Before Mark the early Christians had passed on the story of Jesus orally as isolated stories, short sayings collections, and some longer narrative, such as the passion. Mark was likely the first Christian to write a “Gospel,” not a mere biography but an extended treatment of the significance of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for believers.

Hetty Green. This infamous “witch of Wall Street” was believed, at one time, to be both the richest and the meanest woman in the world.

Raised the “little blue-eyed angel” of Edward and Abby Robinson, Hetty got her greed and her money the old fashioned way—she inherited it. In spite of their immense wealth (which they also inherited), Hetty’s parents lived as poor as church mice. They heated their home with open grate fires and ate leftovers prepared in an antiquated kitchen. They never bought something new unless the old had completely worn out. Hetty learned the trade of investing and negotiating from her father, who was so tight he once refused the offer of an expensive cigar for fear he might like it and lose his taste for cheaper brands.

So, Hetty didn’t have to leave home to learn it. There are many stories of her stinginess. She never used hot water and went to bed before sundown so as not to waste money on candles. She owned one black dress, which she wore every day without washing, and never changed her underwear unless it wore out. On her twenty-first birthday, Hetty refused to light the candles on her cake, because she didn’t want to waste them. But after her company insisted, she blew them out immediately so she could return them to the store for a refund. She wrote checks on scraps of paper, instead of using bank notes and traveled many miles alone to fetch a few hundred dollars she had loaned at high interest. She ate mostly fifteen-cent pies or oatmeal, which she heated on the radiator in the bank, since she never once turned the heat on at home. Speaking of home, she never owned one, but spent most of her life in run-down apartments. By her midlife, Hetty was worth over one hundred million dollars and still showed up every day at New York’s Chemical and National Bank to count her money, sometimes forcing employees to stay long after hours, waiting for her to come out of the vault.

Mrs. Green spent the last years of her life the victim of multiple strokes brought on, some say, by a heated argument with another woman—perhaps the first in Hetty’s life—who would not back down. She died in 1916, at the age of eighty-one, and was buried with her family in the Immanuel Church’s cemetery in Bellow Falls, Massachusetts.

a strong desire to acquire more and more material possessions or to possess more than other people have, all irrespective of need.

It’s an inordinate love of things or fear of losing them. It is never to be satisfied with our income or to be bored with what we already possess simply because we possess it. It is the tendency to assess everything according to the cost or profit.

1. A Pre-Occupation with Money—letting the cost of something keep you from enjoying it; taking a job or pursuing a career mostly for the money.

2. Compulsive Spending—buying things because you’re bored or depressed or simply because it’s on sale.

3. Hoarding—buying more of something than you need, then throwing the excess away or storing it for years.

4. Conspicuous Consumption—distinguishing yourself from others by what you own or can afford or being self-conscious around rich people because you’re thinking mostly of their money.

5. Miserly Living—living without bare necessities because you won’t part with the money to buy them or being stingy when you tip or tithe.

6. Over-Spending—owing more than 10 percent of your income on credit cards; buying more than you can afford to pay off.

7. Improbable Risk—sinking money in the lottery, gambling on slim-chance investments or on get-rich-quick schemes (this includes the “seed-faith” poppycock of certain televangelists).

It’s an inordinate love of things or fear of losing them. It is never to be satisfied with our income or to be bored with what we already possess simply because we possess it. It is the tendency to assess everything according to the cost or profit.

The rich man’s problem was not wealth per se but the failure to trust that God—not wealth—was the only good and that God’s radical call to discipleship was for his own good. Only radical trust in God’s goodness makes possible abandoning wealth and following Jesus in the way of the cross. Such absolute trust in God’s goodness that is the prerequisite for entering the kingdom is impossible without a work of grace in one’s life.

the future is the basis for changing the present, and that Christian service should be an attempt to make otherworldly hopes a present reality

“The only thing I learned about money as a child,” one man confessed to me, “was that it doesn’t grow on trees.”

we will only know their true worth when we look beyond them instead of at them to see what opportunities they help create. To look beyond them, we must put them into the service of God.

In his biography of Mother Teresa, Malcolm Muggeridge recounts how the Pope, after his ceremonial trip to India, once presented Mother Teresa with his personal motorcar. But she never took a single ride in it. As quickly as the Pope left, Mother Teresa organized a raffle with the car as the prize and raised enough money to start a new colony for lepers. Why did she do it? Was she practicing self-denial? Was she laying up treasures in heaven? No, she was simply acting in accordance to the way she saw the world. She simply did not value the car the way she valued a new colony. Mother Teresa would no sooner keep that car than we would sell it. It just would not make any sense.

That was more than forty years ago. The car is rusted and gone. The colony lives on.

“The only thing I learned about money as a child,” one man confessed to me, “was that it doesn’t grow on trees.”

we will only know their true worth when we look beyond them instead of at them to see what opportunities they help create. To look beyond them, we must put them into the service of God.

In his biography of Mother Teresa, Malcolm Muggeridge recounts how the Pope, after his ceremonial trip to India, once presented Mother Teresa with his personal motorcar. But she never took a single ride in it. As quickly as the Pope left, Mother Teresa organized a raffle with the car as the prize and raised enough money to start a new colony for lepers. Why did she do it? Was she practicing self-denial? Was she laying up treasures in heaven? No, she was simply acting in accordance to the way she saw the world. She simply did not value the car the way she valued a new colony. Mother Teresa would no sooner keep that car than we would sell it. It just would not make any sense.

That was more than forty years ago. The car is rusted and gone. The colony lives on.