I need some expert help with a complex search term

IHSA said:

I have been tasked to write a reflection paper on a book by Timothy Keller using the prompt:

“The way to serve God at work is to make as much money as you can, so that you can be as generous as you can.”

Can someone help me with a search term that will show me everything in my resources that is relevant to that prompt? Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot!

IHSA said:

I found this article... https://purposeinleadership.com/2014/11/10/serve-god-in-your-work/  And this book... https://www.logos.com/product/136713/every-good-endeavor-connecting-your-work-to-gods-work Factbook may be helpful using the book. 

Thank You! But what I am looking for is a search term that I can use to search my library for resources to help me on this matter. 

Just a starting point: money NEAR generous.

wait for KS4J though.  KS4J will have a way better search.  KS4J always does.

Bob

Twerking... serve (God, Christ, Jesus, Lord) NEAR (using, by, doing, through, employing, practicing) (work, business, enterprise, money)

IHSA said:

“The way to serve God at work is to make as much money as you can, so that you can be as generous as you can.”

Some ideas:

Reflection: think of the positive, negative and the possible.

Do you want to see the topic from a macro or micro view? or maybe a combination?

Money is an artifact, that has value in a society where it can be used as an exchange method in a free market, and is generally considered positive to have (attitude), to be able to provide for the needs of the family / clan.

The Bible talks about unjust wealth. Does it have to do with the way it is obtained?

E.g. Middleman exploits producers, and abuses final consumer, pays little to the former, and charges much to the latter, he then makes good profit, is this ethical?

How about if the product or service does not cause harm, and uses money from the final user that would have spent it on vice, to help evangelize that same market segment that is paying for the product or service? definitively a gray area.

Now what if the profit margin is low, and producer is well payed, and final consumer not charged too much, but the process of producing the product poisons substrata water or causes contamination to other Earth resources?

What about stakeholders, people that live in the community where the goods are manufactured, are they bearing too great a burden with contaminated rivers due to toxic residues byproduct of production processes?

Then the distribution problem: is it ok to have the owner of the means of production get the most of the surplus amount gotten by the selling of the products produced?

Scandinavia has moved to what is called the middle way: not untamed capitalism, neither ineffective communism, but they chose middle of the way: cooperativism.

The means of production are owned collectively, and the surplus of benefits produced by the selling of the products is distributed evenly among the members of the cooperative.  This seems to be more in line with the Bible thrust of having things (means of production in this case) in common.

So there is many angles in which you can reflect on the acquisition of wealth in a free market, by various means. 

It is important that the initiatives be socially responsible (cause no harm, help with problems, creates better living conditions, etc), take care of right distribution of excedents (profit), and has systems where injustices (in the productive organization itself) are prevented and investigated to prevent recurrence of waste, abuse, misuse, etc.

There are many good resources that can give both macro and micro views on the productive and economic process:

https://www.logos.com/search?query=economic%20ethics&sortBy=Relevance&limit=60&page=1&ownership=all&geographicAvailability=availableToMe 

https://www.logos.com/search?query=exploited&sortBy=Relevance&limit=60&page=1&ownership=all&geographicAvailability=availableToMe 

Now about serving God is a topic in itself: can we serve God in a free market where power players usually set their interests above regular humanity?

Many cooperatives have allowed groups of people to achieve many important socioeconomic goals in a more christian way. Have they checked to see that there is no exploitation in there supply chain or the distribution system? that depends on the particular cooperative.

In Scandinavia over 40% Gnp is contributed by cooperatives, and they have some of the highest quality of life standards, could something similar be achieved in western countries?

Possibilities are very interesting.

Hope you can see that there are many angles when reflecting about systems that are supposed to be in support of human flourishing, and not the other way around (humans in support of unregulated resource depleting capitalism that benefits very few in the long run).

Different angle for further research, reflection and constructive comment.

Peace and grace.

Mike Binks said:

I read the rest of your post, Hamilton, some of it resonated and some of it made me fume. It is very hard to ask unbiased questions and, from my reading, you didn't try very hard.

I do really resent being made to fume on a forum I enjoy because of its practical and technical nature.

Some people are given "favored" status on the Forums by the implicit moderators (aka MVPs), so they are allowed to circumvent Forum guidelines.  

As a capitalist, I had to restrain myself from not responding to this post. 

1Cor10:31 said:

Some people are given "favored" status on the Forums by the implicit moderators (aka MVPs), so they are allowed to circumvent Forum guidelines.  

Hi 1Cor10:31:

How would you go about making explicit certain key issues in a topic for further research, reflection and constructive comment, without "violating guidelines"?

Many here are capitalists, and are very aware that Christian ethics are very important to be aware of certain hazards that can happen if not careful, my point was that there are many good resources that can help one enlarge conceptual framework in this area.

At no point I am saying that one system is better than other, I am just pointing out that under certain circumstances, there are some systems that work well within free markets, and seem to be better aligned with Biblical Christianity something that FL most likely understand (study and application of the Bible), and maybe approve.

Hamilton Ramos said:

At no point I am saying that one system is better than other.

See below what you said...

Hamilton Ramos said:

Scandinavia has moved to what is called the middle way: not untamed capitalism, neither ineffective communism, but they chose middle of the way: cooperativism.

The means of production are owned collectively, and the surplus of benefits produced by the selling of the products is distributed evenly among the members of the cooperative.  This seems to be more in line with the Bible thrust of having things (means of production in this case) in common.

You are effectively stating that the Bible endorses Scandinavian way of running the economy. 

I have no interest in giving people a history lesson of capitalism vs. communism vs some middle ground.

Hamilton Ramos said:

I am just pointing out that under certain circumstances, there are some systems that work well within free markets, and seem to be better aligned with Biblical Christianity something that FL most likely understand (study and application of the Bible), and maybe approve.

If this doesn't sound like you're expressing an opinion, it is because you've been free to express opinions because of your "favored" boy status!  [It is like if I don't censure my students when they cheat, it encourages them to cheat more and over time, they don't even think of it as cheating]

Mike Binks said:

In another setting, this supposed intellectual stimulation might be appropriate. In my opinion, it is not appropriate here first because it violates forum guidelines, and second, it looks like grandstanding.

Seems a conjecture based on scant objective evidence. I am not an expert at search, but I do know a thing or two about cooperatives, and how they have been very successful into aiding with persons socioeconomic situations.

It has worked well with French Canadians, people in England and Germany, and is working for us. Not many persons are acquainted with Cooperativism, which done right, seems to be very aligned with Bible thrust for justice and mercy.

So I ask the same question I asked another poster:

How would you go about making explicit certain key issues in a topic for further research, reflection and constructive comment, without "violating guidelines"?

Mike Binks said:

I think you could just about get away with my suggestion of pointing the OP to a Blog Post or similar that you prepared and posted elsewhere.

Is not pointing to a personal blog  another no no?

MJ. Smith said:

He does not have favored boy status to the best of my knowledge. I think of it more as "only Faithlife can handle". In my mental list there are less than a handful of forum members on this list. It is because I know that I don't know how to communicate with them that I tend to avoid them. 

As a researcher, we always ask why? Why do we ask "why?"? To get to the ultimate cause of anything and everything. In this context, what causes a person to get on the "favored" list that shields the person from censure and allows the person to opine at every given opportunity? Financial economists would say that people behave the way they do based on the implicit and explicit incentives facing them.

Let's say I see a student cheating and the student sees me seeing him cheat. If I don’t censure him, I am providing implicit incentives for him to cheat even more in the future. There doesn’t have to be explicit incentive encouraging him to cheat. The people on the "favored" list got there because they were not censured when they opined. The result is that they got bolder and bolder.  

MJ. Smith said:

I agree. We ASK why. Answers that apply to particular people in the forums over the years:

• because he is on heavy medication that sometimes clouds his judgment. We agreed that "go mow your lawn" would be how I told him his meds were getting the better of him and he should take a break. It served its purpose and avoided constant mention of his health concerns in the forums.
• because his wife informed us that his tone is the result of brain damage from a stroke and that the forums are one of his few enjoyable activities.  When his behavior was questioned, someone would explain why we cut him some slack
• because FL responded to one of my many reports of outlandish behavior with a note that they were very aware of the problem and were working on it -- so I report the posts as abuse but say nothing publicly as that would subject the forum users to more of his vitriol.
• because the poster is known to be fighting disabling mental illness and is clearly not responding well to their current meds - they will get stabilized and there are forum friends behind the scenes trying to ensure he does not embarrass himself.
• because I know every post of the person has been removed and that a permanent ban is in the works.
• because I have so much trouble communicating with the person that I have simply quite reading his/her posts and therefore have not seen what I should object to this time.  There are enough forum users still reading the person's posts that they should be reported without my involvement.

For a Forum of this size, I find this number to be surprisingly few. But, still sorry that the MVPs have to put up with this.

I'm appreciative of the many people on this Forum (you, Dave Hooten, Graham Criddle, JT come to the top of my mind) who gladly spend their time responding to people's requests.

MJ. Smith said:

I think that illustrates why a researcher asks rather than assuming they are favored.

In our profession as financial economists, we sometimes do surveys to ask people their preferences. But we know that people can lie, so surveys are a poor tool to infer preferences. Therefore, we try to validate revealed preferences obtained through surveys using data.

What I've observed on the Forum is that some people gladly flout Forum guidelines repeatedly without being censured. That's the basis on which I tag some people as "favored." 

Mike Binks said:

Assuming one needs your assistance in framing supplementary questions is condescending.

This is what I do not understand, I am trying to bring attention to something that can be important in the economic sphere for Christian believers, the only person that knows if is condescending or not is the one that originated the thread.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative

If it was you asking for input, I would not have mentioned, as I could make an educated guess that you know a bit about cooperatives due to its origin location point.

You can call me condescending all you want, but my question is simple:

How can we make explicit key issues in a topic without going into polemics nor violating guidelines?

By mentioning cooperatives, I was giving another angle so it could be compared with other systems and facilitate to see different ways that profit maximization could be looked at from.

IHSA said:

I originated the thread and I do find it condescending. I have an MBA in economics and am a DBA candidate. 

I am offended that you hijacked my post to push your own agenda. You answered several questions that I never asked and never did answer the ONE question that I did ask. I was simply looking for a sophisticated search term to use in searching my library.

Thanks for the clarification,IHSA, I in no moment think that you are not very competent, I just suggested a not so often mentioned approach, but if is not of help, my apologies.

For anyone interested in cooperatives:

https://www.logos.com/product/173189/holy-cooperation-building-graceful-economies 

IHSA said:

Please start your own thread if you want to engage in self aggrandizement.

I really do not understand why so many think I am into self aggrandizement, I am more into expanding conceptual framework (mostly mine), and I do have too much of a "check all, retain what is good" attitude that seems to be misinterpreted.

Once again, at no moment did I try to be condescending, maybe I came across like so, but my intent was other. Disregard anything that I wrote that you find not useful.

Peace and grace.

" rel="nofollow">Keep Smiling 4 Jesus said:

Key issues have key words, which can be searched (as requested for this thread).

([field heading,largetext] cooperative, motivation, oppress, serve, steal, tithe) WITHIN 11 WORDS (Lord, God, hands) WITHIN 22 WORDS (business, economic, employ, generous, give, labor, labour, money, poor, productive, work)

Excellent KS4J, and maybe keywords related to topics could be a project FL could take on. If not mistaken FL has a huge controlled vocabulary list that could be tailored in a similar way to Dictionary of Bible themes, to allow for relevant searches within particular topics.

Hamilton Ramos said:

I would love to read about your thoughts about capitalism, communism, and other ways, because I am sure I would learn a lot, and many angles not obvious to me now would open.

Respectfully, you continue to miss the point that your initial post is outside of the scope of what the contents of this thread should contain, both from a FL policy perspective and a practical perspective. If I see a thread entitled, "Help with a Complex Search," I'd like to be able to open that thread and learn from others, especially the MVPs, tips and tricks for complex searching. I'd like to see multiple replies from others with creative ways to structure searches, since that a most challenging function in Logos. The LAST thing I want to see is a 1000 word essay on domestic or international economic theory. So your reply is actually a hindrance to others as we seek information on an important topic. It does nothing but muddy the waters of what would have otherwise been a clear stream of search wisdom. It's sad that you cannot see that.

And the OP wanted help searing his library, not suggestions on new resources to purchase.

So, again, respectfully, you missed the mark at least twice. So why not just say, "Hey folks, my apologies," and move on. Is it that hard to admit that you made a wrong turn in Albuquerque?

DMB said:

Myke Harbuck said:

Respectfully, you continue to miss the point that your initial post is outside of the scope of what the contents of this thread should contain, both from a FL policy perspective and a practical perspective.

Myke, I realize we'll agree to disagree. But Bob has couched the 'forum' as a large coffeetable ... discussing, respecting, etc.

And through the years, any lengthy thread has rarely stayed within an OP's initial query. Is it confusing, of course. Wastes time, of course. Frustrates, certainly. But oddly, as around a coffeetable, folks keep viewing/listening. For whatever reason, value is delivered.

In Ramos' case, the 'violation' is not taking hints. Followed up by other Logosians responding to not taking hints. And so on.

[Y]