MONEY COUNTS:
How to Handle Money in Your Heart and
With Your Hands
By Graham Beynon
The Good Book Company. 127 pages. £7.99
ISBN 978 1 910 307 359
The subtitle of the book – How to handle money in your heart and with your hands – provides a good clue as to the contents, which are addressed to ordinary Christians living in a consumer society where secular culture can have a significant impact, of which many are unaware. So it would be a good read for most en devotees, who are living in a Western, consumerist and pluralistic society.
The book should challenge your heart and get you thinking, meditating and praying biblically about your use of money. I hope it will lead to a better understanding of God, the money he gives us and how we can use it well for his glory.
Guarding against greed
The structure is much like a letter from the Apostle Paul. The early chapters deal with a theology of God and money. It then moves on to spiritual disciplines of investing in eternity, guarding against greed, giving and the gospel. Finally, the book addresses our practical use of money and living with money: earning, spending, saving and giving.
In my 50 years as a Christian I cannot recall one sermon on the subject of greed. Yet this book helpfully has a chapter on ‘Guarding Against Greed’, which includes a six-step strategy against greed. I expect we all need to read and learn from this.
My one disappointment with the book is the number of typos, incorrect spellings and missing words. These may disrupt the reader’s flow and distract from the helpful content.
This is a book well worth reading, and reading again every few months! It will help us in our battle against our consumer, me-centred society, which draws us away from a full-hearted dependence on our glorious and gracious God, towards the false god of money. May God protect us from such error!
