Recently I sat through a Sunday Morning Bible study on time and money management. As an introduction to his lesson the teacher held up a worn leather book. Its brown cover was finger worn at the corners. Its gold-edged pages were dog-eared and torn. On its cover the faded title was nearly unlegible. As he held the book up, he explained its importance. For over thirty years this same book had sat on his desk. He had read it year after year, living by its important principles. The name of the book was How to Gain Wealth.
No, I don’t go to a self-focused, health and wealth church. This lesson was taught within the walls of a theologically conservative, evangelical place of worship. As the lesson continued, several alarming topics were brought to my attention. The most frequented issue of the hour and a half, however, was the IRA account. As I sat there with around fifteen other young adults learning the key to financial security into senior adulthood, I couldn’t help but compare the whole concept to the rich fool in Luke 12 storing all of his grain and goods in barnes.
I think about the American Church with its worn out copies of How to Gain Wealth and wonder, will there come a time when God will say to us, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” I wonder if there will come a time when we realize that all of the money in our IRA accounts can’t buy the kingdom of God.
