Following his own advice: No mortgage on his $ 9M mansion
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Faith is obeying when you can't even imagine how things might turn out right.
(Just FYI — Ramsey continues to buy and sell real estate, in addition to his media work and FPU. He probably works more hours per week than most anyone reading this…)
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
He earned it “the old fashioned way” …. ingenuity and hard work!
I’d recommend David Platt’s Radical for Dave. He may use his house well - practicing hospitality, providing shelter for brother and sisters in need - I have no way of knowing. But Platt’s book (though it has its flaws) does ask some serious questions about the way we live and reminds us that we’ll answer to God for our stewardship during this life. It’s a sobering thought that has caused me and my wife to begin carefully reevaluating the way we use the far-more-than-sufficient things God has provided us.
[Jonathan Charles] I guess this is Dave’s version of kingdom living (his earthly kingdom).If the building in the picture were a fundamental church, Christian college or mission headquarters, would it evoke the same criticism or philosophical discussion of the use of riches? Or should it…?
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
His seminars are full of him bragging about how much money he makes and has and he sells the pipe dream to his devoted followers that they can all be wealthy too. To him, wealth is quite a worthwhile goal.
But is the house itself a problem? No.
[GregH] His seminars are full of him bragging about how much money he makes and has and he sells the pipe dream to his devoted followers that they can all be wealthy too. To him, wealth is quite a worthwhile goal.Greg,
You haven’t listened to him much, have you ;)
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
In a free market, you can rarely be productive without some trades occurring that leave both sides better off.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
He is undoubtedly informed on many financial matters but from all the material I have read, he does not demonstrate more than an elementary consideration of theological issues. This is not a judgment on his faith and walk, rather an observation of what I, as a believer, would expect from one who is elevated among believers as a teacher and see from him. He is a teacher of finances, not the Word, hence he falls into the same trap that many well meaning but theologically lacking voices who are given prominence in the body of our Lord, do fall. Namely giving primacy to their area of expertise with the Scriptures filling the role of divine proof text for their ideas.
Now it cannot be said Ramsey is all proof text, that would quite unfair. And sometimes he is quite right. The objections are not on what is right, but on what is wrong. And on more than scant occasions he arrests texts, both directly and subtly, and superimposes on them, without full regard to all theological considerations, his financial system of values.
And this is why someone like Dave Ramsey, while validly teaching personal financial values and profiting, should do this outside of the church. The body of our Lord has been given Pastor/teachers. We have men whose spiritual gifting, training and fulfillment of essential qualifications will communicate to us, Christians, from the Bible, how we are to esteem money.
Dave Ramsey may teach us financial strategics but he is not trained to function as a teacher of the Word in God’s church. He needs to do what he does outside of the church and within the body, those teachers God has gifted and who are trained and qualified, will communicate to us what the Scriptures have to say about wealth.
Beyond that and into the area of personal financial strategy, if Dave Ramsey has expertise then it is quite valid for him to go into business and teach others his skills at a charge outside the body of Christ.
Our ministry uses some of Ramsey’s materials to teach finances, but we are supplementing a Biblical theology of material possessions to go along with it (Blomberg’s Neither Poverty Nor Riches [url] http://www.amazon.com/Neither-Poverty-nor-Riches-Possessions/dp/0830826… ).
[Alex Guggenheim] The body of our Lord has been given Pastor/teachers. We have men whose spiritual gifting, training and fulfillment of essential qualifications will communicate to us, Christians, from the Bible, how we are to esteem money.Alex,
Dave Ramsey may teach us financial strategics but he is not trained to function as a teacher of the Word in God’s church. He needs to do what he does outside of the church and within the body, those teachers God has gifted and who are trained and qualified, will communicate to us what the Scriptures have to say about wealth.
I would be happy to agree with you if this were being done, but sadly it is not. Apart from Dave Ramsey and Crown, there would be virtually no Biblical financial teaching occurring in most churches. Many, if not most, pastors are in financial bondage themselves.
Sadly, the situation in many Christian colleges is far worse. Students are taught directly and by modeling (i.e., institutional debt) to “sign on the line” and use student loans to get through school on the presumptuous fallacy that they will “make it all back some day.”
I would hate to be the one arguing that our fundamental churches and Christian institutions teach and practice too much financial literacy and Biblical financial wisdom.
In other words, if you want to knock Ramsey, you had better have something else in mind to replace him with.
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
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