Plantinga Chaper 5

                Plantinga starts by explaining that perhaps our prosperity can draw us away from wanting God’s kingdom to come.  We can get so caught up with our own lives and our own little kingdoms that we forget about being part of Gods bigger kingdom.  God gives us areas to rule over, our own little kingdoms; However, we must also connect our little kingdoms with others as well as cooperate with others in our kingdom such as our family. 

                He then talks about how we must not just be good citizens in God’s kingdom but rather we need to be prime citizens that work hard to create a better community. He suggests that a Christian’s first vocation is to be a prime citizen in God’s kingdom: an agent of change, a seeker of joy, and a fighter for justice.  The first way he proposes to become this type of person is to be involved in a church.  It is important that we are in a community of other who are also elected to be prime citizens.  Christian groups and institutions can also be great supports, but it is not limited to Christian organizations because God works through all things.  Plantinga quotes Arthur Holmes who had said “all truth is God’s truth”.  God can show us truth even through non-Christians. 

                A lot of times people think of vocation as an occupation, however, God wants our vocation to be a lifestyle.  Not only should we our vocation impact our occupation but also our relaxation.  He uses the example that we may have to spend time tending a healing friend after a surgery.  This may not be our occupation but it is something we do as Christians.  This leads to the idea of education.  He says that education helps to prepare us for our vocations. College should help prepare us for our occupation but also prepares us for live, College is a time of not just acquiring book knowledge but also life skills.  We must learn to use our discression to make decisions and question the information given to us.  This fits in really well with Learning in war time as well as the Wonder of Learning.  In learning in war time Lewis suggests that our lives as born again Christians are like soldiers.  Although we will do a lot of the same things we did before we were born again, they are also different because we go about them as Christians.  Everything we do should be affected by our vocation to be Christians just as everything is affected by the vocation of being a soldier.  Even are education should be changed.  How can we go to school just for a degree when we are supposed to be doing everything for the Lord?  This also reminded me of The Wonder of Learning because at college we must be learning In everything we are doing. It is not just our classes but everything that we experience, our triumphs and mistakes.  We must learn to have our vocation be being a prime citizen and do all we can to learn how to do this better.  This means diving into Gods word, participating in our community, and learning from those around us.  We must worship God in all we do.