Who wants to be a millionaire?

according to a preliminary Google search this appears to be one of Sir Paul’s houses …meanwhile another UK tabloid has just been investigating claims that the real Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced by a look-alike.

“All you need is love”, sang the Beatles
So why has Paul McCartney got such a big house?

Or perhaps more to the point – why do we sing so many songs about giving everything up to follow Jesus and spend so much of our time trying to earn more, own more, and live more comfortable lives?
And what’s so bad about wanting lots of good stuff anyway?
In the next few posts I’m looking at the subject of living simply.
To those of you not already sold on that idea it might not sound very appealing, but simplicity is not the goal. The goal is getting closer to God.
(This was originally written in 2001 for Scripture Union’s Closer to God notes)

There was a very effective advertising campaign for an electric drill. in the adverts the drill itself was invisible, all you heard was the noise, all you saw was the results, and the voice over simply said, “We sell holes”.

A simpler lifestyle is the means to an end. It’s not about all the things you give up. It is about what you gain as a result. It is about being less entangled by everything the world and TV advertising has to offer and being more closely focused on God and his purposes for your life.

We’ll look at the gospels and discover what Jesus says about money and possessions, and about what he says are the real issues we should focus on. We’ll look at some of the New Testament letters and see how the early church coped with living out what Jesus taught, and we’ll look at ourselves and the world we live in.

It will be simple. It might not be easy. It is worth it.

Stay tuned, more from fourteen year old Bible study notes tomorrow. You can read more about UK tabloids and why I was thinking again about money and possessions in my last post Page 3, Camel and Context