Book Review: Rich Dad's CASHFLOW Quadrant by Robert T. Kiyosaki

Anyone who is familiar with my reading interests may very well know that motivational book and tapes aren’t my passion. This is because I’m convinced they achieve no useful purpose other than giving people what I term a ‘feel good’ effect. A friend once aptly captured in my view what best represents what these motivational speakers do saying they are just selling hope – and a false hope at that – to a desperate people. So you can imagine my surprise when this same friend strongly recommended I read a book by an author I’ve always perceived a motivational speaker. Ye the conviction with which my friend spoke and the evidence of the benefits he’d been reaping by applying the lessons he’d learned from the author was compelling indeed so I decided to take him at his word to read the book and boy, what an insightful read it’s been!

Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrant, the sequel to Robert T. Kiyosaki’s best seller Rich Dad Poor Dad, is my second encounter with the author having read the first in the series sometime in the past while I was still in school. The book to my surprise didn’t fit my preconceived notion of a typical motivational book as it was very realistic in tone and down-to-earth in its practicability.

The author takes time to introduce the reader to the four parts of the cashflow quadrant i.e. E for Employee and S for Self-Employed on the left side of the quadrant with B for Business Owner and I for Investor on the right side while expounding on the pros and cons of each part. Though he doesn’t quite come clear on which part of the quadrant is best (as he assures the reader that no part is without its risks and gains), it wasn’t difficult to deduce that he favored the right side of the quadrant over the left side and even on the right side, the author favored the I over the B. Here, I often felt the author was playing fast and loose with his analysis and frustratingly so. I also found certain portions of the book to be needlessly repetitive almost to the point of being boring.

However, unlike your typical motivational book where readers are psychologically induced into a transient optimistic mood with the aim of jolting them to action (often prematurely), the author advocates taking what he calls “baby steps” instead of giant leaps when venturing into a new quadrant. He underscored the importance of extensive and continuous education and knowledge acquisition with adequate experience because certain rules that may have been effective in one quadrant may prove ineffectual to one’s loss in another quadrant.

The author also shares many pithy quotes from his Rich Dad urging what may very well be unorthodox advice among motivational speakers such as “be prepared to be disappointed” because “only fools expect everything to go the way they want.” He observes that “just as we learn from our mistakes, we gain character from our disappointments” and that inevitably, “losing is part of winning.”

The crux of the whole book for me was succinctly expressed under the section he sub-titled BE˃DO˃HAVE where he teaches readers to spend more time acquiring the right attitude required to achieve the desired end instead of hastily seeking a shortcut by doing what one thinks will achieve a desired end. The end result of such impulsive action he noted is usually a burnout causing one to abandon one’s dreams even before one has truly started.

Cashflow Quadrant was a real eye-opener and I recommend it to all especially the financially naïve and for new business owners. May be it’s time I heeded the advice of the author to “mind my own business.” 

Chale What's Your Guy Name?

I recently visited a friend at his office, only to serendipitously bump into an AMOSA who was my friend’s colleague. This chance encounter drum home the trite remark that “it’s a small world” we live in. We exchanged pleasantries and carried on with a hearty chitchat. During our chat I realized that I did not remember his name. And so I did what I knew how to do best: I feigned knowledge of his name, while trying hard to recollect, yet engaging him with a phony smile. Halfway through the conversation, I mustered the courage to confess my ignorance. He just smiled knowingly and told me his name. I sheepishly exclaimed “Ah yes!” as though I was at the edge of recollection. Thankfully, this little gaffe did not dampen our chitchat till I took my leave.

Picture Courtesy Yujin Evans

On my way back home, I tried to figure out why I generally found it a bit more difficult to recollect the names of my mates from Senior High School as compared to those from my Junior High School. The most obvious reason was that, I spent much longer time with my mates from JHS than I did my SHS mates since most of them were the same people I attended primary school with. Thus typically, I tend to remember and mention their names in full whenever I bump into any of them. Secondly, there were fewer of us in JHS than in SHS since we tended to have smaller class sizes. In JHS, the general population of the school was not very large so it was not a very difficult task getting to know almost everybody in the school. The third reason which I also thought it most fascinating was the prevalent usage of nicknames in SHS which incident was almost non-existent in JHS.

Sometimes referred to as ‘guy-name’ or ‘nicki’, the use of nicknames in SHS was commonplace and oftentimes preferable even to one’s proper name and they came in great assortments ranging from such cool ones as Shaker, Phastbone, DKNY, Khemistry, Dada Bee, Commotion, Paul Saul among others to very bizarre ones like Oshɛwoho, Bordordor, Digestive, Anyaa Popo, Odompo, Teefoi, Kontomire, Bazaywa etc and to the downright obscene like Twɛdash.

Some of these nicknames, as ridiculous as they were, often reflected certain aspects of the bearer’s quirky mannerisms or physique. Examples included names like Obaa Yaa, Nana Borrow, Onyintus, Azaa Bobby,Shro, One Muscle, Lil Chicken, Skelebo, Nana Nyankopong among others. Some too were infamous for their notoriety and cruelty. Those that readily come to mind are Pinky, Okonkwo, Wadada, Shanton and Nana King (whose nickname later metamorphosed into Serebour). There were also those people whose proper names were often mistaken to be their nicknames. Classic examples were Batsa and Kaiser.

The teachers were not exempted from this phenomenon. Apart from the obvious motive to ridicule, giving teachers these nicknames had the added advantage of affording students the leeway to jeer at teachers to their hearing, while they remained oblivious to the mockery directed at them. Some of the popular nicknames were Kriss Kross, Alonzy, Tampico, Abeezi, Prokayo, Barbie, Mɛdem, Iron, Aggrey Goat, Aggrey Bouncer, Auntie Faustie and what have you. Even the headmaster and his assistants were not spared. The headmasters usually retained the standard ‘Headzee’ nickname. I hear the immediate past headmaster was called ‘Worfa’. I also recall there was the ever dreaded ‘Payaa’. Some of the teachers were well aware of their nicknames and sometimes affectionately responded to them when students cheered them on during special occasions like the Speech Day celebrations.

So now tell me, with this plethora of nicknames laden with fond memories, is it any wonder then that i am unable to recall the names of my old school mates?

Cry, The Beloved Country By Alan Paton

What’s The Story About?

Stephen Kumalo is a priest in the little village of Ndotsheni where very little happens. One day he receives a letter from another parson, Rev. Msimangu, from the big city of Johannesburg carrying grave news of his sister’s ailment.

Kumalo has heard many dreaded tales about the goings-on in this bewildering big city of Johannesburg but the gravity of the news of his sister’s ailment and other even more pressing reasons impels him to embark on this journey for Kumalo must also find his son, Absalom, who had initially gone to the big city to look for his aunt Gertrude and her son but had stopped writing home leaving them without any further news of his activities and whereabouts and so they feared for his safety. Moreover, he must also find his brother, John, whom he hadn’t heard from in a long while.

But what awaits him in the big city?

My Sentiments

The whole narration was very moving and believable. It almost felt like watching a sad documentary of a rustic family whose misfortune and sorrow seemed to know no end. The characters felt real and one could easily identify with their pains. Take for instance the protagonist, Stephen Kumalo.

From the time of the receipt of that foreboding letter from Msimangu, he suffers a spell of misfortune throughout the book even to the very last page where we find him keeping vigil on the eve of his son’s execution. One would have thought that amid these dark times of his life, his faith would have ebbed away with the tides of his mounting sorrow yet the opposite seems to have been the effect for in several places, we find him giving advice and even maintaining a posture of gratitude for he reckons he still has a lot to be thankful for. Indeed, it wouldn’t be too farfetched to say Kumalo represents the quintessential village priest cum father!

Another lovable character is Theophilus Msimangu, who unhesitatingly plays the part of a good friend and advisor to Kumalo helping him every step of the way in first finding his sister, then brother and eventually his son. It would be safe to say he was even present at the execution of Absalom because he had promised Kumalo he will be there. Msimangu, unlike John Kumalo (Stephen Kumalo’s obnoxious brother with a selfish sense of self preservation), comes across as a level-headed man because he seemed to have a good grasp of the vicious cycle of the fear induced oppression with its resultant rebellious crimes. Thus he bemoans the systems yet refuses to hate the white man because he notes they are not all alike citing Father Vincent as an example of this exception while appealing to the marvelous care and training in craftsmanship he gives to poor and blind black kids at Ezenzelendi. Kumalo marvels and retort that even he with his sight cannot achieve such finesse as displayed by the blind kids at their craft.  

However, the hero of this novel for me was James Jarvis whose son, Arthur was shot dead. The tragic irony of Arthur’s demise is that he was vociferously advocating the termination of the apartheid system when he met his untimely death at the hands of a black man. Jarvis had had a few altercations with Arthur over his heady insistence on pursuing this cause so one would have expected him to be bitter against the blacks and more especially the family of the man that killed his son yet that was not what happened. He was gentle to Kumalo when the latter unbeknown to him ended up at his house seeking information. He even went on further to seek the services of an agric extension officer in attempt to restore the fallow valleys of Ndotsheni to arable farmlands to benefit the people.

Moreover, he is quick to reassure Kumalo upon receiving his letter of condolence after the demise of his wife that though she was never quite the same after the demise of their son, the ailment she had suffered was not due to that incident and that she was in full support of all the philanthropic works he was undertaking. Even more shocking and commendable was the fact the he allowed his grandson who was on vacation in Ndotsheni to be frequenting the house of Kumalo. This is indeed a very magnanimous man with a heart of gold!  

Without dispute, Mrs. Lithebe qualifies as the heroine of the novel because though she was childless, she was very welcoming to the Kumalos who were properly strangers to her and was always quick to spot “idle and careless laughter” between Gertrude and male passers-by whose salacious intentions were obvious and she will proffer sagacious advice accordingly.

Conclusion

A lot more can be said about this novel but in sum, the author tells the story in such a masterful way which poignantly captures the pathos of the apartheid era in simple language rich in indigenous expressions. Grab a copy if you can!

JESUS THE ONLY WAY TO GOD by John Piper

In these times of unconditional tolerance and political correctness, it is often regarded a mark of intolerance and bigotry to make exclusive religious truth claims regarding such concepts as the nature of God, sin and hell to name just a few. An even more scandalous assertion will be to claim that Jesus Christ is the only way to God. This assertion, however, is a central tenet of biblical soteriology so is it any wonder then that Christians are often tagged ‘backward’ and ‘narrow minded fundamentalist’ because they refuse to budge? Such an assertion will likely lead to being ostracized and in certain instances may well indeed sound one’s death knell especially in some countries. In the light of such possible inauspicious consequences, should Christians continue to insist that Jesus is in truth the ONLY way to God?

Pastor John Piper in this small book, JESUS THE ONLY WAY TO GOD – Must You Hear the Gospel to Be Saved addresses the very question that the title asks. Piper’s affirmative response to the question is unequivocal stating that “without this faith – faith resting consciously in Jesus as he is presented in the gospel – there is now no salvation.” He warns that any other view will be detrimental to such virtues as genuine love for others, the salvation of people in other religions and ultimately biblical authority. He further maintains that not only will evangelism and the zeal to carry it out undermined by a negative answer but that scriptures do indeed supports his stance. He not only addresses the question directly but goes even further to uncover and dissect certain unstated yet underlying presuppositions that the question assumes including; Will Anyone Experience Eternal, Conscious Torment under God’s Wrath? Is the Work of Christ Necessary for Salvation or Are There Other Bases? Is Conscious Faith in Christ Necessary for Salvation?

Piper doesn’t shy away from the concomitant difficulties from his stance and tackles these head-on. He gracefully highlights areas of dissent with such influential people as C. S. Lewis and Madeleine L’Engle whose universalist view of hell on the one hand is akin to a correctional facility which will lead to repentance and purity and eventually salvation and with John Stott and Clark Pinnock on the other hand whose annihilationist view leads to finite utter obliteration. Piper presents a strong case for the traditional view of hell which insists on the eternal conscious torment of the damned though I didn’t personally find it persuasive. I presently hold to the annihilationist/conditionalist view on hell albeit tentatively because I find it a lot more compelling.

The author also persuasively demonstrates from scripture that the case of Cornelius does not support the notion that conscious faith in Jesus is not necessary for salvation by situating that narrative in its proper context noting that “Devoutness and works of righteousness and religious sincerity do not solve the problem of sin. The only hope is to believe on Jesus.” My only qualm with his conclusion on this matter is with his remark that “Cornelius represents a kind of unsaved person among an unreached people who is seeking God in an extraordinary way…” and that “God accepts this search as genuine…and works wonders to bring that person the gospel of Jesus Christ the way he did through the visions of both Peter on the housetop and Cornelius in the hour of prayer” which seems to me to suggest that this supposedly “genuine” and “extraordinary” pursuit is somewhat meritorious to draw the Father’s attention to save such a seeker by all means in which case his conclusion will be erroneous and unscriptural. But from his other works, I doubt he will agree with my inference.

Another area of disappointment for me was his failure to expatiate on the exceptions to the question of whether conscious faith in Jesus is necessary for salvation namely the profoundly mentally disabled adults and infants who do not have any physical ability to apprehend that there is any revelation at all. The author only touched on these in a footnote observing that scripture doesn’t offer much light on this area so answers on these are purely speculative. That may probably be the reason why he doesn’t dwell too much on it though I think dilating on it would have been beneficial since the matter is so central to the topic the book attempts to address.

Piper’s display of deep insight into the question and the direct manner in which he addresses the topic suggests he is a conscientious writer who does not trifle with the time of his readers. He also does well to buttress his answers with sound biblical expositions. From where I sit, it appears inevitable that every Christian will be confronted with this question in one form or another sooner or later in their walk with God so I highly recommend this book to every Christian.

To the non Christian who may feel incensed by the author’s stance, I encourage you to also grab a copy and weigh for yourself whether his reasoning can hold water. Yet I’m confident that Piper is spot on that “…there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts4:12ESV)

Sika Asem!

I am a relatively young man and like most guys my age, one of the main if not most predominant thoughts I have is about money and how I’m going to make it in life. I’m sure this concern is common to many and to an extent it’s even expected of every young man starting out in life. This concern for money and advancement is made even more pronounced by the tough economic times we’re in and the ever increasing responsibilities associated with growing up. To borrow the truism from that old song, “to be a man, na wa ooo”

That notwithstanding, I’m a man of faith so I endeavor to make sure all my actions are guided by and in accord with the tenets of the faith I profess and with money being such a salient issue, I couldn't possibly gloss over what the holy text has to say about it if I take my faith seriously. I like to think I do!

Firstly, i recognize that God is the source of all wealth and riches! It is he who created all things. Therefore all things belong to him. It is he who gives us the strength to get wealth (Deut.8:18) and it is he who blesses us with riches (Pro.10:22). Therefore, as his child, I don’t have to set my heart on attaining riches (Matt.6:21) neither I’m I to be worried about the possible lack thereof (Mat.6:25-33). Simply put, I must not love money! (Psa.62:10)

Secondly, the holy text also gives the rationale behind its caveat of not wanting to be rich. It clearly delineate the dangers and harms we risk incurring on ourselves should we entertain such a desire.

“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” 1Tim.6:9 ESV

From the above verse, i risk falling into:
• temptation
• a snare
• senseless and harmful desire
• ruin and destruction
Now, I don’t think one must be a genius to realize these are not palatable and thus they be eschewed.

Thirdly, wanting to be rich when you’re a child of God can only be attributed to greed. Think about it. Imagine you’re the child of Bill Gates. Why would you desire to be rich knowing your dad is the richest man in the world? The wealth of your father is as good as yours so why would you again want to be rich? Is it that you don’t trust your father to take care of you? Then you’re an ungrateful child because you make your father out to be miserly and uncaring with that attitude! If that’s not the case then the only other option that comes to mind is greed! You’re simply greedy!

Fourthly, God has promised never to leave me nor forsake me(Heb.13:5). His word assures me that "For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless." (Psa.84:11) Moreover "the LORD is my shepherd, i shall not want"(Psa.23:1) because he'll provide my needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Phi.4:19). Oh such blessed assurances i have from my sovereign God!!

In conclusion, i have basically two options. Either i ignore clear teachings of scripture and have my way and thus incur the enumerated consequence or i submit my will to God's and follow his way? I pray the latter! I would work hard and plead the favour of God on all my endeavors because it is “the blessing of the Lord makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it” Pro.10:22

The Difficult Doctrine Of The Love Of God By D. A. Carson

I found the title, The Difficult Doctrine Of The Love Of God, to be catchy and thought it ought to raise some eyebrows because how is the love of God ever to be deemed “difficult” when the mantra of most contemporary Christians is “God loves you!” especially when they’re interacting with unbelievers with the aim of persuading them to join their fold? How can Gods love be difficult when it is the theme of many a song and beloved hymns of old? Or was the title just meant to be a brilliant little sales gimmick and that there was really nothing uneasy about Gods love?

Sure enough, the author begins the book by addressing such sentiments as I have expressed above and other distortions in our perception of what Gods love is by citing five reasons why this doctrine is made all the more difficult stating among other things that, “the love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized” thus “making the task of the Christian witness so daunting.” He again observes that “if people believe in God at all today, the overwhelming majority hold that God – however he, she, or it may be understood – is a loving being” and so such people fail to appreciate the awe and surprise elements in the concept of God’s love hence this innate hunch becomes nothing more than a stumbling block instead of being propitious! What is even more disturbing, the author notes, is that “our culture has been purged of anything the culture finds uncomfortable” and so we tend to widely disbelieve the many other complementary truths about God which go alongside the concept of his love thus distortion becomes inevitable.

Against this backdrop the author goes on to expound in subsequent chapters five ways the Bible speaks about the love of God namely: (1) God’s intra-Trinitarian love, (2) God’s love displayed in his providential care, (3) God’s yearning warning and invitation to all human beings as he invites and commands them to repent and believe, (4) God’s special love toward the elect, and (5) God’s conditional love toward his covenant people as he speaks in the language of discipline. This the author does in combination with some of the other attributes of God including his sovereignty, holiness, wrath, personhood, impassibility and providence acknowledging them as “non-negotiable elements of basic Christianity” and thus are required if one is to come to a more accurate understanding of the love of God.

This book shattered my simplistic notion of what the love of God is especially when the author was addressing the tension between Gods love and his wrath. I have come to realize how many of us are guilty of unwittin

gly propagating a lopsided view of what Gods love is because we tend to uncritically juxtapose Gods love with that of humans and approach the concept solely from that perspective. In this sense, the book was a real eye-opener for me.

Though the topic was first delivered as a series of lectures and thus its target audience was primarily people in academia, the language isn’t too technical though the subject matter is weighty and so requires careful reading If one is to appreciate some of the delicate nuance that is replete in the book.

This is a book I highly recommend to everyone especially Christians as a corrective to our skewed notion of what the love of God entails.

SDG!!!

Say Amen?

Question: If a non-Christian says to you “God bless you!”, will you respond “Amen”?

This was the was the question that popped into my head onetime when I observed that members of a group I belong to on whatsapp(social networking app for phones) seem to invariably respond “Amen” to quotes by other members regardless of the source of these quotes so much so that I had playfully tagged the group “Amen-Sayers”.

However upon brooding the matter a little further, I realized this propensity to say “God bless you” and its consequent “Amen” response seems to be engrained in our Ghanaian subconscious mindset. It appears to me that this statement seem to be a mere part of our lingo as a people because I find that Ghanaians (and I daresay all of mankind) are inherently religious and will therefore embrace any speech that invoke blessings. After all, who doesn’t want good things?

Anyway, I decided to run this by some of my friends to solicit their views. Those I asked almost unanimously said yes, that they’ll respond “Amen” to such a statement regardless of who it was coming from citing varying reasons for their stance some of which were compelling and others not. Some of the more compelling reasons they gave included the following:

- To Save Themselves the Trouble: Many people assume Ghana is a Christian state but it is not. I would however agree that we are a religious state. So to many of us, the idea that there are people who don’t believe in the existence of any deity is unbelievable. Atheism is practically non-existent in the mind of the average Ghanaian. So to save face, such people would rather just respond “Amen” to save themselves the trouble of having to explain the intricacies(if any at all) for their (non)belief.

- To Appear Respectable: It is typically considered rude to not respond to an otherwise benign invocation of blessings. After all, the person typically doesn’t deem his invocation as insulting or critical so to them it’s only natural to expect the recipient to reciprocate in a friendly and warm manner. Anything short of that is considered rude and no one wants to be tagged as such.

- To Appear Tolerant: Being a multi-religious state means coexisting with people of different faiths and therefore, people not wanting to appear fundamentalist or fanatic, will just respond “Amen”. The main idea is to appear accommodating and peace loving.

- It’s Biblical: Some stated categorically that the Bible supports responding in the affirmative. Others took a rather passive approach stating the Bible does not condemn it so why not just respond in the affirmative?

However, I personally do not respond in the affirmative to such invocation of blessing even from certain ‘Christian’ circles. I usually just smile to their kind gesture and it ends there. Here are my reasons why.

Firstly, I don’t think it’s intolerant or rude to stand by what one believes. I think it’s a matter of how one crafts his response or otherwise that can come across as rude. So to me, to cower from adhering to one’s faith when it means one will appear to be dissenting doesn’t make one intolerant but makes one insincere and also smacks of cowardice. I think that is even more dangerous.

Secondly, many Christians easily let their guards down whenever anybody at all invokes God in whatever venture (however nebulous such a venture may be). Many Christians seem to forget the biblical admonition that we’re to “Be sober-minded; be watchful…” because “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”(1Pet.5:8). We forget that the “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”(2Cor.11:14) so that we shouldn’t just assent to any pronouncement of ‘blessings’ just because it’s in the name of God. We’ll be displaying gullibility if we do.

Thirdly, what or who does the non-Christian mean by ‘God’? Many Christians are unaware that not all who profess belief in ‘God’ refers to the one and the same deity Christians worship. Christians believe in the existence of one God who is the creator of all things and who is a Trinity of persons and is sovereign over all things. But not all believe like the Christians do so how and/or why will you assent to invocation by someone when you’re not even sure if they’re referring to the same deity in whom you trust?

Fourthly, some of my respondents said the Bible supports it. They quoted such verses as “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”(Gen.12:3) This verse does indeed appear to support the idea however, upon consulting Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible he says concerning that verse that “… Not the priests only that should bless his children, the children of Israel, as the Targum of Jonathan, but all men of all nations, and of every age, that speak well of him, commend him for his faith and holiness, and tread in his steps, these are blessed with faithful Abraham…”

From the above commentary, it appears the understanding of the word ‘bless’ as used here denotes “to speak well of” or “approve of” instead of the usual “to confer prosperity or happiness upon” for how is it possible for an unbeliever to invoke blessings of a deity he does not know nor believe in on behalf of believers in that deity? It appears incongruous to me.

Given the above reasons, I wouldn’t affirm any invocation of blessings from any non-Christian source. Or will you respond ‘Amen’ to Kwaku Bonsam (a popular fetish priest in Ghana) if he says to you “God bless you?”

Let’s get talking.

Soli Deo Gloria!