Earn Save Give: Wesley's Simple Rules for Money - Softcover

Harnish, James A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1630883921 ISBN 13: 9781630883928

Verlag: Abingdon Press, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

John Wesley boils fiscal responsibilities down to just three rules: Earn all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can. Sounds simple, right? Yes, but not easy, especially in today’s culture of consumerism. This twenty-first century translation of Wesley’s money management philosophy will give everyone in your congregation—children and teenagers as well as adults of any age—a new way to think about money, not only during your stewardship program, but for the rest of their lives. Churchwide study guides, a leader guide, a DVD, Devotional Readings for Home, and a Program Guide flash drive are available for this four-week program.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

James A. Harnish retired after 43 years of pastoral ministry in the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. He was the founding pastor of St. Luke's United Methodist Church in Orlando and served for 22 years as the Senior Pastor of Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa. He is the author of A Disciple's Heart: Growing in Love and Grace, Earn. Save. Give. Wesley's Simple Rules for Money, and Make a Difference: Following Your Passion and Finding Your Place to Serve. He was a consulting editor for The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible and a contributor to The Wesley Study Bible. He and his wife, Martha, have two married daughters and five grandchildren in Florida and South Carolina.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Earn. Save. Give.

Wesley's Simple Rules for Money

By James A. Harnish

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2015 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-63088-392-8

Contents

Introduction: If You Could Ask for Anything, 
1. We Don't Need More Money; We Need Wisdom, 
2. Earn All You Can, 
3. Save All You Can, 
4. Give All You Can, 
Notes, 

CHAPTER 1

We Don't Need More Money; We Need Wisdom

Happy are those who find wisdom and those who gain understanding. Her profit is better than silver, and her gain better than gold.

(Proverbs 3:13-14)

Stanley Johnson was a lot like many of us. A character in a classic Lending Tree television commercial, Stanley flashed a self-satisfied smile as he showed us his four-bedroom home in a great neighborhood, his swimming pool, and his new car. He beamed with pride as he told us he was a member of the local golf club.

Turning steaks on the grill, he asked, "How do I do it?" Still smiling, he confided, "I'm in debt up to my eyeballs. I can barely pay my finance charges." Then, looking directly into the camera, he pleaded, "Somebody help me."

We may not be in as much of a financial mess as Stanley was, but most of us some of the time, and some of us most of the time, need help in managing our money. How we earn it, save it, spend it, and give it is a persistent challenge for every follower of Christ.

Stanley Johnson's commercial was for a lending company, but Stanley didn't really need more money. What he needed was wisdom. When it comes to dealing with money, that's what all of us need. The good news is that wisdom can be found in Scripture and in the Wesleyan tradition.

Information about how to manage our money is easy to find. It is readily available from a multitude of sources, some of which are more helpful and trustworthy than others. Advice about everything from taxes to long-term investments can be acquired in online programs and from financial planners. Stockbrokers, mortgage brokers, and investment bankers are eagerly awaiting our calls. Lawyers and estate planners are standing in line to help us write our wills and plan our legacy. The information we gain from them is a necessary tool for living responsibly with our resources.

As a pastor, I've seen ample evidence of the need for information about finances.

• I'm concerned about young adults who become the prisoners of credit card debt. Listening to their stories has convinced me that credit card debt is nothing less than the demonic power of institutionalized greed taking control of their lives.

• I've counseled with couples who bring nearly insurmountable levels of debt into their marriages because they never learned how to design a budget or balance a checkbook.

• I've watched seminary graduates enter the pastorate—not usually considered a high-income career—with educational loans that will be a long-term burden on their ministries and families.

• I'm surprised by the number of colleagues who retire without adequate planning for financial stability.

• I'm curious about faithful church members who have never prepared a will or an estate plan.

All these concerns and others like them challenge us to use the best information we can about the most effective ways to manage our money.

But for followers of Christ, the issue digs deeper and reaches further than simply gathering information. The Bible teaches that how we relate to our money goes to the heart of our relationship with God.

I sometimes wish Jesus hadn't said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21). I'd be more comfortable if he had said, "Where your heart is, there your treasure will be also." But he said what he meant and he meant what he said. Our attitudes toward money and the priority we place on our possessions are matters of the heart; they go to the core of our identity. Because of the soul-level importance of our relationship with money, we need more than information. We need wisdom.

Where Wisdom Is Found

"Where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?"

(Job 28:12 NRSV)

The search for wisdom draws us with magnetic force to the Old Testament Book of Proverbs. The book opens with this promise:

There's something here also for
seasoned men and women,
still a thing or two for the experienced to learn—
Fresh wisdom to probe and penetrate,
the rhymes and reasons of wise men and women.

(Proverbs 1:5-6 The Message)

The Hebrew word for wisdom appears 318 times in the Old Testament with over half of these in Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. The sages of ancient Israel knew that wisdom is more than the accumulation of information or knowledge, as important as that knowledge is. They understood wisdom to be a gift of God that enables us to know what to do with the knowledge we gather, so we can live faithfully and well in our relationships with God and each other.

Old Testament scholar Ellen Davis observes that the biblical writers had no interest in "knowledge that is abstracted from goodness." Davis also acknowledges that few of us would include Proverbs on our "shortlist of favorite spiritual books." She says our neglect of the Proverbs is often because they are "so down-to-earth, so ordinary."

I'll confess that across four decades of pastoral ministry, I never invested much homiletical horsepower in preaching on them. If you go to Proverbs looking for soul-stretching theological insights or dramatic narratives about the way God intersects our human existence, you'll be sorely disappointed. That's also the reason this collection of pithy aphorisms, brief teachings, and wise sayings barely made it into the canon of Scripture. Davis calls it "a book for unexceptional people trying to live wisely and faithfully in the generally undramatic circumstances of daily life."

But perhaps the earthy ordinariness of the Proverbs is their greatest gift to us, particularly in dealing with something as down-to-earth as our money. In their simplicity, the Proverbs provide practical wisdom for making our way through the mundane places and ordinary relationships of life. We could call them the inspired version of Poor Richard's Almanack, which along with weather forecasts and household hints included Benjamin Franklin's homey aphorisms and simple proverbs, many of which focused on work, thrift, and frugality.

The Hebrew word mashal literally means "a saying" that is often based on comparison or contrast. Intentionally succinct and designed for oral instruction, the Proverbs are easily memorized and highly transportable. They don't require intensive theological analysis or interpretation. You don't need a preacher or theologian to unpack the historical context or explain what the writers intended. They simply say what they mean and mean what they say. Period. To quote another classic commercial, what you see is what you get.

The Proverbs also have been described as "the encoding of a lived experience." Ellen Davis points out that "it takes a tradition, the accumulated experience and insight of a people, to produce wisdom."

The Hebrew Proverbs wear well because they were formed over generations in the rough and tumble of daily lives. They emerged from, were tested in, and were confirmed by ordinary human experience. Picture the wise old patriarch who has experienced just about everything life could throw at him, sitting beside a campfire or riding a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Abingdon Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1630883921
• ISBN 13: 9781630883928
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 128
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland