in the world. 3 To date, Life.Church has
given more than $30 million to fund
this project alone. 4
Life.Church’s emphasis on giving
has had a significant effect on its
leaders. They’ve found deep-rooted
contentment in knowing that their
church honors God by freely giving
away what otherwise could have
been sold for a great deal of money.
Because of their commitment to trust
God instead of money, they model
what Scripture teaches about both
generosity and contentment.
We are living in an era when we have
more material possessions than any
generation before us. Compared to
Americans living in the 1950s, we
have countless more conveniences,
including big-screen TVs, microwaves,
online shopping, smartphones, and
twice as many cars. 5 It’s easy to assume
our purchases will automatically lead
to greater contentment.
But will they? Dr. David G. Myers
claims that this generation is actually
less content than generations before
it. “Compared with their grandparents,
today’s young adults have grown up
with much more affluence, slightly
less happiness and much greater risk
of depression and assorted social
pathology.” 6
The false idea that prosperity brings
contentment is nothing new. Paul
warned Timothy and the church at
Ephesus about false teachers who
were “depraved in mind and deprived
of the truth, imagining that godliness
is a means of gain” (1 Timothy 6:5).
Jesus put it this way: “Everything
they do is just to show off in front of
others” (Matthew 23:5, CEV). Instead
of faithfully teaching God’s Word, they
misused their platform to perform and
make money. We know from historical
documents that some prominent
religious teachers in that time charged
exorbitant speaker fees. 7 Like their
counterparts today, they embraced the
secular culture’s materialistic values
while baptizing them with verses taken
out of context.
“
We are living in an
era when we have more
material possessions than
any generation before us.
Many people believed such preachers
were wealthy because God approved
of them. But he didn’t then, and he
doesn’t today.
After describing the false teachers as
“imagining that godliness is a means
of gain,” Paul immediately followed
with “but godliness with contentment
is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6).
Like the Pharisees, the false teachers
used superficial, outward godliness
as a means to the ends of popularity,
power, and wealth. Paul, however,
wasn’t talking about a show of
godliness. He was referring to genuine,
inward godliness centered on the
person and work of Jesus Christ. This
is a humble godliness that manifests
itself as a natural outflow, never as a
calculated performance.
The New Living Translation renders
Solutions • 47