Are You Giving or Investing?

Dan Crawford is an online friend, a seminary professor, and wise man. (Did I forget to mention he’s Baptist?) You’ll love this, or else it’ll irritate you, but either way I share it with his graciously expressed permission —

The most dreaded sermon a minister ever preaches is likely one on money. Listeners don’t like hearing it and most don’t comment to the preacher following the sermon with an, “Enjoyed your sermon” favorite.

So, I didn’t preach on money yesterday.

I preached on investing and used as an illustration from Mark 12:41-44, which is the account of a woman making a deposit of, “two mites,” which according to Jesus, was “all that she had.” In other words, she didn’t just give money, she invested in the Kingdom.

What if God multiplied her coins, let’s say at 4%, compounded semi-annually, for the past 2000 plus years?

I once figured it up on a larger calculator than my small pocket one. It came to $4,000, plus fifteen more zeros. I used this illustration once and a young man with twelve pencils in his pocket came up and informed me that I had made a mistake, and that I needed 12 more zeros. Whatever!

What if the interest earned from those “two mites” paid for the church in Houston, Texas where I professed my faith and was baptized?

How about, if the “two mites” plus interest paid for the summer camp where I first experienced God’s call to vocational ministry?

Could that interest have paid for the Christian college where I met my wife, and the seminary where I received my education, and taught for more than two decades?

What could the “two mites” have paid for in your life?

Next time you consider giving, consider it as an investment in the Kingdom of God, and let your mind wonder as to what all God can do with the interest on your investment.