Customer Reviews

Wealth As Peril and Obligation: The New Testament on Possessions

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Do you ever sit in church just before the collection plate is passed and listen to the minister try to tell you why to give? Usually, a brief piece of scripture is quoted telling you how much God loves cheerful givers. You will be anything but cheerful after reading this thorough account of what the Bible actually says about wealth and posessions. This is not for people looking for a nice quote to use in a stewardship campaign. This book is for people who really want to wrestle with what it means to be Christian. Read this book, and you will give up the idea entirely, or you will be haunted by its inescapable truth for the rest of your life.

This book by Dr. Wheeler starts out reading like a turgid doctoral dissertation, which it was. (Well, at least a doctoral dissertation, to which I'd apply the adjective "turgid" generically.) But once she makes her way to the intense examination of four New Testament passages on our relationship with wealth, this book explodes with power. She then sets those four and their key themes within the whole canon, so this is a book about much more than just four Bible passsages. And she brings you home to your life and your own relationship with wealth, possession, "stuff," by inviting you to ponder a series of questions, all growing out of scriptures. If you are a preacher, there's a whole series of important, riveting sermons here; if you are a lay person, there is a radical transformation, a metanoia, that you may find in this book. Thank you, Dr. Wheeler!

Art For Humanity purchased this book for the library of the Leadership Center in Honduras. This is an informative book that is very interesting and very well written. Well done and greatly appreciated! We are using it as a resource for our mission efforts in Honduras...[...]

This author is very intelligent. So much so that she isolates very good percentage of her potential readers because of her level of thought. Once into the book, it gets better, and the subject matter is very provocative. Unless you are ready to handle some very heavy reading, I would let this one pass.