What does the word “giving” do to your facial expression? Does it cause you to smile as you think of what your giving expresses to God and what it means to His mission? Or do you get that uncomfortable, feeling like when you realize you have overdue library books? Some people reading this know the joy of giving and have experienced the satisfaction of sacrificial generosity, both towards God and those in need. But inevitably there are others who know that the way they use their money isn’t honouring God. In Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, he gives four corrections that can help when you’re feeling guilty about your giving.
Televangelists have made it difficult for people to listen to the Bible’s teachings about money. They flash their expensive cars and jewelry and declare that ‘Poverty is from the devil and God wants all Christians to be prosperous.’ In reality, they’re running a Christian pyramid scheme and getting rich on people who don’t know better. But where do they get their ideas and how should we understand the passages they wrongly cite?
When it comes to money, we often fixate on more. Selfishness affects us. We’re influenced by unhealthy attitudes toward our finances. The Israelites weren’t all that much different. They famously grumbled and complained to Moses when they didn’t get enough food, but God worked to turn Israel into a generous nation. Seeing how He worked in their lives reveals how He might transform us today.
Statistics say that the average Canadian has $22,000 of non-mortgage debt and the average millennial spends more money on gourmet coffee than on saving for retirement. Something is wrong. The 3000-year-old Book of Proverbs, written by Israel’s King Solomon, contains financial wisdom from another era, but its principles are as relevant today as when he wrote them. Three lessons stand out.
There’s probably one passage more than any other that’s usually read at weddings. It’s the great chapter on love from 1 Corinthians 13. It’s an appropriate passage for married couples to reflect on, but it wasn’t written for them. This passage on love was written in a prolonged discussion of church ministry. It shows us how love turns volunteering into ministry and how a lack of love can make serving something less than it was intended to be.
I think we make subconscious value judgments all the time. We decide whether something is worth our time by the impact we feel it makes. The same is true of ministry. We want our lives to count, the question is how? How can you make the most impact in ministry? Let me share four ways I think the Bible answers that question.
I’m on vacation this week - in sunny Richmond Hill - but as we start off the new year, I wanted to look back at the most viewed articles from Out of Neutral. While written primarily for the church family, some posts took on a life of their own and were read more broadly beyond our local setting. In case you missed any of them or wanted to have another read, here are the top ten in descending order.
With 2020 almost drawing to a close, instead of a regular post, I thought I’d share a behind-the-scenes look at the studios where we film our sermons, vlogs, and Sunday School videos. Some people have asked whether I film these at my home. Others have wondered whether I use my phone to record them. If I was relying on my own talents and resources, I probably would. Thankfully, God has provided a great team. They have invested a lot of time and research in getting the right lighting, sound, and picture quality to ensure that what you see online doesn’t distract from the message we’re trying to communicate. Out of gratefulness for them, let me show you what things look like from the other side of the camera.
Once you’ve been reading the New Testament for a while, you run into various lists of spiritual gifts. They can be confusing and intimidating. There are so many of them and people disagree about what some of them mean. It can be hard to understand what your gift might be. One of the ways that the church has responded to the confusion has been with quizzes and assessments. You can go through questionnaires that are designed to predict your spiritual gift (see an example: here). While those may have some value, I think there’s a better way.
Have you ever wondered why others in the church don’t care the way you do? Have you at least noticed that they don’t? If you haven’t felt this yet, before long you probably will. When I first felt this, I didn’t ask the why question; I assumed it. I assumed that other people didn’t care the way I did because they just didn’t care. I assumed that it must be a deficiency in their faith or their passion or something! What I was experiencing was real, but my assumptions about it were all wrong. Let me explain why other Christians don’t care the way that you do.
