Danny ChaiI’ve been thinking a lot about being frugal lately. It’s just come up in a few conversations. And I was reading Acts 5 where those two people die after holding back money for themselves. So here’s my current claim. I haven’t done an in depth study on this but I’m going to say that the Bible says more about being generous towards others than it does about being frugal.
The reason that matters to me is this. I dunno, I’d say I’m a relatively frugal guy. I’m all about the 99ยข fast food deals for lunch. I clip Sunday newspaper coupons. I dunno, I’m just hard core like that. The thing is, I find that when I get too into this mindset, I start getting stingy towards others. And that’s not right.
In contrast, there’s people like Henry and Keith, aka 1st and 2nd Kings of James Rd. Frugal isn’t the first word you’d use to describe them. Car covers. Sony XGA TVs. The thing is, I’d say they’re two of the most generous people I know. Yeah, you might say it’s easy to be generous when you’re rich. I disagree. I know plenty of rich stingy people. And plenty of generous non-rich people. The point is, given the choice between being frugal and stingy or lavish and generous, I’m going to say the latter is more Biblical. Which is challenging to me.
Of course, the ideal is to be personally frugal but generous towards others. And the worst is to be personally lavish but stingy towards others. Hmm, I think I have tendencies towards the latter. Yikes. Things are changing though. We’ll see we’ll see.