Can a Believer Learn and Benefit from How To Books on Getting Rich?
Taking a second look at Think and Grow Rich from a Christian perspective.
The lessons you learned from your parents, your church, and mentors guided your early views on business, money, and the pursuit of wealth.
Most likely you fell into one of two camps:
The belief that pursuing wealth and riches is a secular endeavor not intended for the faithful.
The belief that God wants his children to prosper, and that a good father gives good gifts to his children.
OR you land somewhere in-between. Maybe you haven’t even thought about it. Well, I have. A lot. And I’m going to share a bit with you because it relates to Book #6 on the Book Club List the book I recently read titled Think And Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill.
The very name is off-putting for me, so I imagine you may have some reservations as well. And we’ll get to that. But first, I’m going to be up front about my worldview going into this reading.
28 years ago, the first verse I ever felt prompted to read as a believer was Hebrews 13:5-8. Let’s take a look at it from two separate translations.
Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
So we may boldly say:
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear.
What can man do to me?”
New King James Version
That first line was a bit hard to swallow since I don’t automatically know what it means. I mean, who ACTUALLY uses the word “covetousness” anymore?
I can’t remember which translation I read first all those years ago. I remember a blend of two different translations. Here’s what I remember:
Stay away from the love of money. Be content with such things as you have.
I haven’t found that exact translation online, but it’s the one I remember. It makes sense, given that the “love of money” is attributed to being “the root of all evil.”
So be careful not to love money. But be content with what you already have. For God Himself has said that he’ll never leave you or forsake you.
That’s a powerful concept. I am reassured that God has my back.
I first read this verse when I was 19 years old. At the time, I was a waiter. I didn’t make good money. I lived with my parents. I had no life plan. So “not loving money” was an easy enough concept. I didn’t have any money to love or any prospects to get more.
Fast forward 10 years. I’m a husband. I’m about to be a father. Money means more to me at 29 than it did at 19.
Fast forward another 10 years. I have three children. Our grocery budget has doubled. Kids grow out of their clothes every year. Money means a lot more to me than it did just ten years prior.
My interest in money increased as my needs and responsibilities increased.
I never really LOVED money, so to speak. I only ever cared about the things we needed to have to get by and a little extra to do a few things that we liked.
Getting rich for the sake of being rich never appealed to me. In fact, the idea of being a billionaire comes with WAY too much baggage and stress. Why? Because whatever you own you have a responsibility to steward. That means you have to take care of your stuff.
Can a Christian benefit from books on getting rich?
I think it’s possible. But there are caveats. It takes a special kind of character to manage significant wealth and not be changed by it for the worse.
Would I recommend Think and Grow Rich to most believers? Probably not. Not unless I spoke with them first and determined what their chief goal in acquiring wealth is.
The level of detail in the book about “manifesting your desire” through obsession and constant attention exceeds any healthy desire I’ve ever had to achieve goals that cost money.
In other words, nothing I’ve ever wanted has ever been so important that I would set aside my mind for the sole purpose of obsessing about wealth.
I won’t speak for all people. I can only speak for myself. I feel a calling to seek out ways to generate money for the sake of my family, but money’s no more exciting than what I want and need to use it for.
I would say be careful. It would be better to FIRST establish a mission or a purpose to achieve that requires money to facilitate its fruition than to start off with a generic desire to be rich.
Wealth, popularity, and fame are terrible goals. But they’re useful tools when a person has a mission worth accomplishing.