Productivity is not what you think. When you think of productivity, you think of an upper-class CEO yelling at his employees for not getting more done, threatening consequences if the report isn’t completed by Wednesday. This is tyrannical leadership, not productivity. “Stewardship” and “productivity” are interchangeable. Or, as Tim Challies put it: “Productivity is effectively stewarding my gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God.” Seen this way, every Christian should care about productivity since every Christian is called to steward what God has entrusted to him or her, and will one day give account for this stewardship.

In 2016, Zondervan released What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman. The book is on the intersection of Christian faith and productivity and, as the subtitle suggests, Perman teaches how the gospel affects the way Christians think about personal productivity. Gospel-Driven Productivity, or GDP, as Perman calls it, is the distinguishing mark that separates a secular understanding of productivity from a Christian one. The book has sold well and was named on Zondervan’s “Best of the Decade” list. Perman is also the author of a second book on productivity.
Less than a year before the release of Perman’s book, Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity, hit the market by Cruciform Press. Written by Tim Challies, the book is about productivity from a Christian worldview. Whereas Perman’s book is on the theory of productivity, Challies’ book is on the practical side of productivity. The book is short and succinct. Five plus years after reading the book, I am still daily applying some of the material to my life.
Before Challies’ book, I’m not sure I had ever heard of a book on the subject, or if it was ethically permissible for Christians to talk about being productive. I’m not alone. When Christians hear the word “productivity,” they often think of secular business. But Challies debunks this mischaracterization. Challies, instead, teaches that productivity is about stewarding your life for the glory of God and the good of others. Apathy about productivity means negligence in stewardship which means disobedience. Do More Better recently inched over 700 Amazon reviews.
A book that has not garnered the same amount of attention as the titles mentioned above, but is still worthy of consideration, is Brandon Crowe’s Every Day Matters. “I know of no better book to place in the hands of aspiring Christian men and women who want their life’s trajectories to be productive for Christ and his kingdom,” says Kent Hughes in the foreword. The premise of the book is captured in the title: Every day matters or, as R.C. Sproul used to say, “Right now counts forever.” Crowe’s book is practical, well-written, and theologically sound.
But the CPM movement is more than books. It’s also courses, email newsletters, and online communities. Enter Reagan Rose, the founder of Redeeming Productivity, a web-based ministry that teaches “Personal productivity, from a Christian worldview, for the glory of God.” The ministry began as a hobby. But in early 2021, Rose took a leap of faith and went all-in with Redeeming Productivity as his full-time vocation, and by the end of the year, the ministry was financially sustaining. The fact that Rose was able to turn an internet ministry on Christian productivity into a full-time job in less than a year reveals Rose’s adept business savvy, but it also reveals the desire for Christian resources on productivity. Turns out, Christian productivity is not a viability. Rose has a book bearing the name of his ministry forthcoming with Moody this fall.
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We encounter the simplicity of God at the cross. Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way, p. 229: “Simplicity reminds us that God is never self-conflicted. In God’s eternal decree, even in the most obvious example of possible inner conflict (namely, the cross), justice and mercy, righteous wrath and gracious love, embrace…. At the place where the outpouring of his wrath is concentrated, so too is his love.”

How can God be loving if he sent his Son to die on a cross for the sins of others? Why couldn’t he just forgive everyone instead of putting his Son through all that suffering? The answer is that God can never deny himself; therefore, he must uphold all of his attributes. And we find no clearer evidence of this than at the cross.
Because he is spirit, God is always purely all of his attributes in complete perfection and unity. It is impossible for God’s mercy to override his justice. His holiness never conflicts with his love. Here are eight attributes of God we encounter at the cross, along with related Scripture passages and helpful quotes from respected theologians:
1. We encounter the holiness of God at the cross.
R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God, p. 38: “When the Bible calls God holy, it means primarily that God is transcendentally separate. He is so far above and beyond us that He seems almost totally foreign to us. To be holy is to be ‘other,’ to be different in a special way.”
Related Bible Verses:

And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isa. 6:3)
“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” (Mark 1:25)
For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. (Heb. 7:26)
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Pet. 2:9)

2. We encounter the righteousness of God at the cross.
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 74: “The fundamental idea of righteousness is that of strict adherence to the law. Among men it presupposes that there is a law to which they must conform…. [and] though there is no law above God, there is certainly a law in the very nature of God, and this is the highest possible standard, by which all other laws are judged.”
Related Bible Verses:

God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. (Ps. 7:11)
For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face. (Ps. 11:7)
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matt. 6:33)
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (Rom. 3:23-25)

3. We encounter the justice of God at the cross.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.17.4: “It is especially worth-while to ponder the analogy set forth by Paul: ‘Christ…became a curse for us,’ etc. [Gal. 3:13]. It was superfluous, even absurd, for Christ to be burdened with a curse, unless it was to acquire righteousness for others by paying what they owed. Isaiah’s testimony is also clear: ‘The chastisement of our peace was laid upon Christ, and with his stripes healing has come to us’ [Isa. 53:5]. For unless Christ had made satisfaction for our sins, it would not have been said that he appeased God by taking upon himself the penalty to which we were subject.”
Related Bible Verses:

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
    he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
    he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
    make many to be accounted righteous. (Isa. 53:10-11)

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When we compare the Reformed and Lutheran view, we see there really is no disagreement about the reality of a communion with Christ. The difference is in the nature of that communion. For Lutherans, the communion happens by Christ coming down to earth and into the bread and wine. By contrast, the Reformed view is that our souls are in union with Christ by His Spirit, because His humanity remains at the right hand of the Father until His second coming. The ultimate purpose of the Lord’s Supper is that it unites us with the Lord. 

How do Reformed Christians understand the Lord’s Supper? How is the Reformed understanding different from what Evangelicals and Lutherans believe? Do we believe in the true presence of Christ in the Supper? In this post, I will be drawing a great deal from the Reformed Confessions and John Calvin, as I seek to articulate the Reformed view of the Lord’s Supper.
The First Lord’s Supper
“When [Jesus] had given thanks, he broke [the bread], and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
1 Corinthians 11:24–25
On the night Jesus was betrayed, he gathered with His disciples to celebrate the Jewish Passover. This was a sacrament of the Old Testament that celebrated Israel being saved from the angel of death and the tyranny of Egypt. Jesus took the Passover elements of bread and wine and instituted the Lord’s Supper. The original Passover found its ultimate fulfillment in the sacrifice of the lamb of God—Jesus Christ.
Why was the Lord’s Supper Instituted?
Why was the Lord’s Supper instituted? It was to “nourish and support those whom” God “has already regenerated and incorporated into His family, which is His Church.”
Just as God gives us natural food for our natural life, He also gives us spiritual food for our spiritual life. He “has sent a living bread, which descended from heaven…Jesus Christ, who nourishes and strengthens the spiritual life of believers when they eat Him, that is to say, when they appropriate and receive Him by faith in the spirit” (Belgic Confession, Article 35).
Because we’re still frail and weak human beings, Jesus provided tangible earthly elements to teach and reassure us “that, as certainly as we receive and hold this sacrament in our hands and eat and drink the same with our mouths…we also do as certainly receive by faith (which is the hand and mouth of our soul) the true body and blood of Christ our only Savior in our souls, for the support of our spiritual life” (Article 35).
The Real Presence of Christ
Unlike the majority of Evangelicals, Reformed Christians believe in the true presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. It’s more than a commemorative memorial meal. Paul says, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? (1 Cor 10:16).
In a way, that’s mysterious; there’s a true communion with Christ in the Lord’s Supper. Herman Bavinck said, “The Lord’s Supper is above all a gift of God, not our memorial and confession. The Lord’s Supper signifies the mystical union of the believer with Jesus Christ.”
As Reformed Christians, we can even say that we feed on Christ in the Lord’s Supper, if we understand it like this: “what is eaten and drunk by us is the proper and natural body and the proper blood of Christ. But the manner of our partaking of the same is not by the mouth, but by the spirit through faith” (Belgic, Article 35).
Like Lutherans, Reformed Christians believe in the true and real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. Calvin taught that “Nothing is more absurd than to call that a sacrament which is void and does not really present to us that which it signifies.” The question comes down to not IF Christ is present, but HOW He is.
While Martin Luther staunchly taught “is means IS,” the Reformed position is that “This is my body” should be taken in the same way Jesus said He is “the door,” or in the same way He is “the good shepherd” and “the vine.”
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