There is one act par excellence which profanes money by going directly against the law of money, an act for which money is not made. That act is giving.
Interpretation
Giving is a noble act that contradicts the materialistic nature of money.
In this quote, Jacques Ellul emphasizes that the essence of giving stands in contrast to the purpose of money, which is often associated with acquisition and wealth. He suggests that true value is found not in amassing wealth but in selflessly giving to others, thereby transcending the materialistic laws governing money.
In practice
This quote can be used in a charity event speech to highlight the importance of giving.
The intellectual who wants to do her work properly must today go back to the starting point: the woman whom she knows, and first of all to herself. It is at that level, and at no other, that she ought to begin to think about the world situation.
It is inconceivable that the God who gives Himself in His Son to save us, should have created some people ordained to evil and damnation. There can only be one predestination to salvation. In and through Jesus Christ all people are predestined to be saved. Our free choice is ruled out in this regard. God wants free people, except in relation to this last and definitive decision. We are not free to decide and choose to be damned.
Education no longer has a humanist end or any value in itself; it has only one goal, to create technicians.
We are not to make the Torah into God Himself, nor the Bible into a "paper pope." The Bible is only the result of the Word of God. We can experience the return of the Word of God in the here and now, the perpetual return of the actual, living, indisputable Word of God that makes possible the act of witnessing, but we should never think of the Bible as any sort of talisman or oracle constantly at our disposal that we need only open and read to be in relation to the Word of God and God Himself.
Technological society leads to increasing numbers of people who cannot adapt to the inhuman rhythm of modern life with its emphasis on specialization. A class of people is growing up who are unexploitable because they are not worth employing even for the minimum wage. Technological progress makes whole categories of people useless without making it possible to support them with the wealth produced by the progress.
Human life as a whole is not inundated by technique. It has room for activities that are not rationally or systematically ordered. But the collision between spontaneous activities and technique is catastrophic for the spontaneous activities.
A man who examines each subject from a philosophical standpoint cannot neglect them: he has to omit nothing, and state the truth about each topic.
In the affluent society, no useful distinction can be made between luxuries and necessities.
You are born with a character; it is given, a gift, as the old stories say, from the guardians upon your birth...Each person enters the world called.
Ever since Darwin, we've been familiar with the stupendous timespans of the evolutionary past. But most people still somehow think we humans are necessarily the culmination of the evolutionary tree. No astronomer could believe this.
We are certain God's will is that all men share in the good things this earth produces.
I wanted the moments of my life to follow and order themselves like those of a life remembered. You might as well try and catch time by the tail.
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