background from 2 corinthians 9

One of the most challenging and complex economic realities faced by many of our neighbors who live paycheck to paycheck is finding financial resources to cover immediate and unexpected expenses. To ad...

Thankfulness seems to be a lost art today. Warren Wiersby illustrated this problem in his commentary on Colossians. He told about a ministerial student in Evanston, Illinois, who was part of a life-sa...

While Christmas traditions vary the world over, gift-giving is a central practice just about anywhere Christ's birth is celebrated. Sometimes gifts are exchanged on De­cember 6, the feast day of S...

The man behind the unlikely tradition of Christmas stockings is usually thought to have been Nikolaos of Myra. He was a Greek Christian who became bishop of Myra, a city of Asia Minor. Nikolaos, or Sa...

Famed pastor and educator A. T. Pierson (1837–1911) lamented his own human inadequacies in communicating to his congregation the depth and levels of the “unsearchable riches of Christ:” “Unsearchabl...

The biblical theology of creation is a negation of theories of private” property and “public” property, our theories of individual ownership and collective or governmental ownership. The biblical view...

In their book Passing the Plate (Oxford, 2008), Christian Smith and Michael Emerson introduce the phrase “discretionary obligation” as a way to understand the typical American Christian’s approach to ...

The other way to destroy the relational bonds of gift giving is to turn a gift into a commodity. Let’s say it’s my birthday. Ten friends come over to my house, and we eat a good meal, and they all bri...

What’s the biggest misconception Christians have about giving? That when we give money away to a church or ministry, or to help the needy, it’s gone. While we hope others will benefit from it, we’re q...

Many Christians don’t give. Others determine to do their part but sigh deeply before writing a check to their church or ministry. They give strictly out of a sense of duty and obligation. Better to gi...

For the real good of every gift it is essential, first, that the giver be in the gift–as God always is, for He is love–and next, that the receiver know and receive the giver in the gift. Every gift of...

Just as our bodies need exercise to be strong physically, our faith needs exercise if we are to be strong spiritually. It has often been noted that several rivers flow into the Dead Sea, but no river ...