wfn.org | Taiwan Church News:“When you’ve got nothing but money left” attracts mainstream readers

["Lydia Ma" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>      Taiwan Church News

>2971 Edition

February 2~8, 2009

“When you’ve got nothing but money left” attracts  mainstream readers

>Reported by Lin Yi-ying

>Written by Lydia Ma

A new book allegedly given to Taiwan’s former President Chen  Shui-bian while in detention for corruption charges became a hot  commodity overnight as people rushed to bookstores to get a copy of the  book the ex-president was reading. Publishers only made one thousand  copies for the book’s first printing, but demand soared and copies  were soon sold out, prompting publishers to call for second and third  printings totaling over 20 thousand copies.

“When you’ve got nothing but money left” was  written by Presbyterian Church in Taiwan Pastor Wang Yang-ming. He is  currently on a nation-wide tour promoting his book through symposiums,  along with the book’s chief promoter, Elder Li Sheng-shiung from  Gi-kong (Yi-kuang) Presbyterian Church.

During a symposium held in Taipei, Li criticized the media for  coming down harshly on the former President by using the book’s  title to poke fun of Chen maliciously, “It’s not just Chen  Shui-bian. Anyone could end up becoming so poor that they’ve got  nothing but money left. Only God knows who these poor people are.”  said Li.

Li believes that every high-level official, including President Ma  Ying-jeou, should read the book. After reading it, he bought over one  hundred copies to give to people he knew, “If reading this book  could bring a change of heart among Taiwanese and change the culture of  greed, it would be one of the most meaningful things Pastor Wang could  have done in writing this book!” said Li.

Wang had previously published another book entitled “What you  know doesn’t match what you do”, where he detailed the plight  of many Christians who know the teachings of the Bible very well but act  contrary to these teachings in their daily lives. Upon careful study to  find the cause of this trend, he realized that people were spending most  of their lives acquiring wealth and fame at the expense of nurturing and  enriching their spiritual lives.

“Money can satisfy our material needs in life, but it can  never buy the kind of peace and joy we desire,” said Wang, using a  story to illustrate his point: There was once a wealthy man who spent  all of his life pursuing wealth while ignoring his wife and children. He  also had affairs with other women throughout his life and believed this  kind of lifestyle was the essence of enjoying life. When he grew old,  his wife and children left him. Though he lived in a big mansion, the  only thing that accompanied him in his old age was his own shadow, and  that too, left him as soon as he turned off the lights to sleep at  night.

Despite similar illustrations throughout his book, Pastor Wang  still received some surprising letters from readers after the book  became a best-seller. Several readers wrote to him saying that after  reading the book, their sole desire in life remained to become wealthy,  and some even wrote to ask Wang for suggestions on how to become a  person with “nothing but money left”.

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry at such inquiries, Wang said,  “It’s true that without money you cannot do a lot of things. I  didn’t write this book to discourage people from moving forward and  making big bucks to feed their families and make a living. What I wanted  to emphasize was that people should feed and enrich their souls even as  they pursue material necessities.”

“No one is born with money and no one can bring it with him  when he dies. The Bible asks us to reflect on whether there is any  profit in winning the whole world but losing our souls,” said Wang.  He hopes that fans will not just buy the book to get an autographed  copy, but use it instead to reflect on how to achieve a balance between  making a living and really living so that they can become truly rich  – inside and out.

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