There has a been a tradition in churches that holds an ideal of poverty, but expresses that ideal through scorning money. We place the fault on money, and then try to stay away from it as much as possible, but also knowing that we need it to survive.
This doesn't help anything. As scriptural justification for this, we take 1 Timothy 6:10 and say that money is the root of all evil.
What this means in practical application is that churches are notorious for not keeping great books, being mediocre at best in having good financial controls, and being ripe for thieves, charlatans, and incompetence in its use of money.
There is a better way of doing this.
Jesus, and later Paul in writing to Timothy, would look at us and say that we are still missing the point.
John Wesley would agree with them. He wrote a sermon called, The Use of Money,where he takes on the misperceptions of Christians and how we talk about and use money. And I would add to that, that the same principles apply when we are also talking about other resources that we have. It’s not just money, but it could also be time, and the talents that we have. We can be better, and do better when we step outside of these misperceptions and find a solid foundation that Jesus gives us through scripture.
If you’ve been around craft shows, Etsy, home decor places, then you’ve seen some variation of the first sign. It’s become a sort of unofficial motto of sorts for how to approach your life. We can argue about the merits of that later. I like the second one better.
In his sermon, Wesley says, gain (which we can change to earn) all you can, save all you can, and give all you can. In true Wesley fashion, we have three statements that end in can, and are seemingly contradictory when taken together.
But that’s okay when he does that, because faith in Jesus Christ comes as a series of contradictions that work because of our faith, and the same holds true here.
As a sidenote, in addition to Wesley’s sermon, I’m primarily working from a book called Earn, Save, Give. It's a short book, but a good one. Click the link to order a copy of it. It runs about $12.
When we say earn all you can, that seems like its bad for Christians, that we shouldn’t do that. It sounds greedy! We’re specifically told not to be greedy, but remember what is said in Luke 16:10-13. It comes right after Jesus tells the parable of the dishonest manager.
As the story goes, there is a manger for the estate of a rich man. He hears that his manager isn’t doing well at taking care of things, so he calls him in to account for what he has done.
At that moment, the manager panics, which is expected, but then he figures out what he is going to do. He calls in the people who owe the rich man money. The manager tells them, if you can pay now, I’ll slash what you owe, just remember who did this for you. So, when the manager goes back to the rich man, the rich man commends the manager for his shrewd tactics.
Remember, that Jesus is the one telling the story, and he’s saying act like this dishonest manager! How does that make sense? Here’s where subtitles get in our way. The parable of the dishonest manager, or crooked manager, of unrighteous steward, all of which are varying title that are given to this section, are just bad. They put our focus in the wrong place. The Common English Bible calls this section faithfulness with money.
Jesus is setting us up in this story. He tells this story of a bad guy who is very clever. But then says, if this guy can do this, imagine what you can do!
Jesus isn’t telling us to go be poor as church mice, but to go do all that you can through your faith. Make sure you do things in the right order, so you aren’t the dishonest manager, but you are still gaining all that you can.
Common sense, for Wesley, means don’t sit back and say that this is the way we’ve always done it. Use the intelligence that God gave you, and your observations, and the time you have to reflect on what you’re doing.
Finally the third rule that Wesley gives us isn’t one that he explicitly states, but it’s a combination of where he spends a lot of time in this part of his sermon. Harnish phrases this third point like this.
We'll even go so far as to acknowledge that it's really "the love of money" but we don't live it out. We still scorn money, and how it's used in churches, we lack awareness of its role in our individual lives and the life of the church, and we fall into the same problems as we would if we didn't try to follow this statement. In fact, we can add one word, and we still have the problem.The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some have wandered away from the faith and have impaled themselves with a lot of pain because they made money their goal. --1 Timothy 6:10 CEB
What this means in practical application is that churches are notorious for not keeping great books, being mediocre at best in having good financial controls, and being ripe for thieves, charlatans, and incompetence in its use of money.
There is a better way of doing this.
Jesus, and later Paul in writing to Timothy, would look at us and say that we are still missing the point.
John Wesley would agree with them. He wrote a sermon called, The Use of Money,where he takes on the misperceptions of Christians and how we talk about and use money. And I would add to that, that the same principles apply when we are also talking about other resources that we have. It’s not just money, but it could also be time, and the talents that we have. We can be better, and do better when we step outside of these misperceptions and find a solid foundation that Jesus gives us through scripture.
If you’ve been around craft shows, Etsy, home decor places, then you’ve seen some variation of the first sign. It’s become a sort of unofficial motto of sorts for how to approach your life. We can argue about the merits of that later. I like the second one better.
In his sermon, Wesley says, gain (which we can change to earn) all you can, save all you can, and give all you can. In true Wesley fashion, we have three statements that end in can, and are seemingly contradictory when taken together.
But that’s okay when he does that, because faith in Jesus Christ comes as a series of contradictions that work because of our faith, and the same holds true here.
As a sidenote, in addition to Wesley’s sermon, I’m primarily working from a book called Earn, Save, Give. It's a short book, but a good one. Click the link to order a copy of it. It runs about $12.
When we say earn all you can, that seems like its bad for Christians, that we shouldn’t do that. It sounds greedy! We’re specifically told not to be greedy, but remember what is said in Luke 16:10-13. It comes right after Jesus tells the parable of the dishonest manager.
As the story goes, there is a manger for the estate of a rich man. He hears that his manager isn’t doing well at taking care of things, so he calls him in to account for what he has done.
At that moment, the manager panics, which is expected, but then he figures out what he is going to do. He calls in the people who owe the rich man money. The manager tells them, if you can pay now, I’ll slash what you owe, just remember who did this for you. So, when the manager goes back to the rich man, the rich man commends the manager for his shrewd tactics.
Remember, that Jesus is the one telling the story, and he’s saying act like this dishonest manager! How does that make sense? Here’s where subtitles get in our way. The parable of the dishonest manager, or crooked manager, of unrighteous steward, all of which are varying title that are given to this section, are just bad. They put our focus in the wrong place. The Common English Bible calls this section faithfulness with money.
Jesus is setting us up in this story. He tells this story of a bad guy who is very clever. But then says, if this guy can do this, imagine what you can do!
Jesus isn’t telling us to go be poor as church mice, but to go do all that you can through your faith. Make sure you do things in the right order, so you aren’t the dishonest manager, but you are still gaining all that you can.
This is the most famous of the verse from this passage, but all of 10-13 are helping us to remember how to do this. We are never told in scripture not to go out and earn, that wouldn’t be true to who we are, who God made us to be, but we are given the healthy boundaries to do that in.
James Harnish summarizes what Wesley says by these three statements:
The first of theys Wesley also calls, by honest industry. We are who we are, made by God to be these people. That’s not something to hide from, but to be embraced. It’s not wrong to do well at what you do. But, we are also expecting to do the best at what we can do. As my dad says, and this is one of my favorite quotes of his, “mediocre for the Lord doesn’t cut it.” And if our lives are truly devoted to God, that means that we will do the best we can, earn the best we can, in all parts of our lives.
Common sense, for Wesley, means don’t sit back and say that this is the way we’ve always done it. Use the intelligence that God gave you, and your observations, and the time you have to reflect on what you’re doing.
Finally the third rule that Wesley gives us isn’t one that he explicitly states, but it’s a combination of where he spends a lot of time in this part of his sermon. Harnish phrases this third point like this.
The view of money that permeates to many Christian circles is that it is bad. That has lead us into many wrong directions and practices. There aren’t prohibitions against money in scripture, only against where we let it control our lives and take our focus away from God.
Jesus tells us to go out and make the most of what we have been given, and that is what we should do. These are some rules/boundaries that can guide more than our money too. They can also help our time, resources, talents, all can fit into this same thing.
Go out and earn all that you can, in your calling, by common sense, but don’t earn it by paying more than its worth. In turn, share that same wisdom with others.
Then come back for the next post, when we look at how we are also called to save all we can. Go and do this in Jesus name. Amen.
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