1) Neither Poverty nor Riches: The Christian’s Dilemma with Wealth

May 19, 2016 Blog, Christian Life Alistair Huong 1 Comment

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(1) Neither Poverty nor Riches: The Christian’s Dilemma with Wealth
Have you ever heard statements like these before?

“No one should ever earn that much money!”

“If only that person were more responsible, they wouldn’t be on welfare.”
“We are living in the end times; Jesus is coming soon. We shouldn’t be saving and
investing for the future. God will provide!”
“It’s sad that so many of our Adventist institutions are in financial trouble. If only
our people were more generous with their giving, we would have means to keep
them open.”
It seems that Christians, Adventists included, often struggle with conflicting
views about money. In a way, we mirror the narrative about wealth in the society
around us. On one hand, wealth is viewed as an almost sure sign of selfishness,
greed, compromise, and a lack of faith, while poverty is nearly a sure sign of
sanctification. Yet, on the other hand, we admire and hope our children aspire to
be successful physicians and professionals—careers which generally come along
with a big paycheck. Indeed, don’t we rejoice with the doxology when deep-
pocketed donors fund our latest church building or evangelism projects? Money
simultaneously carries not only the stigma of a necessary evil, but also the vibe of
something aspirational.

In this six-part series on an Adventist perspective on personal finance,[1] I

believe it is essential that we deal with this underlying tension before we can
have a healthy understanding of the role of money in our lives.

Through the Eye of a Needle

While the frequent lambasting of the “Wall Street fat cats,” the “1%,” and the
“greedy capitalists” in the media certainly plays a part, I believe there are Biblical
reasons which contribute to many a Christian’s negative views on wealth.

After the rich young ruler turned down Jesus’ invitation of a lifetime, Christ said
in Luke 18:24-25, “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom
of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich
man to enter into the kingdom of God.”[2] Surely, riches are an impediment to
salvation, are they not?

Some may argue that the story of Zacchaeus was intentionally juxtaposed in the
immediate next chapter to illustrate how a rich person can indeed gain eternal
life. However, the fact remains that he still gave away half his goods in the
process! Doesn’t it look like wealth is a roadblock to heaven that must be
overcome?
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus appears to shoot down, in rapid succession,
any Christian aspirations for building wealth:

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal” (Matthew 6:19).
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the
other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God
and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).
“And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they
grow; they toil not, neither do they spin” (Matthew 6:28).
“Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink?
or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles
seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things”
(Matthew 6:31-32).
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things
shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).
Add to this the famous passage of 1 Timothy 6:10, which states that “the love of
money is the root of all evil,” and the indictment of rich men given in James 5:1-3,
and it seems the Bible’s denouncement of earthly riches is complete:

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon
you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and
silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall
eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
(James 5:1-3)
With unambiguous Bible verses such as these, it seems that the verdict on wealth
should be settled. Christians should shun wealth and live entirely by faith in
God’s ability to provide for our temporal necessities, right? Why then is there still
cognitive dissonance on this subject?

He Shall Prosper Thee

If this is true, why should any of God’s people remain in their respective
employment? Shouldn’t we forsake our employment and its corresponding
paycheck in order to seek first God’s kingdom and devote all our time and
energies for advancing the gospel? The Bible has something to say about this:

“For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would
not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).
“But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he
hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Timothy 5:8).
Apparently, the way God adds “all these things” unto us isn’t through the
miraculous appearing of ravens, as to Elijah. Rather, He expects us to work!
Moreover, the book of nature also teaches a similar lesson:

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no
guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her
food in the harvest. (Proverbs 6:6-8)
The ants teach us that not only ought we to work to meet our immediate needs,
we ought to save up for a time of future need as well.

In explicit terms, there are even Bible promises where material prosperity can be
viewed as a result of obedience to God’s commands:

“But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to
get wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:18).
“There is treasure to be desired and oil in the dwelling of the wise; but a foolish
man spendeth it up” (Proverbs 21:20).
“And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in
the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord
sware unto thy fathers to give thee. The Lord shall open unto thee his good
treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all
the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt
not borrow” (Deuteronomy 28:11-12).
The Spirit of Prophecy has a succinct thought to add as well:

The followers of Christ are not to despise wealth; they are to look upon wealth as
the Lord’s entrusted talent. (Ellen White, Counsels on Stewardship, p. 113)
So is the Bible contradictory? How can it appear to condemn money so soundly
on one hand, yet admonish believers to work, earn, save, and aspire to prosperity
on the other?

I believe it comes down to two things:

how we define prosperity, and

understanding how God provides.
Redefining Prosperity

The word “prosperous” and its synonyms of “rich” and “wealthy” are notoriously
subjective terms. Ask just about anyone, and these terms will almost certainly
apply to someone else and never to themselves. But press them a little more to
specifically pinpoint the income or net worth at which someone transitions into
the realm of being “wealthy,” and almost no two people will give you the same
answer. So is “prosperity” attained only once we are able to own a new luxury
vehicle? After our home reaches a certain size? Once we can fly on a private jet?

If the Bible encourages prosperity, yet has warnings against excessive wealth, it
seems arriving at a proper definition of this term is quite consequential!

Fortunately, we aren’t left to grope blindly for the answer; the Bible offers us an
elegant definition:

Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me
with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the
Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain. (Proverbs
30:8-9 )
In beautiful simplicity, this passage resolves the conflict on this subject. There
are pitfalls on both sides of the spectrum. Having too much wealth leads us to
complacency and denial of the Lord, while poverty leads to envy and the
temptation to steal. It reminds me of this quote I once read:

“Money doesn’t buy happiness. Neither does poverty.”

In a nutshell, the aspiration of the Christian is simply to have enough. Once we

have enough, we have reached prosperity. Anything extra at that point is bonus
and can be applied to God’s work. So that begs the question:

How much is enough?

A Tool with 3 Functions

Money is a tool that has only three proper functions:

To spend on current needs or wants.

To save for future needs or wants.
To give away.
This is confirmed by Ellen White in Christ’s Object Lessons, page 315 (emphasis
added):

But money is of no more value than sand, only as it is put to use in providing for
the necessities of life, in blessing others, and advancing the cause of Christ.
Here they are again:

1. To spend on current needs or wants. “Providing for the necessities of life” in

the present
2. To save for future needs or wants. “Providing for the necessities of life” in
the future
3. To give away. “Blessing others, and advancing the cause of Christ”
As long as we have adequate means to accomplish these three things, we know
that we have enough.

Getting Practical

It’s simple to understand this principle, but how does this translate into an actual
dollar figure? It’s easy to manufacture needs in our minds, so having an objective
dollar amount is needed to guide us in our financial planning.

The first step anyone should undertake is to track their monthly spending, which
entails knowing where every penny went over the course of each month. This
shows precisely the amount of money it takes to live, and thus becomes the
starting dollar figure from which to evaluate our needs and to formulate our
financial plan. In fact, this is exactly what we’re counseled to do in Adventist
Home, page 374 (emphasis added):
All should learn how to keep accounts. Some neglect this work as nonessential,
but this is wrong. All expenses should be accurately stated.
There are some free, easy-to-use online software programs to help us accomplish
this. Services such as Mint.com and PersonalCapital.com help us easily aggregate
all of our financial accounts (i.e. banks, loans, mortgages, brokerages, credit
cards) to reveal our income, expenses, assets, and liabilities. They do all the
heavy lifting for us, which means we have no excuse!

I can’t underscore this point enough. We have no hope of gaining control of our
finances if we don’t even know how much we are spending regularly. It would be
like trying to cure a disease without diagnosing it. Future articles in this series
will build on this foundation.

How God Provides

We looked earlier at God’s promises that if we seek Him first, He will provide for
all our needs. How does that idea harmonize with everything else we’ve
discussed so far?

In order for us to understand how God provides for all our temporal necessities,
we must first ask, “How do we seek Him first?”

Is it not by taking a plain reading of the Word and then faithfully applying what
He reveals for us to do? Isn’t that what we say to new converts when they are
faced with challenging new truths in the Bible which require application in their
lives? God does indeed promise to supply all our needs if we seek Him first, and
in most cases that means by giving us the capacity to search, understand, and
apply the practical principles laid out in His Word. Let’s not be so heavenly
minded that we are of no earthly good!

God, through the revelation of the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy, has provided
for us principles and instruction for the management of our money, and He also
promises us the capacity and His grace to apply them. Even with our money, faith
without works is dead. And that’s what this series is going to be all about.

Read the rest of the Money Management for End-Time Disciples series!

______

Notes:

[1] This series of articles is adapted from Alistair Huong’s six-part seminar on
personal finance presented at GYC 2015.

[2] Bible texts are from the KJV.

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Tags: Personal Finance, Stewardship, Wealth
About the author

Alistair Huong
Alistair Huong
Alistair Huong and his wife, Deborah, paid off their home in two years, eat for
90% less than average Americans, and lives entirely debt-free. They manage a
frugal lifestyle blog at SavingTheCrumbs.com where they document their
family’s adventures with money. Alistair serves as the executive director of
AudioVerse and resides near Chattanooga, TN, with his wife and baby daughter.