Andy Naselli summarizes an answer to this question from theologian Thomas Schreiner.
Archive for the 'Finances' Category
If you dream of picking the right Powerball, read about Jack Whittaker and the chapter of his life that began on a December morning a few years ago.
The next morning, as always, he rose at 4:30 to get to work. Jack, 55, had been working construction since he was a poor 14-year-old in the hills. He’d built himself a nice life in this patch of West Virginia hard by the Kentucky and Ohio borders. He had a wife and a granddaughter who basked in his attentions, a brick house in a nice subdivision in neighboring Scott Depot, and a water and sewer pipe-laying business that employed more than 100 people. At 5:15 a.m., Jack snapped on the television and heard, to his surprise, that the winning ticket had been sold at the C&L Super Serve. What are the odds, Jack later said he was thinking, that one little convenience store would sell two lucky tickets? Just then the winning numbers flashed. The numbers broadcast the night before had been wrong. He had a match on all five numbers, not four.
Jack Whittaker had just won $314 million, the largest undivided lottery jackpot in history.
A few hours later, he ambled into the C&L Super Serve and calmly handed Brenda a bill, saying he’d been meaning to give it to her before Christmas. Brenda figured it was a $1 tip for helping him diet, taking care to pinch a little dough out of his bacon biscuits so the cowboy-man’s big burly wouldn’t go soft.
"He handed me a $100 bill!" Brenda recalls. "I looked at it, and I’m, like, ‘Oh, no, no, no. I’m not taking this from you.’ And he’s, like, ‘Oh, yes, you are.’"
Then it hit her.
"Did you win?" Brenda whispered.
Jack nodded and grinned.
The day would come when many West Virginians recalled the story of Jack’s Powerball Christmas with a shudder at the magnitude of ruination: families asunder, precious lambs six feet under, folks undone by the lure of all that easy money.
But for now, Jack’s big win was viewed as one of the greatest Christmas gifts in his poor state’s history, a holiday miracle to be heralded around the globe.
Read the whole thing here.
6 Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. 1 Timothy 6:1-10.
HT: Z
Owen Strachan:
NYT columnist David Brooks has a thoughtful column out today called “The Next Culture War” that suggests that the shameful levels of debt our country is now carrying are a moral issue. He’s got a great point, I think, though I disagree with him on a number of matters (the “culture wars” and the issues raised in them are actually of great importance, easy as they are to skewer intellectually).
Here’s the bottom line of his argument:
In 1960, Americans’ personal debt amounted to about 55 percent of national income. By 2007, Americans’ personal debt had surged to 133 percent of national income.
Over the past few months, those debt levels have begun to come down. But that doesn’t mean we’ve re-established standards of personal restraint.
Read the whole thing here.
Chuck Colson writes an insightful article on how we should process the current economic chaos.
Most of us have been badly shaken by the tumultuous events on Wall Street in recent weeks. If you have an IRA or some kind of retirement plan, no doubt you are licking your wounds. You may even be fearful. I understand. I have experienced those apprehensions myself.
But we need to remember that fear is always the enemy of faith. The financial markets are his. The world is his.
Here is something else to remember: God often uses adversity for his greatest blessings – in several ways in this case. Christians are called to do the best things in the worst of times.
Read it all here.
I can’t say that I’ve always followed this perfectly. But, it’s good advice. Click here.
