If it doesn't serve you, you serve it (JCL Bible Study 8)

Money, Possessions & Eternity (viii)

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

                       (Mk.10:25)

In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

(Acts 20:35)

Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount”.

(Luke 19:8)

In the Parable of the Sower, some seed falling amongst thorns.  Jesus explains that ‘the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the Word, making it unfruitful’ (Mk.4:19).  It’s a graphic picture of the dangers facing a Christian who has not tamed their relationship with money.  Failure here renders us ‘unfruitful’.  We might wonder whether the perennial spiritual immaturity of the British Church, and her lack of evangelistic effectiveness has its roots here, rather than in any perceived lack of training?  It isn’t clear that Jesus is saying that such aren’t in fact Christians, but it isn’t a healthy state of affairs either way.

Cyprian, one of my favourite Early Church Fathers, who was ordained Bishop of Carthage (N. Africa) in 249, and who led the Church through the ferocious Decian persecution, thundered: ‘The property of the wealthy holds them in chains … which shackle their courage and choke their faith and hamper their judgment and throttle their souls. They think of themselves as owners, whereas it is they rather who are owned: enslaved as they are to their own property, they are not the masters of their money but its slaves’.

This has a very different feel to any version of the ‘Prosperity Gospel’ that is so prevalent within the Church today, but it is much closer to the atmosphere of the Parable of the Sower.  We have re-iterated throughout this series that there is nothing wrong with money per se, and even wealth (though it is possible that there is a level of personal financial worth that could never be justified by Scripture).  The problem lies not with money, but with our relationship with it, our setting our heart on it (Ps.62:10).   This makes the question of our finances one of the more complex areas of discipleship to work through.  There are no easy answers…  no boxes we can tick and then be sure we’ve done all that is required.  Giving to the poor can be every bit as sinful as hoarding wealth to ourselves (Matt.6:1-4).  But when we believe it can give what only God can (its deceitfulness), or when we allow our anxiety about, and caused by money (worries of this life), or the greed it feeds (the desire for other things) to distract us from Jesus, or drown out His call to discipleship, the Word of God loses power to shape us in the Image of Christ (Mk.4:14). 

There has been at least one person for whom the love of money proved to be the deciding feature of their life.  We learn about him in Mark 10:17-31.  He lacked only ‘one thing’.  The only thing keeping him outside of the Kingdom was his love of money.  Jesus’ call for this man to sell what he had and give to the poor (Mk.10:21) is rooted in His love for him.  Jesus longs to liberate this man’s soul from the thorns that choke it.  But it turns out that ‘it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven (Mk.10:25).  It’s ironic really – Jesus is calling him to invest his money where he will get much greater benefit, but tragically he settles for a much lower yield.  Jesus isn’t saying here that every Christian must sell everything and give to the poor.  But equally, we shouldn’t conclude that He never calls a Christian to do so.  What He does command is that we ‘do good, be rich in good deeds, and generous and willing to share.  In this way we will lay up treasure for ourselves as a firm foundation for the coming age’ (see I Tim.6:18-19).  

A generation after Cyprian, one of the Church’s greatest theologians, Basil of Caesarea, taught his congregation that ‘The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry man; the coat hanging in your closet belongs to the man who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the man who has no shoes; the money which you put into the bank belongs to the poor. You do wrong to everyone you could help but fail to help’.  In a world of walk-in wardrobes, such a sermon is likely to be dismissed as extreme, possibly manipulative.  But we ignore it at our peril.  To stand before Christ having stored His money in a closet is not something we will likely thank ourselves for.

Questions

What would you make of a Church that only had one class of people in it (i.e. a ‘working-class’ Church, or a ‘middle-class’ Church)?

How can parents disciple their children in a godly use of, and relationship with money?  How can the Church support that more effectively?

Review your Spending Diary.  What have you discovered about yourself as you have recorded your spending and gifting habits?  How do you feel about the way you use money?  Is there anything you would like to change?  How can your group support you in this?

Read I Tim.6:3-10 & 17-19

Is Paul’s teaching on contentment something we are supposed to apply to all Christians (Phil.4:11-13)?  What is contentment?  Is it incompatible with working to achieve a higher lifestyle?  …or with appreciating that which God richly provides for us to enjoy (I Tim.6:17)?

What kind of temptations and traps are ‘those who want to get rich’ liable to fall into?  What constitutes ‘wanting to get rich’? 

Do you really think that love of and the pursuit of money is as spiritually dangerous as Paul says here (see e.g. I Tim.6:10)?  How should Christians guard themselves against such dangers? 

Do you agree with Basil of Caesarea (see notes above)?  How can you measure whether someone is rich in good deeds?   Why do you think Paul doesn’t give percentage figures on what should be given away?

Who benefits when we are generous and willing to share?  Why do you think we are so reluctant to follow Paul’s advice here?

Memory Passage:

So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.  You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

Rev.3:16-18

Going Deeper:

We have been blessed with more wealth than perhaps any previous generation of Christians.  If you have a net worth of £75,000 you are in the top 10% of the world’s wealthiest people!  If we earned £25,000 for 40 years, we’d have had a cool million passes through our hands over the course of our working life.  It is a vastness of the resource that is simply unimaginable to most Christians throughout history, or throughout the world today.  It makes the question of our relationship with money and possessions one of the most pressing issues of discipleship we face.  And yet we are strangely blind to the vast tracts of Biblical teaching that address it.  Many of us have never systematically studied the Lord’s revealed will on these matters, and still fewer have disciplined themselves to abide by it.  When we stand before the Lord on the Day, we may find that this is our singular greatest point of failure.

Jesus taught us that where our treasure was would be where our heart proved to be also.  This might explain why so few of us have the desire for heaven and the New Creation that has characterised so many of our brothers and sisters throughout the generations of the Church. So much of our treasure is (wrongly?) invested in this age, rather than the age to come.  A wealthy plantation owner invited John Wesley to his home, and after they had ridden for a day over his property they had seen but a fraction of the plantation.  ‘Well Mr. Wesley, what do you think?’.  ‘I think’, Wesley replied, ‘you will find this difficult to leave behind’.  And in the meantime, he may have found it hard to care about the age to come.  And that will have had all kinds of ramifications for how he was able to live as a disciple of Jesus.

Having it all, and losing everything (JCL Bible Study 7)

Money, Possessions & Eternity (vii)

The wealth of the rich is their fortified city; they imagine it a wall too high to scale.

                       (Prov.18:11)

What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

(Matt.16:26)

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.  So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?

(Luke 16:10-11)

One question that has intrigued me as I’ve prepared for this series is: Would Jesus have achieved more if He’d had a bigger budget?   It’s caused me to reflect on how dependent we feel we are on finance, and on what we could be and do, if we could learn not to be constrained by budgetary questions.  That isn’t to suggest we should run up bills ‘in faith’ that God will miraculously provide (though there may be times when that is required).  It is more about re-calibrating our (cultural?) assumptions about how God works, and how Churches work. 

But there are things we will always need to have money available for as a Church.  Interestingly, not so much to pay for ministry, or building development, but to provide for the poor in the life of the Church.  This is tricky territory, and I suspect that having lived in a Welfare State we may struggle to see clearly on this issue.  But it is surprising how much of the Bible is taken up exploring how Christians are financially responsible for each other.  We’ve already briefly considered the question of the Mosaic Law, which mandates the people of God to provide for the impoverished in their midst in ways that are more systemic and sustainable than charity – and that do more to preserve dignity (e.g. Ex.23:11; Lev.19:10; 25:35-43; Deut.15:7-11 etc.).  How such mandates work out in today’s world requires some thought, but the fact that they should is, I think, beyond question.  Certainly the NT Church was shaped by OT legislation.  One set of Laws surround the Festival of Weeks, and embedded in them is provision for the poor (Lev.23:22).  The Festival is more commonly known to us as ‘Pentecost’, and a quick read of the Church’s experience of Pentecost includes the fulfilment of this aspect of it too: ‘All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need’ (Acts 2:44-45).  As we continue to read through Acts, we find this is not a one-off situation.  Acts 4 reiterates this as an ongoing part of the Church’s life: ‘there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need (Acts 4:34-35).  And in Acts 6, there is a dispute about the distribution of such support (vv.1-6). 

And it isn’t limited to the local congregation / region.  The Church clearly has a global perspective from the earliest days.  Paul embeds an awareness of, and an appropriate sense of obligation to, the wider Church as integral to the life of the congregations he establishes.  It is more than a passing comment that the other Apostles not only authenticate his mission to the Gentiles, but instruct him to ‘continue to remember the poor’, the very thing he tells us, he was eager to do (Gal.2:9-11).  This was an integral part of Apostolic Christianity.  Someone like Barnabas, Dorcas or Cornelius are commended because of their gifts to the poor (Acts 4:36-37; 9:36; 10:4 etc.).  But perhaps the most famous and telling example of this is the collection for the Church in Jerusalem (mentioned in Acts 24:17; Rom.15:24-27, where it is considered important enough to postpone a mission trip; I Cor.16:1-4; with the theological underpinning explored at length in II Cor.8-9).  It is also worth remembering how much space is given to the question of hospitality, which in NT days meant not so much having people over for a coffee, as having people live with you when their property was confiscated, or vandalised as a result of persecution, or when the main provider of a family ended up in prison (e.g. Heb.10:33-34).

The Apostles, in this as in every aspect of Church life and teaching, are simply following the mandate given by Jesus (e.g. Matt.6:1-4).  One of the most powerful examples is in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt.25:31-46).  This rich and multi-faceted passage focusses on the Church’s and the Nations’ experience of judgement.  A key issue that will be addressed on that Great and Dreadful day is whether we provided for the suffering Church, and through that ministered to Christ Himself.  This is clearly not a peripheral issue, or an optional extra!

Questions

What is the difference between saving, and ‘storing up treasures on earth’?

When does a Christian need to take out insurance?  In what cases is insurance a godly option, and when might it be sinful?

As you look back on your life as a Christian, how can you see God’s generosity to you? … and His provision for you?

Do you think Churches should engage in fundraising?

Read II Cor.9:6-11

(all of Chap.8-9 would be ideal)

As you read through Chap.8-9, do you feel Paul is being manipulative?  How would you feel if these arguments were used at MIE to encourage giving?

One part of the build-up we can’t ignore is II Cor.8:9. To what extent is Paul expecting us to follow Christ’s example?  Do you think he is teaching that our giving should be so sacrificial that it makes us ‘poor’?

What is it about Christianity that results in all Christians being ‘cheerful givers’?  How would you counsel someone who gives reluctantly, under compulsion, or not at all? 

Do you believe what Paul claims in II Cor.9:8?  How do you explain the experience of Christians who do not have all that they need?

What is the goal of God’s material provision?  Does God’s provision achieve this in you? 

How does it make you feel that other people will worship God and give thanks to Him, because of your generosity?...and that others will pray for you because of your gifts? 

Memory Passage:

…the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”   … The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.   He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”.

…taken from Luke 44:17-21

Going Deeper: 

I can’t underline enough the spiritual nature of financial problems, nor the place of the Church in supporting you and helping you to address those problems at both spiritual and financial levels.   In the UK alone (March 2022), the average personal debt is £33,410 / adult.  Although we can be tempted to despair, there is always hope.  The first step (of confessing debt) is likely the hardest. 

If you talk to us at MIE, we won’t be shocked.  We won’t berate, chastise or humiliate you.  There are a number of likely things we will support you in.  The first is repentance.  The fact of debt may be a sin itself, and there are likely patterns of sin underpinning debt which you will need to deal with and grow out of.  We will help you to stop rationalising your spending habits, and will support you as you seek to change them.  We will pray with you and for you.  We will encourage you to be active in giving.  We will support you as you seek informed financial help and develop a practical strategy for rationalising and eliminating debt.  We will support you as you destroy your credit cards, and to cut out other avenues for getting into debt.  That’s just for starters.  Can you imagine the relief, the joy, the sense of hope that will pervade your life once the reality of debt is in the open and being addressed?  You may need to downsize, lower your lifestyle, and change your thinking in a number of key areas – but how liberating to be free from debt.  It might take years to straighten everything out – but won’t it be worth it.  As we enter a cost-of-living crisis that is unprecedented in living memory, we may be surprised to realise that far more of us that we anticipate need help not just to pay the bills, but to develop the spiritual life and character that allows us to be godly in our dealing with finances in the future.

On being an Errant Knave (JCL Bible Study 6)

Money, Possessions & Eternity (vi)

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

                       (Matt.19:23-24)

And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people.?

(II Cor.8:1-4)

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

(II Cor.8:9)

There is a piece of liturgy that can be used at presentation of our ‘offerings’ in a service.  As the gifts are received, the service-leader announces: ‘All things come from you’, to which the congregation responds: ‘And of your own have we given you’.  It is – like all genuine liturgy should be – rooted in Scripture.  In this case, David’s prayer of praise at the consecrating of the material he has gathered for the building of the Temple.   Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand (I Chron.29:14).

It locks us into a life-changing truth.  Everything we own, all the financial assets we have at our disposal, come from the Lord, and in real terms remain His throughout (Dt.10:14, Job 41:11, Ps.24:1-2, Hag.2:8 etc.).  Christians have historically understood themselves as stewards, rather than as possessors.  This is the basis on which the Lord will judge us in relation to the resources He has put at our disposal.  They remained His throughout.  We handle ‘someone else’s property’ (Lk.16:12), which has been entrusted to us for a purpose.  Were we faithful to that purpose, or did we use what He had given us in an illegitimate way?  Are we trustworthy stewards?  These are the questions that lie behind parables such as the one found in Matt.25:14-30 (The Parable of the Bags of Gold). 

And they are critical questions for us to settle, carrying as they do, eternal significance (see Lk.16:10-11 in this week’s memory passage).  We might think that we would be more honest, or more generous if we had more disposable income, but Jesus’ analysis proves more shrewd.  Our character consistently shapes our behaviour.  If we aren’t generous with a little, we won’t be generous when we have much.  Having more resources at our disposal doesn’t automatically change our character, at least not for the better.  There is a cluster of other questions that arise out of this central one of faithful stewardship (in e.g. Matt.25:14-30): industriousness, wisdom, readiness for the Master’s return, single-mindedness, a pre-occupation with responsibilities rather than rights.  A study on money and possessions quickly takes us into much wider territory, much of which remains unchartered by us.

But not by saints of a bygone age.  John Wesley thought more about his relationship with money and possession than many of us do.  Once, when he was told that his house had burned down, he paused before answering, ‘No, the Lord’s house has burned to the ground.  That means one less responsibility for me’.  Wesley posed four questions to help Christians reflect on their use and expenditure of money:

(i)               In spending this money, am I acting as if I owned it, or am I acting as the Lord’s trustee?

(ii)              What Scripture requires me to spend this money in this way?

(iii)            Can I offer up this purchase as a sacrifice to the Lord>

(iv)            Wil God reward me for this expenditure at the resurrection of the just?

He went on: ‘Can any steward afford to be an errant knave, to waste his Lord’s goods?  Can any servant afford to lay out his master’s money any otherwise than his master appoints him?’.  When we grasp the fact that we are stewards not owners, our perspective radically changes.  Suddenly the question is no longer: How much of my money should I give away?  But rather: How much of the Lord’s money should I keep?  And that is a very different conversation.

Questions

Is it OK for Christian’s to gamble?  … to play the National Lottery?  Would it be appropriate for Churches, or Christian charities to receive National Lottery funding?

Should Christians tithe?  What principles for giving are you aware of from the Scriptures?  Do you see giving as a necessary ‘Spiritual Discipline’ for a Christian?

What would it mean to ‘test’ God in the area of giving (see Mal.3:8-10)?  Do you think it is legitimate to apply this passage to NT Christianity?  If so, what do you think it means for us?

Read Luke 19:11-27

How does this parable answer the idea that the Kingdom of God was going to appear at once (v.11)?  What does it teach us about that Kingdom instead?

In the parable the King tells his servants to put the money he has entrusted to them to work (v.13).  What does this represent in our own experience?  How can we follow the example of the first two servants (vv.15-19)?  If we did follow their example, what difference would that make to our experience of the King’s return?

What is the link between the servant’s unwillingness to do with the money what his master had commanded, and his view of the master (v.20-21)?  What is Jesus teaching us here about how our own financial decisions and what they reveal about our vision of God?  

Why does Jesus include a ‘sub-plot’ about the king’s subjects hating him (v.14)?  What is this teaching us?  How do you feel about the king’s treatment of them on his return (v.27)?  What is Jesus teaching us here?

How would you explain and apply the principle laid out by Jesus in v.26?  How do you feel about it? 

Memory Passage:

I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.  Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.  So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?  And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

Luke 16:9-12

Going Deeper:

We are revisiting the question of debt, which has been almost a sub-series in our Bible Studies for a few weeks.  It might be that our propensity to go into unanticipated debt is a spiritual problem rather than primarily a financial one.  Of course, it isn’t adequate to simply analyse the question of debt.  As Christians we are called to support and help each other as we get out of debt and stay out of debt.  Strange as it may seem to us, our finances aren’t necessarily a personal and private affair, any more than any other aspect of our discipleship.

During this term we will have heard about the work of CAP.  That is one of the most obvious and practical ways we can find the support we need to regain control of our finances.  But we may need help that isn’t simply financial.  Our underlying spiritual susceptibilities and character issues may also need to be addressed directly.  Our theology, or our vision of discipleship may need to be brought more fully into line with the Bible’s teaching.  Even if our debt isn’t ‘out of control’, or at crisis level we need to support one another in our pursuit of holiness.  That is as true in our financial lives as it is in other areas of character, morals and ethics.  Nothing hinders our ability to give like facing debt repayments.  Nothing threatens our capacity to serve than feeling we need to work all hours just to make ends meet.  We can feel crippled and ashamed, unable to be transparent about our life with others.  It creates stress and worry, which will have relational impact; can lead to other patterns of sin (theft and dishonesty); and often leads to a sense of isolation and loneliness, cutting us off from those who love us and would want to help us.  And we do.

On the Dangers of Self-Protection (JCL BIble Study 5)

Money, Possessions & Eternity (v)

Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

                       (Luke 12:33)

Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.

(Eph.4:28)

The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.

(Mark 12:39-41)

One of the most scathing insights we get into the heart of the Pharisee is the simple statement that they loved money (Lk.16:14).  It caused them to ‘sneer’ when Jesus taught that ‘You cannot serve both God and money’, and they remain a standing testimony that the closest you can get is to love money and be very religious.  Which isn’t the same thing.  Fastidious in their Bible Study, and ostentatious in their observation of the religious rules and worship, they were seen as the epitome of morality.  They were also chastised by Jesus as blind guides, hypocrites, and condemned to hell (see Matt.23 for a longer list).   Their religiosity doesn’t stop them exploiting the poor, for which they ‘will be punished most severely’ (Mk.12:40).  Yet, I’m quietly confident that if you had asked an average Pharisee about their relationship with money they would have been equally confident that it was ‘godly’.  They tithed everything, but were ‘full of greed and self-indulgence’ (Matt.23:25); and in retrospect it might not be coincidence that it was after telling the parable of the workers in the vineyard, that Jesus went on to prophecy that ‘the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law’ (Matt.20:1-19).

Or perhaps even closer to home is the example of Judas.  Counted by many as a disciple of Jesus, indeed as one of the disciples, Judas was involved in mission and miracles, heard the teaching of Jesus, shared life with Him, and in the end, he betrayed Him.  There have been many theories as to why, including the idea that he simply misjudged the politics of Jesus.  Scholars have invented ‘backstories’ that paint Judas a nationalist, a zealot, someone who simply loved his homeland and hated the Roman occupiers.  Perhaps that was why he sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver?  The Spirit has a much more mundane analysis: ‘he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it’ (Jn.12:6).  It was after a dispute about money that Judas decided to betray Jesus (Matt.26:6-16).  Likely with this incident in mind, Evagrios the Solitary, a key, if somewhat controversial theologian of the 4th Century, warned that the desire for wealth to give to the poor was ‘another trick of the evil one’.

All of which is to warn us of the dangers of simply assuming that as Christians, so long as we are (mostly) honest in our financial dealings, don’t steal from work and give (tithe even?) we are in the clear.  We have a tendency to minimize the radical nature of Jesus’ teaching, domesticating it so that it becomes manageable.  But it is more dangerous we anticipate.  One Financial Educator goes so far as to say: ‘There is no middle ground between the lifestyle that Christ Jesus described for his disciples, and the generally accepted norms of capitalism and the consumer society’ (Evans 31).  Whilst there is nothing more inherently evil about Capitalism as over against any other economic system (indeed it is may be better than some others), the consumerism it has contributed to creating lures us into greed, discontent, indifference, and (self-)deceit.  It remains a stubborn fact that Jesus never put anything in direct opposition to God in the terms he reserved for the power and love of money.  And we are naïve if we don’t think we are susceptible to it, straying further from Jesus’ teaching than we anticipate.

We are now over half way through our series, and it is entirely possible that we have spent the last few weeks ‘protecting’ ourselves, and justifying the decisions we have made around money.  Also from the 4th Century, Chrysostom wrote: …a dreadful thing is the love of money, it disables both eyes and ears … allowing a man to consider neither conscience, nor friendship, nor fellowship, nor the salvation of his own soul … and the dreadful part of so bitter a slavery is that it persuades them to be grateful for it’.

Questions

Do you agree with Evan’s contention that the generally accepted norms of a consumer society are incompatible with the lifestyle Jesus calls His followers to?  Why / why not? 

Can you come up with a way of diagnosing whether someone loved money rather than God? 

When is advertising legitimate, and when does it become something Christians should be wary of?  Does advertising create discontent and desire, or does it simply aggravate discontent and desire that already exists?

Read Luke 16:19-31

There is a debate about whether this is a parable or a description of actual events.  If it is a parable, it is the only one in which someone is named. 

How does this passage connect with what Jesus taught earlier in Luke 16(:1-15)? 

What sin does the rich man actually commit in Luke 16:19-31?

What do you think Jesus is teaching about salvation through this passage? 

How do you respond to the picture of division and destiny in this passage?  How do these experiences relate to eternity?  How do you feel about the fact that those in paradise are fully aware of & able to communicate with those in Hades?

How does their post-mortem experience relate to their experience of life before death?

How does this rich man’s experience compare with e.g. Zacchaeus (Lk.19:1-10)? 

What priority should we put on making Scripture available and accessible in the light of Luke 19:29-31?  Do you agree with Abraham that if people don’t listen Moses and the prophets, they won’t be convinced even if someone rises from the dead?

Memory Passage:

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Matt.6:2-4

Going Deeper:

Christians often struggle with the idea of rewards.  But if you think it undermines the idea of ‘grace’, you might have to re-consider your understanding of grace. The idea of rewards is a regular feature in the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles, as is the idea that our experience of the New Creation will not be one of equivalence.  We will be rewarded according to what we have done (Matt.16:27, Rom.2:6); repaid at the resurrection for showing compassion to the needy (Lk.14:12-14); rewarded greatly if we persevere under persecution (Lk.6:23), and for loving our enemies and doing good to them (Lk.6:35); the list goes on…

The idea that a truly ‘good’ act is one that is free from the motivation of reward is not a Christian one, but a secular ethic proposed by a philosopher called Kant, who was drawing on the ancient Greek Stoics.  Likewise, it is a false, and unbiblical humility that scorns the idea of being motivated by reward.  The Apostle Paul has no such qualms, but affirmed freely and frequently that he was motivated by the idea of reward (see e.g. I Cor.9:24, 5:9-10, II Tim.4:7-8), and encouraged us also to be so motivated (Gal.6:9-10, Eph.6:8, I Tim.6:17-19).   It’s is a differentiated experience (Lk.19:17-19, I Cor.3:12-15), not the same for all Christians; and John at least anticipates that some will be ashamed at Christ’s coming (I Jn.2:28).  Rewards can be lost or taken from us (Matt.25:28-29, II John 8).

It is interesting to note how much of this kind of teaching connects in Scripture with teaching about our relationship with money, possessions and eternity.  We are not to think that obedience to Christ in these matters will lead to loss.  We are not being called to make sacrifice.  Only to re-invest to our eternal benefit.  And that’s not an insignificant change in perspective!

I am not what I own (JCL Bible Study 4)

Money, Possessions & Eternity (iv)

Do not wear yourself out to get rich; do not trust your own cleverness. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.

                       (Prov.23:4-5)

The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.  The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous.  They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb. By them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward.”

(Ps.19:9-11)

Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her.…

(Prov.8:10-11)

This is the power of money: it gives us opportunities we wouldn’t otherwise have to demonstrate who we think we are and what is genuinely important to us.  It does so in empirically observable ways (in numbers and transactions) that provide a paper trail to our sense of identity and values.  This may be why the question of money causes such anxiety, and why it is that we are so reluctant to speak about it, even with others in our family, or in our Church, or even with our closest friends.   Few things will take us to the heart of who we are more quickly than our bank statement.  Or at least, nothing will take us to the heart of who we (would like to) think we are more quickly than our bank statement.

A recurring theme in this series will be that we cannot think through the question of money in isolation.  Our finances are spiritual, and a financial problem is never just a financial problem.  It will also be a spiritual problem.  We need to recognise that everything we do – whether it involves finance or not – is about worship.  We considered in a previous study the question of idolatry, and the dangers of using money as a form of self-worship.  Why do some use their money to acquire all the cultural markers of ‘having made it’?  Why are some people so vocal about what they give to charity?  Why are some people never able to stay out of debt?  Why are some crippled with worry about money?  …while others barely give it a second thought?  Why are some people so compulsive about saving? …or only spending in certain ways?  Because how we think about, and use, money is the expression of who we think we are, and what we believe life is really about… about what it means to live well.  It’s about where we find our security and sense of purpose.

Tripp, in Redeeming Money, helpfully identifies four categories in which we should be thinking about who we are: creature, sinner, sufferer, saint. 

As creatures we are God’s idea, existing for His purpose and commissioned to do His will.  This is the foundation of surrender… surrender of money itself, our understanding of money and its use to the wisdom of God.  In this context, the very phrase, ‘financial independence’ comes close to blasphemy!  As sinners, we need more than education.  We need grace, in the form of mercy for past failure, and empowering for future transformation.  In the meantime, we tend to moral confusion, bad things look good and ugly things look beautiful (and vice versa).  The impurity, rebellion and inability within us means we desire and do in ways that are contrary to the beauty of holiness.  That will be the case in how we view and use money, and what we try and make it achieve.  It is well to be aware of that.  As sufferers we are tempted to cynicism in our relationship with God, to doubt God’s promises and presence.  If we succumb to that temptation then we will likely see money as the peace, comfort, meaning and provision.  We will try and use money to provide what we no longer trust God for.  As saints (those set apart for God) we sometimes give into temptation, sometimes lose our way, sometimes make bad decisions… sometimes deliberately!  But it also means that God is with us in our struggles – no less in our struggle with money than in any other.  It also means we are being slowly re-oriented to realise life is about His glory, not our comfort, pleasure or satisfaction (though in His goodness the two dynamics are deeply inter-linked).  Being a saint allows for honest examination, forgiveness for sin, and hope for the future.

It’s worth asking ourselves, which of these categories are shaping our relationship with money…  and how.

Questions

How should Christians make decisions about retirement plans and pensions?  What are the issues we need to take into consideration?

What are the principles a Christian should bear in mind when writing their will?  To whom should we leave God’s money?  How does the Bible’s teaching about inheritance shape how we approach subjects such as these?

How should we make decisions about which Churches / organisations to give to, both in life and in death (as we leave a legacy)?

Read Luke 12:13-21

What can you tell about the person asking the question in v.13?  How does his question connect with what Jesus has been teaching about?  Do you think he would have described himself as ‘greedy’ (v.15)?

How can you guard yourself against ‘all kinds of greed’?  What are different kinds of greed?  Why is it so critically important that we guard against it in any form (see e.g. Eph.5:5)?

Given how important the issue of money is in the teaching of Jesus, why do you think he refuses to be brought into this dispute about inheritance?   What do we learn from this?

Why is the man in the parable declared to be a ‘fool’?  What is a ‘fool’?  What would wisdom have looked like for the man? 

Why does the ground in the parable yield an abundant harvest?  What obligation was the man under? 

Which of the categories listed in the notes above is the man operating in? 

What does it mean for someone ‘to be rich towards God’?  What would characterise their relationship with, and their use of, money?

Memory Passage:

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!  No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Matt.6:22-24

Going Deeper:

Last week we said we would look at a number of questions about our propensity to take on debt as part of a lifestyle.  It is important to realise that we’re not necessarily talking here about debt that's used to pay for something that has long-term value and increases your net worth (e.g. a home), or that helps you generate legitimate income (e.g. business loan).  There are questions there too, but we’re raising questions about the debt we fall into rather than plan for. 

Some of those questions are simply financial ones, such as ensuring we will have the resources to pay off such debt in good time (Rom.13:8), and seeking to anticipate whether I will have other additional demands that prevent me doing so.  But others are more ‘spiritual’, around the ‘why’ of debt in the first place.  Sometimes the issue is as base as lack of self-control, or patience (Gal.5:22-23, Col.3:12).  Some patterns of impulse buying may belie a lack of such spiritual fruit in our character.  Sometimes it might betray a lack of contentedness (Phil.4:11-12), which again points to a lack of spiritual maturity.  Other times it might expose greed, or jealousy, or a lack of discernment.  In such instances the problem isn’t primarily financial.  It won’t be solved by drawing up a better budget.  The issues are spiritual, and need to be tackled as such (though better budgeting might be needed too!).

One author suggests that there are four sinful assumptions in a ‘debt-mentality’:  We need more that God has given us; God has failed to provide for our needs, forcing us to take matters into our own hands; if God doesn’t come through the way we think he should we can find another way; presumption about the future.  We’ll revisit this in a couple of weeks...

Money is spiritual (JCL Bible Study 3)

Money, Possessions & Eternity (iii)

Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor will also cry out and not be answered.

                       (Prov.21:13)

The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.

(Prov.29:7)

This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom, or the strong boast of their strength, or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.

(Jer.9:23-24)

We cannot think of righteousness without considering its financial dimensions.  But it is far more complex than simply the question of my personal budget.  We can easily reduce the question of sin to ‘personal’ and ‘private’ categories.  There are important questions about what our spending decisions and habits reveal about what we value.  And of course, we should be thinking through (prayerfully and in the light of Scripture) how our discipleship affects how we dispose of the material resources we have direct control over.  As we have reflected on the Law, Wisdom, and now the Prophets, it has become apparent that God’s agenda is much broader than our personal finances.  It reaches to societal, and inter-societal levels.  And our failure to engage at this level by all accounts hinders our relationship with God.

But there are massive, macro-economic systems that we are part of as well.  We live in a consumer culture, supported and sustained by a capitalist structure, and shaped by market forces that are mystifyingly complex to most of us.  This is true whatever our personal political convictions.  We are embedded in processes of manufacture and production over which we have little direct control.  And yet, even if we aren’t always sure how, we have more than a vague awareness that many of those structures (all of them?) are systemically unjust.  Inevitably this is linked to maximising profit, often at human cost.  

How do we engage with such questions when the God we worship is clearly committed to justice and righteousness, and calls us to be so as well?  We are stepping onto a minefield replete with political, philosophical and economic assumptions, misinformation, and perspectives that are likely to be very different depending on how much disposable income we feel we have.  Money brings the ability to make different choices to what may be an option for those locked in a cycle of poverty.  Ideas about ‘ethical’ consumer attitudes and purchasing patterns can seem self-evident necessities to some Christians, and a luxury beyond the reach of others.  Spiritualised virtue signalling is never an authentic Christian response.

And yet the fact of God’s commitment to, and His call for us to be committed to, justice, and actively opposed to injustice, remains a gloriously stubborn fact of Scripture.  As such it needs to be navigated by us all to the extent we are culpable, rather than to the extent that we aren’t.  Insofar as we are able, we should be aware of and sensitive to the structures of injustice and exploitation that mar our world.  And yet something far more than awareness is called for.  And likely something far more radical than advocacy, protest, prophetic ‘speaking to power’, boycotts or even some form of direct action.

Some Christians are undoubtedly called to be involved in politics and should use their positions of power to good effect.  Some are called to business and should develop their business model along radically different lines, rejecting the assumptions that the goal of business is to maximise profit, and that any type of transaction is acceptable so long as it is legal.  As an old Puritan once preached: ‘[W]hen we come to buying and selling, we come to witness our love towards our neighbour by our well dealing with him in his goods’. 

Indeed, I find myself increasingly wondering if such Christians as can run their own business and service provision ought to.  Not only does this give Christians ethical options, not only is it functioning as salt and light in the business community, but it may even provide employment for Christians at something above zero-hours contracts and/or minimum wage.  This in turn allows Christians to have the level of income that enables them to make different choices about their own giving and spending habits.  This allows the Church to not only protest injustice in the world, but model justice to the world.

Questions

What is money for? 

How do you decide where you will shop?  …and if it applies, how do you decide where to invest?  How do you decide where to give?

Josef Tson (a Romanian pastor in the days of Ceaușescu) once wrote: ‘In my experience, 95% of believers who face the test of persecution pass it, while 95% of those who face the test of prosperity fail it’.  Do you agree?   Why do you think so many fail the test of prosperity?  …and what would that look like?

Read Is.58:1-14

What is a Christian view of ‘justice’?  How is it different from the secular view peddled by our culture?

What is the sin and rebellion of the people?  How does that affect their spiritual experience of God?  What do you think is the connection?

It seems like ‘fasting’ is a lifestyle.  It isn’t something that we do for ‘a day’, or something that can be contained in ‘religious’ categories.  What are the components of fasting as God desires it? 

Do you think these are optional extras for some Christians, or are they intrinsic and necessary parts of Christian faith?  Can you explain your answer?  Are there passages from the Bible you can draw on to back up your thinking?

Can you identify in your own discipleship how each of those components find expression, either directly or indirectly? 

Towards the end of the Chapter, the Lord suddenly introduces the ‘Sabbath’.  What is the connection between Sabbath, and the social / political issues that precede this section?

Do you think ‘keeping the Sabbath (Lord’s Day)’ has the same sense of urgency as other aspects of God’s call on His people in this passage?  Do you feel under obligation to honour the Sabbath?  How?

Memory Passage:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matt.6:19-21

Going Deeper: 

The question of debt is a complicated one to navigate.  In part because there are different kinds of debt.  Student loans, mortgages, and the like, where considered decisions are made and the sums have been done, is very different from uncontrolled and unplanned credit card debt, for example.  There has been a significant cultural shift over the last few decades, where ‘debt’ has moved from being an earned privilege for a few, to an inalienable right for all.  In part at least, this has been because of a growing industry that profits from our being in debt (or ‘credit’, as it is often now called). 

Scripture is generally cautious about taking on debt, and warns against making yourself so vulnerable (Prov.22:26-27), and co-signing for someone else’s loan is expressly forbidden, exposing character faults (Prov.17:18).  There is strict guidance about both lending and borrowing, and the Lord delights in those who are generous in their dealings with money (Ps.112:5).  Those who lend should always reckon on the possibility of cancelling a debt (Matt.18:32-33), and of course, the mechanism for cancelling debt was built into the life of the ancient Church (Deut.15:1-10).  There were different ‘rules’ in terms of dealing with those who were Christians and those who weren’t.  For much of the Church’s history this teaching has been held to, and any sense of exploiting the poor, or benefitting financially from their plight has been roundly condemned.

There are some significant questions about our contemporary propensity to take on debt as part of a lifestyle, and the extent to which we share our culture’s assumptions about debt. We’ll take a look at some of those questions in next week’s ‘Growing Deeper’ section.

The Bible on Poverty and Wealth (JCL Bible Study 2)

Money, Possessions & Eternity (ii)

The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor.

                       (Prov.22:9)

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.

(Prov.24:33-34)

Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.  This too is meaningless.  As goods increase, so do those who consume them.  And what benefit are they to the owners except to feast their eyes on them?

(Eccl.5:10-11)

Whether we are rich or poor, or see ourselves as somewhere in between, our relationship with money and possessions will present a raft of temptations.  We often think of money-related temptations as associated with those who have it.  But the Bible isn’t so naïve.  The temptations facing those who don’t have money are different from those who do.  But both are real, and the Bible speaks to them with equal seriousness.  We may wish we had to negotiate the temptations that came with wealth (as Woody Allen once quipped: I only want the opportunity to prove that money doesn’t buy happiness!); but as in everything, it is better to trust the wisdom and providence of God to order the circumstances of our life to best fit our deepest spiritual needs. 

Which isn’t fatalism! The Bible has nothing to say against honest and ethical wealth creation.  In fact, it can be a good thing, and as a result Christianity has an impulse towards it.  There is nothing virtuous per se about poverty, which is why asceticism is not an adequate Christian response to the question of money and possessions (…poverty is the ruin of the poor, Prov.10:15).    We do well to remember that the Bible often links poverty to righteousness not because poverty is righteous, but because the righteous are often persecuted, and thus impoverished.  In many parts of the world, and I suspect this will increasingly be the case in Britain, we see certain opportunities in education and employment closed to those who follow Christ.

But neither is there any virtue per se in being wealthy.  There is a misconception that in the Bible (or at least in the OT) wealth was a sign of being blessed by God.  The reality of the Bible’s teaching is far more sophisticated.  Sometimes wealth and ‘high’ positions of influence are granted to Christians (think of Joseph in Egypt – at least in his latter years!).  In such situations faithfulness to God leads people into the corridors of power and sometimes with that, wealth.  But at other times faithfulness to God and identifying with the people of God leads people out of those corridors and into marginalisation and poverty (think of Moses at the other end of the Church’s sojourn in Egypt).

As we read through the wisdom of Proverbs we find that there are those who are poor because they are sinful (e.g. Prov.6:11, 11:24, 23:21, 28:19 etc.); there are those who are poor and righteous (e.g. Ruth, Prov.19:1, 22:7, 28:6 etc.); and there are those who are poor through no fault of their own – they are oppressed, and the structures of injustice are against them (13:23, 18:23, 28:3).  Similarly, there are those who are wealthy because they are sinful (14:31, 18:11, 22:16, 28:6 etc.), and those who are wealthy and righteous, diligent and generous (8:18, 10:4, 11:24, 21:5 etc.).  The relationship between a person’s financial standing, and their standing before God is more complex than often assumed, and we can’t judge someone’s relationship with God by the dealings of Providence (i.e. by the circumstances of their life).  That includes their wealth or otherwise.  For some, wealth might be a blessing, for others it is a curse, and sign of impending judgement.  For some poverty might be a blessing, for others it is a consequence of sin and curse.  But the rich and the poor have this in common: The LORD is the maker of them all (Prov.22:2). 

A few weeks ago at DTP we asked: How does God answer the petition in the Lord’s Prayer: Give us this day our daily bread?  We considered a number of ways, including though our vocation.  God calls us to work, and through our work we are able to buy the food we need.  Ancient wisdom teaches us to pursue righteousness, which includes diligence in our work and preparation for future provision.  But this in the context of a contentedness and confidence in the provision of God.  As we saw last week, our capacity to produce wealth is a God-given gift.  It isn’t exercised in a way that is divorced from His provision, and as such, we rest in His orchestrating the outcome of our efforts.

Questions

Is this the sort of thing we should be preaching on in Church?  …Is the question of what we do with our money best left to personal consideration?

In the light of last week’s Memory Passage, do you think the Church should financially cover the debts of its members?   Why / why not?   What help should we expect from our Church when it comes to the question of our finances?

For the duration of this series, keep a ‘Spending Diary’, in which you record every purchase, or gift, you make in the next 6 weeks.  What financial habits do you think this exercise will reveal?

Read Prov.30:1-9

What temptations – don’t feel limited by these handful of verses – confront the rich?  … and the poor?  How as a Church can we support both those who are more rich and those who are more poor in their pursuit of righteousness?

We explored one way in which God might answer the prayer for ‘daily bread’ in our notes.  What other ways are there?  How does this tie into Jesus’ use of this phrase in the Lord’s Prayer?  

Why does wealth lead us into the temptation to ‘disown’ God?  How would you recognise a Christian who had done this?  What does our susceptibility to this temptation reveal about us?

Why does Agur celebrate the superiority of God’s wisdom (vv.2-3) and power (v.4), know-ability through Christ (v.4), and the trustworthiness of God’s word (vv.5-6) before praying for truthfulness (v.8) and moderation in financial income (vv.8-9)?

How much is ‘too much’? … and how could we make sure that we do not exceed that ‘spiritual safety limit’?  What might make it difficult to stay within those limits?

Memory Passage:

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matt.6:31-34

Going Deeper:

When John D. Rockerfeller – reputedly one of the wealthiest people who has ever lived – died, his accountant was asked: ‘How much did John D. leave?’.  The accountant’s answer: ‘All of it’.  It is a common aphorism that ‘you can’t take it with you when you die’.  It’s a wry observation that when Howard Carter discovered King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, all the treasures he had buried with him to take to the afterlife, were still there.  ‘They will take nothing with them when they die, their splendour will not descend with them.  Though while they live they count themselves blessed — and people praise you when you prosper — they will join those who have gone before them, who will never again see the light of life.  People who have wealth but lack understanding are like the beasts that perish’ (Ps.49:17-20).

But there is a sense in which we can invest our financial resources such that we enjoy the return in the age to come.  Or, as Jesus puts it: ‘…store up for yourselves treasures in heaven’ (Matt.6:20, see also I Tim.6:18-19).  The Bible’s perspective is not that long-term financial planning is a bad thing (Prov.6:6-11), but rather that we don’t think long-term enough.  We invest for retirement, but for nothing beyond that!  That is the tragedy of those who ‘have wealth, but lack understanding’.  To have been given a resource of such power, and to have wasted it by excessive investing in this passing age, rather than in the age to come, is a sign of devastating financial and spiritual folly.  In a counter-intuitive development of Biblical thought, it turns out that we are the ultimate beneficiaries of our generosity (so Matt.19:21, Phil.4:17).  God’s glory, other’s benefit and our good converge in our giving.   Such is the wisdom of God.

Deut.8 (JCL Bible Study 1)

Money, Possessions & Eternity (i)

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit … They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.

                       (Acts 2:4 & 45)

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

(Heb.13:5)

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money … lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God - having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. …

(…taken from II Tim.3:1-5)

The Church’s relationship with money and possessions has always been a key issue in discipleship.  As we read through the ancient Law of God there is so much that is designed to keep that relationship boundaried so that money remains our servant, rather than becoming our master (Matt.6:24). The structures of Jubilee; Sabbath; laws relativizing ownership, and against interest and even covetousness; taxes; tithes; offerings; laws concerning inheritance, property, generosity and justice for the poor, honesty in business dealings; promises of blessing and curse…  all these and more are bound up with the questions of worship.  We cannot disentangle the question of our having possessions from the question of our being a possession: ‘For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession’ (Deut.7:6).  We will see how many of these Laws find their fulfilment and expression in the ministry of Christ and in the experience of the NT Church as we go through this series.

Before the people of God have even entered the Promised Land (which is abundant with natural resources, and therefore with the potential for wealth creation) the Lord is addressing the dangers of our relationship with money, and its potential for good and evil.  There are marked contrasts with the economic structures of the kingdoms and nations around them.  And those contrasts are rooted in a fundamental distinctive about how the Church is to view the financial and material resources at its disposal: Everything we possess is first the possession of God and comes to us as a gift from Him, to be used in accordance with His purposes and priorities. 

Money, and the ‘power’ it brings in its wake, is not about us fulfilling our dreams and desires, our plans and purposes.  It, like all of life, is about God’s dreams and desires, His plans and purposes.  All our interaction with money starts here.  Or at least it should do.  Tragically, we tend to idolatry.  That could result in our turning money from a tool into an idol, from a servant to a master.  When that happens, we begin to use money, or rather to abuse and misuse money, to do for us what only God can do.  We seek our purpose and satisfaction, or dignity and status, our identity and our security in it.  And when we turn money into an idol, we end up serving it, or rather becoming enslaved by it.  And don’t make the mistake of thinking that only the rich are idolising money.  Those who are poor, (and those who think of themselves as ‘poor’, or at least as not having enough), and who resent it, or who believe that if they had ‘more’ they would be happy, or fulfilled, are every bit as idolatrous as those who have learned they wouldn’t be.

But another way – perhaps more insidiously common – is that we turn ourselves into an idol.  That is when we seek to make money serve us.  We assume this money is ‘ours’; and that its purpose is to satisfy my cravings, and to enable me to realise my own ambitions.  Ironically, when we try and make money serve us like this, we also end up serving it – for now we need it, or we risk remaining unfulfilled.  And again, this irrespective of how much we have. 

But when we seek first the Kingdom of God, and when we bring our resources – financial and otherwise to the service of this great and glorious agenda, we find a freedom in our dealing with money and a contentment in our relationship with ‘stuff’, that liberates us from the insatiable craving for more. 

We cannot consider the question of money without putting it in the context of our wider question of our discipleship, and worship.  This isn’t simply a question of considering the Lord and His purposes as more important than our own.  It is a question of using our resources as He has commanded.  That is what we pray the Holy Spirit may achieve in us through this series. 

Questions

How does the prospect of spending the next few weeks studying the issue of money and possessions make you feel?  Are you excited?  …fearful?  …curious?  …anxious?  Can you explain your answer(s)?

How much time have you previously given to considering your relationship with money and with what you ‘own’?   Do you think of your finances as a ‘spiritual’ issue, as something connected with your faith?

Why do you think we are so defensive about our attitude to, and relationship with, money?   What does our use of money reveal about us?

Is this a series we should be engaging with as the ‘Cost of Living’ crisis deepens?  …or would it be better to wait until we are in economically more stable times?

Read Deut.8:1-20

Why does prosperity lead to pride?  Why does enjoying God’s blessing risk our forgetting the God who has blessed us?

How does God in this passage seek to protect the Church against such pride?  How would this work for us today?

Why does God give us the ability to produce wealth (v.18) when it has the potential to be so spiritually dangerous?   Would it not be easier for Christians to be systemically ‘poor’?

How does a passage such as this (and later in passages such as Deut.28:1-14) not lead us into some version of the ‘prosperity Gospel’, where God’s blessing is understood in ‘health and wealth’ terms?   Does God want Christians to be rich?

How does living in a secular, materialistic culture challenge our ability to heed the warnings of this chapter?  How can we support each other as a Church to ‘remember the Lord your God’ in our financial dealings?

Memory Passage:

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.  With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

Acts 4:32-35

Going Deeper:

We may be expecting a series on money to start with a terrifying list of statistics and studies outlining the realities of personal debt.  These are easily found: The average household debt (excl. mortgages) in the East of England is currently £18,952.00 (as of Summer 2022), and this region has the highest level of debt, per household, surveyed in England.  48% of these debts relate to ‘Priority Debts’ - rent, council tax and utilities.  The average peak repayment terms in years has been calculated as 28 years.  Nationwide research revealed that 47% of those in debt sacrificed meals; 46% couldn't afford basic food; 45% went without heating; 24% couldn't afford to light their home; 46% couldn't afford toiletries and 61% couldn't afford weather appropriate clothing for themselves or their family.  36% said they had considered or attempted suicide as a way out of debt.

And yet, dare we believe that the most serious financial problem we face is that of worship.  ‘The first step in money sanity is surrendering to the glory of one greater than you’ (Tripp, 15).  Our problem is not budgeting, though we may need help to understand financial skills, and to change habits of spending.  Our problem is that we have forgotten who we are, and indeed, who God is.  Chaotic, uncontrolled spending; impulse buying; comfort shopping; and debt are the symptoms of this deeper spiritual illness. Only in the Gospel and in the Community of the Gospel (the Church) will we find the restoration we need.  And that is not some ‘spiritualising away’ of the problems.  It is to recognise that our financial problems are spiritual problems.  There is no divide between sacred and secular – either in the problem, or in its solution.