-
Warnings Against Folly – Proverbs 6
In the Bible on my desk right now, the first part of Proverbs six has a section heading. It is called “Warnings Against Folly.” It is interesting that more than half the section deals with money. Being financially responsible is obviously very important, and it is a recurring theme throughout the whole book of Proverbs and the teachings of Jesus as well. The first warning is against putting up security for your neighbour. Now, you might think that trusting your neighbour is the kind, neighbourly thing to do. But, no. It is considered foolishness. We need to be more careful than that. We need to understand that our resources are…
-
But is it Bread?
The book of Isaiah is one of my favourite reads in the Bible. Some of the church's most beautiful and meaningful images come from these writings. In chapter 55 verse 2, the prophet asks an extremely loaded question: "Why do you spend your money on that which is not bread?" (RSV) As you can probably guess, Isaiah was not talking here about flour and yeast alone. In the lifetime that I have been endeavouring to be a Christ-follower, this question has come back to me over and over again in many guises, as I have tried to make the best choices as to how to spend my money, my time,…
-
Budgeting Our Attention
I’m writing this near the end of December, the time of year when we take stock of where we’re at as we look at the past year, assess our progress, and plan for the new year to see where we can improve. We scrutinize our budgets, especially at the Christmas spending season, to analyze what went wrong, and to prevent similar mistakes in the new year. While we hope to be careful managing our money, we also need to be especially careful about managing our attention. We have only a limited number of attention units. That is why, in an increasing number of places, there are laws that prohibit talking…
