Not Ashamed to Study

Money is Not Evil. No, Really.

Thursday, April 5th, 2012

I am so utterly delighted to have a few seconds to be able to breathe–and even write!!  Tax season has been particularly difficult this year, I think because I am trying to cram more activity into fewer work hours, plus keep up with my church responsibilities (which grew three-fold this year) a weekly house-cleaning job, and everything (including the cleanliness of my own house) suffers because of it.  It has also taken a heavy toll on my heart, since I can’t leave Andrew at home with his brother this year.  No offense to the babysitter, but there’s just no place like home.  :)   Maybe more on that subject another day, but this is what’s on my mind at the moment:

Have you heard about the Mega Millions Lottery winner who says she bought the winning lottery ticket on her own, even though she was also the person responsible for buying the tickets for all of her coworkers to share?  If you haven’t, you can watch a quick story about it by clicking here.  Go ahead, we’ll wait.

Oh, good, you’re back.  Now, this is not going to be an article about who is right or wrong in this case, just so you know.  Instead, this is going to be an exercise in biblical thinking, because we need to fine-tune our minds to recognize things like this in our daily conversations and take the time to edify our Christian and even unbelieving friends who will listen, instead of allowing bad thinking to win the day.

Over the course of the next few days or weeks, you are going to hear this kind of water-cooler talk from people about this story:

“Money is evil.”

“Money makes people crazy.”

“Money makes people betray their friends.”

“Money causes all kinds of trouble for people.”

And on and on it goes.  But I submit to you that this is worldly thinking, and a Christian should take no part in it.  Money is an object, it has no life, and it has no soul.  Money is a tool our society has decided to use to represent some sort of value for goods and services.  It has no personality, no will, and no ability to make anyone do anything.  Why, then, do people get crazy when it comes to large sums of money?

How about this:

“…as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.””  (Romans 3:10-18 ESV)

“And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”” (Mark 7:20-23 ESV)

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV)

Or the King James, which has a little different wording on that last one:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”

These are verses that I came up with without even putting effort into it; I am sure there are numerous others that could be cited about the depraved nature of man.  This is biblical thinking.  Believing that people are mostly good until money gets involved is completely unbiblical.  Are you willing to challenge your Christian friends when they start talking in the way of the world?  Because they need it from you.  Helping your friends like this is just one reason why you need to be reading your entire Bible frequently and regularly, and not simply relying on a 40-minute sermon every week to get you up to speed with your biblical worldview reaction time.

You see, those friends of yours are going to say something like this to you: “But the Bible says that money is the root of all evil.”  Quick!  What do you say to that?   You tell them that they must have forgotten something.  The Bible says, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.” (1Tim. 6:10a ESV)  Do you see the difference?  What their cherry-picked Bible verse says is that since money is the root of all evil, it completely removes something we like to call personal responsibility (I know, so not politically correct.).  I am not responsible for the evil I do, it was because of the money.  The real Bible verse, on the other hand, says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils.  It puts the responsibility of my evil-doing on (gasp) ME.  Oh, the horror.

How then do we go about changing our thinking about money–recognizing it for what it is – a mechanism for getting stuff we need, and blessing others with stuff they need?  I’m glad you asked.  What’s that?  You didn’t ask.  Well, just go with me here.  I am reading a really great book (on my kindle) called, Holy Subversion, and the author, Trevin Wax, mentions some really helpful ideas in his chapter on how to subvert the idol of money.  I will not explain them all in detail here–he deserves some royalties, after all, so he can keep doing what he’s doing, right?

But here’s the Reader’s Digest version:

Demonstrate to the world that your view of money says that all money comes from God’s hand, and is for God’s purposes.  We get to handle some of His money, and we should do it in a way that is pleasing to Him.

View your work differently.  Here’s a quote I highlighted:  ”In our society today, many of us no longer find value in the work we do as image-bearers of the Creator.  Instead, we find meaning in the money we earn, not the work we do.”

Earn money not for more stuff, but for the purpose of giving.  Here’s another quote from the book:  ”The apostle Paul claims that the reason we should labor is so that we may have something to share (Eph. 4:28).  This cuts against both the conservative mindset that sees everyone individually fending for themselves and the liberal mindset that keeps entire groups of people dependent on government funds.  Paul tells the non-worker to stop being a parasite in the community, and instead to get a job and start helping others.  But he tells the diligent worker to keep on laboring, so that he can receive the blessing that comes from giving.  Too many of us think only of receiving.  The bigger our paycheck, the better our house, the nicer our car, the more prestige we obtain in the eyes of others.  Jesus’ way is radically different: the bigger our paycheck, the more we can give away.”  Ask yourself:  Do I think this way?

Give freely and generously, and even sacrificially.

Focus on eternal investment over temporal triviality.

Demonstrate to the world that people matter more than possessions to you.

When we get a handle on automatically thinking this way–speeding up our biblical worldview reaction time; we then have the ability to gently and lovingly correct others’ erroneous ways of thinking as it occurs.  That silly lottery ticket doesn’t gain a foothold in the heart or mind of a Christian.

…I don’t place the ads below.

And now, comments are automatically closed after 4 weeks, because all my old blog posts are being attacked by spam-bots.  You can always comment on Facebook, though.  I don’t think anybody reads this blog who doesn’t also know me in real life.  That’s right, I have a HUGE following.  LOL

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A Challenge to Men and Women:

Monday, October 24th, 2011

I listened to a talk that Paul Washer did entitled, Recovering Biblical Womanhood, and it challenged me in a way that I am still trying to articulate.  What you are about to witness is the jumbled thought mess of:  Me.

I want to pose a few questions to you, my friends:

Do you think it could be that the women’s bible study market has grown so huge because the American church fails to teach men that when they become husbands it is their job to wash their wives with the water of the Word–and that same American church, not teaching this truth, consequently fails to equip said men to do their biblical duty as husbands?  Are women starving for the Word of God to the point that they unwittingly look in the wrong place for their nourishment?

Men:  Would you be more apt to learn/study the Bible with your wife if you were taught the importance of that job, the eternal weight of that job, and then how to do that job?

Women:  Wouldn’t it be an answer to your prayers if your husband came home one day and said to you, “I want to re-claim some time together.  From now on, you and I are going to have a regular, special time to open up the Bible and learn its truths together.  No interruptions, and no exceptions.”  Wouldn’t you just melt right there and praise God for your husband?

The point being, we all know we are supposed to be studying the Bible as a couple.  But how many of us actually do it?  And if they do, how many are doing it in such a way that it is the husband who is leading?  Because we live in a backwards society in which women have become the leaders in their homes, and are more spiritual than men.  More women attend church than men.  A number of men find it perfectly acceptable to worship at the television on Sunday, but not at the altar of the Lord.

So now I am having this argument with myself:

It occurs to me that older women are exhorted to teach certain things to younger women in Titus 2, but among those things, the Scripture is not one of them.  That duty is reserved for her husband, and the church may have unintentionally usurped his authority to a certain extent by replacing him instead of challenging him to lead her in this area.  Now, women teaching Scriptural principles is another matter.  As older women we should be interacting with younger women who are in our circle of influence, living the daily life with them, and leading them by example as well as teaching outright principles on loving and respecting our husbands, becoming more self-controlled, keeping the home, etc.

Then the other half of my brain pipes up and says, “But none of this means that a woman cannot study the Bible on her own in addition to her husband’s teaching.”  So where is the line?  How do we find balance?  I think that may be the ultimate question.

Are we to admonish women who attend a Bible study?  I don’t think so.  But I would appreciate the same respect from the women who choose to attend these studies.  I do not wish to be admonished for not attending, or pressured to attend.  I would, on the other hand, love to ‘hang out’ with women, learn skills from them, and teach someone something I know.

Where does all this lead?  I would love to hear your thoughts, opinions, criticisms, etc.  This is not to be a man-bashing session, but it is an indictment on the American church for allowing the culture of Christianity to be so negatively influenced by the world.

What are your thoughts?  Any solutions?

If you’d like to view the Paul Washer talk, and I highly recommend it, here’s the link: Recovering Biblical Womanhood.  Keep in mind, I don’t think he even mentions women’s Bible studies per se; it is simply a talk on the roles of men and women.  I just started wondering about the WBS angle as he gave his presentation.

There is a lot of good stuff in there – it is a long video, though.  Make some popcorn. 

…and, I don’t place ads here, you know that by now.

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More on Book Studies….

Monday, October 10th, 2011

Sorry, this is going to be a total rant to begin with.  After I rant for a bit, I hope to share some positive suggestions, though.  And please insert the word, Christian, into every place where I mention a book study.  I am speaking of the Christian church at large.

This afternoon I got to thinking about group book studies.  Why we do them, what they accomplish, etc., and I couldn’t come up with any good reason to promote them in their most popular form.  I have always struggled to glean anything meaningful from a group book study, but have never taken the time to think about or analyze why that might be.  I will tell you that I loved reading The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment, am reading it slower a second time, and and I am totally enjoying writing down my thoughts on what stood out in each chapter.  I really want to share it here with you, my two loyal readers.  But it occurred to me, I am dragging it out for no good reason.  It’s because that is what has been modeled in a typical group book study for as long as I have been a Christian, which is now going on 20 years.  During those 20 years I have participated in many of these studies, in Sunday School, small groups, women’s groups, couple groups, and family groups.  The trend has undoubtedly been going on for much longer than that, but that is as long as I have been witness to it, and influenced by it.  You know the kind I’m talking about – and I am most assuredly stepping on someone’s sacred cow here – everyone takes turns reading a paragraph or two OUT LOUD (badly) in a classroom setting until the entire chapter is finished.  What would have taken you 20 minutes at home in your comfy chair has now taken 40 minutes (not counting travel time), and because some of us read, well, not so great, and the rest of us are thinking about not messing up when it is our turn to read, the material that was just read is not comprehended very well.  We then discuss what we have just read but did not comprehend and not many participate in the discussion because they are put on the spot to come up with examples of one thing or another when they have had no time to ponder the material or think about a cohesive answer to the question at hand.   And we all have that moment in the car driving home when the light bulb comes on:  I should have said….  Or, the discussion has to wrap up at a precise time, and you finally thought of something to contribute that would have been life-changing.

Aside:  So, aren’t I guilty of not exercising my love muscles since I choose to stay away from these “classes” and read books alone in my comfy chair?  After all, it would grow my patience to sit and listen to these folks who have trouble reading, right?  And what about socialization?  (insert homeschool moms everywhere laughing their heads off) To the valid question I answer:  What about the feelings of dread, inadequacy, and embarrasment that these challenged readers have to go through?  Why is that a good thing for them?  I’d rather spare them.  In fact, I’d rather teach adult literacy.

Okay, we get that you’re not really high on group book studies that take 15 weeks to read a book that should take a little over 3 hours.  But what do you propose instead?

I’m glad you asked. 

My proposal:  Ban all group book studies that read one chapter per week.  I know it’s extreme, but I think I could get a Congressman to back me up and write a bill.  Especially dump the ones with “homework” that consists of fill-in-the-blank answers that must be found in the book and have nothing to do with your own life, and even more especially say goodbye to the ones that focus on changing our behavior in some way by following a set of steps or rules.  Works-righteousness, we do not need.

What to do instead:

Read your Bible, and become accountable.  Tell people about your Bible reading, and ask them to check up on you from time to time to see if you are sticking with it.  I have mentioned before that I am loving Professor Grant Horner’s Bible Reading System.  If you’re not keen on that one, find one that you love, but get through the Bible often enough that it becomes second nature and you can’t help but memorize portions of it.  Get help with difficult passages.  Apply it to your life. The point here is, this should be the bulk of your time spent reading.  All other books should take second place.

Treat adults like adults.  Hold them accountable.  You can’t force them to read something, but you sure can ask them why they want to attend a book discussion if they are not willing to read the material.  And furthermore, read the entire book.  Take notes.  Come together to discuss the entire book.  Once.  Not once a week for 3 or 4 months.  Do this after there has been time to read the book, and also to observe any noteable changes in you that the book may have influenced.  Talk about the things you took away from it that have caused you to make changes in your life.  If the book did not do this for anyone, it is not worthy of much discussion.   Move on to another book.  Remember, we’re not talking fiction here, we’re talking Christian, Bible-based book studies.  They should cause you to learn something about Scripture that affects a change in your life.

Remember:

Participating in a book study is NOT the same as serving your church!  I cannot stress this enough.  I have picked up on this point in a few online discussions recently, and I want to set the record straight on this.   Serving the body of Christ involves actually providing SERVICE.  Not reading a book and discussing it.  If you are in doubt about what kind of service you should be doing in your church, ask someone.  They will be more than happy to give you a long list of things that you could be doing in service to the church.  And not all of these things involves cleaning toilets or mowing the grass, either.  Sometimes it is simply encouraging people, mentoring someone, or bringing a meal to a new mother.  To repeat:  attending book studies is not service to the church.  Over and out.

…I don’t put ads here.

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