For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9
“The solution to stinginess is a reorientation to the generosity of Christ in the gospel, how He poured out His wealth for you. Now you don’t have to worry about money–the cross proves God’s care for you and gives you the security. Now you don’t have to envy anyone else’s money. Jesus’ love and salvation confers on you a remarkable status–one that money cannot give you. Money cannot save you from tragedy, or give you control in a chaotic world. Only God can do that.
What breaks the power of money over us is not just redoubled effort to follow the example of Christ. Rather, it is deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ, what you have in Him, and then living out the changes that that understand makes in your heart–the seat of your mind, will, and emotions. Faith in the gospel restructures our motivations, our self-understanding and identity, our view of the world.”
Timothy Keller in Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters (New York: Penguin, 2011) 68.
When this posts I will be somewhere over the Pacific giving thanks to God for a fruitful ministry trip to South Korea and Australia. En route my plan is to start preparing my mind to teach this summer at two different seminaries. A common response to biblical teaching on stewardship is stinginess. I hear it in comments in every class I teach.
It’s one of those mental maladies with which I have been afflicted so I am well aware of its self-rationalizations. It tends to surface in “what if” statements like these: “We save all that money because what if a member of our family gets sick…” or “I set aside all those financial resources because what if I lose my job…” Those are just two examples.
See how these can lead us to behavior that is the opposite of the path Jesus clearly sets for us? If such what if statements reveal stinginess is holding you captive (or trying to), don’t redouble effort to follow the example of Christ as Keller puts it, or in plain terms, don’t try harder!
Instead meditate on Psalm 49 to grasp the limitations of riches (they can’t save us, satisfy us or give us the security we long for, only God can), and then turn to the Gospel of John to behold the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Keller rightly concludes: “Faith in the gospel restructures our motivations, our self-understanding and identity, our view of the world.”