a good thing. I believe we need to continually reassess our lives and our Christian walk. It’s called being continually transformed by the renewing of our minds. So be blessed as these words bring revelation and life to you.
TERRY FELBER
Entrepreneur, Pastor, and
Author of The Legend of the Monk and the Merchant
Introduction
This Is Not Your Daddy’s
“Best Life Now” Book
Four out of five people in the United States of America are either below, at, or one paycheck away from the poverty level.4 How can this be if you have been a person of faith for years? How can this be if you have read all the books and watched all the great pastors on television telling you that riches on earth are yours if you truly believe?
If those sobering statistics were not enough of a reality check, try this on for size: Churches are head over heels in debt, too. Foreclosure rates on churches are the highest they have ever been.5 And the statistics don’t even tell the whole truth. As I mentioned on my nationally syndicated talk show, those in the lending industry say it’s actually much worse than what’s reported, because “no bank wants to look like the bad guy and repo a church.”6
How can this be? Churches teach us not to be a debtor (or a lender), so how can a church possibly owe money?
Given many churches’ inability to pay their mortgages, it should come as no surprise that tithing is also at record lows.7 I ask again as we start this book: How can this be? Isn’t tithing one of the first commands in regard to money? The book of Malachi says not to tithe is to rob God (see the FAQ section for more information on Tithing).8
It comes down to this: The modern Church has so perverted the Biblical teachings in regard to money—what it’s for, how to make it, and how to use it—that this wrong doctrine is rotting the Church body from the inside out. Some churches (and even some members themselves) are even dying because of it. To address this catastrophic problem we are now experiencing because of a lack of money and its proper use, those in charge of leading the Church body have embraced, in their ignorance, two approaches.
The first is to essentially say that God is in control, all things work to His glory, and money should not be a focus of instruction. If He decides to bless someone with money, it is His will. If not, it may be that He is strengthening that person. The second is a drastic opposite, with a preference toward claiming that just belief (“you gotta have faith”) or the act of giving (“you reap what you sow”) will be enough to open up the floodgates of Heaven. So ridiculous is the second approach that some teachers of this perversion have gone as far as offering special handkerchiefs that, if purchased at a nominal fee, will bring prosperity your way. If you purchased one of these handkerchiefs, I have some oceanfront property in Nebraska to sell you.
The danger with both of these approaches is that they are laced with just enough truth to make followers believe them. Yes, you need to have faith and God does bless our giving, but these are part of larger principles. While God does assist in our lives at times in a supernatural way, I believe He prefers to work in our lives through our reasoned and practical application of sound practices that He has empowered us to seek and understand. For example, He made the Israelites walk when He could have just moved the whole lot as He did with Philip in Acts 8. Again, we see in Yeshua (aka Jesus; see FAQ) providing a supernatural catch for His doubting disciples, yet they still have to fish and feed themselves again—it is not as if He supernaturally filled every need on a daily basis. He says in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “For even when we were with you this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat”; and throughout Scripture He gives practices for sound sowing and reaping, solid building, and good business dealings. It is clear that while His supernatural hand is at work, so, too, is His expectation that you should work in such a way that produces the best results possible. He actually goes so far as to point out that doing work in an unwise way is something that He punishes.
I remember being in a church, and as a guest speaker I was sitting up front. The pastor put out a call for those who needed prayer and a handful of people came forward. Sitting close enough to hear, I noted that as the pastor went from person to person, asking what they needed prayer about, all but one of the requests were financial. For less than $20,000, those prayers, save one medical problem, could have been answered. It stands out as a powerful moment in my life. It was then that I started to realize that if the Church as a whole in this country and around the world is going to grow spiritually and in number, it needs to get back to proper teaching regarding money. Were those people seeking prayer not faithful? Did God really want that family to have a broken car? Did God lie when He said He would provide? Were we, as believers, asking too much and missing the fact that God was providing for us already? After all, He has sustained our lives, so in a deeper sense, He is indeed providing for us.
The Bible talks about providing financially for yourself, your children, and your children’s children, but with the majority of Americans just one paycheck (or less) away from the poverty line, clearly this isn’t happening in most homes. Is it ever God’s will for someone not to be able to provide for their offspring? The Bible calls poverty a curse, so are four out of five churchgoers cursed?
With these questions in mind, and thinking that there must be sound teachings on faith and finances, I went searching at a bookstore. To my disbelief, everything I found there fell into the two previous approaches (either that God is in control and blesses who He will, or the prosperity gospel). When I spoke to the management of this particular store about the lack of books addressing people’s most common earthly problem, money, the response was, “No, unfortunately there is not really much out there. If someone were to come along with a book teaching the proper perspective on faith, finances, and business, we wouldn’t be able to keep it on the shelves.”
Of course, I thought the lack of credible information available at this store had to be a fluke. Perhaps the people who manage these retail outlets focusing on the faith demographic were atheists in disguise who didn’t really care to see what was available to offer their customers. I decided to approach a few pastors and ask to speak with them regarding my views on faith and money. I spent a few hours providing my perspective of money and Biblical teaching, discussed what they were taught in their training, and answered several of their questions. Those conversations made it clear that the faithful need to reexamine their approach to finances, and how they should be walking in their daily lives. It was clear that there needed to be a book with a third approach, one that incorporated all of the Scriptures, including our responsibilities
