The White City
1 Corinthians 7:31 - "...and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away."
In 1893, Chicago built a dream on the shore of Lake Michigan. The World's Columbian Exposition rose in barely two years under Daniel Burnham's direction: nearly 200 buildings and pavilions, with domes and colonnades gleaming like carved marble around lagoons designed by the co-designer of Central Park. Visitors called it the White City, and millions of them walked its courts.
Few realized what the marble actually was. The buildings were temporary frames wrapped in "staff," a mixture of plaster and fiber sprayed white to resemble stone. They were built for the fair’s six-month run. Within nine months of closing day, fire and demolition had taken nearly all of it. People stood in awe of something magnificent that was never meant to last.
Paul chooses his words about this world with precision: "The present form of this world is passing away." Form. The Greek is schēma: the outward shape, the costume, the appearance. And notice the tense. The form of this world is passing away, right now, present tense. Paul never calls creation evil here, and he doesn’t mean that Christians should flee ordinary life. His instruction assumes that we’ll keep buying, marrying, mourning, rejoicing, dealing with the world all our days. His point runs deeper than escape. The world in its present form is magnificent and temporary, but the strike date isn’t ours to negotiate. We’re to deal with the world, work in it, and enjoy it. We’re just not supposed to pour a foundation into it.
I felt a small, silly version of this when I realized that both of my favorite Disney rides now belong to history. Splash Mountain closed in January 2023 and was rebuilt around a different story. Then, this past February, DINOSAUR at Animal Kingdom carried its final riders as the last remaining pieces of DinoLand closed for redevelopment. Rides that bring nostalgia, that I grew up with and stood in line for, that felt like fixed features of the world, ended up being torn down like set designs between shows.
So let’s be honest with ourselves for a minute. Where do our best hours and dollars actually land? For most of us it’s a short list. The house, the career, the accounts, the kids’ schedules. All of it is normal life, and yet every bit of it is window dressing. If the teardown crew came tonight, what would still be standing?
Right now our church’s own building is dressed in a week's worth of VBS scenery: cardboard, paint, and props built to dazzle for a handful of days and come down faster than they went up. And somewhere inside all that happy plaster, a child will hear the name of Jesus and believe it. That is construction of another order! The set will come down in days. But if the Spirit opens a child’s heart to Christ this week, what He begins will outlast every wall around us!
We are receiving “a kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Hebrews 12:28). Abraham was content to live in tents because “he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). Everything done in Christ — every act of love His life pours out through ours — is built from material no fire or wrecking crew can erase. The White City disappeared in smoke. But the city God is building still stands, and we hold citizenship there already, deeded to us by the grace of Jesus.
Today: Take five minutes and split a page down the middle. On the left side, jot down where your time and money actually went this month. On the right, put down what belongs to God’s unshakable kingdom. Then move one investment of time or money from the first column toward the second this week.
Prayer: “Father, thank You for a kingdom that cannot be shaken! I confess how much of my sweat and stress has gone into window dressing. Anchor my heart and my calendar to the place where the fires cannot reach. Empower me to be a vessel that builds Your Kingdom, not mine. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
-PK