“If you want to change a society, you have to change the language of a society,” said Darrow Miller to students at The King’s College in New York last month, as part of the school’s Distinguished Visitor Series.

Changing the language a society uses means changing how people think, not just their behavior, said Miller, adding that one area we have to change our behavior and thinking is in our approach to work. Miller, an author and former executive for Food for the Hungry, said that the consequences of a non-biblical idea of work have been poverty in the developing world and materialism in Western nations.

Miller said that in the West, work is all about “acquiring things.” This view leads to a “dualistic mindset.” In other words, Christians tend to separate their faith from work. Miller said that the biblical idea of work means that “work is part of our dignity” and there should be “no division between the sacred and the secular.”

Regarding poverty, Miller said, “If the root of the problem was lack of money or lack of resources, the problem would be solved.” He cited one example of how ideas contribute to poverty: “One of the greatest causes of poverty in the world is a lie. That lie is that men are superior to women.” In developing countries, he said, “women are the ones working” because of the pervading view that “humans weren’t made to work.” Miller added that changing this dehumanizing view of work into a biblical view is “going to the root of solving the problem.”

According to Miller, the only real hope of solving poverty “has to begin with ideas.” In order to incorporate this biblical view of work in life, he encouraged students to “look at the whole of society and look at what God has put inside of you.”

Kristin Rudolph is a student at The King’s College in New York City.