A Pertinent, Pressing Issue: Money

Having read Jeff Weddle’s book, I will offer three stimulating benefits and three pastoral concerns. Because Jeff addresses a pressing issue–money–that seems inescapable in American culture’s and its churches’  awareness, it is critical that we, as Christian leaders, offer wise counsel. With our nation’s economic downturn, the pervasive joblessness, sky-rocketing debt and a fragile global economy, we need voices of hope speaking in the Name of Jesus Christ. Enter The Gospel-Filled Wallet: What the Bible Really Says About Money.

Three Stimulating Benefits

First, I like honesty in writing. Jeff Weddle, a minister, writes honestly about his own struggles with money and what the Bible says about it. Jeff’s opening salvo regarding the stringent words of Jesus that we cannot both love God and Money catches our attention. This is both stimulating and a concern. In down to earth, no nonsense writing, Weddle challenges the readers with real, heart-felt questions. Throughout the book we sense the heart of a person who honestly wants to do the right thing. Weddle admits in the conclusion that he is “not perfect” when it comes to getting it right about money (65). Yet, we sense a person who is moving in the right direction and wants to help others to do the same.

Secondly, Weddle keeps the Bible in the center of the discussion. The subtitle does the book justice. The teachings of Jesus and the teachings of Paul are brought to the reader’s attention along with pertinent Old Testament teachings.  In the chapter titled “What They Lived,” another biblical aspect is presented: biblical characters, both honorable and faulty, who interface with the issue of wealth and riches or who trusted God in the face of deep human need. “The best way to tell if someone believes something is to look at how they live” (40).  Just two examples: Abraham–”Should he leave the security of his home, his family, and his stuff to follow God, or should he remain in his comfortable life and carry on” (41)? And Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus, “is the ultimate example of loving money and hating God” (46-47). The Scriptures inform and shape the book’s content.

Thirdly, the practical application of the money regarding money is “Spend it.” Weddle believes that this is an obvious way to show that we love God and hate money rather than the other way around. For Weddle, it is “totally awesome” that the best way to handle money is to get rid of it quickly (62). How should we spend it? Jeff offers some very plain and work-ready direction on how to spend money wisely, beginning with “spend it on the poor” (56-57).

The book is short (75 pages of content including a postscript of questions and answers) and very readable. As a fellow minister, I do have some concerns with the book.

Three Pastoral Concerns

First, While the opening salvo of “You cannot love both God and Mammon/Money” (see Matthew 6: 24) is an attention-getting declaration of Jesus, I think Jeff Weddle presses it too an unwise either/or reality for the reader. Jeff admits that as Jesus’ statement stands, Jeff must conclude that he (Jeff) “hates God.” I believe that Jeff is trying to take Jesus very seriously, as we all should, but Jeff is tripping over a characteristic debate/teaching device of 1st century Judaism. That language device is the aligning of fierce polar opposites to make a point. I don’t believe Jesus ever intended for Jeff to conclude that Jeff “hates God” because Jeff earns, spends and even enjoys money as part of his life. Jesus’ point is to press us to seriously reflect upon and readjust our use of money if money, indeed, leads us to be disloyal to God. I do not hate my mother and father, my wife and my children, my brothers and sisters in order to follow Jesus and be a loyal disciple (Luke 14:26-27). However, if any family member comes between me and obedience to Jesus, then I need to realign my relationship with God and that family member. People with very sensitive spirits and tender consciences can get extremely distraught navel-gazing, asking, “Do I really love God or money? Do I really love God or money?” Recognizing the difference in language expressions (rhetorical devices) between 1st century Judaism and 21st century America does not lessen the serious intent of Jesus’ teachings, but this recognition will deliver us from things like “If you love money, you hate God…It’s a straight up dichotomy. The two things don’t mix…” (3). I don’t think Jeff would say to me, “If you love Julie [my wife], you hate God. If you love your daughters, you hate God. If you love your mother, you hate God.” But I could use Luke 14:26 to conclude just these things if I used it the way Jeff used Matthew 6:24. I don’t even think God wants us to “hate” money (53). This is a genuine concern of mine.

Secondly, Jeff’s book came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. I was led to believe that Jeff would offer some new, prophetically-fiery teaching on money that has never been offered before (editor’s preface). Yet, after I got through the Scriptures (both texts and characters) and moved into Jeff’s practical applications, I felt like I was (re)reading stuff from others who have taught on money and Christian living. Jeff assumes that Christians “don’t hear much about this (annoying) topic” (53). That is not the case. I’ve heard/read others who offer:  “There is nothing wrong with having money, unless you depend on it and trust in what you have” (55). The places that Jeff lists to spend money (56-61) are the same places others have suggested through the years. Pretty tame stuff. After offering the content in the book, Jeff leaves it up to the reader and Spirit on how to use money since Jeff is not the judge. I was expecting some cutting-edge applications. Because Jeff has set up a fierce divide between money and God based supposedly on Jesus’ teaching, he even wonders why the Bible suggests that parents save up to give an inheritance for their children. If money is so evil, why would God want us to give money to our kids? Jeff says he doesn’t have an answer to that one (61). At the point of that question, we need a voice. Jeff goes silent, not because there are no answers, but because Jeff has raised a needless dilemma based on his tripping over the first century use of language.

Thirdly, and similar to the last point about inheritance to children, in the questions and answers ending to the book, Jeff anticipates an objector’s question, “Aren’t you a hypocrite for charging money for this book?” Jeff answers, “Yup” (75). Again, this is a needless and, in my opinion, navel-gazing scenario. I would offer that since the book is an extension of Jeff’s labor as a minister, he should be paid for his teaching (in book form). Jesus said that the laborer is worthy of his hire and Paul quotes this saying of Jesus. This applies even when that laborer is an author.

I enjoyed The Gospel-Filled Wallet and I believe the book will provoke many redeeming discussions about the Christian life and money.  It is my opinion that Jeff Weddle is really addressing greed and not money in his book. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins and needs often to be addressed. Jeff unwisely mixes money and greed together, and while related even Jeff knows that money in itself “is a just a thing, like a rock or a dog…”(55).  Jeff’s book may also provoke numerous needless, rabbit-trail discussions that could be detrimental to the healthy spirituality of some.

Dr. John W. Frye, Pastor

Fellowship Evangelical Covenant Church

I was trained in what has become a theologically obnoxious and pastorally irrelevant view of the enigmatic apocalypse of John–the Book of Revelation.  I was baptized into the dispensational apocalyptic visions of Revelation as a new, Junior High School believer.  U Thant of the U.N. was then promoted to be the anti-Christ, and so was Martin Luther King, Jr. and so was J.F.K. and lately so was Saddam Hussein.  I was led into the insider knowledge about “the secret rapture” and scared by visions of “the beast” and the dreaded “mark of the beast.” The Great Tribulation would be a ghastly time on earth, but Jesus would beam the insiders up before it happened, thus saving us not only from horses of death, bowls and trumpets of wrath, but from the Great White Throne judgment.

I was taught that when John wrote the Book of Revelation he was clueless about its meaning. It had nothing to do with him or with events in his day. Imagine this:  Someone asks John, “John, what are you writing about?” John replies, “I absolutely have no idea.” For example, if John saw locusts, we insiders saw military helicopters. Revelation was a coded message and John Nelson Darby helped break the code.  (Darby was influenced by a young woman who went into an ecstatic trance.)  We were always on the look out for “the ashes of a red heifer” so that Israel (the nation) could rebuild and dedicate a Temple on the Temple Mount. Oops! The Mosque of Omar/ the Dome of the Rock  is there. The Arabs are going to get really, really mad. After years of this ouija board approach, I became allergic to the Book of Revelation.  Eschatology was sadly reduced to an “end times” chart.

Koester gives the Book of Revelation back to me. I enjoyed the way Koester unfolds the inner logic of the Book of Revelation.  From the opening “revelation” to the final “Amen,” Koester presents the brilliant tapestry and interlocking pattern of Revelation. With insights into the conditions and challenges of churches of Asia Minor, Koester unfolds how chapters 4 – 22 address those current realities in John’s day (and those realities as they reoccur in the history of the church until today). It was so refreshing to drink the truth that Revelation was very meaningful to John and to the seven churches of Asia Minor, and thus, with an enduring message to churches all through church history.  The wild speculations I was subjected to within 1950s to 1990s dispensationalism give way to a “way of seeing” Revelation as pastorally- intensive, historically-conditioned, enduringly-applicable for all the church through all time.  John the author was sharp, creative and pastorally-driven to keep the church loyal to Jesus as Lord in times of compromise and oppression no matter when in history those times occur.

Revelation is not an “end times” book; it is an “all times” book. Amen!

By John W. Frye

[This review was posted on Jesus Creed hosted by Dr. Scot McKnight.]

Who would have imagined a 21^st century movie made about The King James Version of the Bible? Denzel Washington’s The Book of Eli puts the 1611 Bible dead center in the story. The tag line of the film: “Some will kill to have it. He will kill to protect it.” This is a “battle for the Bible” like I have never seen. Having seen the film [spoiler alert], I am trying to find a way to synchronize its message with anything in the Bible.

Should we be glad a man named Eli (means “my God”) risks his life and slaughters many people in order to get the only surviving Bible to a printing press so that others can have access to it? The story opens 30 years after a global, nuclear holocaust; a holocaust sparked by warring religions. Survivors are living in the grim, chaotic and violent remains of civilization. Values are altered so that KFC wet wipes are exchanged as currency and water is extremely scarce. Eli (played by Denzel Washington) is “a walker” who is commissioned by “a voice” to head west to deliver the literary treasure in his possession. In the story, Eli is the good, yet stunningly violent guy. The Christian Science Monitor review labels Eli “a pacifist warrior” meaning that Eli is a peaceful man unless provoked. Eli’s nemesis is Carnegie (played by Gary Oldman) who is collecting books in his desperate search of copy of the Bible. Carnegie, the bad guy, wants the Bible because he believes he can use it to keep ignorant, bewildered people in sheep-like submission to his power. Carnegie seeks to capture the Bible faithfully carried and zealously protected by Eli. With Carnegie and Eli, we are presented with a post-apocalyptic Satan and a very uncharacteristic, gun-slinging, knife-wielding Messiah. Is The Book of Eli a postmodern, cinematic Pilgrim’s Progress? I don’t think so.

As a viewer I got caught in the story, eager for Eli to fulfill his quest with “the book” and fearful that Carnegie would succeed in his evil pursuit to seize “the book.” Because this film is about the Bible, it is not like Frodo trying to get the (one) ring to the Cracks of Doom. Eli and Carnegie are human beings who, for different reasons, are obsessed with the Bible. If Eli is a metaphor for a committed person who is willing to die for the Bible, then I would rest easy. But Eli convincingly demonstrates that “he will kill to protect it.”

As a pastor, I have questions. Can a Christian person be a pacifist until provoked and then become a killing machine? Does walking by faith and not by sight have room to use keen hearing to kill the enemies of “the book”? Eli is blind. There is a telling line in the movie when Eli confesses that he spent his life protecting the Bible only to realize that he must live its message: to treat others as he wants to be treated. This confession comes after massive bloodshed from his killing expertise.

The Golden Rule? That’s it? Eli is protecting the Golden Rule? This is where I felt the let down. The passion for the story evaporated.  That, and the ending when the newly printed Alcatraz edition of the King James Version is placed next to the Koran. I wonder if Denzel, a professing committed Christian, really wanted this ending or was it the Hollywood, politically-correct thing to include? Or, is The Book of Eli sending a contemporary message to those who terrorize others in the name of Allah that they, too, will be terrorized by those who love the God of the KJV? I don’t know and I hope not.

The Bible is not about the Golden Rule. The Bible presents not a rule, but a Person—the Prince of Peace. The Bible does offer a love like no human love and that love has a name: Jesus the Christ. The closest the movie comes to any relationality about the God of the Christian faith is when Eli recites the opening verses from Psalm 23 to Solara, a young female devotee of Eli’s.

I wrote a novella titled Out of Print: A Novel. In this story, there are no Bibles except for what has been memorized by people. Scot McKnight wrote the Afterword for the book. Out of Print and The Book of Eli have a similar aim: to give the Bible its rightful place in the world. But the two stories are poles apart. For whatever reason if you like The Book of Eli, I invite you to read Out of Print. Eli’s line fits my story and the evangelical church’s story. Have we been so zealous to protect the Bible that we have failed to live its God-incarnate, God-inspired message? Out of Print suggests that the church not only has a Bible, the church is the Bible to a watching world one button away from the apocalypse.

When Sarah Palin was introduced to the 2008 political scene, I was instantly curious to know more about her.  I followed the news stories on TV, the Internet and the press enjoying the fresh and vibrant woman presented to us.  When the campaign came to Michigan, my friends and I sat close in the town hall meeting as we listened to her ideas and plans for the future of our country.  She was a delight to watch and to hear.

We all know how the campaign “turned” and I was saddened that I wouldn’t see Sarah put into practice her America-loving ideas and plans.

When her book Going Rogue: An American Life came out and she announced that she would return to Michigan for her first book signing, I decided I needed to buy the book and hopefully get a signature and handshake from Sarah.  Unfortunately I didn’t get either, but I had fun waiting in line, chatting with others and quickly getting a glimpse of her as she left the building.

I just completed reading the book and she once again has ignited my curiosity and satisfied my questions about the campaign.  I love the initial chapters detailing her childhood and early years growing up in Alaska.  Moving on to her political life as mayor and governor, the chapters painted a story of endurance, ability and love of country.  I was apprehensive to read about the campaign, as reviewers were accusing her of being “whiny,” avenging the horrid treatment she received on the campaign tour.    Some who supported her were accusing her of tearing down those who put her in the spotlight.

Instead I read the account of a liberal community destroying a woman who carefully balanced her family and her politics.  With great detail, Sarah describes several of the “notorious” attacks upon her and family.  It is easy to see and difficult to understand the extent to which her so-called campaign team failed in presenting an accurate image of Sarah to America.  I didn’t see Sarah as whining but rather as setting the record straight. Never has any woman been subjected to such biased, political scrutiny.

Sarah’s anecdotal stories are charming especially relating to her children.  I also love her response to the divorce rumors.  “Divorce Todd?  Have you seen Todd?”

All this to say, “Read the book”.   It is instructive, engaging, humorous and factual.  Maybe next time she comes to Michigan I will get an autograph.

-Julie A. Frye

Julie and I walked away from The Invention of Lying discussing the provocative premise of the film. Starring and written by Ricky Gervais, the film has creative British humor and a magnetic story. Human beings only tell the truth no matter how blunt and offensive (to us the viewers) it may seem. The truth-telling people simply take truth as it comes. With this in mind, the opening scenes of the movie jolt the viewers. Here’s an example later in the movie: a server walks up to the Ricky Gervais (Mark) and Jennifer Garner (Anna) as they sit down in a restaurant. The servers looks them over and says without prelude to Gervais, “She is way out of your league.” All TV and movies are straight presentations of facts, i.e., documentaries. In the film, there is not even a noun or verb for “lie” or “to lie”…until it happens. Up until this moment, there was no vocabulary for that which is not. There is no imagination or fantasy or fiction. But Mark’s lie–he says something that does not exist; has no being, and it changes everything.

Observing his mother dying, Mark (Gervais) responds to her saturated fears as she faces the emptiness and nothingness after death. Mark, knowing that he now can lie, creates for his mother the vision of a wonderful after-life with eternal love, mansions, and unending relationships with loved ones. A nurse overhears all this, tells a news reporter, and the story snowballs. How does Mark know all this about the after-life? He says that he hears from “the man in the sky.” People flock to his apartment complex courtyard to learn more about after-life experiences and “the man in the sky.” Mark must to deliver the goods. He writes down 10 statements on Pizza Hut boxes and comes out his door something like Moses coming down from the mountain with the 10 Commandments. It’s funny, and disturbing.

Here’s the point: the god of classical (Calvinistic) determinism comes in for a real drumming. I’ve often wondered if the double-predestinating God of Calvinism–the great unblinking Cosmic Stare–actually spawned the nihilism that swept the Western world. Remember Ernest Hemingway’s parody of the Lord’s Prayer in his very short story “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”? Our Nada who art in nada, nada be thy nada. Thus,  The Invention of Lying is a theological film to the core.

We did not like the caricature of truth-telling as blunt verbal stone-throwing. But even more, lying ends up being the compassionate paradigm of speech. This turns the tables ethically and needs to be deplored. Yet, for all that, this is one film that makes you think, no matter your spiritual or religious leanings.

I heard New Testament scholar Dr. Scot McKnight recently at Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, MI speak about how Jesus added his own touch to the Shema, and with just the little addition reframed the complete Torah. Jesus took the Qaddish and added his creative touch and reframed prayer for the-reign-of-God community. After reading this section of Meyer, I think that another significant addition by Jesus to his culture’s popular mind-set concerns the messianic mission.

Having elicited a confession from his disciples to the question, “Who do you say that I am?”, that he was, indeed, the Christ (anointed one/messiah), Jesus launched into addition: his repudiation, suffering, and death. With these “prediction pericopes” Jesus does not cancel the [enthronement]  mission of the messiah, but “completes and transforms it by integrating the destiny of Jesus into it” (215). The way to the throne means traveling to the cross.This becomes a massive stumbling block in the minds of the Jews. A crucified messiah?

Then this from Meyer: “Jesus did not aim to be repudiated and killed; he aimed to charge with meaning his being repudiated and killed” (218). And, “Evil would not be simply crushed by power. On the contrary, by subjection to evil Jesus would render it impotent. Betrayal, desertion, repudiation would only promote and realize his aims. By submitting to evil he would take its measure, established its futility, and shape it to his own purposes” (218). Finally, “On the brink of his death, Jesus interpreted his death as expiatory for the world…and as a sacrifice sealing a new covenant… ” (219).

Jesus was not a destructive revolutionary (though he was viewed that way by many). Nor was Jesus a well-intentioned reformer who was misunderstood and failed to reach his aims. Meyer concludes that Jesus transcended those  aims “by conceiving himself to function as fulfiller” (251).

WHY?

Why did Jesus live and die as he did? “…[I]n the tradition generated by Jesus…we discover what made him operate the way he did, what made him epitomize his life as a single act of going to his death: He ‘loved me and handed himself over for me’…” (253).

“Amazing love, how can it be? That Thou, my God, should die for me!”

Amen.

The central structural idea of the book is Donald working with 2 friends to write a movie script of Donald’s ordinary life as presented in Blue Like Jazz. We journey through the process and learn the elements of a good story and we are privy to the reservations Donald has about his life being either compelling or movie worthy.

What I perceive (and if it is intentional, it is sheer genius) is that Donald Miller offers us a new perspective on the term “good news” (gospel).  As followers of Jesus, we not only have a gospel, we are a gospel. As Donald works to make his life into a good story, we learn ways that Donald is expressing a life-for-the-sake-of-others. In this sense, the book becomes a challenge to the readers.

What I found personally surprising was Donald’s reunion with his father after a thirty year absence. Those of you who have read my story in Jesus the Pastor: Leading Others in the Character and Power of Christ know the similarities between Donald’s father issues and reunion and my own.

I think you’ll enjoy Donald Miller’s new book.

Donald's New Book

“Ay,” he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood.”

I still am not convinced that Ernest Hemngway meant no intended allusions to Jesus Christ in the character of “the old man,” Santiago, in The Old Man and the Sea. What are we to make of the quote above? Just two pages before this sentence (in my edition), Hemingway has Santiago ruminating about sin. Besides I think it is a sin [not to hope]. Do not think about sin, he thought. There is enough problems without sin.

Again, imagine the cross-shaped mast and sail as you read: He unstepped the mast and furled the sail and tied it. The he shouldered the mast and started to climb. It was then he knew the depth of his tiredness. He stopped and looked back and saw the reflection from the street light the great tail of the fish standing well up behind the skiff’s stern…. He started to climb again and at the top he fell and lay for some time with the mast across his shoulder. How can this not be an intended allusion to Jesus falling beneath his cross on the Via Delorosa?

At some point I am going to catalogue every overtly Christian/Catholic reference in the story. The number of them is overwhelming. Here are a few more: Santiago is out too far in the Gulf for three days and three nights. Santiago is happy to think that San Pedro [Saint Peter] was a fisherman as was the father of the great [Joe] DiMaggio. Not too mention Santiago’s promise to God of many “Hail Marys and Our Fathers.”

Just like Calvinists and Armininians, classical determinists and open theists, complementarians and egalitarians, KJV-only and TNIVers, so there are those who believe Hemingway intended no comparison between Santiago and Jesus Christ and others, like myself, who hold to Hemingway’s very intended allusions to Jesus Christ (even though Hemingway declared that he had no symbolism in mind).

What do you think?

First, I want to emphasize again that while I had read a lot of books on fasting and thought it would be hard to read anything new, Scot offered a fresh, creative and compelling “take” on fasting that I could never have imagined. Second, because I know Scot and have had leisurely conversations with him, I hear both a skilled teacher’s and a passionate pastor’s heart in Scot’s writing.

Part 2 of his book is only 3 chapters compared to Part 1’s nine chapters. Yet, for Part 2’s brevity, it carries a load of helpful spiritual direction. Chapter 11 concerns the spiritual dangers attendant to fasting and to fasters. The dangers took sharp focus in Isaiah’s writings and have plagued God’s people ever since.

Chapter 12 surprisingly discusses the benefits of fasting, but with this expected McKnight caveat:  “I do believe that there are tangible, real, beneficial results from fasting, but I also believe that fasting is not an instrument to get what we want” (155). Scot points away from instrumental fasting to this: “Communication with God is, in my opinion, the intent of fasting” (149). If communication with God is fasting’s intent, then fasting for its benefits makes God an instrument that exists for us. Scot will have none of that. And, again, Scot has plenty of quotes from church history to complement his observations.

Let’s be reminded of Scot’s definition: Fasting is the natural, inevitable response of a person to a grievous sacred moment in life (166).  A–> Sacred Moment, B–> Fasting, C–>Results. Scot emphasizes the need to focus on A to B, not B to C with results seen as benefits. He even comments that there may be no results whatsoever from fasting.

Scot wisely ends the book with some medical advice which he received from MD’s. Fasting can be dangerous to the health of the body. The Bible no where speaks to the bodily benefits of fasting or of fasting as a diet. Be warned of those marketing a spiritual discipline for its benefits. This far afield from the Sacred Text.

I come away from Scot’s book with this challenge: Be more attentive to life, to its sorrows and pains. Be more attentive to God and how God feels about human pain and affliction. Be more attentive to my own soul and my need for growth in grace. Let the sacred grief be felt and let it move me to fast in order to be in communion with God. Benefits may come; they may not. God is the center of fasting, not me and my “benefits.”

Scot, thanks for a very informative, transformative book.

John