Dan's Thoughts

Vision #26 - September 28, 2006

Does God Want You to Be Rich?

Time Magazine put that question on its front cover in the September 18th issue.

It was a dumb question. It was a dumb because it had no context. What if Time had asked instead,

Does God Want You To Be Sexually Active?

Or,

Does God Want You To Have Authority, Power and Influence?

None of these questions make any sense, you see. Each of them require a context. Without a context, none of them have enough content to even warrant a response. For example, God does indeed want us to be sexually active if we are married. If we are not married however, he does not want us to be sexually active. Sexually then requires a specific context for it to be a blessing to the human family. In other contexts, sex becomes damaging in the long run. The same principle holds true where power, authority, influence and money are concerned. That is the way the Bible treats such questions, anyway.

According to Leon Kass in The Beginning of Wisdom, the main purpose of the book of Genesis is to teach us that the natural ways of humankind lead to ruin. Covenant, on other hand, matures people in order to prepare them to manage the resources God gives to bring blessing and health to the human family. To be a godly sexual person then requires us to learn how to manage our drives, emotions and sexual knowledge. This is not the same as mere suppression, by the way, which is actually easier to do. The way of covenant teaches us that a married person MUST develop his or her sexual knowledge, that in some cases they MUST deliberately cultivate sexual desire and that they MUST increase his or her ability to bring pleasure and delight to a partner. At the same time, covenant teaches us that a godly person must learn to say “no” to himself or herself if sexual desire seems to be leading him or her in the wrong direction. All this is true about finances. It is also true of power and authority. It is true about any resource. A resource is never its own good. It is “good” or “not good” depending upon its context.

The Bible says that a godly man should lay up treasure for his children’s children. It tells us that a wise steward invests his master’s resources. It tells us that a sower should find good soil so there will be abundant fruit at the time of Harvest. These are all appeals to mature our financial knowledge and ability. But without a corresponding knowledge of what the finances are meant for, an increase of resources becomes a lot of potential aimed at nothing. That is the meaning of “greed,” the accumulation of riches for their own sake. It is a form of idolatry. Holy Scriptures clearly denounces it.

The “prosperity is godly” VS “poverty is godly” feud then is a childish, mindless, nonproductive fight among scriptural pigmies. The truth of the matter is that God wants us to learn his ways and then to walk in them. He wants us to serve humanity in His name, for example. As we learn to walk in his ways and to serve others in his name, he will invite us to mature, to learn to manage increasing significant resources to do the work he has called us to do. When life is over, he will judge us according to whether we have been or have not been wise stewards. If we spend our lives avoiding wealth in order to feel spiritually superior to others, we will discover that we have been a foolish and slothful servant. If we spend our days learning to be rich but never take the time to become a disciple, we will discover that we have been like the rich man who wanted to tear down his barns merely to build bigger barns. “Thou fool!” the Lord will thunder at us as it did to him. “Thy soul is required of thee!”

Despite all that our national heresy teaches us, wealth is not a sign of godliness. There are rich fools as well as poor fools. In the end they both live meaningless lives and die meaningless deaths. The rich man gets a nicer casket and for a few years someone will cut the grass over his grave and keep it pretty. What stupidity!

Dave Ramsey is helping me to learn how to be a good steward of my finances. I am grateful. I want to help my grandchildren get a good education and to live healthy and productive lives. I want to travel with my wife and enjoy good times with her. I want to provide for my older age; should God give me life, I don’t want to be a burden for my children or for the state. I want to be a responsible person because I am a covenant person. I want to help people who are trying to do good in the world. There are all sorts of things like that I want to do and they all require finances. So I am trying to save, eliminate debt and invest money in order to reach some of these objectives. As far as I can tell, these are good things and God is happy with me for wanting to do them.

I don’t believe God promiscuously prospers people who have no idea what money is for. If a man has no intention of becoming a disciple, a person who diligently studies the Word and life in order to discover what God wants, why should God desire them to have a lot of money? That would be like me giving my granddaughters a new sports car. (They are all under four years old!) Would they be delighted for me to give them a car? Yes. Would it make any sense for me to do that? No! I have to wait until they know what a car is for, how to maintain it, and how to use it for the car to actually be a blessing. Otherwise, I will be giving them something that could kill them.

No one needs authority who uses it to hurt people, whether senator, judge or pastor. No one needs wealth who doesn’t know what it’s for. However, no one who wishes to do good in the world can avoid the responsibility of learning how to use money, sex and power. That makes it our responsibility to study to show ourselves approved, a workman than needs not to be ashamed, rightfully dividing the word of truth.

Dan