Abraham's Intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah

Abraham's Prayer

• Abraham stood before the Lord.
• Abraham drew near and asked.
• Abraham calls on God's character as ground for his petition. Basically, Abraham is saying that he is asking in accordance with God's will and for His glory.
• His prayer is well-founded.
• Abraham remembers his own position before God: "I am but dust and ashes."
• He came in humility, not arrogance. 
• Abraham is not demanding that his will be done, only petitioning.
• We can only come before God because Jesus made a way for us.

Leading Up to the Petition
God said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do...?" Abraham was in communion with God, in His presence. Life in God's presence gave Abraham understanding of God's plan and purpose for Sodom and Gomorrah. This understanding gave Abraham a desire for intercessory prayer.

The Petition
God gave Abraham a desire to petition Him on behalf of the righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah. God did so knowing He would not answer the prayer as Abraham hoped, yet Abraham was perhaps satisfied because Lot was saved.

Abraham's Heart
God caused Abraham to pray though He would not fulfill his request. Why? What was God doing in Abraham's heart?

Perhaps Abraham was learning about God's 

judgment

mercy 

holiness

sovereignty.

God gave Abraham the faith to ask and then the grace to submit to the sovereign outworking of His will. Abraham could draw near to God and ask this request because he had confidence in His relationship with the Lord. He was glad in communion with God even though he did not get what he prayed for.

My Heart

From my own walk with God I know that I have been passive in intercessory prayer because 

• My prayers are self-centered. I am focused on self in life, and why would prayer life be any different? I say this to my shame.
• In the shallowness of my communion with God, I am passive before His sovereignty, as one who is not close enough in relationship to carry any weight. I do not have confidence to approach Him with a petition.

Jesus's Heart

Perhaps in this scene Abraham is a picture of Jesus. Abraham represented the promised people. He was the middleman between God and the righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah. He had great responsibility before God as the one through whom God would work out His purpose in redemptive history--like Jesus.

In Jesus all the nations are blessed. God has chosen to command His children after Jesus to keep His ways by doing righteousness and justice (Gen. 18:18,19). Jesus ceaselessly intercedes on our behalf before the Father. 

I thank God because God's purpose for us will not fail, since Jesus' intercession for His own will not fail. He is faithful to complete the work He has begun in us. 

Our Hearts

Since Jesus died to bring us into the joy of the Lord, into God's presence, let us take full advantage of our status in Him. Let us stand humbly and draw near to God to do what Jesus does. Let us intercede for His people, for all nations, so they may have fullness of joy in communion with Him. 

As we pray for others, let us be mindful of God's work in our own hearts. Let us gladly submit to the sovereign outworking of His will. He is good. He is wise. To Him be the glory in all things. Amen.

What is Love

There is a lot of talk about love in society in songs and music. They define what love looks like. We, their audience, absorb that definition and look for it or try to create it in our own lives. In our own lives, we know some people who talk a lot about the love that is on their mind. We also know others who do not speak much of love at all, because to do so would be to make us vulnerable to the scrutiny of outsiders who wonder if we are defective because we are not in a relationship.

 

But what is love? What is the characterization of the kind of love that leads to marriage? It is much more than a physical expression. Rather, it is predominantly an issue of the heart.

I will be discussing the following four topics relating to our experience of love before marriage:

• Love is not driven by fear.
• The hope for love must be self-controlled and grounded in reality.
• Love requires active waiting and responsibility in timing.
• Love is relationship cultivation.

Love is not driven by fear.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.

Sometimes, as we get older and feel more pressure from society, we begin to fear that we will never marry. Mostly, this fear is driven by the fear of what people will say about us. We could probably live a happy life being single, but we imagine that people will pity us or talk about us behind our backs, so we fear singleness. 

This fear makes us more willing to lower our spiritual standards when choosing to enter into a relationship. It makes us want to cling tightly to a person, for fear of them leaving us. 

A wise man once told me to hold God's gifts in an open palm rather than a clenched fist. If God gives us a gift, He may require us to give it up. Trying to hold onto it with all our might will only cause more pain, denial, anger, etc. 

Remember that God's purpose is not that we should be happy or that we should be married. His purpose is to transform us into Christ's image. Joy comes in that, certainly, and marriage may come too (though God does not owe us marriage). He may give us the gift of a relationship or the hope of a relationship to cultivate our dependence upon Him, our trust in Him, our love for and preference of Him. And then He may take away that gift or that hope, so that we may then be further sanctified in dealing with disappointment, learning to be satisfied in Him. 

So love must not be driven by fear. If we feel this kind of fear, we must go to God and cling to Him. Clinging to a fallen human being will always prove to be disappointing, and more than that, it is a heart issue, because we may in a sense be making a god out of this person, hoping that they will meet our every need. Only God can do that. 


The hope for love must be self-controlled and grounded in reality.



When we like someone, we may allow our imagination the freedom to create all sorts of sentimental hopes and ideas of what love with that person could be like. In doing so, we are adding fuel to a fire that may need to be extinguished altogether rather than encouraged. 

Remember that we may in fact not marry this person, but if we spend time imagining all sorts of things, we may fall into sin in our hearts. Two sins that threaten us here are the sins of idolatry and adultery.

An out-of-control hope for love (it may be a love sickness at this point) may bring us to make an idol out of that person. We have heard the saying that our god is what most often occupies our minds. We must be careful to guard our hearts from such idolatry, because God will certainly crush these hopes in order to bring us back to worship Him. He alone is worthy of worship. He requires it of us and will move circumstances in our lives to make us worship Him.

We must be careful, too, that in hoping for love, we will not fall into adultery in our hearts. We do not know if we will marry that person or if we will marry at all, so it is crucial to work out purity in our thoughts to safeguard against adultery in our hearts.

Purity in thought will also help us to stay grounded in reality. We can get carried away imagining all sorts of things about a person, creating in our minds an image of who we would like that person to be rather than who they actually are. This can lead to greater disappointment because now that person is not living up to the expectations we have created in our own hearts.


Love requires active waiting and responsibility in timing.



In our young single years, we tend to live our lives as we please because we are single and tied to less responsibilities than those who are married and have familial concerns. We tend to eat out more, hang out more, spend more, travel more. All of these are fine in moderation. But remember that to be married, we need money. 

We need money for the wedding itself, which today costs a great deal more as people try to display their style and creativity and go all out. If we want to have a beautiful wedding, we will need to prepare for it. We must not expect our parents to cover the bill. 

Much more importantly, we will need money to live, after the wedding. We all know that marriage does not end after the honeymoon but sometimes, when we are on the single side, we see the wedding as the end result towards which we strive, rather than the beginning of something new. 

We must wait through our single years actively and wisely, working and saving money for the future. Think ahead. We must not spend all of out time and money on today's pleasures. 

We must also be responsible and wise in our timing of marriage, because love that is of God can and will wait.

If we are not yet able to get along with our sibling and parents, it may be wise to put off thinking about getting married, choosing instead to work on our character. Our family of origin is God's training ground for marriage. If we are unable to adapt to and have a good relationship with these people, whose habits and understandings we know, what makes us think we will have a good relationship with a person who will most certainly have entirely different understandings and habits to which we will have to adapt?

If we do not yet have a stable job, it may be best to wait a while to get married. Proverbs 24 says, 

Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house,

the point being that we should think ahead and prepare all that we will need to build a family. Sometimes we can be in such a hurry to get married and do not prepare properly, only to find ourselves struggling to survive on our own. 


Love is relationship cultivation.




In our culture of dating, couples may spend much time doing stuff together to get to know each other. Often, we end up getting to know each other on a superficial level and after the wedding find that we've married a complete stranger. 

It is crucial to cultivate a relationship in which we talk about the deep things of the heart. Remember that a marriage is first and foremost a relationship in which we will help sanctify our spouse and they will help sanctify us. It is all about our relationship with God still. We are not trading in our relationship with God for a relationship with another person.

It can be beneficial to talk about our history--our testimony of God's work in our life, what we've been through and learned, our favorite childhood experiences, etc. This way, we set the context for understanding the other person. 

It can also be beneficial to talk about our hopes for the future. I don't mean that we should compare bucket lists. It can be helpful to talk about how we view family life and what we would like to accomplish in life, in church, in education, in our career. This way, we can see if we are headed in the same general direction or if we would be continually moving apart after marriage.




There is much to consider for love and marriage. The point is, think it through. Do not rush. Do not fear. Trust God.

 

The Time and Heart of an Excellent Wife

An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones. Proverbs 12:4

I think in all reality, that is my most serious fear concerning marriage--that I would be rottenness in my husband's bones. It is disheartening to think that I can do that to someone I love. 

In light of that, I should turn inward to focus on cultivating godly character so that I can be an excellent wife, instead of daydreaming about becoming a wife. That can be rather difficult to do at our age. O Lord, help me turn my heart from men to You. I am already complete in You. Help me cling to You as I seek to become like You in all things.

Currently, I am struggling with two sins:

1. My irresponsible use of time
2. My self-serving heart

These are important in an excellent wife because her use of time and the posture of her heart will either stimulate or inhibit her family's growth. My self-serving heart will lead me to indulge my flesh in sleeping a little longer, in relaxing a little longer, in spending a little more time or money on myself. Sure, there are times when these are wise choices to make, but your conscience knows when you're being wise and when you're being indulgent.

When I dawdle with time, I am pushing back my responsibilities to temporal things (vacuuming, doing homework, etc.) which still have to be done. So when I finally get to work on these things, I have already given up opportunities to invest in cultivating my relationships with my family members. Because I am now behind in my family relationships, how can I even think about serving in the Church or community?

 

My Irresponsible Use of Time
I am letting myself slip into unproductiveness in my morning hours of devotions and homework. My weekends tend to feel like a holiday from schoolwork. Instead of doing as much as I can in a day, I float along, stretching out a small workload to fill the day instead of finishing it quickly and starting on whatever else I must do, because there is never such a thing as having nothing to do.

My Self-Serving Heart
I waste time, yet am frustrated when my dad asks me to do something for him, under the pretense that I do not have time to help him. Help me cultivate selflessness and higher concern for the needs of my family.



O Lord, please forgive me for these sins. Jesus used all His time on earth to do Your bidding, to lay His life down for the Church. How far I am from Christ-likeness.



O Lord, help me set You before me so that I may always remember Your grace towards me and strive for excellence in my character, because You are excellent. 








Who can discern his errors? 
Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
let them not have dominion over me!
Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Psalm 19:12-14

Here's a sad song about a woman who is rottenness in her husband's bones. At least, I hope he's her husband, but judging by society today...he probably isn't...

And here's something that'll be much more useful to you. It's from among Pastor Briggs' reruns. It's what got me thinking about this in the first place.

Choosing a Spouse of Godly Character

 

She Keeps Me Warm: How Songs Can Move a Society

Two weeks ago, I had two hours to drink in the beauty of a morning's walk by the river. 

The fresh green of the grass, the fluttering butterflies, the songbirds, the violets, the tree swallow's dance--they filled me with so much joy! I wished I was a bird so that I could sing my joy without words, because as much as I should wish it, I cannot embody my joy and God's beauty in words that bloom and blossom at the sound of sweet music's voice.

Last week, I heard for the first time the song about lesbian love, "She Keeps Me Warm." It is beautiful in its gentleness, sweet in its meandering exploration of a new friend's heart. 

Yet it distorts truth. Portraying same-sex relationships as acceptable is an obvious distortion. But they added Scripture to it, singing, "Love is patient, love is kind." This is distortion too, because it seeks to lend credibility to something untrue by adding a little truth to it. Love is patient. Love is kind. But love does not rejoice in wrongdoing. 

Lesbian love is not the only distortion of truth in songs. Songs about heterosexual lust and sex are acceptable in mainstream society. These too are distortions of truth and are songs, above all, about unrighteousness. 

Whether society is desensitized to unrighteousness by opinion leaders such as musicians, or opinion leaders write songs that reflect the values of a society that's desensitized to unrighteousness is not exactly clear. Probably both are true. In either case, songs about unrighteousness further pervert people's minds and can lead to greater lawlessness in posterity if the Lord does not intervene.

Someone once said that culture is religion externalized. What a group of people believes to be true will be evident by the content and style of music, art, movies, and books that are made and accepted in a society. 

What does the quality of our music, art, movies, and books say about our society? And what does this say about the involvement and effectiveness of Christians in our society?

The Lord Jesus commanded us to teach all nations to obey His commands. Some commands need to be expressly taught but others can be caught, through song. We can be salt through songs. We can create beautiful songs about pure love. We can paint a musical picture of love as it should be. How will the people believe in true love if they never hear of it on the radio? And I'm not talking about Christian radio.  

Do you like to sing? Sing truth.

Do you like to paint or draw? Draw truth.

Do you like to act? Act out truth.

Do you like to write? Write truth.

Sing truth, draw truth, act out truth, write truth, and share it with the world. Re-sensitize people to purity. 

May the Lord raise up for Himself people who will be culture changers, like Bizzle. He got a lot of bad press from secular media for his response to "Same Love," which uses parts of "She Keeps Me Warm" to relate the plight of the LGBT community to that of black people in America. Listen to his song through the link below. 

Bizzle's response to "Same Love" 

My Dad as a Tool for My Sactification

More than anyone in the world, I love my dad. I am most grateful to him for three things: for his protection, for helping me develop in my role as a woman, and for calling me to be faithful. I know that through him my heavenly Father’s loving hands are molding me.

My dad has protected me by making and enforcing rules. I was angry for a long time about having a curfew. It was embarrassing to be the first among my friends to leave, especially if I wasn’t even the youngest in the crowd. It felt unfair.

But his enforcement of a curfew served to protect me when, during a period of backsliding, I was spending more time than was prudent with unbelievers from college. I know that in at least one instance, his enforcement of my curfew protected me from what could have escalated into a scary and sinful incident. I am grateful for my dad’s protection. Only in heaven will we know the extent to which I was spared from many falls and dangers thanks to him.

My dad helps me develop in my role as a woman by requiring me to submit to him and to prioritize the home.

By requiring me to submit to his authority with the curfew and other everyday things, my dad is teaching me to submit to a future husband, if it should please the Lord for me to marry. To submit to my dad means dying to self in that instant. It means honoring him when I would much rather do what I want to do. It means aligning my agenda with his, to pursue the good of the family rather than self-interest.

Dying to self, showing honor, and pursuing the good of the family are crucial if we want to build a family that is God-honoring and useful to the Kingdom. Absence of these things in a family means we will waste time struggling for headship and fighting to get our way. I am so grateful to be learning to submit in preparation for family life. And more than that, I learn to submit to the Lord by submitting to my dad.

He also calls me to prioritize the home. When I spend too much time (and money) hanging out with friends to the neglect of my duties at home, Dad calls me to set my priorities straight. He requires of me that I fulfill my duty to my family wholeheartedly. He challenges me to sacrifice my self-interest in order to be diligent where the Lord has me. He calls me to invest in the present and future good of my family.

My dad also calls me to be faithful. He himself is an example of faithfulness, committing to finish what he has begun in life, even when things do not turn out as he would like. When I graduated from high school my dad advised me to seek work that I could do just until I marry and have children. But I insisted on going to college. When, more than halfway through, I wanted to quit and adopt his original plan for me, he told me that I must face the consequences of my actions and follow through with what I've started. Graciously, he lessened my burden by allowing me to switch majors. Now I am finishing my final semester at Sac State and am grateful to him because I love marketing and because I am learning to be faithful.

I am so grateful to the Lord for His kindness in giving me a dad who shepherds my soul in this way. I fail often. But the Lord is gracious. He is faithful to complete the work that He has started in me.

The Importance of Family

Why are there young people who go to Ivy League schools and become CEOs, scientists, and senators? For many, it is because their family taught them the value of hard work and education, and sponsored the opportunity for them to be educated.

Why are there young people in prisons, entangled in addictions, and prostituting themselves? For many, it is because they did not have a family that taught them positive values and gave them positive opportunities. For many, it is because they had no family. 

Both groups of young people are accountable for their actions and the path that they choose, but family plays an important role in setting the course.

I was born in Uzbekistan and moved to America with my family when I was three. Uzbekistan is a country with extractive political institutions. If we had stayed there, I would have grown up picking cotton every September instead of starting school, like the children do there even now. 

So why am I where I am today? Why am I graduating college and applying for a fellowship program? 

Because, as the youngest in my family, I reap the blessings of having parents who worked hard to establish our family in this country and older siblings who continue to work hard and provide for me. Circumstances in their lives caused them to sacrifice an education. Their sacrifices have made it possible for me to graduate from college and pursue better opportunities. 

I am humbled by the grace of God towards me through my family.
 

Oh the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus

 

 Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. John 4:13,14



I do not pretend to know how to interpret the Bible but I had a thought on this passage that convicted me.

Solomon uses the imagery of a well in Proverbs 5 to refer to an intimate relationship with one's spouse. Perhaps we can apply this symbolism to the woman at the well. 

She had five husbands. She knew about drinking from the well. Each successive man brings less satisfaction, because men cannot satisfy a latent thirst for God.

I have not had five husbands. I have not even been in an official relationship but in my heart I have drunk from the dissatisfying well of human love.

I have lusted after good-looking guys. I have made idols out of guys I liked, thinking ceaselessly of them. I have tried subtle seduction. I have often traded in the love of the Lord for the desire of the lesser love of men.

But the Lord is gracious, holding me back from lawlessness and perversion, bringing me back to His love and mercy, sanctifying me through disappointment and waiting. How deep is His love for me, to keep me for Himself until the last day.

Jesus reminded me tenderly that I cannot find satisfaction drinking from this well. Yes, He may be pleased at some point to allow me to love a man. But I can only quench my thirst for love and approval in Christ.

O Lord, may You help me love You more. May I be a spring of love welling over onto those around me. May I rest in Your love.


 

Grace in Relationships

 

Relationships can be difficult. Essentially, a relationship is about approval.

We are hungry for approval. We are looking for someone to proclaim that we are worthy of being loved. In a new relationship, we may fear that who we really are will not meet our newly-significant other's standard, so we often protect our inner vulnerability by playing a part, by being who we think they want us to be. 

If we fall short of the standards we perceive them to have, we may lash out, exposing their vulnerabilities so that they will be too busy licking their wounds to notice our flaws. Pride often darkens our reactions, moving us to attack when we feel attacked. We turn the tables and point out all the ways in which they fall short of our standards.

We often forget that in a relationship, we are not shopping for a finished product (and trying to get a discount for that person's missing parts and brokenness). 

Being in a relationship is more like starting a brand new business, where we have to invest a significant amount of resources over our lifetime to help them be the person that God is molding them to be.

Guys and girls are not godliest, most mature, most wise, most humble, most prosperous, most confident when they are young. They are just starting out in life. What matters is the end product. How you treat your significant other has a great deal to do with who they will be at their end.

May God give us grace to cover all things with love. May He give us grace to pray for that person, to respect them, to act with deference, to be gracious with their shortcomings. When they aren't measuring up to our standards, may God give us the grace to remember how far short we fall of His standards, and how much grace He has given us to approve us when we deserve hell. May God give us the grace to remember that we are a work in progress too. 

Go Forth and Be Fearless

James 1: 5-8, 22-25
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

I know for sure the following things:

• I lack wisdom.

I do not know what to do in life. Those things that I want to do, I do not know how to do, or how to do them well. So I tend not to do anything at all.

• My doubts toss me around like a rag doll.

I fear that the things I want to do may end up being the wrong thing to pursue. What if I put in all that time and energy only to find that I have been investing in an unprofitable venture? 

• I am slow to act. 

If I act, I act very cautiously, taking teeny tiny baby steps in my chosen direction. I take every single in-between step, evolving rather than transforming my life. 

This is what needs to be done:

• Determine my theology.

What I believe about God impacts what I do and how. I believe in His sovereignty. I believe that He has given me a new heart. Everything else I still need to learn.

• Determine my course of action.

I can trust the Lord to guide my heart. I can seek His face and His blessing upon what I will do, and then I must stick with it. 

• Go forth.

I must be courageous and not waste my life away scuttling around in fear. I must act. I must invest and bring a return upon the resources the Lord has given me. I must pursue ways to maximize the return. 

Help me be a faithful, fearless steward of the time You have lent me, Lord.

The Now and Not Yet of Commitment to Church Life

We are saved to serve. Indeed, serving the church is pleasant and edifying. I am in the church now but have not yet committed to serving and being active in church life because of my past, present, and future.

I hesitate to serve now because I want to hold onto people from my past. My transition in membership to Immanuel is recent and I miss my old friends with whom I grew and served for ten plus years. I struggle to grow relationships in Immanuel because I am trying to hold on to relationships from the past. However, perhaps God has drawn me away from the people I knew in the way that He drew Joseph out of his family or Moses out of Pharaoh's house so that they could accomplish the Lord's specific purpose for them. 

I hesitate to serve now because of my present season of serving my family and being in college. 

Whenever I think of serving the church, I always check mentally whether I am sufficiently serving my family, since one who does not provide for her family has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Also, my family tends to schedule an event for the same time that a church event is scheduled so I am forced to make a decision about in whom to invest my time. Truly, I am more edified from the instruction and fellowship provided at Immanuel than I do from interaction with my family, and must bring a return on IBC's investment, but I have been acting upon loyalty to my family.

The necessity of diligence in my studies at college makes me step back from serving as well, though this is a sorry excuse because I do not actually care for my studies. In the spirit of efficiency, I work hard not for an A but for the best grade possible for the least amount of effort, which, by the God's grace, has often been an A or B anyway.

I hesitate to serve now because of an uncertain future, my own "now and not yet." Lord willing, I will graduate this semester and have applied for a fellowship program which, if I am accepted, will require me to live in San Francisco for nine months. After that, I must consider my profession and invest accordingly. I do not want to start work in a ministry only to uproot a few months later. If I put my hand to the plow, I want to finish the job. So I just haven't committed.

For now, I suppose I must weigh my options and make a decision about what I will pursue. Finalizing a decision will bring peace to my anxious mind.

Your Love is a Song

More than anything except my dad, I love to sing. I long to sing. My heart thirsts for singing. To sing beautifully with someone is like a sweet kiss.

 

I love to sing freely, without the constraint on creativity that comes with singing written music in a choir, though these pieces are in themselves highly artistic and are beneficial for improvement. I prefer to let my ear and heart and voice join together to create their own harmony. It is deeply satisfying to add my element of experience to the song rather than singing simply what another has experienced in his spirit and written for the world to sing.

I love to sing with people. There are two kinds of people with whom I love to sing: those who love to sing and those who can sing well. 

When I sing with others who love to sing, I do not feel pressured to please those who do not like to sing, which would mean not singing. 

When I sing with people who can sing well, I feel free to pursue a harmony of my own, to meander, to ebb and flow in response to what they sing, rather than dutifully singing the melody as the lead because others lack confidence or ability. When I sing with people who sing well, the synergy of spirit between us is exhilarating. It is overwhelming.

I dream that some day I will find people who love to sing like I do. I think I shall live in complete bliss forever once I find them. 

Democracy: Power of the People

Power in America depends on your status and/or occupation. Your status and/or occupation depend on your network. Your network is shaped by people you meet along your way through your education and opportunities. The level of education you attain depends on your natural abilities and your unnatural ability to pay for it, i.e. your wealth. Your opportunities depend on your access to different groups in society, which also depends on your wealth. And what does your wealth depend on?

Family.

No child is born clutching a trust fund in their little fist, which developed in the womb with them. If a child is born wealthy, it is because the child was born to parents who have accumulated wealth through their hard work and/or the hard work of their parents before them. We acknowledge that children are not born into equal amounts of wealth and so begin their journey with different levels of advantage, attaining consequently, different levels of power within their lifetime.

 

So, we must help increase the advantage for those who are born into families of little wealth. I do not propose the transfer of money from a generous individual or group to a family of less wealth. They would almost certainly waste that money away, not because they are bad or greedy, or will use it for bad things, but because many of them do not know how to use that money to generate more money.

So how do you generate money?

I'm still trying to figure that one out myself.