Is there anything for which we have more of a love/hate relationship than money? Here are a few books I recommend on the subject of money and finances.
- Managing God’s Money by Randy Alcorn. If you are looking for a small, accessible book on money, you won’t do a whole lot better than this. While it is far from exhaustive, it does cover the basics of a biblical understanding of money.
- The Money Challenge by Art Rainer. This is an excellent, short, readable introduction to a biblical view of financial management. It may be an excellent first choice for those who have never read a book on money, and it may be an excellent refresher for those who have. In either case, you’ll learn that God “does not provide wealth for hoarding. He gives wealth to share. He gives wealth for generosity. He gives wealth to invest in eternal treasures. He gives wealth to advance His mission.” Ultimately, he gives money for our joy and his glory.
- Money, Debt, and Finances by Jim Newheiser. Any Christian book on this subject faces a challenge: it must deal with both timeless principles and contemporary applications—issues that transcend time and context and those that are inexorably bound to a particular time and a particular context. Money, Debt, and Finances strikes just the right balance. It carefully distinguishes between what the Bible says to all people in all times and what it says to a certain people at a certain time. For that reason and many more I am glad to recommend it.
- The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn. Alcorn’s “treasure principle” is this: You can’t take it with you—but you can send it on ahead. “If we give instead of keep, if we invest in the eternal instead of in the temporal, we store up treasures in heaven that will never stop paying dividends. Whatever we store up on earth will be left behind when we leave. Whatever treasures we store up in heaven will be waiting for us when we arrive.”
- Money, Greed, and God by Jay Richards. Richards structures this book around eight myths, eight common misunderstandings about the very nature of capitalism. He addresses each, and shows why capitalism, even if not the best possible form of economics, is at least the best we’ve come up with so far.
- Family Money Matters by John Temple. The strength of this book is in teaching your children how to faithfully steward their money.
