7 Signs That You're an Emotionally Intelligent Person

People with high emotional intelligence are good at reading people, navigating and understanding their own feelings and interacting with others. These are just four of the most important areas where emotional intelligence can help:

• Stability. If you want to lead a team of employees -- or manage a community of followers -- you need to remain emotionally stable, even in times of crisis. Emotional intelligence helps you control anger, panic and despair, and remain calm no matter what.
• Sales and service. Understanding what people feel, why they feel it and what they want or need is pivotal if you want to sell products and services that people really want. It can also help you close deals once the businesses gains momentum.
• Motivation. Being able to relate to your employees and understand their feelings boosts morale and motivates those staffers to become more successful in your environment.
• Mediation and negotiation. Emotional intelligence also helps you resolve conflicts between and among employees or partners, and gives you an advantage when you're  attempting to negotiate.

Signs of emotional intelligence

So, how can you tell if you yourself are emotionally intelligent? Look for these signs:
1. You’re able to articulate emotional experiences. We’re taught emotional vocabulary basics as young children, with words like happy, sad, silly, and mad. But how articulate are you at describing your more complex emotional experiences? An expressive and precise vocabulary is a sign that you’re introspective enough to understand your own emotions -- and how emotions work in general.
For example, you might describe something as “nostalgic” rather than “a little sad,” or feel “stress-related irritability” rather than “anger.”
2. You can pinpoint strengths and weaknesses easily (including yours). Emotionally intelligent bosses are able to quickly discover their employees’ strengths and weaknesses -- and aren’t afraid to admit their own. Everyone is good at different things, and everyone has personal shortcomings.
Ferreting these out is a sign that you pay close attention to how people interact, and you see both the bad and good in people.
Related: The Importance of Emotional Intelligence at Work
3. You’ve historically been a good judge of character. Think about the other people you’ve interacted with in the past, whether they’re former team members or friends. When you had a “good feeling” about someone, how did your relationship with them turn out?
First impressions can be deceiving, but if you have a strong history of choosing reliable, trustworthy, positive people to surround yourself with, you probably have a strong ability to judge people’s character.
4. People come to you for advice or support. How often do people in your life come to you for advice when they’re facing a tough problem? Or support when they’re going through a hard time? If lots of people do, that means they trust you not to judge them, and you probably give them valuable emotional perspective.
In other words, it’s a sign that you’re an emotionally intelligent person and that other people can see that.
5. You can let things go. All leaders experience moments of frustration, irritation, and anger, but how quickly are you able to move past yours? Are you the type of person who holds onto grudges, or the type who forgives and forgets? Do your mistakes haunt you, or do you try to work past them as quickly as possible?
Emotionally intelligent people are able to control their reactions and let things go with relative ease.
6. You generally know how others are feeling. Can you tell when your top employee is especially stressed out, even when he or she isn't explicitly acting like it? Do you notice when your friends are acting strangely, even if that activity is only slightly different from their usual behavior?
Only emotionally intelligent people notice these differences consistently.
7. You accept other beliefs, work styles and perspectives. There’s no one “right” type of professional; there are dozens, if not hundreds of acceptable beliefs, work styles and perspectives. Are you the type of person who accepts and embraces them? Or do you try to convert everyone to your specific style?
If you don’t think you exhibit these signs, don’t worry. Some people are naturally inclined to be more emotionally intelligent than others, but it’s a skill and an awareness that can be developed over time. Start by paying more attention to the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of the people around you, and make it a point to talk to strangers.
Related: 5 Reasons You Need Emotionally Intelligent Employees (and How to Find Them)
The more you focus on others’ wants, needs and perspectives, the more you’ll learn about the human condition, and the better you’ll become as a leader.

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Mambo yanauowaumiza wanaume katika mahusiano.

Kupitia safu yetu ya mahusiano, leo nimekuletea makala maalum hasa kwa wanawake kutokana na malalamiko ya wanawake wengi kuwapoteza waume zao. Kilio chao kikubwa ni kukimbiwa na wanaume au kuachwa.
Leo anakuwa na mwanaume huyu, baada ya muda mfupi kunatokea chokochoko, mwanaume anatimka zake.
Jamaa anamkimbia na kwenda kuanzisha uhusiano mwingine. Baada ya kukimbiwa, mwanamke hakati tamaa. Anaanzisha uhusiano mwingine, ndani ya muda mfupi tu, anaambulia maumivu tena. Anabaki kujilaumu. Hajui chanzo cha yeye
kukimbiwa.
Matokeo ya hili, mwanamke anapoteza uelekeo. Kila mwanaume anayekutana naye anamkimbia. Mwisho wa siku anajikuta umri umeenda. Kuolewa inakuwa ni ndoto. Anaanza kulazimisha kusaka mtoto ili angalau na yeye aitwe mama.
Wanaume wengi hujikuta wakiwaacha wapenzi wao kwa sababu ya tabia fulani ambazo wakati mwingine huanza taratibu na baadaye huwa kikwazo kikubwa.
Ili kuweza kuepukana na tatizo hili ni vyema tukaangalia vitu ambavyo wanaume wamekuwa hawavipendi kutoka kwa wanawake ili kuweza kujua nini cha kufanya kuhakikisha unamweka mwanaume karibu, asikuache.
1. Chokochoko/Maneno Maneno
Wanaume wengi huwa hawapendi chokochoko. Hawapendi mwanamke ambaye yeye kila wakati ni kuanzisha chokochoko ambazo zinazalisha ugomvi. Wanaume wengi hawapendi mabishano. Hawapendi ugomvi hivyo mwanamke anapokuwa hodari wa kuleta chokochoko, huepukwa.
Ni vyema basi mwanamke akachunga kauli. Akawa si mtu wa kuchimbachimba vitu ambavyo havina kichwa wala miguu. Asiwe na kisirani. Kinywa chake kitawaliwe na maneno matamu, yatakayomtia moyo mpenzi wake, yatakayomfariji na yatakayomfanya apende kuzungumza naye.
Mara nyingi mwanaume akiona mke au mpenziwe ni mtu wa kupenda chokochoko, mara nyingi humuepuka. Anajitahidi kadiri ya uwezo wake kukaa naye mbali. Ataona ni bora achelewe kurudi nyumbani akakutane na marafiki baa, wapige stori ili muda uende na akirudi nyumbani asiwe na muda wa kuzungumza na mwenzi wake, yeye ni kula na kulala.
2. Kutoridhika
Wanaume wengi wanachukia kuwa na wanawake wasioridhika. Baadhi ya wanawake hata uwape nini huwa hawaridhiki. Wanawasumbua wapenzi wao kwamba hawawatimizii mahitaji. Mwanaume anajitoa kumpa zawadi mpenzi wake, haridhiki tu.
Anaanza kuikosoa. Anasema haifanani na yeye, eti si ya hadhi yake. Akipewa fedha anasema hazitoshi. Kila siku ni malalamiko. Hampi nafasi mpenzi wake ya kufurahia uhusiano wao. Anamfanya kila anapokutana naye awaze atapigwa mzinga.
Bahati mbaya sasa kila atakachopewa haridhiki. Anatamani kikubwa zaidi. Wanaume wengi siku hizi wanaichukia tabia hiyo. Hawapendi kuwa na mwanamke ambaye haridhiki na kile kidogo walichojaliwa. Wanaume wengi wakiona hivyo huwa wanaanza kumuepuka mwanamke wa ‘sampuli’ hiyo.
Kwake kunakuwa hakuna jema. Badala ya kumshauri mpenzi wake mbinu za kujikwamua kiuchumi yeye ni lawama tu. Kila siku analalamika kwamba wanaume wengine wanawapa wapenzi wao mahitaji muhimu lakini wa kwake hamtimizii.
Mwanaume akiona kila analofanya kwa mpenzi au mkewe haridhiki, hatoi shukurani ni rahisi kupunguza mapenzi kwa mtu wake. Taratibu anaanza kujitoa na hata kuhamishia mapenzi kwa mtu mwingine ambaye atakuwa anaridhika kwa kidogo anachopewa. Ni muhimu kuridhika.
3. Kulinganisha
Hii nayo ni tabia isiyopendwa na wanaume wengi. Wanaume wanapenda kuishi maisha yao. Wanapenda kuheshimiwa na wapenzi wao. Wanapenda kumsikia mwanamke akisema; ‘hakuna mwanaume mwingine wa kufanana na wewe.’
Mwanaume anapenda kuhakikishiwa kwamba hakuna mwanaume mwingine kama yeye. Yeye ndiye mzuri au bora kuliko wanaume wengine hivyo mwanamke anapoanza kuonesha tabia za kumlimnganisha na mwanaume mwingine linakuwa tatizo kubwa.
Mwanaume anakasirika. Anaona ni rahisi mwanamke wake kumtamani mtu mwingine baki kuliko yeye. Sifa anazozitoa kwa mwanaume mwingine ni nzuri hivyo zinamvutia. Kama zinamvutia siku yoyote anaweza kushawishika kumfuata yule anayemvutia.
Wanawake wanapaswa kuwa makini katika eneo hilo. Hata kama umeona kuna kitu kizuri kimekuvutia kutoka kwa mwanaume mwingine, kamwe usije kumwambia mwenzi wako. Baki nalo moyoni. Jipe moyo kwamba mwanaume uliyenaye ndiye bora kuliko wanaume wote duniani.
4. Kuwa Tegemezi
Wakati mwingine hata kama huna kitu lakini mwanamke unashauriwa kutojionesha huna kitu. Jioneshe kwamba una kitu hata kama huna. Wanaume wa sasa hawapendi kuwa na mwanamke ambaye kila kitu anategemea kutoka kwa mwanaume.
Hata kama huna kazi lakini ni vyema basi mwanamke akajaribu kufanya biashara ndogondogo ambazo zitampunguzia mwanaume wake makali ya kuombwa fedha kila wakati. Wanaume wanapenda kuwapa wapenzi wao fedha lakini inapozidi kipimo inageuka kuwa kero.
Yani kuanzia mahitaji ya kila siku, saluni, mavazi, ada ya watoto na mengine mengi mwanamke anamtegemea mwanaume. Yeye hataki kujishughulisha hata kidogo. Anataka aletewe, kazi yake kubwa ni kulea familia nyumbani.
Mwanaume akigundua mwanamke ni tegemezi mkiwa katika hatua za mwanzoni, ni rahisi kumkimbia mwanamke na kwenda kwa mwanamke ambaye angalau atakuwa hamtegemei kwa kila kitu. Mwanamke anayejiongeza hata kwa kutoa wazo la kuanzishiwa biashara ambayo itamfanya asiwe tegemezi.
5. Kutokuwa Muelewa
Mwanaume anapenda mwanamke muelewa. Hapendi mwanamke mbishi. Anatamani kuwa na mwanamke ambaye akimueleza kitu, anajiongeza na kufanya zaidi ya pale mwanaume alipofikiria. Mwanaume anapenda mwanamke atakayeanzisha wazo la kimaendeleo na kumshirikisha mpenzi wake ili walifanye.
Wanaume wanapenda wanawake wanaowaelewa. Kama mwanamke anakuwa si wa kumuelewa mpenzi wake, kumsaidia basi mara nyingi mwanaume humkimbia.
6. Kujigamba/Maringo
Hakuna mwanaume anayependa kutawaliwa. Wanawake wenye fedha mara nyingi wanakuwa na tabia ya kutaka kuwatawala wanaume. Anataka mwanaume afanye kile ambacho yeye anataka. Fedha zinamvimbisha kichwa na kuona kwamba anaweza kuwa na mamlaka ya kumuamrisha mumewe.
Isikupite hii: Mambo matano '5' yatakayo kuongezea thamani katika maisha yako
Anatumia fedha zake kama fimbo ya kumchapia mpenzi wake. Ni vigumu sana wanaume kumvumilia mwanamke wa aina hiyo, mara nyingi wanajiepusha naye. Kwa kutumia fedha zake anaweza kupata mwanaume mwingine lakini pia watashindwana katika suala la kumtawala.
7. Kuwa bize sana
Wanaume wengi hawapendi mwanamke tegemezi lakini pia wanaume haohao wanachukia mwanamke akiwa bize sana na kazi zake. Mwanaume hapendi kuona mwenzi wake anakuwa bize na kazi au biashara zake kiasi ambacho kitamfanya hata akose muda na mwenzi wake.
Unachotakiwa kufanya hapo mwanamke ni kujigawa. Hakikisha unakuwa bize na kazi lakini si ya kupitiliza maana itamfanya mwanaume akose muda wa kuwa na wewe pale anapokuhitaji, badala yake anaweza kwenda kwa mwanamke mwingine ambaye hayupo bize.

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The Best Discoveries Begin as Problems: How to Read Proverbs

Why would a book that aims to impart insight for wise living (Proverbs 1:2–3) put contradictory instructions back-to-back? I can think of at least seven reasons.

Here’s the situation:

The book of Proverbs does indeed aim to impart insight for wise living. Probably the most basic insight it offers is this:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
   and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
   and he will make straight your paths.
(Proverbs 3:5–6)

But how can we walk in straight paths if we are told to walk in contradictory ways? Isn’t that the case in Proverbs 26:4–5?

Answer not a fool according to his folly,
   lest you be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
   lest he be wise in his own eyes.

So which is it? Do we answer a fool according to his folly? Or don’t we? Why would the composer — let’s call him the author — of the book of Proverbs put these contradictory exhortations back-to-back? What can we learn from this?

1. We learn that in the author’s mind they are not contradictory.

Their meaning is not such that if one is true, the other can’t ever be true. Neither intention nor accident can explain why these two exhortations would come back-to-back if they were really contradictory. They are too close to be an accident — as though the author would not recall in verse 5 what he had just said in verse 4! And if the intention were to sneak in a contradiction, then putting the exhortations back-to-back is the worst way try to sneak it in. They virtually scream, “Here we are! Two seemingly contradictory instructions!”

If we treat the author the way we would like to be treated, we will surely conclude this: Strange as it sounds, he meant to do this. And he does not want us to be muddleheaded. His aim is to help us be wise, not confused. So in his mind, this is no contradiction. Something else is going on.

2. We learn from this strange juxtaposition the real nature of a proverb, and how to read this book.

If we give the author the benefit of the doubt — and assume he knows what he is doing — we will infer that he’s telling us that it’s okay for proverbs to sound contradictory. Why? Because the real nature of most proverbs is not a rule that is used the same way in all circumstances at all times.

Rather, a proverb is often a recommended way of acting that will be wise in some settings and not in others. Or: A general observation of experience that is very often true and useful, but not always true in every situation. The same act may be wise in one setting, but foolish in another. The same fact may hold in one situation and not in another.

For example, consider the two extrabiblical proverbs “a stitch in time saves nine” and “haste makes waste.” These are, on the face of it, contradictory. One says it’s wise to hurry. The other says it’s foolish to hurry. But they are not contradictory in the sense that if one is true, the other can’t be true. They are both true depending on the situation.

If you catch a water leak in the upstairs bathroom quickly, you will save yourself from having to replace the whole downstairs ceiling. But if you rush to finish the plumbing job by neglecting the right kind of soldering for the copper pipe, you may wake up to a ruined ceiling and a wasted $2,000. Both proverbs are true — and very helpful in living a wise life.

The same is true of proverbs that state a fact, not just proverbs that call for an act: “absence makes the heart grow fonder” and “out of sight, out of mind.” Or “birds of a feather flock together” and “opposites attract.”

These are all true proverbs. But they are not always true in every situation. Well, then, how are we to know when to use them?

3. We learn that life is too complex to be lived by proverbs alone. We need wisdom to know how to use the proverbs.

When the author tells us, back to back, “Answer a fool according to his folly,” and, “Don’t answer a fool according to his folly,” he is teaching us that we need discernment about when to do the one and when to do the other.

If a sergeant tells his platoon to walk slowly and carefully, and also tells them to run like crazy, he expects them to know that sometimes they are navigating a minefield, and sometimes they are under fire in the open country. You store away both pieces of advice in your mind. Wisdom knows when to use the one and not the other. Proverbs 25:11 puts it like this:

A word fitly spoken
   is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.

This means that a wonderfully wise proverb may be spoken in a way that is totally unfitting (not “fitly spoken”). It may be like, “Walk slowly and carefully,” when the bullets are pinging off your helmet. That’s the wrong proverb at the wrong time — not fitly spoken.

4. We learn, therefore, that proverbs alone do not make a fool wise.

Isn’t it remarkable that just two verses later, after our “contradictory” pair of proverbs, the author makes this very point? He says,

Like a lame man’s legs, which hang useless,
   is a proverb in the mouth of fools.
(Proverbs 26:7)

Like a thorn that goes up into the hand of a drunkard
   is a proverb in the mouth of fools.
(Proverbs 26:9)

A perfectly good proverb in the mouth of a fool does not make him wise. It makes him useless at best (like legs that dangle), or dangerous at worst (like piercing the hand). Proverbs alone don’t make fools wise.

What does? A mixture of (1) storing up proverbs and other forms of revealed wisdom, (2) earnest meditation on them, (3) serious prayer for God’s help, and (4) a divine bestowment of the gift of wisdom.

I see those four things in Proverbs 2:1–6:

My son, if you receive my words
   and treasure up my commandments with you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom
   and inclining your heart to understanding;
yes, if you call out for insight
   and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver
   and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
   and find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom;
   from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

Proverbs alone don’t make you wise. You must be wise to use proverbs wisely — like apples of gold in a setting of silver, not like a thorn in the hand.

5. We learn that we should store up reasons why a proverb might be useful sometimes and not other times.

Notice the author gives us reasons for choosing one action or the other. “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.” “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.”

In other words, store up this truth: there are times when it will be pointless to answer a fool, because it will only drag you into his folly. It’s best to just let him make a fool of himself and be discredited rather than ruining your own usefulness.

But also store up this truth: there are times when he is not just making a fool of himself, but also is drawing dozens, or thousands, into his folly so that he feels justified and wise in his foolish ideas. You need to step in and expose his vaunted wisdom as folly for the sake of others, and for his sake.

6. We learn that the divine mercy needed to become a person who can use proverbs wisely has always depended ultimately on Jesus’s death for our sins.

If it weren’t for God’s free gift of wisdom (Proverbs 2:6; James 3:17), we would all be trapped in sinful folly. This is why Proverbs 3:5 tells us to trust in the Lord with all our hearts. But this mercy was blood-bought. Old Testament sacrifices foreshadowed the bloody payment. Jesus paid it. And Paul made clear in Romans 3:25 that his payment covered the sins of Old Testament believers as well as ours.

So, when the author of Proverbs cries out for wisdom (2:1–6), and when New Testament saints cry out for wisdom (Colossians 1:9), we are all depending on divine mercy which we do not deserve. If we get it, it’s because Jesus bought it.

7. Finally, we learn that the wisdom that knows how to use proverbs “fitly” is not automatic but grows with time, experience, and grace.

These “contradictory” proverbs (Proverbs 26:4–5) throw us back not on rule-keeping, but on God. And there, in dependence on his mercy, we learn that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).

The beginning. Getting wisdom is a lifelong process.

For example, I learned from experience as a pastor that there are times in a church business meeting when a crotchety saint may take the microphone and begin to say unhelpful and foolish things. But you don’t answer him according to his folly, lest you get sucked into a vortex of irrationality. You know the man. And you discern that the people can see through this little rant. And you let it die out in its own smoke.

But there are other times when a more articulate, but no less misguided and foolish, person begins to mislead significant numbers with foolish and uninformed opinions. This time you discern that he must be answered according to his folly, lest his apparent wisdom and persuasiveness carry people into his error.

Life brings hundreds of such experiences our way. The path of wisdom is to be filled with the word of God, meditate on its possible uses, pray for blood-bought help, trust God at every turn, and then humbly choose which part of the “contradiction” we will put into action — knowing our Lord never contradicts himself.

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The Horror of Human Embryo Jewelry

Some of the strangest news I’ve ever seen came across my screen this week. A company in Australia is turning frozen embryo children into jewelry for their parents to wear.

Previously Baby Bee Hummingbirds had been making jewelry out of mothers’ breastmilk and placentas. Now, the company has turned its attention to frozen human embryos— embryos that couples choose not to implant in the mother’s uterus and no longer want to store or “donate.” To put it plainly, they’re making trinkets out of discarded children. 

Founder Amy McGlade says, “I don’t believe there is any other business in the world that creates jewelery from human embryos, and I firmly believe that we are pioneering the way in this sacred art, and opening the possibilities to families around the world. . . .What a better way to celebrate your most treasured gift, your child, than through jewelery?”

Babies, Not Trinkets

Drs. Paul and Susan Lim have argued compellingly that we don’t “donate humans”; we donate objects: furniture, money, cars. Twisting language like this obscures what’s really going on in the industry of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). As the Lims’ own story shows, embryos are human. The proof is in their youngest daughter, adopted as an embryo, with her own genetic makeup, her own hands, feet, brain, and personality. She now lives a fully human life, and existed as a frozen embryo before they knew her.

One Australian mother, who carries the ashes of her embryos in a heart pendant, candidly says, “My embryos were my babies — frozen in time.” She remarks, “I needed them with me.”

The author of the article also overtly affirms that the embryos are babies whom parents should honor. Try as they may, advocates of this new trend can’t help but say what they know deep down to be true: these are babies. “Ms. Stafford chose a heart pendant through Baby Bee Hummingbirds, so she could carry her babies close to her heart, where they should be.”

And yet, that’s not where they should be. God designed embryos to live inside a mother’s womb for protection and growth. They are not supposed to be incinerated and hung round a mother’s neck, no matter how close to the heart they hang. How do we love embryos? By allowing them to keep living and growing.

Baby Bee Hummingbird’s Facebook page responds to criticism by saying, “Please only read with love and respect. The families we craft for are truly aware of the various worldwide options for embryos in storage. They are informed, educated, and loving people who have made an educated decision.”

This is part of what makes embryo jewelry so breathtakingly surreal. Educated and wealthy married couples are choosing to turn their children into wearable ornaments. In the process, they attempt to make death into something precious.

A Time to Question

IVF has become the default option physicians suggest for couples struggling with infertility, yet it has gone largely unquestioned in the broader Christian world. Now is the time to begin raising serious questions, if we haven’t already. The ethical issues are many, including the historic disregard for life in creating the procedure and the ongoing disregard for life as the techniques continue to develop. The mass majority of IVF not only destroys human life; it conceives life it knows will be destroyed. Add to this the gigantic financial incentive doctors have to perform IVF, and Christians ought to openly, articulately, and lovingly challenge the mainstream of this approach to conceiving children.

As Christians, we also need to equip ourselves to understand and guide parents who have frozen embryos in limbo. We must be able to point them to a better way of celebrating their children than turning them into necklaces. Let’s remind parents that, rather than wearing babies around their necks, they could clasp their arms around their children as they tuck them in and hug them goodnight. Instead of petrifying their children in stones around their wrists, they could hold their hands to cross the street.

We must value all human life as a precious gift from God. We also must be willing to help those who have frozen their embryos — whether unwittingly in ignorance or with a stinging conscience — to know that their frozen children are, or were, just that: their children. And we stand ready to offer them the hope of the gospel.

Savior of the Weak and Wicked

Whatever sons and daughters have been lost in IVF, they are not lost to God. Just as hundreds of thousands of embryonic humans sit frozen and utterly vulnerable to the whims of adult humans, there is One who became vulnerable for us, whose beginnings were the same as theirs. Our Savior Jesus, true God of true God, became an embryo for us.

Jesus became poor and weak, even to the point of death. And he subjected himself to the whims of adult humans, too. But no one took his life from him — he laid it down willingly. He died for our guilt, the guilt that’s more than just a feeling, but a true status. God’s Son Jesus received our punishment through his death on a cross, and God raised him from the dead, so that we can be forgiven and set free to love him. We can even be forgiven for creating children with the knowledge that some of them will be killed at our word.

Let’s call everyone, all the guilty, the people that we once were, to turn from their wicked ways and trust Jesus. Let’s speak into the confusion of our culture with the truth that a child’s death is never sentimental and never precious. And let’s help rescue children who are perishing, rather than turning them into an accessory for their parents to wear.

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Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (/əˈɡrɪpə/; 64/62 BC – 12 BC) was a Roman consul, statesman, general and architect.^[2] He was a close friend, son-in-law, and lieutenant to Octavian and was responsible for the construction of some of the most notable buildings in the history of Rome and for important military victories, most notably at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC against the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. As a result of these victories Octavian became the first Roman Emperor, adopting the name of Augustus. Agrippa assisted Augustus in making Rome a city of marble^[3] and renovating aqueducts to give all Romans, from every social class, access to the highest quality public services. He was responsible for the creation of many baths, porticoes and gardens, as well as the original Pantheon. Agrippa was also father-in-law to the second Emperor Tiberius, maternal grandfather to Caligula, and maternal great-grandfather to the Emperor Nero.

Early life

Agrippa was born between 64–62 BC,^[4] in an uncertain location.^[1] His father was perhaps called Lucius Vipsanius Agrippa.^[5] He had an elder brother whose name was also Lucius Vipsanius Agrippa, and a sister named Vipsania Polla. The family had not been prominent in Roman public life.^[6] However, Agrippa was about the same age as Octavian (the future emperor Augustus), and the two were educated together and became close friends. Despite Agrippa's association with the family of Julius Caesar, his elder brother chose another side in the civil wars of the 40s BC, fighting under Cato against Caesar in Africa. When Cato's forces were defeated, Agrippa's brother was taken prisoner but freed after Octavian interceded on his behalf.^[7]
It is not known whether Agrippa fought against his brother in Africa, but he probably served in Caesar's campaign of 46–45 BC against Gnaeus Pompeius, which culminated in the Battle of Munda.^[8] Caesar regarded him highly enough to send him with Octavius in 45 BC to study in Apollonia (on the Illyrian coast) with the Macedonian legions, while Caesar consolidated his power in Rome.^[9] In the fourth month of their stay in Apollonia the news of Julius Caesar's assassination in March 44 BC reached them. Agrippa and another friend, Quintus Salvidienus Rufus, advised Octavius to march on Rome with the troops from Macedonia, but Octavius decided to sail to Italy with a small retinue. After his arrival, he learned that Caesar had adopted him as his legal heir.^[10] Octavius at this time took Caesar's name, but modern historians refer to him as "Octavian" during this period.

Rise to power

After Octavian's return to Rome, he and his supporters realised they needed the support of legions. Agrippa helped Octavian to levy troops in Campania.^[11] Once Octavian had his legions, he made a pact with Mark Antony and Lepidus, legally established in 43 BC as the Second Triumvirate. Octavian and his consular colleague Quintus Pedius arranged for Caesar's assassins to be prosecuted in their absence, and Agrippa was entrusted with the case against Gaius Cassius Longinus.^[12] It may have been in the same year that Agrippa began his political career, holding the position of Tribune of the Plebs, which granted him entry to the Senate.^[13]

Bust of Agrippa, Pushkin Museum

In 42 BC, Agrippa probably fought alongside Octavian and Antony in the Battle of Philippi.^[14] After their return to Rome, he played a major role in Octavian's war against Lucius Antonius and Fulvia Antonia, respectively the brother and wife of Mark Antony, which began in 41 BC and ended in the capture of Perusia in 40 BC. However, Salvidienus remained Octavian's main general at this time.^[15] After the Perusine war, Octavian departed for Gaul, leaving Agrippa as urban praetor in Rome with instructions to defend Italy against Sextus Pompeius, an opponent of the Triumvirate who was now occupying Sicily. In July 40, while Agrippa was occupied with the Ludi Apollinares that were the praetor's responsibility, Sextus began a raid in southern Italy. Agrippa advanced on him, forcing him to withdraw.^[16] However, the Triumvirate proved unstable, and in August 40 both Sextus and Antony invaded Italy (but not in an organized alliance). Agrippa's success in retaking Sipontum from Antony helped bring an end to the conflict.^[17] Agrippa was among the intermediaries through whom Antony and Octavian agreed once more upon peace. During the discussions Octavian learned that Salvidienus had offered to betray him to Antony, with the result that Salvidienus was prosecuted and either executed or committed suicide. Agrippa was now Octavian's leading general.^[18]

Agrippa depicted in a relief of the Altar of Peace, the Ara Pacis

In 39 or 38 BC, Octavian appointed Agrippa governor of Transalpine Gaul, where in 38 he put down a rising of the Aquitanians. He also fought the Germanic tribes, becoming the next Roman general to cross the Rhine after Julius Caesar.^[19] He was summoned back to Rome by Octavian to assume the consulship for 37 BC. He was well below the usual minimum age of 43, but Octavian had suffered a humiliating naval defeat against Sextus Pompey and needed his friend to oversee the preparations for further warfare. Agrippa refused the offer of a triumph for his exploits in Gaul – on the grounds, says Dio, that he thought it improper to celebrate during a time of trouble for Octavian.^[20] Since Sextus Pompeius had command of the sea on the coasts of Italy, Agrippa's first care was to provide a safe harbour for his ships. He accomplished this by cutting through the strips of land which separated the Lacus Lucrinus from the sea, thus forming an outer harbour, while joining the lake Avernus to the Lucrinus to serve as an inner harbor.^[21] The new harbor-complex was named Portus Julius in Octavian's honour.^[22] Agrippa was also responsible for technological improvements, including larger ships and an improved form of grappling hook.^[23] About this time, he married Caecilia Pomponia Attica, daughter of Cicero's friend Titus Pomponius Atticus.^[24]
In 36 BC, Octavian and Agrippa set sail against Sextus. The fleet was badly damaged by storms and had to withdraw; Agrippa was left in charge of the second attempt. Thanks to superior technology and training, Agrippa and his men won decisive victories at Mylae and Naulochus, destroying all but seventeen of Sextus' ships and compelling most of his forces to surrender. Octavian, with his power increased, forced the triumvir Lepidus into retirement and entered Rome in triumph.^[25] Agrippa received the unprecedented honour of a naval crown decorated with the beaks of ships; as Dio remarks, this was "a decoration given to nobody before or since".^[26]

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Love Yourself Less

This will date me: the year I graduated from high school, Foreigner released its pop megahit, “I Want to Know What Love Is.”

This quintessential 80’s power ballad went platinum, not because of its vague, incoherent verses, but because, I believe, its title refrain asks a profound, universal human question: What is love?

What Is Love?

We know Foreigner’s producers understood this, at least intuitively, as a religious question, because the song builds into a gospel choir anthem by its end. We all share their intuition.

We know that eros is more than sex, and agape more than sacrifice. We know love is more than a feeling, but certainly not less than a feeling. We know it’s not just a decision, and we know it requires resolve. We know it’s not just a noun, not just a verb, and not just an adjective.

Our greatest stories, songs, poems, even our greeting cards, all bear witness that we know there is something transcendent and ultimate about love. We can’t help ascribing mystical, even metaphysical qualities to it. Yet with all the words we devote to it, we find love simply cannot be contained in human language. Like beauty or glory, it is easier to point to love than to define it.

This is a clue.

God-Haunted Love

Love, like beauty and glory, is a God-haunted human experience. We all know love is transcendent because we innately know “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

The knowledge that love is meant to be a sacred thing is a deep, often suppressed memory in the human soul that God exists (Romans 1:18–19), that he is holy (Revelation 4:8), and that love is at the core of his nature. And therefore, love, in all its unsullied forms, is from God (1 John 4:7), which is why it’s beyond words: love is ultimately inexpressible and filled with glory (1 Peter 1:8).

This makes love a stubborn apologetic, a velvet-covered hammer smashing hollow materialistic assertions. Love simply refuses to be reduced to a genetic illusion or an enlightened self-interest that evolutionary biology speculates we adapted for survival. We all know better. That isn’t what love is.

Humans in every culture have always most admired the most selfless, even self-sacrificial expressions of love far more than desperate acts of self-preservation. Christianity, with its self-sacrificing God, didn’t create this admiration. It just most beautifully and gloriously fits the shape of love our souls most admire and deeply desire — like the missing puzzle piece we’ve always been searching for.

Love points to God. We know this deep down. Our biggest problem is that the god we want to see at the end of the pointer is often a false one.

The End of Love

The year after Foreigner pleaded to know what love is, Whitney Houston sang a chart-topping answer: “Learning to love yourself: it is the greatest love of all.” It also sounded like a song right out of church.

But it’s a worship song to a different, but all too familiar god: self. It celebrates the tragic myth fallen humanity has always wanted so badly to be true: We are worthy of our own supreme love and worship.

It’s a tragic myth because, when believed, it proves to be the death of love. It makes the wrong god the source and object of ultimate love (“the greatest love of all”). We are not love, and love has not come from us, because we are not God.

God is love. And when love is detached from God, it loses its true meaning. When we make ourselves the ultimate reference point for love, love devolves into whatever each of us wishes it to mean. Everyone loves in the way that’s right in his own eyes, and therefore also hates in the way that’s right in his own eyes.

This is the world as we know it. It’s the human story: the rejection of God resulting in the diseasing and disintegration of love. Humans defining love for themselves has led them to become supremely “lovers of self” (2 Timothy 3:2), and so live “in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind . . . by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3).

It is not hard to understand why there is so much confusion, heartbreak, and violence in the world. Many of the horrifying things we see in the news are what the disintegration of love looks like.

Loving ourselves supremely is not the greatest love of all. It’s the end — the death — of love.

The End of Selfishness

This is why the Christian message is good news for everyone who really wants to know what love is.

The God of love, the God who is love, the God from whom all love comes, so loved us that he gave his only Son to become love incarnate and lovingly sacrifice himself to liberate all who believe in him from the suicidal slavery of supreme self-love (John 3:16). Jesus showed us what love is, the greatest love of all: laying down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13).

But Jesus is not content with us merely observing and admiring his love. For freedom he has set us free (Galatians 5:1). Our freedom is more than being loved; it is entering fully into the experience, the fellowship of love by loving God and others in the same way: “just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34).

And loving the way Love loves means some kind of self-dying, for as he laid down his life for us, we lay our life down for our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16). But as self-worship proves to be the death of love in this fallen world, this self-sacrificing proves to be the resurrection of love in this fallen world.

The love of Christ in the life of Christians is the end of selfishness and the foretaste of what Jonathan Edwards called heaven: “a world of love.”

All who wish to know what love is must look to whom love is. For God is love. And if we wish to experience true love, we must love in the way he loved us.

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Kiwanda kinachotengeneza bia kwa kutumia mkojo Denmark

Kiwanda kimoja cha pombe nchini Denmark kimetengeneza bia mpya kwa kutumia shayiri ambayo imekuzwa kwa kutumia lita 50,000 za mkojo.

Kampuni ya Norrebro Bryghus inayomiliki kiwanda hicho hata hivyo imesema bia hiyo haitakuwa na masalio yoyote ya mkojo wa binadamu.
Pombe hiyo imepewa jina Pisner na imeandaliwa kwa kutumia kimea cha pombe kutoka wka shayiri iliyokuzwa kwa kutumia mkojo huo badala ya mbolea ya kawaida.
Mkojo huo ulikusanywa kutoka tamasha ya Roskilde ambayo ndiyo hafla kubwa zaidi ya muziki Ulaya kaskazini miaka miwili iliyopita

• Asali ''inaweza kukabili maambukizi ya mkojo''

"Wakati habari kuwa tulikuwa tumeanza kutengeneza pombe zilifichuka, watu walidhani kuwa tulikuwa tukiweka mkojo huo moja kwa moja kuenda kwa pombe," alisema mkurugenzi wa kampuni ya Norrebro Bryghus.
 
"Kama ingekuwa na ladha ya mkojo ningeachana nayo, lakini hata huwezi ukahisi," alisema mtu moja ambaye alihudhuria tamasha hiyo ya muziki mwaka 2015.,
Lita hizo 50,000 za mkojo zilizokusanywa kutoka kwa warsha hiyo ya muziki zilitosha kuunda chupa 60,000 za bia.
Kutumia kinyesi au mkojo wa binadamu kwa kiwango kikubwa hivyo ni jambo ambalo si la kawaida, baraza la kilimo na chakula nchini Denmark linasema.
Baraza hilo ndilo lililotoa wazo hilo la kutumiwa kwa mkojo kama mbolea ya kurutubisha shayiri ambayo baadaye inatumiwa kutengeneza pombe.
Lakini usishangae, tayari kuna mtambo wenye uwezo wa kubadilisha mkojo moja kwa moja na kuwa bia.

• Tamasha la kutatanisha lafungiwa Urusi

Mashine iliyotengenezwa na kundi la wanasayansi katika chuo kimoja nchini Ubelgiji, inabadili mkojo wa binadamu na kuwa maji ya kunywa pamoja na mbolea ikitumia nguvu za miali ya jua.
Maji hayo, kutoka kwa mkojo uliokusanywa kwa siku kumi katika tamasha moja la muziki Ghent kisha yalitumiwa kutengeneza bia.

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Kaburi la mwana wa Pharaoh lapatikana Misri

Kaburi la miaka 3,700 la mwana wa kike wa Pharaoh linaamika kupatikana karibu na mabaki ya piramidi iliogunduliwa Misri.

Wizara ya mambo ya kale imesema kuwa kaburi hilo lililopo katika eneo la kifalme la Dahshur Kusini mwa Cairo lilikuwa na sanduku la mbao lililochongwa.
Ndani ya sanduku hilo kulikuwa na mitungi iliojaa nguo za mapambo vikiwemo viungo vya marehemu ambaye ni mwana wa kike wa mfalme Emnikamaw.
Piramidi hiyo ya mfalme ina urefu wa mita 600 kutoka kwa kaburi hilo.
Mwezi uliopita watalam wa vitu vya kale wanaochunguza mabaki ya jengo hilo walipata afueni kwa kupata picha za mabaki hayo zilizokuwa na jina la Emnikamaw.
Pia waligundua mabaki ya makaburi ya mawe.

Dahshur ni eneo ambalo mfalme Sneferu wa awamu ya nne alijenga piramidi ya kwanza yenye urefu wa futi 341 iliokuwa na upande mmoja ambao ulikuwa umelainishwa takriban miaka 4000 iliopita.
Pia alijenga piramidi ya awali iliokuwa na urefu wa mita 105 ambayo mteremko wake ulikuwa na ngazi zilizobadilishwa kutoka pembe yenye digree 54 hadi 43.
Mfalme Sneferu alirithiwa na mwanawe Khufu anayejulikana sana kwa kujenga Piramidi kubwa katika eneo la Giza ambayo ilikuwa na urefu wa mita 138 ambayo ilikuwa maajabu ya dunia wakati huo.

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When the Boss is a Woman

Men and women are equally effective in settings that match gender roles.

What the Research Shows

Since women began to climb the management ladder, pundits have asked if they have what it takes to lead groups and organizations. The answer isn't as simple as yes or no. According to the research, while men and women are equally effective in some settings, more often effectiveness depends on the fit between the setting and management gender. For example, women's typically more mentoring, coaching style is more favorably received in female-dominated professions; men's more typically "command and control" style is well received in male-dominated professions.

Thus, all things being equal, men and women are equally effective. But given varied work settings and a workplace whose top managers are still more likely to be male, all things rarely are equal. For example, women are slightly more likely to be "transformational" leaders, serving as role models, helping employees develop their skills, and motivating them to be dedicated and creative. That approach may actually be more effective in today's less hierarchical organizations. But not all workplaces are alike: The participatory style may backfire in traditional male settings such as the military or organized sports. Conversely, the command-and-control style more typical of men may backfire in a social-service agency or retail outlet.
Studies published during the past decade underscore these complexities. A 1995 review by Alice Eagly, PhD, Steven Karau, PhD and Mona Makhijani, PhD, of more than 80 different studies found that when aggregated over the organizational and laboratory experimental studies in the sample, male and female leaders were equally effective. The leaders or managers assessed in the studies were typically first-level or first-line supervisors, with a strong minority of studies looking at mid-level managers or managers of mixed or unknown levels.
At the same time, the analysis revealed that women were more effective leaders in female-dominated or female-oriented settings, and that men were more effective leaders in male-dominated or male-oriented settings. Thus working in a leadership role congruent with one's gender appears to make one more effective -- or at least perceived as being more effective.
To address the question of whether men and women have different management styles, Eagly and Johnson conducted a 1990 review of leadership studies. Interestingly, although lab studies of management styles showed women to be both interpersonally oriented and democratic and men to be both task-oriented and autocratic, field studies found a difference on only one of those dimensions: The women were more democratic, encouraging participation, and the men were more autocratic, directing performance.
A 2003 meta-analysis extended those findings, showing that women were slightly more likely than men to have the transformational leadership style, in which the manager acts more like a good teacher or coach and encourages creative solutions to problems. Research shows that such a style may be especially suited to the contemporary workplace. Women also appeared to reward good performance more than men, a very positive part of transactional leadership. Men were more likely to criticize subordinates and be less hands-on, styles found to be ineffective.
Despite these trends, psychologists caution against concluding that women or men have some sort of natural or innate management style. It's entirely possible that women, knowing how poorly people have responded to "bossy" women, soften their approach. What's more, the research shows only averages, or tendencies, for each sex. Some men will have more "feminine" management styles; some women will have more "masculine" management styles.

Research in the Workplace

Eagly notes that in U.S. organizations overall, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly one of four chief executives is now a woman, "an enormous social change," she notes. Yet many of these women are at the top because they run their own small business. Sandy Shullman, PhD, a psychologist and management consultant who helps major corporations retain women in leadership positions, says that women still hold only about one out of 20 top-management positions in high-profile Fortune 500 corporations - only slightly higher than 20 years ago. Partly, she says that's because as people move up, the pyramid narrows. If women aren't groomed or selected for these top jobs -- despite the evidence of their effectiveness -- they start to fall off the ladder quicker relative to the larger numbers of men.
Also, in those bigger companies, men gain operations experience earlier in their careers, thus qualifying more for top jobs. Still, once decision-makers know that women can manage as effectively as men, it's hoped that they'll give more women greater responsibilities. Psychologists such as Eagly note a vicious cycle: If bias against women as managers restricts women's access to higher management positions, they're shut out from the chance to demonstrate their ability to handle line responsibility and further build their leadership skills.
At the same time, women aspiring to management may consider their sex and their behavioral style in light of where they work. They may get a more positive appraisal in sectors typically populated by women, but if they work in the many areas dominated by men, adapting their style to the more command-and-control approach may help them fit in. Similarly, men taking management jobs in women-oriented industries may tap the interpersonal skills traditionally associated with women in order to be seen as more effective.
Shullman notes the value of this research in helping aspiring women understand why they may feel as if they don't "fit in" as they climb the ladder - it may be due to a mixture of individual and contextual variables that is still being studied.
Eagly's advice is to mind the power of perception. She says that even though the research found some differences in management style, "the sex differences are small because the leader role itself carries a lot of weight in determining people's behavior." She concludes that women are in some senses better leaders than men but suffer the disadvantage of leadership roles having a masculine image, especially in some settings and at higher levels. Stripping organizational leadership of its masculine aura would allow psychologists to get a clearer picture of any true differences between men and women.
Researchers are especially interested in the question of whether a management style more associated with women - a less authoritarian, more nurturing approach - will "click" as the workplace generally shifts to more team-oriented structures that thrive under a less directive approach. In the meantime, both women and men would do well to remember that gender-based bias can help or hinder not only themselves personally, but their organization as well. Dismissing any candidate on the basis of sex, given the findings of overall equal effectiveness, not only denies opportunity to talented individuals but also dries up the management talent pool.

Cited Research

Butterfield, A. and Grinnel, J. P. (1999). Re-viewing gender, leadership, and managerial behavior: Do three decades of research tell us anything? In G. N. Powell (Ed.), Handbook of gender and work. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
Cann, A. and Siegfried, W. D. (1990). Gender stereotypes and dimensions of effective leader behavior. Sex-Roles, 23, 413-419.
Carli, L. L., and Eagly, A. H. (2001). Gender, hierarchy, and leadership: An introduction. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 629-636.
Denmark, F. L. (1993). Women, leadership and empowerment. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 17, 343-356.
Eagly, A. H., Johannesen-Schmidt, M. C., and van Engen, M. (2003). Transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles: A meta-analysis comparing women and men. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 569-591.
Eagly, A. H., and Johannesen-Schmidt, M. (2001). The leadership styles of women and men. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 781-797.
Eagly, A. H. and Johnson, B. T. (1990). Gender and leadership style: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 233-256.
Eagly, A. H., Karau, S. J., and Makhijani, M. G. (1995). Gender and the effectiveness of leaders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 125-145.
Gardiner, M. and Tiggeman, M. (1999). Gender differences in leadership style, job stress and mental health in male- and female-dominated industries. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 72, 301-315.
Rosener, J. D. (1990, November/December). Ways women lead: The command-and-control leadership style associated with men is not the only way to succeed. Harvard Business Review, 68, 119-125.

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God Didn’t Wait for You to Believe

I came to Avi Synder’s new book, Jews Don’t Need Jesus. . .and Other Misconceptions: Reflections of a Jewish Believer, with a deep desire to say something fresh about this important topic. Now that I have read it, that desire burns even more.

Before I knew this book was being published, I had said to the content team at Desiring God, “I want us to do more for the cause of Jewish evangelism.” I had been stirred again with this burden. And now all the more.

Only a Jewish person with a deep love for his people could have written this book. I say that not only because of the personal empathy that abounds in its pages, but also because only a Jewish person could see so clearly the objections raised against sharing the message of Jesus Christ. This means that the book is emotionally and intellectually tuned in to the post-Holocaust, pluralistic world — especially in the West.

Eighteen Objections Answered

Avi Snyder has experienced at least eighteen objections to Jewish and Gentile efforts to win Jewish people to faith in Jesus as the Messiah and Savior. I say “experienced,” rather than merely “heard,” because he speaks from inside real relationships, where these objections are deeply felt. He writes insightful, biblical, personal answers to each objection.

Nothing is merely theoretical. For example, if you say, “It is impossible for a Jewish person to believe on Jesus after the horrors of the Holocaust,” he will say,

I wish I could invite you to ask Manfred and Laura Wertheim whether or not the Holocaust made it impossible for Jewish people to come to faith. I wish I could invite you to ask Rachmiel Frydland, or Vera Schlamm, or Eleazer Erbach, or Rose Price, or Carl Flesch. These are just a handful — less than a handful — of the many Jewish people who went through the inferno of the Holocaust but came to faith in Yeshua.

If you say, “You just don’t realize the unspeakable history of the way the Christian church has treated Jewish people throughout the last two thousand years,” he pours out his lament:

From charges of deicide by church fathers; to legal writs against us during the Dark Ages; to the slaughter of European Jewish communities by Crusaders on their way to “liberate” the Holy Land; to the expulsions, tortures, deaths-by-burning, and forced baptisms of the Inquisition; to the blood libels and pogroms in Eastern Europe and Russia; to the systematic liquidation of one third of our total population during the Holocaust — the story of the hostility of “Christendom” toward us Jews should leave little doubt about why we find it so hard to give Yeshua a fair and impartial hearing.

If you say, “Faith in Jesus as the Messiah will be the end of my Jewish existence,” he says,

Faith in Yeshua is not a threat to our Jewish existence. Rather, faith in Yeshua is an affirmation of our identity as Jews. The God who saved us through our faith in Jesus is the very God who deepens our Jewish identity through that very same faith. More often than not, Jewish people who believe in Yeshua experience a heightened commitment to their Jewish heritage and roots. By coming to Jesus, we discover that we’ve come home.

And if you say, as one man did, “I feel we Germans have forfeited the right to talk with Jews about the Lord,” he gently disagrees:

“You not only have the right,” I offered. “You have the responsibility.” I went on to tell him how I believed that God was bringing the Jewish people back to Germany for at least three reasons: because of His love for the Jewish people, because of His love for the German church, and because of His love for the German people. God wants my people to hear the gospel and be saved. He wants German believers to know the joy of being used by God to bring His people to Himself. He wants Germans to hear the gospel from Jewish lips. And I think He wants the world to see Jews and Germans, proclaiming the gospel together. What a testimony of the love of the Lord. What a testimony of the reconciling power of the cross.

We’ve needed to hear a perspective like this for a long time, not only because of the misunderstandings and legitimate fears of Jewish people, but also because of the failures and fears of Christians. But today — a day when whole Christian denominations are renouncing (and denouncing) all efforts to win Jewish people to faith in Jesus — this book is more needed than ever.

Don’t Follow Your Heart

The note Snyder strikes is crystal clear. It is not loving to “follow your heart,” if your heart builds a theology that contradicts the truth.

Eighty years ago, that tendency of following the heart, then constructing the theology, led to the abandonment, betrayal, and destruction of one third of my people. Today, that same tendency is placing the Jewish people’s spiritual well-being in the gravest peril. Ironically, the first instance occurred as a result of undisguised hate. Today, the “sequel” is occurring in the name of love.

Those are strong words. But Jewish people who know their Scriptures are used to strong words. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). It is not hate or ignorance or naiveté or presumption that motivates Snyder to plead with his people to turn to Jesus and to plead with us to join him. It is love.

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. (Isaiah 62:1)

As a Gentile, I have felt moved by Snyder to love Jesus and to love Jewish people better. Surely Snyder is right:

Silence about the gospel is not love. Silence is the enemy of the salvation of my people. Silence is the enemy of the salvation of any people.

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You Can Defeat Distraction

By all accounts, we seem to be the most distracted civilization in the history of the world. We are increasingly fragmented in our attention and relentlessly pulled away from many of the basics that make us human.

The trouble is especially pressing for Christians. We believe that the inner person is more important than the outer, and that where we focus our minds and hearts today counts forever. The very essence of what we believe to be true about the world hangs on where we direct our attention.

In such a day, it is of growing importance that we acknowledge we really can direct our attention. We are not defenseless in our chaotic surroundings. We are not animals. Our minds are on a leash we hold. You really can control your thoughts.

The Holy Spirit is in the ministry of producing in us self-control. As Martin Luther so memorably said, you may not be able to keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.

Set Your Mind Up

One of the most pressing practical issues in the Christian life — right there on the page in the New Testament and experientially today — is where and how we set our minds. Where we direct our minds, and what plane of reality to which we tune our hearts, makes all the difference between hearing from Jesus, as Peter did, “Blessed are you” (Matthew 16:17), or, “Get behind me, Satan!” (Matthew 16:23).

Why was Peter blessed when he declared Jesus to be the Christ? “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17). Instead of tuning his ears to mere mortals, and the conversational distractions of the day, Peter took his decisive cues from God.

Why, then, just five verses later in Matthew’s Gospel, did Peter stand in the place of Satan? Jesus doesn’t leave us in the dark: “For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Matthew 16:23). Blessing or cursing, hearing from God or acting like Satan, all came down to where Peter set his mind.

Life and Death at Stake

The New Testament makes plain that where we set our minds is digital, not analog. They are set either on the things of God or on the things of man. To put it in terms of Colossians 3:2, we set our minds either on “things that are above” or “things that are on earth.” Or as Paul writes in Romans 8, either “the things of the flesh” or “the things of the Spirit”:

Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:5–8)

It’s an increasingly pressing question in our age of diversion: Where will you regularly set your mind — on the things of God or man, on heaven or earth, on the Spirit or the flesh? Those who set themselves on the Spirit have “life and peace” (Romans 8:6), and no longer are locked in a prison labeled “cannot please God” (Romans 8:8). While Paul says of those with minds set on earthly things, “their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame” (Philippians 3:19).

No Place Like Home

One way we might talk about what it means to set our minds is to ask where our minds are “at home.” Just as most of us have a place we call “home,” where we typically go to bed and wake up and return to, by default, when we’re not someplace else on purpose, so also our minds (and hearts) have a way of returning to some “home” when we’re not pressing them into a specific use.

Colossians 3 gives us an important insight into what it means to set the mind upward. Why set our minds on the things “above”? Colossians 3:1 makes that clear: above is “where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” Why this regular reorienting of our lives on Christ? Because he is our life. Verse 3: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

If we are in Christ, he is our life. And he calls us to engage in the world where we live, as he prays to his Father, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). Jesus says, “I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18). It would be disobedient for us to try to extract ourselves from our very earthy callings in life. And it would be tragic to lose our relentless focus on the very Source of that life, seated in heaven.

You Can Set Your Mind

“Setting our minds” as Christians does not mean we only ever think of God and heaven, but it does mean that as we engage in our earthly callings — in our homes, at work, in the world — we don’t mentally turn our backs on him. Granted, he will not be the explicit, conscious focus of our every waking thought, and he doesn’t expect such. He gave us finite, human minds, with restricted abilities for focus. But we do always want Jesus high on the horizon of our consciousness, ever in our field of sight, consistently resetting our minds to fit us for our callings here below.

You can set your mind, and you will set it somewhere — or if you leave it alone, it will go somewhere. The question isn’t whether your mind will find a home to return to, but what that default will be. Will you be preoccupied with one small thing after another: a favorite sport or team, how you look, how much money you make, how well-known you are, what you’d like to possess, what improvements you’d like to make in your earthly lives? Or will you put in the mental effort to make your mind’s home be the things of the Father (Matthew 16:23), the Son (Colossians 3:1–3), and the Spirit (Romans 8:5–7)?

Will we let our age of diversion nibble away at our very humanness? Or will we fight, in the strength God supplies (1 Peter 4:11) by his Spirit, to reset our minds to what really matters, and so makes us truly effective on earth?

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