As part of his chapter on Worldliness in Respectable Sins, Jerry Bridges talks about money and how Christians use it. First, let’s see his definition of worldliness.
“Worldliness means accepting the values, mores, and practices of the nice, but unbelieving, society around us without discerning whether or not thos values, mores, and practices are biblical.”
Pretty good definition. It is when we are shaped by the world instead of being conformed to Christ in how we approach seemingly trivial matters. He points to how Christians use money as a place where we are often quite worldly. We often don’t examine how we spend our money- only if we have enough to get what we want. We tend to get caught in that self-centered approach to living when it comes to “our” money.
Evangelicals are giving far less money to their churches than they did in years past. He notes that in 8 evangelical denominations (not mainline ones) people give only 4.4% of their income. They are spending more money on themselves by keeping up with technological toys, collecting music or movies, big boy toys (boats, snowmobiles..), eating out often, etc. But here was what disturbed me even more.
“Not only are we giving less to our churches, but it seems that more of what we do give is spent on ourselves. In 1920, the percentage of giving to missions from total offerings was just over 10 percent. But by 2003, that figure had declined to just under 3 percent. That means we spent 97 cents of every dollar on our own local programs and ministries while sending 3 cents overseas.”
Cavman Considers 