Some helpful thoughts on giving from Justin Taylor and J.D. Greear:
I’ve found this post by J.D. Greear to be very helpful in thinking about giving, generosity, and possessions.
He begins by identifying two different extremes that Christians often hold with regard to possessions. Either:
- God wants you to give 10%, and after that you can do whatever you want with your money.
- Whatever you give, you should be giving more.
The second position, he says, is much better, but it’s imbalanced and leads to despair and constant guilt. He gives three problems with it:
- It never ends.
- It’s out of sync with what the Bible says elsewhere about possessions.
- It ends up as a spiritualized sense of “compulsory” giving (contra 2 Corinthians 8-9).
