Any Book on Christianity

Any Book on Christianity
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The Challenge of the Disciplined Life: Christian Reflections on Money, Sex & Power by Richard J. Foster.
About the Author
Richard J. Foster is an author among the Quaker Christians and has written several best-selling books such as Celebration of Discipline, A Spiritual Formation Workbook, Life with God, Streams of Living Water, A Year with God, and Prayer. Prayer became the book of the year in Christianity today and won the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association’s Gold Medallion. Foster is the Founder of Renovarè (for inspiring and supporting in the development of an integrated and fulfilled life as Christ’s disciple) and pastor of Evangelical Friends churches and a professor at Friends University. He was married in 1967 to Carolynn and has two children.
Book Summary
The three factors highlighted in the book’s title (money, sex, and power) are key issues that humans have often been encountering in combination as each is connected to the other over a period of time. However, sometimes people may show weaknesses in a single issues and not the rest. There are no other issues or factors in the Christian life that can be explained than the three issues highlighted in the book, and no Christian can be free and confident in the face of these three issues in this world.
Money
The most important item here is the Mammon (money). It is often discussed with God and is the material idol. The Bible refers to money as the ‘Mammon’ and goes further by giving it spiritual and personal qualities and describes it in Luke 16:9 as ‘unrighteous.’ Money according to Christ is a form of idolatry that we must detest if we are focused on Him because it bears almightiness upon us. The Bible criticizes unrighteous money and warns people who unrighteously gained riches, for example, the Rich man’s parable in Luke 16: 19-31 and also the story of Lazarus and the rich farmer in Luke 12:13-21 (Foster, 1985).
Foster prescribes money as being a spiritual being and gives a description of the light and dark sides of money, not in a superficial manner but a biblical perspective. He emphasizes using money for God’s purpose and not running away from this purpose, to use the money instead of serving it, to be a master of money rather its servant. Then what can one do in order to control and master money? One will have to control money through giving which often is insulting behavior regarding money (Foster, 1985).
The light side of money represents the grace of God, and it is a means of building our relationship with God. In Luke 16:9 God instructs us to use the worldly wealth to gain friends. We have to be aware of the poisonous na...