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Book Review: Your Money Counts
The biblical guide to earning, spending, saving, investing, giving, and getting out of debt
By Howard Dayton
BFN Book Reviews
Well, it has been quite a while since I did a book review here at BFN. It’s a habit that I’d like to get back into – so why not start again today? I provide a brief overview of the book and the author, touch on the good and bad in the book, and finally, give you my personal recommendation for whether you should borrow the book, buy the book, or neither.
What is this book about?
This book is a pretty small book but it basically tries to cover everything about money. Specifically, to clarify, it tries to cover most of what the Bible says about finances. It’s a pretty ambitious goal, especially given the size of the book (it is 175 pages, but it’s skinny). It actually does cover quite a bit of the ground it mentions on the cover. In fact, it touches on other subjects as well. Of course, it can’t go into much detail on each portion. Overall, however, the author is quite successful in jamming an extraordinary amount of biblical guidance into this skinny little book.
Who is the author?
Howard Dayton is a co-founder of Crown Financial Ministries with Larry Burkett. The mission of Crown Financial Ministries is:
Equipping people worldwide to learn, apply, and teach God’s financial principles so they may know Christ more intimately, be free to serve Him, and help fund the Great Commission.
Before founding Crown Financial Ministries, he founded Crown Ministries back in 1985. Therefore, Dayton has been studying Biblical financial principles for quite some time and attempting to teach them to others through the Crown bible studies and events.
What are the best parts of the book?
As I mentioned above, this book undertakes a very ambitious goal. I feel that it does, for the most part, meet that goal. This is a great introduction of God’s teachings on money, possessions, and prosperity. The book starts off by providing these statistics from the Bible:
- 16 of the 38 parables regard how to handle money and possessions
- There are approximately 500 verses about Faith
- There are approximately 500 verses about Prayer
- There are over 2350 verses about money & possessions
So, the author points out that the proper attitude and treatment of money and possessions is quite important. Why is there such an emphasis on money and possessions in the Bible, you ask? Dayton offers these three answers:
- How we handle money affects our relationship with the Lord (see Luke 16:11 )
- Possessions compete with the Lord for our focus and attention (see Matt 6:24 )
- Much of life as we currently live it revolves around the use of money
Dayton then spends the remainder of the book going through the various aspects of finances that touch us on a daily basis. For each section, he discusses the main points and provides numerous Bible references. Personally, I feel that the references are the most valuable part of the book. For the topics covered, this book provides a great starting point for personal Bible study.
The book really does cover a lot of ground, so I can’t possible summarize even a fraction of it in this review. Allow me to provide you with a glimpse of some of the interesting things I learned while reading it.
Giving
The author touches on the importance of giving and mentions that there are more Bible verses on giving than on any other individual financial topic. He points out that your attitude about giving is of crucial importance. He does not provide a set percentage that you should give, however, as he leaves that as a decision between you and God.
Working
Dayton also brings to the reader’s attention that work was designed before the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15 ). So, having to do work is not a result of sin, work just got a lot harder because of it.
Investing
The author advocates being a "steady plodder" when it comes to your investing strategy. He uses the quote "saving is making provision for tomorrow while debt is presumption upon tomorrow." He lays out these three important investment goals:
- Providing for your family
- Becoming financially free to serve the Lord
- Operating your business
He also stresses that it is not an acceptable investment goal to save and invest for the sole purpose of becoming very wealthy (1 Tim 6:9-11 ). His counsel is to determine the maximum amount of money you want to save and when you reach that number, stop saving and redirect the money you were investing to helping other people (kinda like those commercials where the people carry around those big orange numbers).
At the end of the book, there is a small section with some related questions (basically a FAQ), here are two questions and summarized answers that I thought were interesting:
How does the Bible define financial success?
It is achieved by being a faithful steward – not by how much wealth you have accumulated.
Should Christians give to secular charities?
There are many charities competing for our dollars and scripture does not specifically address whether we are only to give to Christian charities. The author and his wife have decided that, with some certain exceptions, they themselves will only give to Christian charities. This is mainly because, for the most part, everyone gives to secular charities but only Christians give to Christian charities.
What is not-so-good about the book?
This book covers a tremendous amount of information in a relatively short amount of time (well, I guess it depends on how fast you read). As you might imagine, there are not enough pages to go into terrible detail on each topic. As a result, your appetite is whetted but you will need to turn elsewhere if you want an exhaustive treatment on any specific topic.
Also, it is not nearly as practical or "step-by-step" as some other financial books. For instance, Dayton spends about half a page on his four step process for getting your finances in order. Dave Ramsey, in contrast, has an entire book on the subject . I feel that this book is not really trying to be that, though. The point of this book is to get you thinking about Biblical standards for money. It is to give you a primer on the main points, to maybe challenge some of the (wrong) ideas you may have about money, and to pique your interest to delve into the subject more. And in that scope, I think it performs well.
So what is my recommendation?
I think this is a good reference book to own. It has a ton of information crammed into it. In fact, it’s going onto BFN’s virtual bookshelf . I think it is a valuable read to get started on your path to understanding what God teaches about money. There are copious amounts of Bible references throughout, so it is helpful to open it up to a specific topic to see how the author summarizes the topic and start searching the Bible references provided.
As I mentioned, it’s not a practical step-by-step guide to getting out of debt or whatever. If that is what you need in your life right now, this is not the book for you. One option is to find a Crown Financial Ministries Bible study in your area – that’s actually where I received this book (you get it as part of the material for the class) – as it will provide that step-by-step process you’re looking for.
I would say that if you can do the Bible study or pick up a copy of this book at a good price, then it’s a good book to have and refer back to often.
Want to borrow this book? Search your local library
Want your own copy? Buy this book now at Amazon.com
Check out the other books I’ve chosen for my virtual bookshelf
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3 Responses to “Book Review: Your Money Counts”
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I’m currently reading this book right now. I like it a lot and agree with mostly all the things you wrote above.
All-in-all it’s a great read, and a necessary one for the Christian who wants to start down this path toward faithful stewardship and debt free living.
I plan on reading Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover next. He is actually speaking in Grand Rapids, MI tomorrow (I live in Lansing, MI) but I don’t want to spend upwards of $100 to go see him speak. I’d rather buy a bunch of his books for that $100…so I can have them forever, and not just 2 hours!
DebtFREEk!
DebtFREEk´s latest blog post…Monday DFA Tip of the Week – 2/16/2009
Yeah, Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover is a good read for someone – I highly recommend it. It’s probably an easier book to read because he writes like a radio talk show host.
books to download…
Very insigtful information. I truly enjoyed reading it….