Many of the church’s younger people are begging for a different relationship with money. That’s the real issue. An entire generation, maybe two, are consumed by money and debt and consumerism. They need to see money in a new way, a biblical way; but, because the church is also bogged in consumerism, younger people believe the church is of little value in helping them out of the quagmire.
A change in lifestyle is needed. There must be more than birth, consumption, and death. So here are some suggestions:
Consume Less than You Make
The Bible shows us that God’s people are not to be mere consumers. That is the reason for the tithe and the Sabbath. We’re to depend on God and trust God to provide. While other nations worked seven days a week, Israel was to work six and trust God for the seventh. While other nations exacted what was owed them with interest, Israel was to practice a year of jubilee, when debts were forgiven.
There is certainly need for this story today, and for the church to be a peculiar people living according to a different economy, people who give and rest and do not see their lives simply as a means of consumption.
Jesus’ model prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” implies that God’s people are to trust God for our provision rather than ourselves. Jesus’ teaching was as counter-cultural in his day as it is in ours. There was every bit as much temptation to keep more than enough for oneself and to depend on one’s own effort in A.D. 30 as today. We are to intentionally have less than we can consume.
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Many of the church’s younger people are begging for a different relationship with money. That’s the real issue. An entire generation, maybe two, are consumed by money and debt and consumerism. They need to see money in a new way, a biblical way; but, because the church is also bogged in consumerism, younger people believe the church is of little value in helping them out of the quagmire.
A change in lifestyle is needed. There must be more than birth, consumption, and death. So here are some suggestions:
Consume Less than You Make
The Bible shows us that God’s people are not to be mere consumers. That is the reason for the tithe and the Sabbath. We’re to depend on God and trust God to provide. While other nations worked seven days a week, Israel was to work six and trust God for the seventh. While other nations exacted what was owed them with interest, Israel was to practice a year of jubilee, when debts were forgiven.
There is certainly need for this story today, and for the church to be a peculiar people living according to a different economy, people who give and rest and do not see their lives simply as a means of consumption.
Jesus’ model prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” implies that God’s people are to trust God for our provision rather than ourselves. Jesus’ teaching was as counter-cultural in his day as it is in ours. There was every bit as much temptation to keep more than enough for oneself and to depend on one’s own effort in A.D. 30 as today. We are to intentionally have less than we can consume.