WHAT’S THE BEST use of our lives? Should we, as Jesus advises in Matthew 19, sell our possessions and “give the money to the poor” in hopes of a “treasure in heaven”? Or can we interpret this verse in a slightly less extreme way, instead holding up Jesus’ words as a sort of aspirational metaphor?
This question is at the core of The Greatest Possible Good by Ben Brooks.
We meet the Candlewicks, a wealthy but disaffected family of four living in the idyllic Cotswolds in England, surrounded by every luxurious distraction they could desire. Their lives change drastically when the father, Arthur Candlewick, falls into an abandoned mine shaft, sustaining a head injury. While stuck there for three days with his son’s stash of drugs and his daughter’s book on effective altruism, Arthur experiences what he calls his “road to Damascus moment.” The ordeal transforms Arthur, leading him to give away his entire fortune to charity.
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