Once upon a time, a faithful, God-fearing boy fell in love with the girl of his dreams... As a young man, Pastor Steve Perry passionately followed a philosophy of non-pursuit of wealth as he moved towards a Christian life. He held the not-uncommon belief that poverty was more virtuous than prosperity and was a path to becoming closer to God. But God had a different plan. When Perry found himself in love--with a woman whose family was wealthy--the accompanying internal struggle forced him to reconcile his beliefs with his reality. Of course, he turned to God for a deeper understanding of how to integrate wealth and faith. For many Christians, wealth is accompanied by a certain measure of guilt, compelling them to hide their prosperity for fear of being judged. In Living With Wealth Without Losing Your Soul, Perry analyzes some of the common modern understandings of bible passages and parables to show that justly earned wealth is as much a gift from God as any of His other gifts. Using a combination of exegesis and practical life examples, Perry suggests that wealthy Christians need not be stealth Christians, but instead can steward their wealth in order to help fund the kingdom for years to come. Though Perry acknowledges that money can be the root of evil, his clarification of this popular verse suggests that money simply magnifies who a person really is. In this way, wealth is a magnifier of a Christian life and can actually bring one closer to God.
