Thatched House

"Be  careful  not  to  do  your  'acts  of righteousness'  before  men,  to  be  seen by  them.  If  you  do,  you  will  have  no reward from your Father in heaven.  "So when you give to the needy, do not announce   it   with   trumpets,   as   the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they  have  received  their reward in full.  But when you give to the needy, do not let  your  left  hand  know  what  your  right hand is doing,  so  that  your  giving  may  be  in  secret. Then your Father, who  sees  what  is done in secret, will reward you.  Matthew 6: 1-4 In the Chakhesang Mission Society (CMS), we discuss how we can coordinate the work between the individ...

This article is about buying 1 kg of pork even if you can afford 2 kgs . It is about settling for a Nokia C5 although you want a Nokia Lumia 800. But don’t get me wrong. It is not about being stingy or cheap. It is not about going for second class, say, settling for a look-alike poster rather than enjoying a real Van Gogh painting. We live in an increasingly unequal world. You don’t have to go far to notice how unequal we are becoming. For instance, check your local church annual tithe report and see the income inequality between members. Thank God for those big givers who give in a month more than what some other families earn in a year. Thank God? Yes, for there are many rich people who are miserly at giving to the church. But still it leaves a very unpleasant feeling that one tenth of the monthly income of some people should be way higher than the entire annual income of some other families in the same church. The gap is increasing rapidly. The richest 20% of the world now earns 8...

Wealth in itself is not a sin while greed is. The Bible says that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, but it does not say money per se is the root. But what about ‘too much’ wealth? In that case, will possession of wealth in itself be wrong? What if such wealth is gained by fair means? Does that justify the possession of huge amount of wealth? I say, when we look at it ‘relationally’, possession of too much money even if by fair means ‘can’ be a sin. If we build ourselves palaces to live in when we are surrounded by thousands who live in slums, it’s very difficult to claim that we have love. I’m not against prosperity. God wants his creation to prosper. But prosperity has to be inclusive. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves. We need to think deeply what that command entails, involves, includes, contains, implies, intends, signifies; ...i.e. to love our neighbor just the way we love and take care of ourselves. Maybe we have not understood the width ...

An article for students of North Delhi-ICEU Since June 2010, I have been earning ₹25,000/month; tax free. Nine months later, now I have just over ₹3,000 in my bank account. Every month something or the other always comes up: brother’s college admission fee, travel expenses, cooking gas, rice bag, wedding gift, new clothes, sickness, etc. All this makes it so easy to forget that I’m being paid quite handsomely. I do not compare myself with the Ambanis but I do have colleagues who are getting paid more than me. Of course, I know a person in my office who earns only ₹2,500/month and works as hard as me, but again there are at least 2 other people who are getting paid more than ₹50,000/month. There ends my sympathy for the one with ₹2,500. What attracts people to the Civil Services if not for the fame and money? There are people who want to serve in the administration, but what will be the proportion of such people among the total population of civil aspirants? If in the course of your s...