The title lures you in (because after all, who would want to be wrong when it comes to money!?!), but the honesty with which Chuck writes keeps you turning pages.  In the hectic, dog eat dog, loudest voice wins world of finance, Chuck Bentley humbly integrates his own personal journey in a conversational and convicting challenge of our cultural norms.

Dollars and Doctrine: The first thing I noticed about the book was your authenticity.  Overall, the book had a very personal touch—convicting rather than condemning.  Any comments as to why you approached the book in this manner?

Chuck Bentley: To be honest, it is very much a reflection of my life.  I felt like I had fallen prey to the world’s definitions of being rich.  And, I think there are many who fall into the same trap—even among Christians.  It is something I believe many people struggle with, though at times we hide it.  And, because it is something we prefer to keep hidden, I knew I had to be vulnerable and share my own shortcomings and mistakes so people could identify with it.  If I could show my own struggles, then perhaps people could benefit from my transparency.  I think people relate to failure more than success.  So, I had to share enough of my own story to make that connection.

Dollars and Doctrine: What led you to write this book?

Chuck Bentley: It all started with an experience around  I Timothy 6:10  [“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (NIV)].  It’s a familiar verse.  I knew it, thought I understood it, and had sort of moved on…and then one day God arrested my attention with it.  It’s magnitude and implications and relevance literally came alive to me.  I asked myself:  “Why is this verse so fresh and relevant?”  Why does this verse jump off the page?  Then it hit me, this is our culture.  That is why this verse comes alive.

But another thing, and what got me going on this book, was the word “root”.  Why did Paul call this problem a root?  If the love of money is a root that springs up all kinds of evil, what root should we be planting?  It led me to think that the root of all kinds of good is to love God and pursue His riches, true riches.

Dollars and Doctrine: Biblically speaking, how would you define rich?

Chuck Bentley: Being rich is related to what we love not what we own.  Biblically, I think it is to obey the greatest commandments—to love God and love others.  And, the reason that we are commanded to live this way is to steer us towards God.  Thinking this way inverted my whole paradigm.  I feel like I am now experiencing true riches.  It is an exciting journey.  Not legalistic bondage and empty obedience…but an exciting journey of pursuing God’s true riches.  You know, the Word tells us that money is a competitor with our desire to obey and follow God, and I can certainly say that is real in my own life experiences.  Changing my paradigm has freed me to find true riches.

Dollars and Doctrine: Looking back at the subtitle [What if everything you think about money is wrong], what do we think wrongly about money?

Chuck Bentley: That subtitle defines my experience.  I had so little biblical knowledge and understanding.  How were all these biblical truths seemingly hidden from me?  When I realized that my worldview was not biblical I realized everything I had grown up thinking about money was wrong.  The closest analogy I can think of is the Chronicles of Narnia.  The wardrobe opens up to Narnia and Aslan.  The wardrobe is a lot like the Bible.  It opens up to an entirely different world.  So much of my life, even though I was a Christian, was spent on the other side of the wardrobe.  Everything I had learned was the world’s wisdom.  A blend of self-help and my own personal philosophies that had no biblical context.  So, going back to that question [What if everything you think about money is wrong], it can really be any philosophy—big ones or small ones.  The question is a challenge to drive people to compare their beliefs with the Bible.

Dollars and Doctrine: In the book, you share how early in life your formula for success (though secret) was:  “Jesus + Lots of Money = Happiness”.  How has God transformed your formula?

Chuck Bentley: Transformation is the mystery of the heart.  My original formula was my plan for making my life good on my own terms—going back to my blended philosophies.  But, in the end, my self-worth was really defined in worldly terms.  The way that God transformed my formula was that I had to die to the world and die to my hidden equation.  That changed everything.  This is the root of the book—transformation of the heart.  This is how the Bible approaches the topic of money, by transforming the heart and renewing the mind.  Everything points to this.

Dollars and Doctrine: What did you learn in the process that you didn’t set out to write?

Chuck Bentley: Ha! A lot of things!  I would say that I learned that God compares us to trees.  It’s a theme that runs through the entire Bible, and He compares Himself to a tree.  It is something I had never noticed before, but it is all through the Bible.  The book is built around this notion—of roots and fruits, pruning, harvesting—attacking the bad roots, experiencing transformation of our inner man to yield good fruit.

The Root of Riches is scheduled to release in July.  You can read more about it (including a pre-release free download of chapter 1) here.  I would highly recommend it to anyone willing to challenge themselves to, as Chuck said, “ compare their beliefs with the Bible.”  It’s a must read for Dollars and Doctrine readers.  And again, I’d like to thank Chuck Bentley and Crown Financial for their collaboration with dollarsanddoctrine.com.

“Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money.” (Isaiah 43:24)
Worshippers at the temple were wont to bring presents of sweet perfumes to be burned upon the altar of God: but Israel, in the time of her backsliding, became ungenerous, and made but few votive offerings to her Lord: this was an evidence of coldness of heart towards God and his house. Reader, does this never occur with you? Might not the complaint of the text be occasionally, if not frequently, brought against you? Those who are poor in pocket, if rich in faith, will be accepted none the less because their gifts are small; but, poor reader, do you give in fair proportion to the Lord, or is the widow’s mite kept back from the sacred treasury? The rich believer should be thankful for the talent entrusted to him, but should not forget his large responsibility, for where much is given much will be required; but, rich reader, are you mindful of your obligations, and rendering to the Lord according to the benefit received? Jesus gave his blood for us, what shall we give to him? We are his, and all that we have, for he has purchased us unto himself-can we act as if we were our own? O for more consecration! and to this end, O for more love! Blessed Jesus, how good it is of thee to accept our sweet cane bought with money! nothing is too costly as a tribute to thine unrivalled love, and yet thou dost receive with favour the smallest sincere token of affection! Thou dost receive our poor forget-me-nots and love-tokens as though they were intrinsically precious, though indeed they are but as the bunch of wild flowers which the child brings to its mother. Never may we grow stingy towards thee, and from this hour never may we hear thee complain of us again for withholding the gifts of our love. We will give thee the first fruits of our increase, and pay thee tithes of all, and then we will confess “of thine own have we given thee.”  (Morning and Evening, May 23rd)

“A very large number of my present congregation belong to those who labour hard, and who, perhaps, without any unkindly reflection, may be put down in this catalogue of the poor. They have enough-barely enough, and sometimes they are even reduced to straitness. Now remember, my dear friends, you who are poor, there are two sorts of poor people in the world. There are the Lord’s poor, and there are the devil’s poor. As for the devil’s poor: they become pauperized by their own idleness, their own vice, their own extravagance. I have nothing to say to them tonight. There is another class, the Lord’s poor. They are poor through trying providences, poor, but industrious,-labouring to find all things honest in the sight of all men, but yet they still continue through an inscrutable providence to be numbered with the poor and needy. You will excuse me, brothers and sisters, in exhorting you to be contented; and yet why should I ask excuse, since it is but a part of my office to stir you up to everything that is pure and lovely, and of good report? I beseech you, in your humble sphere, cultivate contentment. Be not idle. Seek, if you can, by superior skill, steady perseverance, and temperate thriftiness, to raise your position. Be not so extravagant as to live entirely without care or carefulness; for he that provideth not for his own household with careful fore-thought, is worse than a heathen man and a publican; but at the same time, be contented; and where God has placed you, strive to adorn that position, be thankful to him, and bless his name…voluntary poverty is voluntary wickedness. But inasmuch as God hath made you poor, you have a facility for walking with Christ, where others cannot. You can go with him through all the depths of care and woe, and follow him almost into the wilderness of temptation, when you are in your straits and difficulties for lack of bread. Let this always cheer and comfort you, and make you happy in your poverty, because your Lord and Master is able to sympathize as well as to succour [give aid].”

(I am not trying to say people on welfare are “the devil’s poor”, but the source of a person’s poverty must be considered to analyze the welfare system wisely and Biblically.  For my thoughts check back on Friday.)

“Giving is not simply right, giving is not simply helpful to other people and therefore fulfilling the command to love our neighbor, giving is not simply glorifying to God and therefore fulfilling the command to love God, giving is also always in our best interest.” – Randy Alcorn (Money and the Disciple Sermon, Crown Financial Podcast.)

“Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.” (1 Tim. 6:18-19)

The entire notion sends our rational thinking into orbit.  It is a paradox.  It doesn’t make sense.  Giving away to others benefits them, not us.  Yet, this is the order of God’s economy.  Experience has taught me the truth of this.  We are always better of when we give as God calls us to give.  Holding tightly to our possessions is the way of the world.  God’s people are to be marked by slippery palms.

“In a very wide sphere of observation, I have noticed that the most generous Christians of my acquaintance have been always the most happy, and almost invariably the most prosperous. I have seen the liberal giver rise to wealth of which he never dreamed; and I have as often seen the mean, ungenerous churl descend to poverty by the very parsimony by which he thought to rise. Men trust good stewards with larger and larger sums, and so it frequently is with the Lord; he gives by cartloads to those who give by bushels. Where wealth is not bestowed the Lord makes the little much by the contentment which the sanctified heart feels in a portion of which the tithe has been dedicated to the Lord.” – Spurgeon (Morning and Evening)

Spurgeon claims his Christian experience was marked by constant observation that the generous of God’s people were more successful and happy than their more stingy counterparts. In this, we see one of the beautiful ironies of God’s creation. Those seeking to get as much as they can for themselves, in effect cheat themselves by the very act. In the name of self-interest they do great damage to the very “self” they are trying to protect. Yet, in the infinite wisdom and providence of God, those seeking the needs of others before themselves do what is best for themselves. In sense, it is backwards.

 If you want to do what is best for yourself, according to the wisdom of scripture, do what is best for others. Is not Christ our perfect and complete example of this?

“Our God has a method in providence by which he can succeed our endeavours beyond our expectation, or can defeat our plans to our confusion and dismay; by a turn of his hand he can steer our vessel in a profitable channel, or run it aground in poverty and bankruptcy. It is the teaching of Scripture that the Lord enriches the liberal and leaves the miserly to find out that withholding tendeth to poverty.” – Charles Spurgeon (Morning and Evening)   

Spurgeon’s words are backed up by scripture and experiences in my own observation.  “The generous man will be prosperous, and he who waters will himself be watered.” (Prov. 11:25) 

It would seem that God does tend to give generously to the vessels designed to flow outward instead of inward: His people who long to give Him glory by being generous in His name.  One important thing to remember is that even in Spurgeon’s scenario, GOD is still the determining factor.  Sometimes we think that people have the power to manipulate this “principle of success and generosity” to their advantage.  Not only is this backwards, it is unbiblical.  Spurgeon still leaves the power to give and take in the providence of the Almighty.  We cannot corner God into giving us success for our generosity.  What foolishness is this?  Sadly, it is the belief of many who read these passages of scripture.  Instead, we ought to be “faithful with a few things” and pray for the wisdom to handle the “many things” if God should so choose to give them to us.

“You look for much, but behold, it comes to little; when you bring it home, I blow it away Why?” declares the LORD of hosts, “Because of My house which lies desolate, while each of you runs to his own house.” Haggai 1:9

“Churlish [Grudging] souls stint their contributions to the ministry and missionary operations, and call such saving good economy; little do they dream that they are thus impoverishing themselves. Their excuse is that they must care for their own families, and they forget that to neglect the house of God is the sure way to bring ruin upon their own houses.” – Spurgeon (Morning and Evening) 

The initial reaction to these selections is something like: “Ok, if I neglect God’s work in my financial plan, then my financial life will struggle.”  I think this is far from Spurgeon’s intent (or Haggai’s for that matter).  The challenge placed before us is of much greater scope.  As I mention in the introduction of Dollars and Doctrine, people “always have time and money for what matters most to them.”  I believe the correct “diagnosis” of the condition described by Spurgeon is an individual in which the things of God are only of secondary interest.  God’s work is only attended to with the funds, focus, and energy that are “left over” after primary concerns and interests are fulfilled.  In this light, the ruin coming upon such a household is much more logical.  On the other hand, the household in which the things of God are of first and primary importance will be blessed.  We do our households a great disservice when we put our interests before the Lord’s.