For the
time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in
sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless
idolatry.
Little
children, keep yourselves from idols.
1
Corinthians 10:14, 1 Peter 4:3 & 1 John 5:21
In the Roman Empire, to eat food
sacrificed to an idol was, for many, infused with spiritual meaning. And if
there was one point of doctrine that the Apostles thought important, it was
that Christians should avoid idolatry at all costs! The quotes at the start of
today’s Reflection are from Paul, Peter and John.
The danger was not that the idol,
or ‘god’, actually existed but in what idol worship involved, what it said
about the people involved and what it could lead to. The feasts often spiralled
into orgies and temple prostitutes were there for anyone who could not find
another partner!
But what relevance is this to
money today? The global consumer society in which we live revolves around money.
Money both motivates us and limits our freedom of action. Almost everyone
thinks it is important, whether they have much or little, and almost everything
has a price tag. In fact, it is almost impossible to gauge the value of
something, except as financial cost.
Having money – or appearing to have it by way of credit –
is infused with social significance. It not only enables you to buy your way
into the best places, it qualifies you to be invited to the places where money
is no object! This was not possible a hundred years ago, which is why rich
families married their children into the aristocracy, in order to achieve a
higher social status than their money could buy. Today, having money can get
you a peerage, knighthood or other ‘gong’ - not because they are ‘for sale’, of
course, but because of what having money says about you and enables you to do.
You can also, in a perverse sort of way, even buy yourself an education – an
honorary doctorate, for example.
Although some people try to
minimise the impact of money on their lives by moving into remote, self-sufficient
communities, that isolates them from the very people with whom they should be
sharing the message of Jesus. But in Paul’s guidance about eating food sacrificed to
idols in a pagan society we find help with using money living within a capitalist, consumer
society.
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Scripture
quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright
© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
Handling
money and dealing with debt can be complicated and neither the author nor
anyone else involved in the production of these Reflections is responsible for
any action you take, or fail to take, based on what is written here.
