Chapter 2: Financial Giving
"Certainly the passage would be far easier to fulfill if it merely required good intentions on our part. Instead, it calls us to radical acts of generosity. We dare not let our convenience and culture - including church culture - dictate our interpretation."
If you've ever picked up a book on happiness, you've certainly come across this tip in one form or another: Money spent on experiences is a much better buy than money spent on material goods (aside from necessities). Experiences, especially with friends, boost our happiness in the short term (during the experience), and in the long term, by strengthening our friendships, and creating shared memories.
If there was ever a time to test this principle, it would be now. Regardless of your feelings about the pandemic, the lockdown has affected everyone: young and old, rich and poor. We have all experienced either financial loss or the fear of it, and we have all had to grapple with various levels of continuous solitude. For some that live alone, the isolation is extreme. For others, you are quarantined with your family, but still unable to see friends and "socially calibrate" as we humans tend to do.
Unsurprisingly, online shopping, one safe activity to do from your house, has increased dramatically. A recent Forbes article cited a few lucky retailers who saw a 65% increase year over year from mid-March to mid-April 2020. And that is for non-essential goods. So here we have our experiment: no experiences to invest in, but lots of Amazon boxes being delivered. Is it making Americans happier? Unfortunately, I believe we have proved the original sentiment to be true. The temporary lift we get from opening that package quickly drops and emotionally, we are back where we started.
In the next few chapters, Randy Alcorn unpacks the joy we experience when we give. And it is important to note that even in this financial transaction, the joy comes from the experience we as the giver get to have. But in this chapter, Alcorn is addressing those who have interpreted Jesus' teaching to be about giving to be more theoretical than literal. It's important to set this groundwork properly and define the actions Jesus calls us to before we dive into the results of our actions.
I have been in church and Sunday School my whole life, and I don't think I've ever heard someone interpret this passage so literally. And yet, considering Jesus speaks about money so often in scripture, and in a literal context, it is clear that Jesus is speaking of financial giving. It is an ever-present idol in our lives if we let it have that power. Just like the power of a dark secret breaks once you confess, the power of money breaks when you give it away. In the next few chapters, we'll see the roadmap of how to put this into action in our own lives.
-Rebekah Arias
