terms of it; what the redemption of man would cost him — even his life and precious blood: yet, for all this, he willingly and freely binds himself to redeem poor sinners, whatever it cost him.

Oh, the heights, depths, breadths of this love! Blessed Jesus, that you should “lay down your life for” me, to wash away my sins in your own blood, to give your “soul as an offering for sin,” upon this encouragement and motive,—that you might see such a poor worm as I brought in to God; that you should set yourself as a screen between God’s wrath and my poor soul, and do and suffer ten thousand times more than what tongue can express or heart conceive.

What shall I, what can I, say to all this? I may only fall down, and wonder at that love which can never be fathomed!

*Excerpted and languages updated from Thomas Jacombe’s sermon, “The Covenant of Redemption Opened.”

Today’s Reading
2 Kings 25 (Listen – 5:24)
Hebrews 7 (Listen – 4:01)

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Hope and Prayer

Hebrews 6.19-20
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf.

By Thomas Aquinas

Petition is an expression of hope, since it is said in Ps. 37:5: “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.” But it is plain from the Lord’s Prayer that one may pray to God not only for eternal blessedness, but also for the good things of this present life, both spiritual and temporal, and for deliverance from evils which will have no place in eternal blessedness. It follows that eternal blessedness is not the proper object of hope.

The good which we should properly and principally hope to receive from God is eternal life, which consists in the enjoyment of God. We ought indeed to hope for nothing less than himself from God, since the goodness by which he bestows good things on a creature is nothing less than his essence. The proper and principal object of hope is therefore eternal blessedness.

Eternal blessedness does not enter into the heart of man perfectly, in such a way that the wayfarer may know what it is, or of what kind it is. But a man can apprehend it under the universal idea of perfect good, and in this way the movement of hope arises. It is therefore with point that the apostle says in Heb. 6:19: “we have hope . . . which enters into that within the veil,” since what we hope for is yet veiled, as it were.

We ought not to pray to God for any other good things unless they relate to eternal blessedness. Hope is therefore concerned principally with eternal blessedness, and secondarily with other things which are sought of God for the sake of it, just as faith also is concerned principally with such things as relate to God.

All other things seem small to one who sets his heart on something great. To one who hopes for eternal life, therefore, nothing else appears arduous in comparison with this hope. But some other things can yet be arduous in relation to the capacity of him who hopes. There can accordingly be hope in regard to them, as things subservient to the principal object of hope.

*Excerpted and language updated from Whether Eternal Blessedness is the Proper Object of Hope

Today’s Reading
2 Kings 24 (Listen – 3:21)
Hebrews 6 (Listen – 2:58)

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God and the Public Square

Hebrews 5.14

Solid (spiritual) food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

By Christopher Wright

By stressing human choices as well as God’s ultimate control, the bible avoids slipping into fatalism or determinism. It affirms both sides of the paradox: humans are morally responsible for their choices and actions and their public consequences; yet God retains sovereign control over final outcomes and destinies.

The Bible presents the public square — human life lived in society and the marketplace — as riddled with sin, corruption, greed, injustice, and violence. That can be seen at local and global dimensions, from sharp practices at the market stall or corner shop, to the massive distortions and inequities of international trade.

Isaiah 65:17–25 is a glorious portrayal of the new creation — a new heavens and a new earth. It looks forward to human life that is no longer subject to weariness and decay, in which there will be fulfillment in family and work, in which the curses of frustration and injustice will be gone forever, in which there will be close and joyful fellowship with God, and in which there will be environmental harmony and safety.

The New Testament carries this vision forward in the light of the redemption achieved by Christ through the cross, and especially in the light of the resurrection. Paul comprehensively and repeatedly includes “all things” not only in what God created through Christ, but what he plans to redeem through Christ.

The final vision of the whole Bible is not of our escaping from the world to some ethereal paradise, but rather of God coming down to live with us once again in a purged and restored creation, in which all the fruit of human civilization will be brought into the city of God.

Your daily work matters because it matters to God. It has its own intrinsic value and worth. If it contributes in any way to the needs of society, the service of others, the stewardship of the earth’s resources, then it has some place in God’s plans for this creation and in the new creation. And if you do it conscientiously as a disciple of Jesus — bearing witness to him, being always ready to give an answer to those who enquire about your faith, and being willing to suffer for Christ if called to — then he will enable your life to bear fruit in ways you may never be aware of. You are engaged in the mission of God’s people.

*Excerpt from Christopher Wright’s The Mission of God’s People, originally posted as part of our Summer Reading Series.

Today’s Reading
2 Kings 23 (Listen – 7:43)
Hebrews 5 (Listen – 1:57)

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The Root of Peace

Hebrews 4.12
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

It is no mistake that today’s verse, on the power and efficacy of God’s word, falls directly in the middle of a passage about rest and weakness. The author opens by saying, “The promise of entering his rest still stands,” and ends with: “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

Most people mistakenly believe that all you have to do to stop working is not work. The inventors of the Sabbath understood that it was a much more complicated undertaking. You cannot downshift casually and easily. This is why the Puritan and Jewish Sabbaths were so exactingly intentional. And not even our group leisure activities can do for us what Sabbath rituals could once be counted on to do. — Judith Shulevitz

We need rest, “to remind ourselves that there is more to us than our work, and the machinery of self-censorship must shut down, too, stilling the eternal inner murmur of self-reproach,” observes Judith Shulevitz in The New York Times. Shulevitz left the faith of her childhood only to become burned out by the torrent of modern striving.

We don’t have to strive, the author of Hebrews says, because Christ has striven — to the point of death — on our behalf. Creation is the story of rest interrupted; salvation the invitation back in. In this way Sabbath rest operates as a tuning fork.

We start each day with our personal security resting not on the accepting love of God and the sacrifice of Christ but on our present feelings or recent achievements in the Christian life. Since these arguments will not quiet the human conscience, we are inevitably moved either to discouragement and apathy or to a self-righteousness which falsifies the record to achieve a sense of peace. The faith that is able to warm itself at the fire of God’s love, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of peace. — Richard Lovelace

Only the word of God can do this. It cuts away at our disordered loves, prunes our pride, heals our brokenness. It’s living and active — and it brings the peace we need, now and for eternity.

Today’s Reading
2 Kings 22 (Listen – 3:45)
Hebrews 4 (Listen – 2:43)