Ploductivity Quotes

“Jesus is already Lord of those who recognize it, and He is already Lord of those who refuse to recognize it.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Enjoy your life, the one Christ has given you. And it is not possible to do this without enjoying Christ Himself.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Now if my body is a living sacrifice, this means that everything it rests upon is an altar. The car I drive is an altar, the bed I sleep in is an altar, and the desk where I work is an altar. Everything is offered to God, everything ascends to Him as a sweet-smelling savor. Faith is the fire of the altar, and it consumes the whole burnt offering, the ascension offering. What ascends to the Lord is the sweet savor of our good works: “So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10, esv). Bearing fruit in every good work is fully pleasing to Him.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“The first step toward genuinely productive work is to make it a point to work coram Deo, in the presence of God. I don’t mean to limit this to formalities like opening with prayer or closing with a benediction, but this certainly means more than just some kind of formal recognition. And by saying this I don’t mean to imply that opening and closing with prayer is necessarily a “formality.” No, not at all. But if it is limited to that, it soon will be a dead formality.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“There is not one blessing that we enjoy that was not given to us by the hand of Jesus Christ. If we insist on ignoring His lordship, His blood, His authority, and His kindness, then the time is coming, and now is, when He will chastise us by taking it all away. If we seek first the Kingdom, then other things will be added. If we don’t acknowledge Him, worship Him, or bow down before Him, He takes away that which was blocking the view, which in our case is all our stuff.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Because it is a form of wealth, the bias contained within technological advancements is toward forgetting God. Because it is a form of wealth, cultural progress does veer toward disobedience. Jeshurun waxes fat and kicks. What else is new?”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Wealth is the technical ability to summon the labor of others, either in person or through the application of tools, but the person in possession of that wealth has to have the ability to know how to do it.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Whether we are talking about a small-scale disruption or a large one, there is one sure thing about it. If slipshod work is allowed to fail, then quality work will remain. The external pressures of the free market with ensure that. But for Christians who want to be faithful in their work, their internal motivation will also contribute to the quality of the work. We are to put our hand to the work, doing the best we can with it, and we are to keep our hands off the future.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“When we speak about the law of supply and demand (outside the control of any human agency), we are talking about the Author of that law, and of others. (I refer to the law of gravity, for example, or the three laws of motion.) In other words, the free market does not decide the price of the new zippers. That decision is made by the Lord Jesus.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“We have to trust God for the future, always. If we try to control the future because it makes us nervous, we will only succeed in achieving the disasters we fear. And what we call controlling the future is actually controlling people—a point Lewis himself trenchantly makes in Abolition of Man—and thereby ruining their lives. He argues in that book that what we call control over nature is actually control over people, with nature as the instrument. We can say the same thing about the future. Control of the future is actually a (vain) attempt to control people, with the future as our instrument. Two words that do not go together are control and future. The future, like salvation, is the gift of God, and it must be apprehended by faith alone.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“So, again, what is media? I said earlier that media includes our clothes, other people, tools (especially tools for communication), and infrastructure. These are all means through which Christians communicate—first with God, then with the other saints, and then with unbelievers. Respectively, we pray through Christ, we have fellowship in Christ, and we proclaim Christ. What do we use as we do all these things? We use, among other things, ink, newsprint, microphones, email, toner, power point, algorithms, video clips, all of which are made out of molecules. They are things. This means that, because of the way we are created, we cannot love others without media because love, like sound, doesn’t travel in a vacuum.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Now wherever Christians go, they go as themselves. “Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word . . .” (Acts 11:19a). Wherever hypocrites go, they also go as themselves. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves” (Matt. 23:15). Your country can only export whatever it is your farmers are growing. When you go somewhere, or when you send a message somewhere, you are simply projecting what you already are.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Our first parents were clothed to cover the shamefulness of their nakedness, but we do not need to assume that clothes would never have been developed in a world apart from sin. Presumably there would have been some hikes that required shoes, and some temperatures that required warmth, and other occasions which would require majesty and glory. So, working outward, the first line of media would be clothing.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Tools enable us to widen our reach. Tools make it possible for our radius of fruitfulness (now there is a phrase for the ages) to extend much farther than it otherwise would.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Where is the dividing line between the first stick that Adam used to knock down the first bee hive, and the fantastic app you just downloaded to your smartphone earlier today? We can describe the differences, but these differences have to do with traits like simplicity and complexity, and not with whether they are part of a man’s body. They are both intended to make a task either possible or easier. Therefore they are both tools. And so we should define a tool in this way: something that is not part of a man’s body which makes something that the man wants to do possible or easier.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“The notion that we can be truly human as disembodied and ephemeral spirits is not a Christian idea. We do not believe in the essential immortality of the soul, which is the Greek view. Christians believe in the resurrection of the dead. While it is true that our souls are immortal, this immortality is a contingent one, dependent upon the grace and goodness of God. And the Creator God, in that grace and goodness, fashioned us as embodied creatures.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“In order to evaluate a tool, we have to account for the telos, the end, the purpose. Hammers are used to build both brothels and barns.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“It can be a sin to misunderstand the nature of sin. In other words, we are tempted to locate the sin in the stuff, and then we try to solve the problem (when and if we do try to solve it) by putting some kind of respectable distance between us and the stuff. If people sin with alcohol, tobacco and firearms, and they do, then we think we must regulate the substances (or the tools) themselves. We do it like this because we can at least (we think) throw the stuff away. It is a physical thing out there, and so it appears that we can distance ourselves from it. But if the problem is in our hearts, always in our hearts, whatever shall we do? We can’t throw our hearts away. We can’t get a new heart, or at least we cannot get a new heart on our own. If I were to make a decision to throw my old heart away, that decision would have to be made by my old heart. And if my old heart could do something as wonderful as throwing my old heart away, what is the need for a new heart?”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“In this fallen world, wealth does have a bias towards self-sufficiency rather than to dependence on God. But this is not something the wealth does to us, but rather something we do with the wealth. Wealth—monetary, technological, or otherwise—is simply and solely a good thing, a gift of God. The sin enters in when the means of self-sufficiency are placed in the hands of someone who has entirely the wrong attitude about autonomous self-sufficiency.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Our good works are never at the front end, but they most certainly are at the back end.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“The issue is not whether we are saved by works. Of course not. The issue here, rather, is what salvation looks like. We are saved by grace, but grace works. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12–13, esv).We are not saved by good works (Eph. 2:8–9), but we are saved to good works (Eph. 2:10). Immediately after this famous verse where Paul says we are saved by grace through faith, he then says that we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand for us to do. This salvation by grace is a salvation unto good works.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Fourth, the diligent like to have their work speak for them, and unproductive men like to substitute talk for action. Lazy men are good talkers. “In all labour there is profit: But the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury” (Prov. 14:23).”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Professionalism begins in the heart, but it does not remain there: “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: But the hand of the diligent maketh rich. He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: But he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame” (Prov. 10:4–5). Put another way, the lazy son is not being lazy in his heart. He is being lazy in the harvest.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Second, the right kind of work—when a particular result is desired—quenches the wrong kind of desire. “A worker’s appetite works for him; his mouth urges him on” (Prov. 16:26, esv). Men hustle when they’re hungry, and a refusal to work inflames the wrong kind of desire. “The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: But the soul of the diligent shall be made fat” (Prov. 13:4). Not having a job means that he can think about that flat screen television that he wants so much, and he can think about it all day long. “The desire of the slothful killeth him; For his hands refuse to labour. He coveteth greedily all the day long: But the righteous giveth and spareth not” (Prov. 21:25–26). Workers are generous. Loafers are not.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“First, work is a good thing, and the hard way is actually the easy way. As a general rule, the difficult parts should be moved to the front of the project. There is a way of avoiding work that multiplies work, and there is a way of embracingwork that saves work in the long run. “The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns: But the way of the righteous is made plain” (Prov. 15:19). As the saying goes, if you don’t have time to do it right, then how will you have time to do it over?”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“If you get together with a friend and talk about how so-and-so is having trouble in his marriage, and you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. You are a gossip. But if you tell a friend who asked about it that your brother in Christ installed your kitchen cabinets upside down, that is not gossip. People who do not want public evaluation of the quality of their work are people who have no business being in business. They should just buy a shovel and dig where they are told to.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“So if technology is wealth, then we are all surrounded with astounding amounts of it. This is what I refer to as tangible grace.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Now, what we call technology is simply an array of tools laid out on the bench for us. Technology is therefore a form of wealth. The reason this is important is because the Bible says very little about technology as such, but it gives us a great deal of blunt and pointed teaching on the subject of wealth. If we learn how to deal with wealth scripturally, then we will have learned how to deal with technology.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“We have a perennial temptation to locate sin as resident in the stuff. Some refuse to see sin in the stuff, and therefore conclude that there must not be any sin. These are the technophiles. Others see clearly that there is sin, and so they conclude that it must be in the stuff, though maybe it is not in the earlier stuff. These are the technophobes”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth

“Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”
― Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work & Wealth