Why did David kill Goliath? Was it due to a selfless devotion to God and his individuals, or maybe one thing else? First Samuel 17:25–26 provides the reply: David requested what can be achieved for the one who may kill Goliath, and the Israelites stated: “The king will give nice wealth to the person who kills him. He can even give him his daughter in marriage and can exempt his household from taxes in Israel.” Even essentially the most beloved of our biblical tales typically have cash and possessions at their middle.
Biblical scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann makes a declare that may in all probability be shocking for many people to listen to: “[T]he Bible is certainly about cash and possessions.” Many people would possibly balk at that: Isn’t the Bible about God and God’s redemption of his individuals? But within the pages of Scripture, we discover greater than two thousand references to cash and possessions.
What precisely then does the Bible say about cash?
Jesus on cash
None of those references are extra placing, nevertheless, than Christ’s phrases in the Sermon on the Mount:
Nobody can serve two masters; for both he’ll hate the one and love the opposite or else he will likely be loyal to the one and despise the opposite. You can not serve God and mammon. (Matt 6:24)
Mammon, the Aramaic phrase for “wealth,” will not be offered as a impartial entity. Relatively, it’s a rival god. As we take into account what the Scriptures say about cash and possessions, it is necessary that we keep in mind this context—understanding that if we get it mistaken, Jesus says our souls are in peril!
The billionaire will not be the one individual vulnerable to greed. Even the poor are topic to this vice. Mammon doesn’t discriminate.
However what can we place on this class of cash and possessions? The class contains what we all know as capital, that’s, assets like land that we use to make revenue, nevertheless it additionally contains every little thing that we declare to own. That’s, the billionaire will not be the one individual vulnerable and maybe enslaved to greed. Even the poor are topic to this vice. Mammon doesn’t discriminate. In order we take into account collectively what the Scriptures say about cash and wealth, allow us to keep in mind that we’re all implicated.
The economics of the Bible
Framing the Bible’s dialogue of cash is a selected account of economics: how assets are distributed. This account is dictated by some primary theological claims.
1. Every part belongs to the Lord
Within the kingdom of God, there’s nothing over which we are able to correctly proclaim, “This belongs to me and me alone.”
When the Lord says in Psalm 50:10, “Each animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills,” God is making a press release about wealth. In an economic system the place wealth was measured by the scale of 1’s flock, God reminded those that learn the Psalms that every little thing belongs to him.
Thus something and every little thing that we expect we possess will not be really our possession, however quite is a present from the Lord.
2. We’re referred to as to share
Insofar as one possesses wealth and possessions, the first name on the Christian is to share. When God formed his individuals right into a individuals, each instantly following the Exodus and after Pentecost, one in every of his priorities was a selected economic system.
In Deuteronomy 15, the Israelites are advised to always cancel money owed in order that there can be no poor or needy individuals of their midst. That’s, there can be no underclass stored in that place by exploitation. Paired with that system was an moral mandate that, if any amongst them would develop into poor, the individuals of God wouldn’t “be hardhearted or tightfisted towards [their fellow Israelites]. Relatively be openhanded and freely lend them no matter they want” (Deut 15:7–8). The individuals of God have been referred to as to be a sharing individuals who refused to enslave each other.
That imaginative and prescient was then fulfilled in Acts 2 after the Spirit of God descended on the individuals. They have been then marked by explicit actions: “All of the believers have been collectively and had every little thing in frequent. They offered property and possessions to offer to anybody who had want” (Acts 2:44–45). To make the purpose even stronger, when the identical apply is described two chapters later, we’re advised that “God’s grace was so powerfully at work in all of them that there have been no needy individuals amongst them” (Acts 4:33–34). There have been no needy as a result of the individuals of God handled cash and assets in the best way that the resurrection required: They shared.
3. Wealth simply results in idolatry and injustice
Lastly, wealth very simply results in the creation of social injustice and exploitation, in addition to idolatry—some extent the Scriptures repeat time and again.
On this means, the Scriptures body two big dangers that come together with cash and possessions: dangers to your self and dangers to your group. The prophets repeatedly inveigh in opposition to the wealthy who exploit the poor (e.g., Amos 6:4–7; Isa 2:6–7; 3:14–15; Mic 3:9–11). Even in contemplating why the individuals of Israel went into exile, the prophets give two solutions: idolatry and exploitation of the poor. To use the weak was to put the group in peril. Wealth, significantly past one’s wants, is a supremely dangerous factor.
However the Scriptures are simply as relentlessly after us personally. The New Testomony has only a few constructive phrases to the wealthy (moreover Paul’s phrases to Timothy about them, which quantities to a calling to share; see 1 Tim 6:17–19). Accumulating capital for your self within the presence of and with out look after the needy in a single’s midst locations you within the class of the wealthy idiot of Luke 12:16–21. This parable is instantly preceded by these phrases of Jesus, “Be careful! Be in your guard in opposition to all types of greed; life doesn’t consist in an abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15). The wealthy idiot, in specializing in himself, falls into the identical entice because the wealthy younger ruler (Mark 10:17–31; Matt 19:16–30; Luke 18:18–30). For each of those males, cash lived as a god and grasp of their lives, dictating their actions and priorities.
That is the good threat: that we might be discovered on the mistaken aspect of the cosmic battle between God and Mammon.
Is it mistaken to need to be wealthy? Discover out in Malcolm Foley’s What within the Phrase? interview.
The distinction between wealth and materialism
So then it may appear that the Scriptures as a complete are anti-wealth. That, nevertheless, will not be completely correct.
The Scriptures are anti-greed and anti-covetousness, which suggests they’re in opposition to our wishes stretching past our wants. It’s each wanting an excessive amount of and holding an excessive amount of. As Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:9, “Those that need to get wealthy fall into temptation and a entice and into many silly and dangerous wishes that plunge individuals into smash and destruction.” Even the will to get wealthy is sinful in line with the Scriptures, as a result of it’s a want that signifies a misplaced religion.
However in that very same letter, Paul has a phrase to the wealthy as nicely (1 Tim 6:17–19), that means that we can’t take the Scriptures to imply that being wealthy at any given time is evil. The apostle’s phrase to the wealthy right here—that they don’t seem to be to be conceited and to not place their hope in wealth, however quite that they must do good and share—signifies that the problem will not be how a lot you’ve, however quite how a lot you maintain.
Thus, the Son of God teaches us to hope for our day by day bread in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:11; Luke 11:3), and Agur prays,
Give me neither poverty nor riches, however give me solely my day by day bread. In any other case, I’ll have an excessive amount of and disown you and say, “Who’s the Lord?” or I’ll develop into poor and steal, and so dishonor the identify of my God. (Prov 30:8–9)
Materialism is the extreme looking for after and putting of religion in materials possessions for “our hope and happiness, significance and safety.” It manifests itself in selfishness and hoarding, which Christ warns in opposition to: “Don’t retailer up for yourselves treasures on earth, the place moths and vermin destroy, and the place thieves break in and steal” (Matt 6:19–20).
The treatment, nevertheless, is “storing up treasures in heaven,” a considerably obscure phrase that Jesus doesn’t clarify in Matthew. However he does in Luke:
Promote your possessions and provides to the poor. Present purses for yourselves that won’t put on out, a treasure in heaven that may by no means fail, the place no thief comes close to and no moth destroys. (Luke 12:33)
So too, what Christ instructions the wealthy younger ruler is that he divest himself of all of his wealth (Luke 18:22). However what he calls for of the gang is that they make the common behavior of promoting their possessions and giving to the poor. Such motion is the best means to withstand materialism, greed, and covetousness. If one wonders the place the most secure barns for his or her items are, John Chrysostom preached, “the secure barns should not partitions however the stomachs of the poor.”
What does the Bible say about cash? Begin a free trial and uncover for your self with Logos’s Sensible Search in Bible.
What about our fears and worries?
Listening to the Bible’s account of cash and possessions typically strikes the Christian with worry. Actually, Jesus’s framing of the problem within the Sermon on the Mount assumes that this might be the case. Instantly after saying we can’t serve each God and Mammon, Christ says, “Due to this fact I inform you, don’t fear about your life, what you’ll eat or drink; or about your physique, what you’ll put on” (Matt 6:25; emphasis added). Anxiousness and cash are shut companions. In accordance with Christ, we frequently fear as a result of we’re worshipping Mammon quite than God.
In accordance with Christ, we frequently fear as a result of we’re worshipping Mammon quite than God.
Jesus affords a robust theological reminder in Matthew 6:26–32: The God of the universe cares for you. The treatment to our worry and nervousness, as produced by greed, is to depend on God’s Fatherly care.
That theological affirmation then results in a selected motion: “Search first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all this stuff will likely be given to you as nicely” (Matt 6:33). “These items” in that textual content should not riches, however wants. The Scriptures as a complete are a name to belief not in wealth, however within the Lord, the giver of all good items. That belief manifests itself particularly obedient motion: the looking for of the dominion and of the righteousness of God.
The writer of Hebrews causes in the identical means, commanding us to be freed from the love of cash exactly as a result of God has promised to be by our aspect (Heb 13:5). The reply to greed is a life that really depends upon the Lord each day.
The incarnation of the beneficiant God
Eclipsing the temptation to greed, nevertheless, is an awesome picture of our Savior. Regardless of possessing all issues, Jesus selected to not hoard however to share with these of us united to him by religion and the Holy Spirit.
When exhorting the Church of Corinth to contribute to the wants of others, Paul makes this theological declare: “For you recognize the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was wealthy, but on your sake he turned poor, so that you just via his poverty would possibly develop into wealthy” (2 Cor 8:9). Paul image’s the incarnation as divine self-emptying for the aim of human uplifting.
This divine act, in line with Paul, units the paradigm for the way we ought to consider our personal cash, possessions, and items: They aren’t meant to be hoarded, however shared with the intention to uplift our neighbors. If we serve a sharing God, we must be a sharing individuals.
Conclusion
The Scriptures remind us time and again of the temptation that comes with riches. They can be utilized for good or evil, for our neighbors’ uplift or to assist their exploitation. Even in our personal emotional lives, cash might be the supply of undue pleasure or of worry and nervousness.
The Scriptures as a complete are largely ambivalent about cash and sometimes pessimistic about its impact on our lives. That pessimism comes from the truth that we are sometimes desperate to run into Mammon’s arms for safety.
But whereas Mammon encourages us to belief it, Jesus reminds us to belief him. In any case, Mammon didn’t tackle flesh and die for us. The everlasting Son of God did that.
Sources on the Bible and cash
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