What is Abraham’s Wallet?

Note: This post is also available in audio format on the Abraham’s Wallet podcast (on iTunes, Google and Spotify).

If you’re reading this digital ink, then you’re poking around Abraham’s Wallet, maybe for the first time. To you we say a mighty harumphing GREETINGS! and all such. You are most welcome and we earnestly hope your time here results in much wisdom… and mucho dinero for you and yours.

Now then: our Bottom Line and operating belief is that the God Of All wants you to get very very VERY good at handling and growing money. (And if you want to fight about it, that is totally cool and you’ll soon see we’ve given you ample opportunity with gobs of posts you can complain about.) Jesus spoke about money more than any other single topic. Maybe that’s old news to you, but did you know that when he talks finances – Jesus VERY RARELY mentions giving to the poor? Didja?? Probably not; this isn’t the kind of thing often hyped in the dependent-upon-charitable-contributions church house. My Southern Baptist upbringing would have me believe that the Bible’s counsel on money is mostly about giving it away. But NAY, friend. Tisn’t the case.

So… uh… what are the roughly 2000 money-centered verses talking about? Mostly, how to be a good steward of money – how to wield this tool with mastery, without giving it an ounce of our love and worship. And if we want to look at the story of scripture as the source of all Truth (we here at Abraham’s Wallet certainly do), there is nary a better example of what good stewardship looked like than the father of Israel and the original covenantal partner to God – Abraham. He’s mega legit. We’re all about him.

Abraham was a(n extremely) well off man before he ever encountered the God of Israel. When the LORD told Abraham that they were going to be entering into a nation-building, salvation-heralding, never-ending covenant, Abraham immediately mentioned that he had no son and that some random loser named Eliezar of Damascus was in line to get all of his stuff (“Like I want that derelict ELIEZAR getting all my dosh, God??!”). But the promise that Yehoveh (this is God’s Name… we use that around here at A.W. because it’s… you know… His Name) made to Abraham involved a dramatic expansion of his riches (specifically, land) and offspring. He was going to go from a pretty well off but childless idol-worshipper to the father of God’s chosen people Israel, a friend of the Creator and the owner of most of the nations that surrounded him. The strength that we see in Israel throughout scripture all emanated from this starting place of stewardship and family building. He was about to be A. Real. Big. Deal. You and I are still benefitting from this lone God-loving patriarch who knew how to steward assets and pass righteousness down across generations. (Are you totally goosed up yet? We are.)

Every single person in my (and your) church community is “rich” from a historical and global perspective. That could mean anything from having a few discretionary bucks at the end of the month to having millions of dollars in the bank. They each need to hear what the Bible has to say to them—at least I do, and I’ve had to search high and low to find anybody who would talk to me about this stuff. The American Church has been almost entirely silent in training us towards stewardship of the money that we DON’T give away (and no matter who you are… that’s MOST of your money). We have under-taught some heavily emphasized and fundamental truths of scripture because we’ve been worried about promoting a love of money (and yes yes yes okay okay sure sure right right right… greed is bad! We’re with you on that). That under-teaching has left those of us who have money blowing in the wind. (And I mentioned that’s almost all of us, right?) We have bad attitudes about money, a skewed relationship with it based on malnourishment of Biblical context, and so have little to share with our friends and children regarding a vision for the future. This is, to quote Camus… crapfeathers.

Abraham didn’t just wield his riches well in service of the kingdom God was building; he also knew a thing or two about building a family. In post-family America we often struggle to think a single generation ahead of ourselves, and are nearly completely ignorant of 3 generations behind us. For the most part, we have bought into the modern/consumer/American idea that family is nothing more than an 18-year-long launchpad for sending our kids out into the world and hoping they are marginally equipped well enough to figure it out and sort of repeat the good parts of what we’ve done. Our man Abraham, on the other hand, thought roughly one thousand generations forward. Multi-generational thinking changes almost everything about how we approach family (and money… and community…etc). We’re going to be talking that way. A lot.

So this website, as you’ll see, is for family leaders and those who aspire to think multigenerationally about their money, culture, work, family and community. Living out a multigenerational mindset that embraces good stewardship as a building block of God’s Kingdom on Earth might produce Abrahamic levels of impact. Can you imagine?! If there were just 100 families thinking this way, they’d change a city! Abraham’s Wallet is aiming to cover everything from the foundational principles that we need to understand and, eventually, intuit, to the very tactical skills that you’ll need as you develop the skill of stewardship (budgeting, asset allocation, parenting, etc.). We also review books and interview people who have a very different take on life than is common to our time. Can you see how great this is going to be?!

At the end of the day, you’ll get something here that we just haven’t seen in many other venues (the ones that we have found… we’ll share! Guaranteed!). A.W. is not Dave Ramsey, Mr. Money Mustache or The Bogleheads. Although there is wisdom in plenty of the content out there, we are trying to build something that weighs all of the good financial and family-building ideas out there against the uncut word of God.

And if you think any of the above merits more explanation, discussion, definition, or examples… WELL WE AGREE. Stick with us for that very thing.

*Mark Parrett is one of the founders of Abraham’s Wallet. When not blogging for you here, he’s raising a family in Salt Lake City, UT and working as a financial planner at Outpost Advisors.