Imagine enjoying a feast with bowls full of food at your end of the table while your brothers and sisters sit hungry at the other end with empty or nearly empty bowls before them. This scenario is an apt metaphor to describe a world where 2.7 billion people survive on less than $2 a day while others are well fed and prosperous.
In the face of just such a global reality, Westerners have been taught that giving to help those in need will prove harmful in the end. Presumably, those who receive outside funds cannot be expected to become self-supporting. The 'dangers of dependency' are thus trumpeted in a manner that discourages a response of simple generosity. Is 'opting not to give' really the right answer?
John Rowell doesn't think so! In To Give or not to Give? he challenges us to reconsider what it means to 'do the right thing' with Western wealth as we pursue 21st century missions. Pointing the way to a more covenantal commitment to the poor, he shows us how to be more discerning about our giving and more biblically generous at the same time.
