“It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”
Was Mark Twain bothered by what he understood because he chose to ignore it, or because he found the Bible’s teaching on money so hard to follow? Just what does the bible say about money, anyway? 
I don’t know whether Twain ever went to Sunday school or not, but if he did I feel certain he was taught the same two lessons about money as the rest of us. One was the story of the widow’s mite. She put everything she had in the collection plate and Jesus said her gift was greater than the rich man’s gift because he just gave from his excess. The other lesson was about the rich young ruler. He asked Jesus what he had to do to have eternal life. The answer could scare the whiz out of you if it’s quoted out of context.
Those are examples that can make us feel guilty about our relationship to our money, but that is not the purpose of this article. Nor is it the purpose of What About Our Money? A Faith Response, a newly released book that Susan Taylor, a Faith and Money board member, wrote for the United Methodist Women. It is a well-written study guide that will be used by thousands of Methodist women in 2018.
In the Introduction Taylor says, “Be assured that the goal of this study isn’t to make you uncomfortable. In fact, the goal is just the opposite. Talking about money – and being aware of how we relate to money – can help free us from the many money dilemmas we face in our lives.”* She goes on to say that “our topic isn’t just money. It’s faith and money.”*
That’s what we’re all about here at the Faith and Money Network. All of us on the board have done our own work around money to help us understand what has influenced our attitudes about money and how those attitudes affect virtually every aspect of our lives. And every one of us will tell you how freeing that is.
The United Methodist Women are to be applauded for having the courage to grapple with the many questions we all ask related to money. What About Our Money is an excellent resource for all of us for understanding the role of money in our lives.
Blessings on your efforts to relate your faith and money,
Judy Osgood
*From What About Our Money? A Faith Response © 2018 United Methodist Women.