Money, financial stewardship, and generosity don't normally strike us as the most spiritual of topics. The Bible, however, talks about money - and our attitude toward it - as one of the main indicators of our spiritual health. This passage offers us surprising news about how God wants to use our money not just to change the world, but to change our hearts.
Friendship is an important, though often overlooked, part of a healthy Christian life. Traditional cultures emphasize family, while our contemporary culture emphasizes romance and sexual love. But the Bible has always emphasized the importance of friendship in addition to these kinds of relationships. Whether we're married or single, whether we have a family or not, we see that this topic is of vital importance for all of us.
What kind of community is Christian community supposed to be? Many feel that faith is fine, as long as you keep it to yourself. This passage, however, shows us how radically counter-intuitive, and counter-cultural, Christian community really is. Along the way, we discover some surprising things about the ultimate source of our identity, and how that shapes our relationships with people both inside and outside the church.