This week Forbes hailed Mark Zuckerberg as one of \u201cthe most generous\u201d people in America.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think their standards are anything like God\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Mr. Zuckerberg, in case you didn\u2019t know, founded Facebook. He and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are worth $9.6 billion, according to Forbes. And in 2012, they gave away nearly $500 million.<\/p>\n
It is so tempting to make fun of that \u2013 to riff about having to live on just $9.1 billion \u2013 but that is a lot of money to give away, and they are doing a lot more good with their money than many folks are. So I\u2019ll only point out that $500 million is a little more than 5 percent of $9.6 billion.<\/p>\n
And I only point that out to trick you.<\/p>\n
You see, when I write, \u201c5 percent,\u201d it\u2019s just natural if you think of 10 percent, a figure that many folks use when talking about biblical giving.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s off by a factor of 10.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd He [Jesus] looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. So He said, \u201cTruly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.\u201d (Luke 21:1-4)<\/em><\/p>\n Jesus wasn\u2019t particularly impressed with the offerings of the rich. But He took a moment to contrast that with the widow\u2019s giving. And this points to a fact about us as believers.<\/p>\n Jesus bought us with a price \u2013 a price we could not pay. We belong to Him, and everything we have comes from Him and belongs to Him as well. The biblical standard is 100 percent.<\/p>\n Thinking about Mr. Zuckerberg\u2019s gift, I realized that I was feeling pretty good about the fact that my giving far exceeds a tithe (10 percent), even though my gross ministry income is less than 0.01 percent of what he gave. But I also realized that for all I have learned about generosity, I may be going about it backwards.<\/p>\n I have been listening and obeying as God tells me to give. That\u2019s not a bad start.<\/p>\n But if it all belongs to Him, shouldn\u2019t I be planning <\/em>to give it all to Him, and listening to see what He wants me to spend on my needs?<\/p>\n Think of it this way: When you\u2019re offered an opportunity to give, and you feel prompted to do so, do you usually stop yourself and say, \u201cI\u2019ll pray about it\u201d? And how do you react when you feel like buying something? If you\u2019re like me \u2013 and I suspect like most believers \u2013 you\u2019re hesitant to give God\u2019s money back to Him but you feel free to spend it on yourself.<\/p>\n So I ask you: Isn\u2019t that backwards?<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure how this would work, or where it will take me. But it\u2019s definitely something worth thinking about, and perhaps worthy of some changes in my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week Forbes hailed Mark Zuckerberg as one of \u201cthe most generous\u201d people in America. I don\u2019t think their standards are anything like God\u2019s. Mr. Zuckerberg, in case you didn\u2019t know, founded Facebook. He and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are worth $9.6 billion, according to Forbes. And in 2012, they gave away nearly $500 million. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[38256,31],"class_list":{"0":"post-4696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ministry","7":"tag-generosity","8":"tag-giving","9":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}