This is the kind of book that makes one glad to be an evangelical. I don’t think it could be written from within any other Christian tradition. It is a gracious, deeply thoughtful and surprising account of what the Bible has to say about wealth and possessions. The whole Bible. And inter-testamental literature. It takes it chunk by chunk, bit by bit, spending more time in places that need it (Luke, Proverbs) and a little less where it isn’t as relevant (Numbers, 2 John).
It admirably locks down its analysis in suggested application and I know from having met and spent time with the man that Blomberg walks the walk that he talks about.
If you read it, you will be surprised by how radical it is.
… so long as prosperity is yielded to devotion. Although it is premature to speak of summarizing pervasive patterns throughout both Testaments, one of the theses of this volume is that the avoidance of extremes of wealth and poverty is a consistent, recurring biblical mandate. Of course, before we too readily label this a ‘middle-class’ ideal and content ourselves that we fall within this range, we must remember two things: first, polls consistently suggest that more than 80% of Westerners consider themselves middle-class, thus largely evacuating the term of any meaning; and second, the nature of the ‘middle-class’ ideal of Proverbs 30:8 is defined by the clause, ‘give me only my daily bread’, a far lower standard of living than that to which most people calling themselves middle-class today aspire.
– Craig Blomberg, Neither Poverty Nor Riches, p. 68.
Your Correspondent, Founder of the Pre-Marital Sextet