Free of Charge

a review by Kevin Binkley

Miroslav Volf in Free of Charge: giving and forgiving in a culture stripped of grace, argues for the importance of giving and forgiving in the kingdom of God. Volf contends that cultural expectations, predispositions, and personal habits have virtually trained us away from the moral high ground of true giving and true forgiving. Volf writes that the key to learning how to give and forgive in a godly way is to look at how God gives and forgives.

The challenge in gathering a right understanding of godly giving and forgiving is overcoming the programming that comes from the powerful and seductive images that we craft in our own hearts. Volf says,

"They [the powerful and seductive images] are the ones that seep into our minds as we watch TV, read books, go shopping at the mall, or socialize with our neighbors."

Volf writes,

"...that over time we slowly begin to shape God into the features of the gods of this world so that God becomes simply a tool to gratify our own desires rather than a force to reshape them in accordance with His own beauty and character. The God that we are to model didn't kill His enemies; instead, He died for them."

Volf easily develops in the first pages of the book the reality that God has far different motives for giving and forgiving in this world than we do as those who try to emulate Him. Volf dispels two common misconceptions about the way that God gives. The first one he calls "God the Negotiator" and the second is "God the Santa Clause".

In "God the Negotiator," a person might make a deal with God to obtain what he wants. The misperception in "God as the Negotiator" is that we actually have something to offer God. Volf contends that we have nothing to offer God, and that he gives out of the goodness of His nature, not as a result of anything we have to offer.

The second false notion of God as the giver is "God as a Santa Clause." In "God as a Santa Clause" giver, we run to God so that He can shower us with gifts-no strings attached, no conditions, no anything, just go to God and beg and plead for Him to be kind and good to us. God comes out of nowhere, gives everybody everything they want and goes back to nowhere.

It is true that God is a generous giver. It's also true that God does not negotiate. But God's giving is not apart from demands on His creatures. This is where Volf's thesis on God as giver really unfolds. He says, "The bare-bones answer is this. A Santa Clause God gives simply so we can have and enjoy things; the true God gives so we can become joyful givers and no just self-absorbed receivers. God the giver has made us to be givers and obliges us therefore to give."

Volf discusses the challenges we might have to give the way that God gives. Oftentimes we give with selfish motives. One of the big challenges for givers is that they do not feel particularly grateful for what they have in the first place. One might think that as a negotiator, they have earned everything they have from God, rather than found it to be in possession because of God's extreme goodness. When we think of possessions as something we have earned, the possessions become more exclusively ours and less likely to be given away.

Volf suggests that God does want something from us in return for His gifts. Remembering that we are not negotiating or bargaining, Volf writes that because of His good gifts to us, God desires for us to return faith, gratitude, availability and participation. Faith is believing in Him as a result of His gifts. Gratitude is giving appropriate thanks for that which God has given. Availability is making ourselves available within the framework of His plans to respond to others the way that He responds to us. Participation is for God's creation to be avid participants in God's giving and forgiving that flows from Him, through us, and to others.

Volf develops this theme of "flowing through" throughout the chapters on giving and forgiving to demonstrate that our ideal Christian experience and responsibility is to model the giving and forgiving of Christ. As we do, we glorify God and express our faith and gratitude towards Him.

Herein lies one challenge of the book. Although everything that Volf says is true, it seems to be incomplete. Sin is, of course, falling short of God's glory and certainly that includes mishandling the gifts that He gives us. But sin is so much more than that. Volf seems to miss the full scope of what sin means by restricting it merely to inappropriate giving.

Volf has the same incompleteness in his definition of faith. Volf sees faith as our participating with God to benefit His creation. But faith is much more than just benefiting creation. Unbelievers could do a reasonably good job at benefiting creation. Biblically, God seems to have much more in mind than for His creation to just be a blessing to his creation. God wants people to be humble, submissive servants, who do whatever that requires. No doubt, that requires giving and forgiving. But giving and forgiving is not the end, it is a step in the right direction.

Isaiah 66:2 reminds us that the person God notices is the one "who is humble, submissive in spirit, and who trembles at My word. HCSB"

So while Volf is correct in what he says, one might speculate that he discusses only one face of a multi-faceted Christian experience. We are to be giving and forgiving, but we are to be so much more than that.

Volf does a great job of discussing the main point of his book, namely, that it is God's objective to work through his children in such a way that his abundant giving and forgiving is funneled through us to others. The reader would do well to remember that that is not the only thing that God is doing in the world. This book is not the final statement on the purpose of God in his creation, it is one statement among many others that together make up the totality of God's plans and purposes.

I am not suggesting that Volf thinks otherwise, only that the reader needs to be reminded of the reality of God's other goals in light of Volf's persuasive writing on this particular subject. Volf himself, I think, would agree. He says,

"I am afraid that I need much, much more than my own book, to be cured form sin. I need daily disciplines of prayer, meditating on texts from the Holy Book, and silence. I need a community of fellow believers with whom to celebrate a vision of life that revolves around love of God and neighbor. I need friends to keep me accountable. I need my wife and my kids to hold the mirror to me and resist my selfishness, pride, and sloth. Ultimately, I need a new self and - my desires are not modest-a whole new world freed form transience and sin. Which is to say that I need God. But I also need a book. Or rather, I need a compelling sketch of a life of generosity and forgiveness. So I wrote it down."

Volf's insights into giving and forgiving are remarkably helpful. Even the most casual reader would find his or her understanding of giving increased. Every reader should be reminded again how difficult it is to really give without false motives.

The same is true with forgiveness. Forgiveness means much more than just attempting to let someone off the hook for something they have done. It means to forgive like Christ, which is to forgive and forget the offense and to hold the violator free from the moral debt incurred (not the consequences) by the violation.

And while we all must learn to give and forgive, what we really need is God. Thank you, Miroslov Volf, for not forgetting, in the very last pages of your book, to remind us of that. Maybe, if we get what we really need - that is God - we will find ourselves more compelled to be like him, and maybe then, we will be able to give to the ungrateful, and forgive the ungodly.