Why Christians Should Care About Wealth?
At this time of year it’s hard to ignore all the various sales and retail activity going on. We’ve had Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, Christmas sales, and everyone is trying to get you to part with your hard earned cash. Our governments are encouraging us to spend, because that’s good for our economic recovery, on the back of a devastating last two years. And what better time for all of this, than Christmas – the traditional time of year where we all give and receive gifts.
But all this talk about spending and economic stimulus should also give us pause, as we wrestle with the question, what kind of attitude should God’s people have towards possessions?
Have you ever wondered what the Bible has to say about accumulating stuff?
You might think about Jesus parable (in Luke 12) about the rich man who built a whole lot of barns to store a bumper crop, with the motto, “take it easy, eat, drink and be merry” only for God to tell him he was a fool, because that very night he would die”.
But then we come across the parable in Luke 16, where Jesus tells his disciples in v9 “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings” – and you might think, isn’t this the exact opposite of the previous parable? And so, to make sense of the Bible’s overall teaching on this topic, today, we’re going to be looking at why Christians should care about wealth?
Now, as soon as I say that, some of you might be worried, hang on a sec, this sounds like the sort of sermon we might hear from someone who holds a prosperity theology. If you don’t know what that is, it’s sometimes called the “health and wealth gospel” – the idea that “God wants to bless you with material riches and prosperity – all you gotta do is have enough faith and claim it!” I want to be very clear – prosperity theology is a despicable distortion of the gospel. It’s a disgraceful misuse of Scripture which treats God as a magic genie and fails to see that we follow a crucified saviour who calls us to take up our cross as we follow him.
And that’s actually why we should care what the Bible teaches about wealth – so we don’t fall into the snares of bad theology and believe things which are untrue. We’re going to do this by taking a whirlwind tour through the Bible, to see the overall shape of the Bible’s teaching and draw out some principles for us.
The first thing to note is that God created everything in the material world as good. In Genesis, the picture of the Garden of Eden was beautiful abundance, such as Genesis 2:9, “And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground – trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.” Adam and Eve had plenty, because of God’s goodness – this abundance was like good gifts to his children.
Even after the fall, God’s blessing to his OT people often had a material dimension. God’s promises to Abram included land, and we see many significant OT figures accumulate great wealth – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and eventually Joseph, as he rises to the position of governor of Egypt. But rather than being a promise to Christians, this wealth was directly tied to God’s promise to give his OT people a special promised land. Our promise isn’t a physical land and blessing in the same way here and now – ours is the everlasting promise in the new creation. That is why Jesus can say in Mt 6:19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”
What’s important to note is that wealth itself isn’t bad – in fact, materials blessings are good gifts from God meant for his people to enjoy. In God’s dealing with OT Israel, wealth was often a blessing from God for their obedience. King Solomon was at the high point of Israel – in 1 Kings 10:23 says “King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth.” The book of Proverbs carries the theme that generally speaking, riches is often the reward for living wisely and rightly. Having money, wealth, lots of stuff isn’t essentially bad.
The problem though, is that because of our sinfulness, while it’s not essentially bad, wealth is nonetheless one of the primary temptations that turn the human heart away from God. In Israel’s case, while Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments on top of Mt Sinai, his brother Aaron was helping the Israelites collect all the gold they had taken out of Egypt to make a golden calf, an idol which made a mockery of God and his rescue of his people.
Money, career, possessions - all of these are often traps which shipwreck a relationship with God. How many of us know someone personally who has walked away from God because their priority was their career, or to maintain their standard of living?
Jesus words to a rich man who asks him “what must I do to inherit eternal life” illustrate this perfectly. Jesus tells the man to sell everything he has, and give it to the poor, then he can come and follow Jesus. And we read in Luke 18:25, “When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked at him and said “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” Often, the more we have, the less we want to be generous, and we become trapped in our wealth. Having plenty can lead us to imagine our material possessions are what will secure our future rather than the God who gives us these things (and can just as easily take them away).
Listen to what Jesus has to say again from Luke 16:13 – “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”
You can’t. It’s impossible. Devotion to one will lead to abandoning the other. So why do we all think we can do it? Because we all believe “we’re exceptional”. Jesus is giving us the principle, yes, but I’m the exception that proves the rule. That’s what we all think, which is why we do it. And so the answer to this is simple. All of us need to tell ourselves “I’m not exceptional.” I’m not exceptional. You’re not exceptional.
So how we we avoid this temptation?
It actually comes down to our spiritual health.
As we grow in Christian maturity, we should see our perspective on wealth and possessions change and take on more of a concern for good stewardship of the resources that God has entrusted to us. You may have heard the saying “the last thing to be converted in a person is their wallet” and sadly, this is often true. Yet we see in the Bible that the wealthy and godly people share generously with the poor and needy. OT laws were given by God to show his concern for “the widow, the alien, the fatherless and the poor” – because all of these were at an economic disadvantage.
We live in one of the wealthiest nations in the world, in the wealthiest period of human history. In spite of the pandemic, an August report by ME Bank found that in June this year, Australian households on average experienced record-high levels of financial comfort, with more households saving. This of course, hides the fact that many Australians have been left worse off, particularly single-parents, casual staff, small business owners and those made unemployed. As Christians, we should be concerned with this. We should be concerned with the extremes of both excessive wealth and excessive poverty, because both of these are in opposition to God’s concern for justice for the helpless.
So how should we approach our own wealth? Here are some principles:
Strive for moderation. Proverbs 30:8-9 says “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise I may have too much and disown you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonnour the name of my God.
If we follow this, then there’s nothing wrong with obtaining wealth, in order for it to allow us to be more generous. It’s not somehow more spiritual or more Christian to be poor. The danger is that wealth is seductive in a way that being poor isn’t. That’s where moderation is important.Aim to increase your generosity each year. How do you do that? By not spending as much money on the things most Australians take for granted. Here’s a thought experiment. If you knew you were going to have 10% less income next year, what area of your budget would be most affected? Why not voluntarily cut back in this area, without being forced to, for the sake of being generous and giving that amount away instead?
Resist debt, for anything that doesn’t generate income. If you can’t afford to pay for something with cash, resist the urge to use credit, because that can quickly spiral out of control.
Practice contentment. Remind ourselves and each other that ads are designed with worldly values to cause dissatisfaction with what we have. Be careful that your use of Social Media isn’t having the same effect – be wary of following trends and influencers, whether Christian or not.
God may call a few of us to radical abandonment of possessions. But it’s more likely he calls all of us to give from our surplus. May God help all of us to be generous and wise in giving more of our wealth away so that we receive treasures in heaven.