Does Financial Efficiency = Godly Stewardship?

[HammerStone]

Here is a link to a daily reading from a site that I frequent: http://dailytext.seedbed.com/2014/03/03/why-efficiency-may-not-the-best-way-in-the-end/

It contains a reading of Psalm 1 NLT and John 12:1-8 NRSV.

The reflection asks:

Why do we so readily equate the practice of good stewardship (or fiscal management) with efficiency? Is it because we are so hard wired to believe in an economy defined by scarcity? Or is it because our trust and security are anchored in our financial reserves or our assets?

I recommend reading the whole thing to really grasp the question - but I think this message has a point. It's easy to equate dotting "i's" and crossing "t's" with being a Christian financially. And for the record, I don't think the author is saying that we should fail to pay our bills. Yet, are there times where doing the Christian thing might call us to give so much it hurts?

What else might this mean?

 

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There is far too much chatter about financial stewardship and far too little about spiritual stewardship.

Church is not a government entity or a business proposition. Attendance is strictly voluntary and if people are not fed spiritually they will wander away from the religious circus act. The God racket is dying and all people are concerned with is money. It isn't about money. It never has been. It's about people.

It's also about individual responsibility before God....spiritual responsibility.

Individual Christians are far too engaged in flirtations with sin. I actually attended a Baptist service where the preacher encouraged the members of the congregation to "go out and sin that grace may abound". He left out the part where grace will also chastise the wayward soul. God will bless the family and the soul that seeks Him with all their mind and heart and soul. That doesn't mean a cash bonus, either. It means that wisdom is it's own reward.

Jesus didn't die on the cross to save the church budget - or the family vacation.

He died so that sinners could be saved - poor ones as well as rich ones. Unfortunately, poor converts do not fill the church coffers rapidly. The Sunday morning side show and Vegas production numbers will not save the church because it isn't about entertainment. Every statistic available indicates the church is withering. It is withering because the message has been corrupted into variations of greed and monetary policy.

It's been said that a fool and his money are soon parted. The real question is how the fool got his money in the first place.

It isn't about money. Financial stewardship is a joke. It's like discussing water treatment on the Titanic.

Let's address real priorities - saving the lost as a church and following Christ as individuals. The small change will take care of itself.

and that's me, hollering from the choir loft...

 

[pom2014]

I took away from the article the clear heretical message of the prosperity doctrine.

Spend spend spend. Acquire acquire acquire. Rinse and repeat. It's all about the mammon. This heresy has been around since the first shaman suggested that offering extra meat to a false spirit will lead to more meat down the road all the while knowing he'll eat the offering when the others weren't looking. Ensuring he'd have more than the others.

Live extravagantly and revel in material things. Standard operating procedure for the greedy. This a terrible message to twist scripture for.

Profits as a follower are of the spirit, not the pocketbook. The coin of this world will stay here.