Of God and Money
Of God and Money
Can God answer money prayers?
This has not statistically been proven but I think observation suggests that:
The poorest among us, across all walks of life and religions, are the most consistently and genuinely pious ?
Yet, and especially amongst X-tians, those who teach the poor to "seek first the kingdom and its righteousness" are filthy rich ...
Money is man's creation.
Man was created with the propensity to exchange stuff. In no other species will you find this trait. But, owing to division of labour, every man constantly has need for his neighbour's stuff.
The genesis of currency is directly linked to the necessity to alleviate the inconveniencies of exchange. [Adam Smith]
So can we really expect God to open the proverbial floodgates of heaven ? Should we ?
I wonder ...
posted by jm at 10:25 AM
5 Comments:
Time magazine had an article titled something like "Does God want us to be Rich?" awhile ago. If I locate it online, I'll post the link here. It was pretty interesting, seeing as there are certain people within the christian sect that do not believe in worldly riches. You do raise a good point about the rich televangelists (I assume those are the ones you were referring to).
My criticism is particularly severe for the televangelists but generalized for almost all preachers. They operate on teh same business model. The only reason the tlevangelists are making a killing is because they have a bigger market share.
But even local pastors in Kenya (please note it's not all of them) are increasingly looking at the church coffers to help them survive teh harsh economic times.
I am not implying that they should be poor just because they "work for God" but there is definitely lotsa scripture used to encourage the worshippers to bring forth teh last coin ... like teh widow in Jesus' parable ...
I have to agree the business of church has changed from a guide to Heaven to a guide to deeper pockets.
Shouldn't we pray for happiness and good health. Wouldn't it be unfair to pray for more while there are other people who lack the basic food, clothing and shelther.
btw JM, I like your new blog format.
Thx. 3N
But here in lies the paradox.
Imagine you pray for good health...
Isn't that a function of good nutrition, good health care, etc ...?
These things cost money! Aren't you back to square one??
As for happiness, that is certainly a possibility ... but still ... your happiness also has variables that you cannot control - if your kids cannot go to school, or eat a decent meal, are constantly constipated, etc... it's hard to see how you can be happy ... there is likely to be a lingering thought ...if only i had kidogo chums...!!!
money is not what it appears. Money is more deep rooted. Money is not just there outside in the currency notes, it is something to do with you inner mind and attitudes. Money is your escape from persons, money is your security against death, money is your effort to control life, money is a thousand and one things. Money is not just in the currency notes otherwise things would have been very easy
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