JESUS and MONEY

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?…You cannot serve God and money.

Jesus of Nazareth

We continue the Reflection began three weeks ago, looking at the day Jesus confronted the Pharisees about their love of money that is recorded in Luke 14:1-17:10. The passage above, which we reflected on in detail last weekend, is central to understanding everything that Jesus taught that day.

Jesus accused those Pharisees of exalting what is an abomination to God: that is, their unrighteous mammon. Although they purported to love and serve God, they loved and accumulated material wealth – treasures on earth, not treasures in heaven. Unfortunately, a 'Christian' theology was evolved that seeks to justify the same sort of belief and behaviour today.

The meaning of the verb 'to prosper' has changed with the growth of the consumer society. It used to mean to be successful or to do well and that's the sense when it is used in the Bible. It probably derived from the idea of doing well on a trading expedition. But in the past 50 years or so has ‘to prosper’ has come to mean being rich.

John wrote, ‘Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.’ (3 John 1:2) That accurately conveys John's meaning but older translations of the Bible say, ‘I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper…even as thy soul prospereth’. But to put a modern meaning on a translation from the past, and to conclude that God wants us to be rich, is misleading.

Having said that, I want to assert that Christians don't serve a mean or miserly God and that God wants his people to do well. Even the traditional vow of poverty taken by 'spiritual' people was only to give up personal possessions and disproportionate luxury: they don’t take a vow of destitution and expect to starve! Generations of Christians have trusted God to look after them without expecting to be materially wealthy!

There are promises of having an abundance of material blessings in the Bible but they are directed to communities, not to individuals, and the wealth the people enjoyed was to be worked, not hoarded. Deuteronomy 28 is a good example of this, where God sets out comprehensively both the physical and material blessings that God has for his people who obey him and the trials and hardship that will come upon them if they disobey.

A passage in the prophecy of Malachi goes further and invites people to 'test' God on the issue. The prophet criticised people for leaving the Temple unfinished while fashioning nice homes for themselves and passed on to them God’s challenge: ‘"And thereby put me to the test", says the Lord of hosts, "if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need."’ I think this is the only place in the Bible where God invites people to test him but we have to treat the promise carefully.

In light of all this, I think it worth digressing briefly to say that generous giving does not necessarily indicate a spiritually alive church or faithful church members. It is the case, however, that poor giving does indicate a problem. Some Christians may not give generously because they are not sufficiently committed to God or do not value their church fellowship as they ought. Others may be handling their money badly, giving only a little because they are over-committed in buying lifestyle accessories or paying interest on redundant credit they cannot afford to clear. Others may genuinely be poor: not poor relative to the others in their fellowship but objectively poor and unable to pay for everything they and their family need to function in modern society where almost everything has a price tag. None of these problems should be ignored! Some of the Christians need help in rethinking their relationship with their Lord; some need to curb their desires and learn how to budget; some need practical help and be given the opportunity to be able to share in the good things their neighbours take for granted (see, for example, Acts 4:32-34).

But generous Christians are not necessarily spiritually sound Christians. Some of them may have bought into the belief that God will reward their giving exponentially with material wealth and give from what is essentially a selfish motive. Some may be trying to mitigate their guilt for a secret sin, like pornography or adultery. Some might be trying to raise their status or 'buy' influence within the church. Others may appear generous only by comparison with the rest of the fellowship and could easily give significantly more than they do. I'm not suggesting that we should be suspicious of generous Christians, only that we don't make the same mistake as the rest of the society by reading too much into the wealth and perceived generosity.

When Jesus likened the Pharisees who confronted him to men who divorce their wives to marry their mistresses, he hadn’t changed the subject. To think that he decided to insert some teaching about marriage into the discussion of money is to to miss his point entirely.

The Hebrew word for adultery and fornication is used about 100 times in the Old Testament but in over half the passages it refers to spiritual, not sexual, sin. Often, this spiritual adultery had a financial motive. Read Psalm 72. The King James (or Authorised) Version of verse 27 has ‘all them that go a whoring from thee’ but it has nothing to do with sex because the entire Psalm is about people who prosper in spite of their wickedness.

Jeremiah had previously used the metaphor of adultery to expresses God’s astonishment at Israel’s greed (see Jeremiah 2-3). James was later to use it in his letter, calling his readers an ‘adulterous people’ as he dealt with the disloyalty, divisions and discord in churches caused by financial sin.

This way of thinking about disloyalty to God is the consequence of the image of believers as being married to God. This relationship was implied in the Old Testament but is clear in the New Testament, where the church is described as the bride of Christ. The use of such a strong metaphor as adultery is why Jesus said, ‘You cannot serve both God and mammon’. And yet if we see financial riches as a blessing that God wishes for all his people or as a reward for faithfulness, we may well be guilt by making the same mistake as the Pharisees and exalt what God sees as an abomination!

Not all the Pharisees who Jesus met were pious hypocrites, trying the fleece the people of God. Some were devout and sincere but mistaken. It should be a warning to all of us not to blindly accept the standards of behaviour in society or in our local church, not to be complacent about our own giving or our generosity.
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http://www.kt.org/rss/mp3/kt_2568_201405131413.mp3

Can I encourage you to follow this link and listen to a sermon preached by Dr Kendall at Kensington Temple in London last month about the last days revival he expects. Dr Kendall was my pastor during the five years I attended Westminster Chapel in London, although I had been learning from him for 20 years before that and have continued to since he retired in 2002; he is the minister who has most influenced my theology and thinking. The link should take you straight to the MP3 recording of the sermon or you can watch the video on Kensington Temple’s media page.

© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.

Please feel free to copy, print and share these Reflections on a non-profit basis.

JESUS and MONEY

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?…You cannot serve God and money.

Jesus of Nazareth

I continue the theme from last weekend, reflecting on the day Jesus confronted the Pharisees over their love of money that’s recorded in Luke 14:1-17:10. After criticising the Pharisees' elitism, Jesus explained that his own disciples needed to put his mission ahead of their own families and to take up their own crosses. We know from what he said on other occasions, and from the apostles’ letters preserved for us in the New Testament, that Jesus wasn’t suggesting that Christians neglect their families. He was only setting priorities. As he put it in the Sermon on the Mount: ‘seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness’

Jesus illustrated his own commitment with parables about a man planning to build a tower and a king contemplating war. ‘So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.’ He then repeated an illustration from the Sermon on the Mount, likening his followers to salt.

The level of commitment Jesus described requires his followers to renounce their own preferred lifestyles, setting aside their own agendas and adopting his. Only by doing that, could they truly be Jesus’ disciples and expect to fulfil the function of salt in the world: preserving and seasoning. Central to it all was a right attitude about money, the thing that most people rely on to meet their needs and fulfil their ambition.

Jesus’ behaviour and teaching attracted the particular attention of the ‘tax collectors and sinners’, the very people that the Pharisees looked down on. This annoyed the Pharisees. In fact, their criticism that he ate with them suggests that he left the Pharisee's banquet without eating anything and accepted more ordinary hospitality somewhere else!

In response, Jesus used three parables to explain how he was seeking to redeem all people: a shepherd seeking a lost sheep, a woman looking for a lost coin and a father yearning for his son who had left home. Crucially, Jesus was reaching out not just to the acknowledged sinners, like the prodigal son, but to the Pharisees also, symbolised in the third parable by the elder brother who stayed at home serving his father.

Jesus then told the Parable of the Dishonest Manager to explain that his followers should be wise when dealing with people but not wise in the ways of society, not worldly wise. Rather, we should be shrewd (or wise) in the ways of the Kingdom of God – Kingdom shrewd. And the way his followers used money was decisive. We’ve reflected on the parable before but now we consider the Jesus explanation of its relevance, which is the passage at the start of today’s Reflection, Luke 16:10-13.

The idea that someone who is ‘dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much’ is alien to many people today. For a man or woman to be unfaithful and dishonest in their private lives no longer disqualifies them from responsible positions working in public service or business. In fact, getting away with minor acts of dishonesty often distinguish them as ‘streetwise’, like the dishonest manager in Jesus’ parable who was commended by his master. People who refuse to exaggerate credit applications, make bogus insurance claims, avoid responsibility for debt or evade taxes are often seen as too naive to be of use.

Integrity matters to Jesus. The ‘little’ in the passage is ‘unrighteous wealth’. As we seen previously in this series, the accurate translation for ‘wealth’ is mammon. Not all wealth is unrighteous but what makes any wealth unrighteous is a love that spurs people to accumulate it. The ‘much’ that Jesus referred to is true riches, the ‘treasure in heaven’ that is responsibility in the Kingdom of God. It doesn’t take much to see that alongside such responsibility, all the material wealth in creation is ‘little’!

If Christians are not faithful in the ‘little’ material wealth they have been entrusted with, they cannot expect to be given responsibility in the Kingdom. The Pharisees ridiculed Jesus for saying this. Jesus responded, ‘You are those who justify yourselves before men but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.’ How vulnerable are we to having our own priorities compromised by contemporary social values?

It's a mistake to think that treasure in heaven, or responsibility in the Kingdom of God, is an inheritance that awaits us in a future beyond the grave. It's available to us here and now, in this life. It works like this. The heir to a great fortune who will inherit when he or she reaches a certain age nevertheless lives off the wealth until then. Enough money is released from the estate to pay bills and give the heir a allowance. It’s a like that for Christians. Our treasure in heaven is accumulated for our future but we can receive enough now to live on in this life, in the here and now. It's like the pounds and talents Jesus mentioned in other parables, entrusted to servants to trade with while their masters were away.

In my experience, more Christians trust God to take care of them beyond the grave, assuring them of forgiveness, escaping hell and eternity in heaven, than trust him to provide all they need for the life they live until then. Routine things like food, clothes, housing, essential travel and some fellowship with others. While many seem to trust God to provide the money they need (or think they need) for these things, few seem to simply trust him! Rather than have the 'much' to trade with, they disqualify themselves by occupying themselves with the 'little'! I believe this is why it is so easy for people to dismiss the Gospel. Isn't it time for Christians to be Kingdom shrewd, not worldly wise, not shrewd in the ways of society?

© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.

Please feel free to copy, print and share these Reflections on a non-profit basis.

JESUS and MONEY

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?...
You cannot serve God and money.

Jesus of Nazareth

In this and the next three Reflections, I want to look at a day in Jesus’ ministry that we’ve already touched on a number of times in this series. By taking some time to get a broad overview of the events that day, we can usefully tie together concepts and the dangers money presents in the context of what Paul called ‘the whole counsel of God’.

The day is the Sabbath when Jesus confronted the religious establishment about its love of money: the events were recorded by St Luke in his Gospel, starting at chapter 14 and ending in chapter 17 at verse 10. The quotation at the start of this Reflection is core to understanding everything Jesus taught but I’ll leave the analysis of it until we arrive at it as we go through the day chronologically.

Many of the Pharisees who met Jesus were religious hypocrites. They purported to love God but they loved money and served their own interests. They were the elite, the ‘establishment’ of their time, and they wanted to preserve their superiority. Their origin is not entirely clear but the movement seems to have been formed during the Maccabean Revolt of about 400 years earlier, when they were a group especially devoted to keeping the Torah, the ‘Old Testament’ law.

Not all of the Pharisees that Jesus met were corrupt but their way of life had been corrupted and by reflecting on what Jesus told them we hold up a mirror to our own lives. If might prove to be uncomfortable but it cannot be a bad thing to see if our way of life may have been corrupted by the same sorts of theological sophistication as their's had been.

The difficulties started that day when Jesus was invited to a meal at the home of a ruling Pharisee. The invitation was a set up. It was the Sabbath, there was a sick man present and everyone watched to see if Jesus would heal him. The sick man was not someone who would normally have been invited and, according to the Pharisees, it would be a sin for Jesus to heal the man because, they said, it would be work that was forbidden on a Sabbath. Jesus dealt with the theology head on by asserting the compassion of God:;he healed the man and sent him away.

Jesus then criticised the other guests for their pride in wanting to sit in the places of honour: ‘For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.’ He then criticised his host for only inviting people who could return the hospitality rather than people who were poor, sick or disabled and needed help: ‘You will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.’ He then told the Parable of the Great Banquet, to explain how the privileged that were complacent about their place in the Kingdom of God would be excluded from it but the poor, sick and disabled would be welcome. By the time he left, a crowd of onlookers had gathered.

The Pharisees’ wealth should have been their opportunity to help people less well off than themselves. As St John later wrote, 'If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?' (1 John 3:17). But it was the love of money, not the love of God, that ruled the hearts of many Pharisees. Notwithstanding their devotion to the Torah, they understood neither it nor the God who had given it to Moses. They sought to assert their theological superiority at the expense of a sick man and to promote themselves in public. In this, they followed in the footsteps of Lucifer, who worked for his own self-aggrandisement. This is why, on another occasion Jesus told them, ‘You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires’.

By contrast, we should reflect on Jesus’ own attitude, as described by Paul in his letter to the church at Philiippi. Jesus did not consider it necessary to cling to the privileges of Godhead but he took a downward course to help people who could not help themselves.

‘Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ (Philippians 2:3-11)

Jesus did not stop being God when he was conceived as a human male in the womb of Mary; he only gave up his privileges as God. In response, the Father ‘highly exalted him’. God did for Jesus, who humbled himself, the very thing that Lucifer wanted when he began to promote himself! It is shrewd - Kingdom shrewd, not shrewd in the ways of society - for God's people today to follow Jesus' example of humility rather than the Pharisees' self-promotion.

© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.

Please feel free to copy, print and share these Reflections on a non-profit basis.

JESUS and MONEY

Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.

Jesus of Nazareth

The quotation at the start of today’s Reflections is Luke 6:30, a passage that some scholars think is an alternative version of the Sermon on the Mount recorded by Matthew. I think it probably records a different occasion because Jesus, like all teachers, said the same things in slightly different ways many times. The passage quoted, however, goes a step further than the similar saying that we reflected on last weekend. Not only are we to give or lend to anyone who asks but we’re not even to try to get back the goods that are taken from us. Or are we?

If someone steals our wallet or purse, hacks into our bank account, or steals our identity to get credit in our name, should we be content with our loss and make no effort to recover our possessions? Again, like the passage we looked at last weekend, I don’t think Paul is talking about illegality or criminality.

A passage I have always found challenging is where the writer of Hebrews encourages his readers by reminding them of the persecution they had suffered in the past: ‘[You] joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one’. Please note the word 'joyfully'! This, in turn, reminds me of what James wrote: ‘Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (See Hebrews 10:34 & James 1:2-4.)

This joy is a consequence of being Kingdom shrewd! But there's another, potentially even more challenging, situation where it is shrewd for Christians to endure being unfairly deprived or cheated.

Jesus not only wanted his followers to love God with their entire being, their neighbours as themselves and their enemies as their neighbours, he said that it would be by his followers’ love for one another that people would be able to distinguish them from the rest of society. ‘A new commandment I give to you’ he said, ’that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another…’ (see John 13:34-35). Jesus implication was clear. Claims of allegiance and devotion, and even right theology, are inadequate to distinguish true Christians from the rest of society. Only Christians' love for each other can do that!

In Corinth, the lack of love among the Christians was very public. Paul criticised the way they met together to remember Jesus in what we now call the Lord’s Supper (or Holy Communion, Eucharist or Mass). It seems that those who arrived first ate and drank all they wanted, leaving nothing for those who arrived later. This reflected the social divide: the richer Christians arriving first but those who had to work longer hours, like servants and slaves, arriving later. As a result, ‘one goes hungry, another gets drunk’! Paul put it bluntly that such behaviour despised the church and humiliated those who had nothing! (See 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.)

Paul also criticised the way the Christian businessmen took each other to court (1 Corinthians 6:1-11). This was not to resolve genuine disputes in areas of legitimate differences of opinion but to expose publically one another’s cheating! The advice he gave was probably hard to swallow. ‘Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?’ (See 1 Corinthians 6:1-11)

Why not be defrauded? To pursue a court case meant that all of society knew how dishonest the Christians were. It must have completely undermined their witness! In recommending that someone within the church should be able to resolve the dispute, Paul was not concerned only that they should keep their dishonesty out of the public gaze but he wanted them to deal radically with the dishonesty.

In the previous passage, Paul had explained that the Christians were not to associate with people who called themselves Christian (and may have genuinely been Christian, as to their theology and belief) but who didn’t live the sort of life that Jesus described. He put it like this in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13.

‘I wrote to you in my [previous] letter not to associate with sexually immoral people – not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler – not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you."’

The original Greek word translated ‘greed’ in the above quotation means covetous: a person who loves to accumulate possessions. It means this also in the passage where Paul went on to explain that Christians who behaved like that risked their treasure in heaven, their inheritance in the Kingdom of God.

‘Do you not know’, Paul wrote, ’that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.’

Rather than try to recover their loss in the courts, it was better for the Christians to suffer loss and to disassociate themselves from the Christians who behaved so very badly that it brought the entire church into disrepute and undermined its witness.

While we might maintain our self-control when our goods are taken unfairly, would it stimulate our joy? Would we be truly thankful for how the experience aids our spiritual development? Would we be more concerned for the Church's witness than our own possessions? Would we be clearly focused on our treasure in heaven? I realise this attitude is easier taught than practised but it's all part of being Kingdom shrewd!

© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.

Please feel free to copy, print and share these Reflections on a non-profit basis.