I posted the video from my interview with Steve Kindle in my theodicy video interview series. The video is embedded below, and you can find out information on this series at Theodicy Interview Series.
The next interview to be posted is by Steve with me, asking me to answer the questions I’ve set up for this series. Following that, I’ve added an additional author, Dr. Terrell Carter, author now of three books from Energion Publications, and several from others.
Pastors and church leaders cringe at the “s” word, because so many members don’t want to hear about it. Sometimes they blame the members for not wanting to dedicate their wallets to the Lord. But is that precisely what we should be asking church members to do?
I think the resources to carry out the gospel commission already exist. Those resources are tied up in our individual wallets, bank accounts, and possessions at the individual level. At the church level they are tied up in buildings and supplies, things we’re sure we have to have. But do you know that there are thousands of churches around the world that get along without the things that we, in American churches, absolutely have to have?
Come to think of it, am I aware that there are people who do without things that I count on every day?
My guests were David Croteau, author of Tithing after the Cross and Steve Kindle, author of Stewardship: God’s Way of Recreating the World. They come from different denominational and theological backgrounds and belong to different generations. Yet in looking at what the Bible says about stewardship, they both come to the same conclusions. You’ll be amazed at the level of agreement.
I have heard many of my fellow Americans say that the government needs to get out of charity and let the church do it. You know what? How about if the government could spend way less on social welfare programs because the church was doing its job? I don’t just mean giving out money; that’s part of it. But giving out money results from letting the gospel change our priorities so that we give ourselves to the Lord (2 Corinthians 8:5), and everything else results from that.
Just think! We might even turn the world upside down (Acts 17:6)!
Here’s the video:
Earlier today Dave Black commented on this as well.
I’m editing the manuscript for a new Topical Line Drives volume, Stewardship: God’s Way of Recreating the World, by Steve Kindle. It’s currently scheduled for the end of May, but I’m hoping we’ll get it out a bit earlier.
Here’s a taste:
The apostle Paul revealed to us the key to successful fundraising in his appeal to the Corinthian congregation to assist in the collection he was taking up for the Jerusalem church. His formula: 3For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, 4begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints— 5and this, not merely as we expected; they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us, …
2 Corinthians 8:3-5
The Macedonians, in spite of their poverty, begged to give to the Jerusalem church—even beyond their means—because they first gave themselves to the Lord. Sure, it is possible to raise a lot of money using sophisticated methods based on psychological triggers and emotional appeals. These are too often resorted to as substitutes for the Macedonian way. A congregation that first “gives themselves to the Lord,” recognizes their stewardship partnership, and everything they do springs from that commitment. So let’s not encourage tithing, that’s about money. Let’s encourage seeing all we have as God’s and act accordingly.
The book isn’t laid out yet, so I can’t give you the page this will be on. I will tell you that I had to choose between several good quotes to use here. This book also looks at stewardship much more broadly than money, including our stewardship of the world we live in.
We’ll also be hearing from Steve Kindle tonight in his conversation with Elgin Husbheck, Jr. on the topic Lent: Season of the Resurrection.
When I started Energion Publications just over 10 years ago, my primary interest was in Bible study materials. My goal was to get the people in our churches to study the Bible more, and to do so for themselves. My complaint about much of the material available was that it was often shallow and repetitive, and that people had often been seeing the same things over and over again. (I don’t mean that there were or are no good materials; merely that there are not enough materials that address people in the pews.)
It wasn’t just that some material was shallow. It was that often when the material was a bit deeper it tended to present conclusions without really teaching students just how those conclusions were reached. Quite frequently, church members were simply accepting the conclusions they were taught on authority, not because they had really examined them and come to accept them for good reasons. Their pastor, or some well-respected person from their denomination or tradition stream claimed that a verse meant a certain thing, so that’s what it meant.
When people from two different tradition streams would meet, debate could get heated as people fired spiritual canon loaded with pre-interpreted texts. They thought they were firing them at one another, but generally they were firing them past one another, because their targets had memorized a completely different interpretation for that particular passage.
I launched several projects in response to this. First was the Participatory Study Series, the first series I know of to intentionally select authors from different tradition streams to cover different books of the Bible. My idea was to give people a chance not just to study about the various methodologies, but to study a whole book of the Bible with the guidance of a qualified scholar from different traditions. Thus you can study Philippians with the guidance of process theologian Bruce Epperly and Ecclesiastes with conservative evangelical Russel Meek. As time goes on, this variety will increase rather than decrease.
There was still more to be done. Our conclusions about scripture depend heavily on our approach to interpretation, our interpretation depends to some extent on our view of authority, and both interpretation and authority depend, to some extent on our understanding of inspiration.
Thus I published Learning and Living Scripture: A Introduction to the Participatory Study Method, but that little book didn’t really deal with the conclusion. It embraced it and invited more! So I wrote my own book about inspiration and listening to God, When People Speak for God, and then acquired a truly masterful work, From Inspiration to Understanding: Reading the Bible Seriously and Faithfully by Edward W. H. Vick. Shoring up a more conservative viewpoint was Elgin Hushbeck’s Evidence for the Bible.
With all those books, the question still remained. How does one learn to understand and even benefit from the variety of approaches to Bible study?
Well, now we have a short, easy-to-read book that will help you understand why we disagree about what the Bible says, and why so many of those disagreements are so intractable. It’s I’m Right and You’re Wrong: Why we disagree about the Bible and what to do about it. It’s a challenging title, and in just 40 pages, you’re going to begin to get a picture of the variety of scriptural interpretation.
Author Steve Kindle writes with a gentle passion. This is not a book proving that his approach to interpretation is the one and only right approach. He doesn’t deny that there is objective truth out there; he just doubts that we are going to be able to get there with are finite and not-so-objective minds. What he does instead is try to give us an idea how various approaches work.
There are at least two things you can do, starting with this book. The first is simply improve your ability to converse with people whose approach to the Bible might be different than your own. With the basic information Rev. Kindle provides, you can build your understanding by listening to others. Second, you can use the excellent footnotes to find more detailed expositions of these various approaches and learn more about them than could possibly be contained in a 40 page book.
As a publisher, of course, I would be delighted if you’d also embark on a journey with the Participatory Study Series and actually study some books using guides written from a perspective other than your own.
At a minimum, however, learn how to break through the hostility that often characterizes debates about the Bible to come to understand how someone else has become convinced that he’s right and you’re wrong!
Note: This book is already printing, but we’re leaving the pre-order pricing up for one more day. That means you can order from Energion Direct for just $3.49. If you take this opportunity to get 3 or more copies, shipping will be free. The shipping charge is just $2.00 on orders of less than $9.99.
