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I am leading a class of young families at my church and we are presently talking about how to teach your children about money. What are your answers to the following questions?

Question from a reader: I am an 8th grade student and my teacher has assigned us a reading project about any book of our choice. I have chosen to read your book Deadline. I am not the kind of person who enjoys reading very much, but your book has really caught my attention. As part of my assignment, I would like to ask you how did you come up with the idea for this story?

Service is a reward, not a punishment. This idea is foreign to people who dislike their work and only put up with it until retirement. We think that faithful work should be rewarded by a vacation for the rest of our lives. But God offers us something very different: more work, more responsibilities, increased opportunities, along with greater abilities, resources, wisdom, and empowerment. 

And among those that translate word for word, the ESV is more literary and readable; the NASB is not quite as good English, but still accurate as a word for word translation. A person reading a passage looking for key terms that repeat, then a NASB would be better. If you are trying to understand the passage as a whole, then the ESV is better.

I believe in divine election as taught in Scripture. The "elect” are referred to in ten or so passages and the “chosen” in many others. Col 3:12 calls us “God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved.”

Freewill offerings were commonplace in the Old Testament era. The three tithes were never the ceiling of giving, merely the floor. 

You are right that it's possible to think too much of what people think and say. What's really important is God's evaluation of our life.

Recently I read The Treasure Principle. I’ve never had much of a problem with giving, so I thought that the book would only serve me by providing encouragement to keep on giving the way I already was. Well, I was wrong! 

A recent commenter on my blog asked, After reading of Jesus' resurrection, and how He showed the disciples His scars on His hands as proof of who He was, my children asked if we'll have our scars in Heaven, too. What do you think?

1 Corinthians 5:10 is good in broad principle, saying we have to associate with the world since we’re in it. However, that is general association, not specific partnership.

When I read the Bible, it appears that tithing is the biblical minimum, the starting place, the floor of giving, not its ceiling. Tithes were to keep from stealing from God. Offerings were the beginning of giving.

Below are some organizations supported by EPM and recommended by Randy Alcorn that work with persecuted Christians and/or in their countries.

My sister, who is a lesbian, invited me to her wedding. I have been the “black sheep” of the family because I am a Christian. How do we decline lovingly?

When we die we go to be with Christ (II Cor. 5:8) which is wonderful. But we are still incomplete, in a pre-resurrected state, anticipating Christ’s return to earth, and our resurrections. The place we’ll live forever will be where God comes down to dwell with us, on the New Earth (Revelation 21:1-3).