In The Lukan Lens on Wealth and Possessions: A Perspective Shaped by Reversal and Right Response, Rachel Coleman offers a detailed look at Luke’s wealth ethic. The long-debated question of how Luke understands the relationship between followers of Jesus and material possessions is examined with careful exegesis and keen literary and theological sensitivity. The twin motifs established in Luke’s introductory unit (Luke 1:5–4:44)—reversal and right response—provide the hermeneutical lenses that allow the reader to discern a consistent Lukan perspective on wealth in the life of disciples. With an engaging style and an eye to the contemporary church, the book will appeal to both scholars and pastors.

No canonical Gospel is more concerned with wealth and poverty than Luke. A centuries-long debate rages over just how revolutionary Luke’s message is. This book seeks to recover Luke’s radical economic message, to place it in its ancient context, and to tease out its prophetic implications for today. Luke has a radical message of good news for the poor and resistance to wealth. God is shown to favor the poor, championing their struggle for justice while condemning the rich and recommending a sweeping disposal of wealth for the benefit of the poor. This represents a distinct break from the ethics of the Roman Empire and a profound challenge to modern economic systems. Generations of interpreters have worked to file down Luke’s sharp edges, from scribes copying ancient manuscripts, to early Christian authors, to contemporary scholars. Such domestication disfigures the gospel, silencing its critique of an economic system whose unremitting drive for profit and economic growth continues to widen the gap between rich and poor while threatening life-altering, environmental change. It is time to reclaim the bracing, prophetic call of Luke’s economic message that warns against the destructive power of wealth and insists on justice for the poor and marginalized.

Using an economic perspective to interpret scripture, the author explores the biblical and historic relationship between spiritual and economic renewal, in order to provide (amongst other things) an innovative and provocative view of the economic life of the primitive church, with ramifications for the modern church.

This accessible and compelling introduction draws us into the wide-ranging narrative of Luke-Acts to discover how Luke frames the life of Jesus and of the first disciples. These two books, when read together, tell a cohesive narrative about Jesus, the Church, and the mission of God–with implications for the whole our lives today.

What difference would Catholic Social Tradition make if it guided our personal and communal financial decision-making? The Sermon on the Mount reminds us of this fundamental decision-making when it comes to questions of faith and money: “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matthew 6:24). In Counting the Cost, Clemens Sedmak and Kelli Reagan Hickey suggest a theological and spiritual discernment process for the everyday reality of budgeting and financial planning that explores the status of money and monetary values by reflecting on this gospel call. Counting the Cost explains how Catholic Social Teaching provides a framework for our thinking around finances by answering questions such as: What does this fundamental decision look like in times of financial scarcity and stewardship responsibilities? How do the attitudes that Jesus invites us into shape the ways we make financial decisions? And how can budgeting be and become a way of discipleship for individuals, parishes, and dioceses? The book includes a range of financial decision-making examples and reconstructs them as decisions about priorities, values, and commitments to respond to the world and its material realities in a gospel-inspired way. The Enacting Catholic Social Tradition series is dedicated to the systematic application of Catholic Social Teaching to real-world problems and issues. Written for both academics and pastoral practitioners who want to draw on and learn more about the rich resources of Catholic Social Tradition for the practical work of justice, the series aims to strengthen the capacity of the church to respond lovingly and well to the demands of the gospel.

Paul’s gospel is misunderstood. Paul’s gospel is seen as his message, perhaps an empowered message; he saw it differently. His gospel can be many things: tradition about Jesus, Jesus Christ himself, the ministry of Jesus, the replication of the ministry of Jesus, God’s salvific drama, the salvation experience of people, a message, and something that can (and should) be embodied or lived. And the gospel does not come to people in Paul’s preaching. He says it comes or takes place in both his message and the miraculous. Without the involvement and acts of God (in the miraculous), for Paul, there would have been no gospel, only preaching. It is not that the miraculous was simply a proof or demonstration of the gospel; it was integral to it. In the gospel’s coming or establishment, it is clear that, at heart, the gospel is God’s salvation—the presence of God himself—in Christ, experienced in the symbiotic relationship between Paul’s message about God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and the activity of God in the miraculous. Not surprisingly, then, Paul rarely talks of preaching the gospel. He sees himself as “gospelling.”