SCL

ha… love this post. Last night as I was dumping the majority of my nasty crockpot disaster into the garbage disposal, I thought…. “There are starving kids in Africa who would gobble this up; I wish I could send all this food over there.”

It’s ok not to have nice stuff. For every nice thing you don’t have, the Vatican has 3

You’ve obviously never met a Southern Baptist preacher. They have more nice stuff than most people.

And you mustn’t watch TBN, either. Good for you.

^^^^Totally agreeing with all comments above!

Nice stuff is one thing, but crass consumerism is another. I love my church but it’s somewhat of a Coach handbag club, and envy is a beast to wrestle with.

Still struggling with this one. Especially after visiting Haiti on a missions trip. Our guide told us not to feel guilty for the things we have. That was really hard. One easy way to let it go is to read Ecclesiastes. Solomon pretty much tried it all and it sucked.

Another good way to let go of stuff is to move often. I hate moving and once you have to move your stuff a few times it gets really old.

Still a sucker for gadgets though being a geek. Don’t want to be a pharisee and say i got it down.

yeah… I don’t know about this one. I think that when Jesus said, “it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven,” he actually meant it. Call me naive, but I think this scripture is to be taken literally. It makes sense though, with money we can technically live day-by-day without a God. We don’t need Him, persay, to survive. With wealth, we never have to worry about praying “give us this day our daily bread” because we can just go buy it. This puts us as a disadvantage spiritually, and that is why it is “hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Maybe I’m crazy, and maybe this “guilt” we all feel about owning nice things is self-inflicted as a result to our Christian upbringing…. But maybe it actually is the Holy Spirit convicting us. To find life, we have to lose it (Matthew 16:25). If you find a treasure in a field, you sell everything you have so that you can by the field (Matthew 13:44). When Zacchaeus found salvation, it was when we gave half of his possessions to the poor and paid back, 4 times, those he stole from.

I don’t know, I just don’t see any scripture backing up this idea that worldly possesions are justifiable. I wish I could, because I love nice things. But whenever Jesus talks about money, its not supportive of this post.

I agree.

Mr. John, Watch this and you won’t draw these conclusions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBhqrtMqrv8

Jacob and anon –
First of all, thanks for commenting. Great to see people engaging in the conversation.

This post wasn’t about prosperity ministry, which I’m not a fan of. This post is about shame. And how we process it and where it comes from. I really thought the sentence where I ended the post by joking about the absurdity of a minister owning a rolls royce would have made it clear where I stood but I guess it didn’t. When I wrote, “victory is ours, victory is ours” I was saying, “what are we doing? what are we doing?”

I should have been clearer in my sarcasm.
Jon

In the words of hero and legend Tony Campolo:

The question for a Christian is this: In a world where there are such incredible needs, can I spend $60,000 on a status symbol? In the face of hunger and need and suffering, would Jesus say, “Hey, more important for me is buying a BMW”?

I don’t think a Christian’s inclination not to splurge and indulge should be mocked. It’s an admirable quality.

Silas –
I completely agree.
Jon

I think there is another factor here too. When we do choose to own nice things are we being selfish with them or are we sharing them with others. Or asking the question how do I use this for kingdom stuff.

If I choose to own a big screen and home theater system, why not let the youth group or other ministries have access to it?

It also boils down to where you heart is. If it breaks is it the end of the world for you?

I think one of the big problems with the shame thing (I have it too) is that we rarely let it translate into real action. “I shouldn’t buy that for $50, I really don’t need it and there are so many hungry kids that $50 could help.” But then, after not buying it, we also don’t give $50 toward feeding hungry children. If we could complete the circuit, it would be awesome.

I am not a big fan of that. My mom taught me the art of shopping the sale racks, so I have a lot of nice stuff that I got for dirt cheap. I almost dread having some of my friends over because I get that look… the “why would you buy something like this when you could buy a child shoes or a meal” or “this money should have gone into the offering plate, Jenny.” Really? As long as the stuff isn’t consuming my life or driving me it really isn’t a problem. Maybe they are just jealous that they don’t have nice stuff… regardless of how much it cost.

Considering that “He owns the cattle on a thousand hills,” isn’t it just as indicative of the state of your heart, when you go through the drive-thru for a cheeseburger you don’t need, as it is to purchase that shiny red Porsche?

Giving, greed, and guilt: probably not completely definable concepts to any of us.

I read this post ages ago but never got around to commenting. I think the crucial thing is not whether we buy the $300 coat or not – it’s the reason for our decision. The original post seems to imply that reason not to buy the coat is not so we can send the extra money to the starving children in Africa – its so we won’t be seen to be spending too much money on ourselves. I think this is wrongheaded. If it is wrong to spend the extra $250 on the coat rather than giving the money away, then it is wrong regardless of if anyone catches you in the act! Similarly, if it feels right to invest in something a bit nicer than we would usually do (especially with the expectation that it will last longer, keep us warmer, not exploit poorly paid Chinese labour etc. etc.) then that decision is not made wrong by other people judging us.

I also hear what Jennifer says – almost all my clothes come from op shops/thrift stores, although I like to think that the average joe wouldn’t be able to tell that from ten paces! My Mum is a master of the op shop art, and has “more clothes than the queen”, according to my aunt. Apparently a co-worker used to repeatedly compliment mum on her clothes, and repeatedly asked where she bought her lovely and unusual outfits. Finally, Mum admitted that they all came from the op shop. The co-worker was taken aback (although not disgusted, as some people are). “I thought you must have spent all your income on clothes!” she said. Appearances are deceptive.

I think most of ya’ll are missing the point. It’s not about spending all your living on riotous living (see Prodigal Son), it’s about not looking like something the cat drug in.

I have friends who make very little money and spend what they do make on “status symbols.” Otoh, I have friends who make 6 figures but look like they have to dumpster dive.

There’s nothing wrong with being frugal and certainly, it should be our goal to live UNDER our means, but that doesn’t require that you look like a bag lady. I see people buy things at thrift stores that don’t fit exactly right (but it was cheap, they say) or that have stains on them (I’m just going to wear it around the house, they say at Walmart or the grocery store or Wednesday evening church and it was cheap!).

I agree, it’s not about “blab it and grab it,” or “poor starving anyone in any 3rd world country.” It’s this false piety that we seem to want to wrap ourselves in.

I don’t know if anyone will ever read this, but I just have to comment.

About two years ago, my family lost our home to foreclosure and became homeless. (We were ahead of the curve, clearly.) We put everything we owned in a storage unit and various friends’ garages, and crammed all five of us into another friend’s basement. For a year. A horrible year. We could barely buy food and gasoline. All the kids’ birthday and Christmas presents came from the Goodwill and Salvation Army, and we were tormented about whether it was okay to spend $3 on a t-shirt.

Things changed. God turned things around. We are now living in what some might call, a mansion. Luxury like we have never known. For next to no money. God has truly blessed us.

Two things happened as we moved into our new place:

(1) We got all our stuff back. And I am totally with Ethan about moving all that stuff: You just have to wonder do you ever want to move it again. We gave a lot of stuff away. A lot. But we also found, opening boxes of things we hadn’t seen in over a year, that we were truly delighted to see certain things again — kids seeing toys they’d missed, books and CDs we’d missed, seeing great-Grandma’s china again, all of it.

And (2): What Jeffrey said. We now feel such a compulsion to let other people share what we have, to say yes when a friend of a friend has a friend who needs a place to stay, or when the youth group wants to throw a party, or when someone needs to cook 20 dozen cookies in one day. We know what it’s like to have nothing (okay, the American version of “nothing,” granted). And we appreciate what God has given.

The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

I dunno, Jesus is pretty crystal clear about giving away all the nice stuff you own and/or selling it and giving your money to the poor.

Also he said that you can't be rich (i.e. own nice things) and get into heaven, which I suspect is pretty high on the priority list for most Christians.

"On the positive note, pioneering pastors are making strides to bring us into victory over this kind of thinking, as evidenced by the Rolls Royce one minister featured in the news currently drives. Victory is ours, victory is ours."

[sarcasm] I look forward to the day when we can finally forget that Jesus told us that we must sell everything to follow him.[/sarcasm] Sure, guilt is the wrong reason to do it, but in no way should we try and get over not wanting expensive stuff.
Read before replying: Yes, Jesus told the rich man to sell everything to follow him, not US. But Jesus also told Nicodemus that he must be born again to follow Jesus. Obviously to be typing this I'm on a computer, that I own, but let's all keep working on this, right?

a little event that made me laugh
my roommate had dropped some food on the ground and my friend said, "your not gonna eat that when there are starving children in africa?"
his response, "Im a starving college student in America, so no."

"Blessed are the poor in spirit."

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.