Dear LFTP: donate or buy the broom?
- When a disabled vendor sells me something I do not need, should I take the goods or just donate?
A listener and her husband disagree over a blind man who sells brooms door to door: she donates and declines the goods, he says accept them so it is not a pity donation. The hosts side with the wife — brooms are a once-a-decade purchase, so the brooms are just a conduit for donations — and joke about sneaking the broom back into his bag and slipping him a fake 'Jesus twenty'. The secular answer agrees: donate, keep the closets clutter free. A side bit imagines handing five dollars to a McDonald's cashier as a pure donation.
More on Giving
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Complaint-line follow-up: tithing, blessing, and the prosperity gospel
- Does faithfulness in giving guarantee material blessing, and does suffering imply unfaithfulness?
Ben reads his own complaint-line text challenging the prior show's tithe conversation: if giving brings blessing (Malachi's 'test me in this'), how should blessing be understood when faithful givers still lack basic needs, and does suffering imply unfaithfulness?
From No. 530 · Know Self Control
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Dear LFTP: the $8 spaghetti sauce in the grocery line
- Should I feel guilty for not covering the stranger's grocery bill when I could barely afford my own?
Boova (speaker-2, who reads the letter on-air) reads a Dear LFTP letter: at a grocery store, a young woman with an $8 jar of spaghetti sauce used the last of her food-stamp card,…
From No. 522 · Biking with Billy Shatner
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Only thirteen percent of evangelicals tithe
- What percentage of evangelicals actually tithe?
- Does a day set apart as holy still matter beyond legalism?
A giving study ("The Generosity Factor" finds only 13% of evangelicals tithe, half give less than 1% of income, and the median church giver gives about $800 a year.
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Practical kingdom actions: check-ins, restraint, and giving
- Should churches keep meeting in person during the pandemic?
Asked what the kingdom of Christ should be doing, a host gives three recommendations: make phone calls to isolated and immunocompromised people (even just dropping things on the…
From No. 398 · Thus It Begins…COVID