As a federal employee gearing up for retirement, you’ve likely been reading your fair share of books on the topic of money. Books and articles on IRAs, Life Insurance, and the best investments available to you consume the market. In December’s book of the month, Money, Possessions, and Eternity, author Randy Alcorn unfolds a biblical perspective on wealth.
In the first chapter, Alcorn introduces the idea that the Bible has an astonishing amount to say on the concept of wealth, The sheer enormity of Scripture’s teaching on this subject screams for our attention. And the haunting question is this—why? Why does God give us so much instruction on money and possessions? Considering everything else he could have told us that we really want to know, why did the Savior of the world spend 15 percent of his recorded words on this one subject? Why did he say more about how we are to view and handle money and possessions than about any other single thing?
Throughout the book, Alcorn seeks to explain how the Bible refers to wealth and wealth building. Money, Possessions, and Eternity is full of Scripture and delves in depth into the question, “What does God say about money?” Alcorn addresses common Christians’ misconceptions on money, as well as some of the dangers of misguided mindsets about wealth building.
In chapter one, Alcorn describes what his book is about.
Starting at Ground Level
To build the proper foundation, we must understand the following things about money:
- What it is (It’s more than coins and currency.)
- Whose it is
- How God views it
- Its potential use for two different kingdoms
These four issues are what this book is about. You may be surprised to find that several chapters don’t deal exclusively with money, but instead discuss the larger issue of what eternity holds for us and how that relates to our money. I believe this is the primary missing ingredient in most Christian books on finances. When we look at money only as money, and not in light of its impact on eternity, we walk away with a cloudy and shortsighted vision that results in cloudy and shortsighted financial decisions and lifestyles.
That’s why the central focus of this book is not insurance as much as assurance, not securities but security, not trusts but trust, not principal but principles, not real estate but our real estate. You will not find in these pages any net-worth calculations (which we easily mistake for self-worth calculations), but you will see how God measures your life’s worth on another basis. You will not learn here about the dangers of inflation, but you will see the dangers of a much truer enemy of financial stewardship: a lion who seeks to devour us.
Money, Possessions, and Eternity is a great book for anyone looking for a Biblical perspective on money. We encourage you to take full advantage of this carefully researched resource today.
