“Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and
disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.”
(Proverbs 30:8-9)
Let us start by acknowledging that matters of economics are very complex and nuanced, and it is impossible to address such a broad subject in a single chapter in a book devoted to faith. Matters of money have been been addressed earlier in Chapters 1, 5, 6, and 9—with examples of the misunderstanding of wealth from the Book of Acts and from more recent times. However, although Christians are not of this world, they are in the world by the will of the Lord (John 17:12-18)—and practical economic matters are an integral component of anyone who is living in the world. As long as we are in this temporal world, matters of economics are relevant to matters of faith, insofar as an individual’s daily purchase choices as well as strategic planning are concerned. Matters of economics are in need of Spirit-led guidance as well in business, corporate, and governmental investment decisions, as these matters are also within the cosmic domain of the Lord, along with everything else (Acts 10:34-36).
Thus matters of economics can become a distraction from a Christ-centered life—as no one, Christians included, can avoid these concerns. In the face of economic uncertainty, it is not easy to take the Lord at his word to “not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them.” (Luke 12:29-30) The question each Christian must consider is the degree to which one is spiritually of “good ground.” Consider the role of wealth as a distraction in Jesus’ parable of the sower in Matthew 13:22-23: “As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” Beyond obvious moral wrongs, it is sometimes difficult to discern what is a “care of the world” and what is spiritually fruitful involvement in temporal life. The only practical recourse is to be as open to the Spirit as the grace of God empowers one to be, while taking care to avoid applying grace as a justification for sin. “What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” (Romans 6:15-18 )
For multiple millions of people, the “cares of the world” are legion—and these cares are imposed on them not by choice, but out of necessity. A very many are working multiple jobs solely to meet their daily financial obligations, and not out of any degree of greed. Under these conditions no one has time to meditate on the ways of the Lord, as the demands of the world (extended work hours required by employers, bearing alone responsibilities for children, even church activities) remove all external human peace. Often there is insufficient downtime after legitimate labors, and this is unscriptural—the institution of a Sabbath day is for practical as well as spiritual purposes, and flouting it exacts a human cost.
Among the distractions in our temporal world is the ubiquitous presence of advertising—it is usually louder and flashier than the main content of media products, and this is by design for the purpose of enhancing its marketing effectiveness. What makes this relevant in a book on faith is that advertising must be sufficiently intrusive into consumers’ minds for it to be successful—it attempts to divert, sometimes by stealth, the attention of the consumer, who is primarily interested in the main content. Advertising is not requested by the consumer, but is accepted as a cost of receiving content without paying directly for it—that this is the result of a voluntary choice by the consumer applies to the question of what is an appropriate means of monetization of media and other products. This matters when intrusive advertising to consumers induces them to buy products they do not need, then these same consumers are blamed for the debt they have incurred from the intrusive role advertisements have played in their expenditures. This is a difficult problem, as advertising in our temporal world is an integral component required for the functionality of the current economy, and thus of our economic livelihood. A major problem with advertising for the Christian is that it reduces the “signal to noise ratio” of the still small voice of God against the clamor of the marketplace—and this provides all the more reason to be closer to God spiritually, so as to hear him more clearly.
In this chapter let us avoid to the greatest extent possible entering the very significant debate between Austrian and Keynesian economists—not only as this is far beyond the scope of a single chapter but, more importantly, I believe that God’s view of economic matters cannot be defined in those terms. When these are considered as merely human wisdom, subscribing to any of these ideologies is tantamount for the Christian to being unequally yoked with unbelievers, and in some manifestations duplicitous idolatry. The problem with any human-devised system is that it can be “gamed” by deceitful and crafty persons, and most of the suffering caused in the name these ideologies is the result of such deceit—questions to be asked of all of economic philosophies is “who has undeserved advantage?” and “who stands to gain in ways not indicated by that philosophy’s surface description?” There is something deeper than surface arguments present in the hostile and condescending tone of the conversation between the competing economic philosophers—this is a perfect example of Jesus’ teaching about needing to first take the log out of your own eye, so to see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye (Matthew 7:3-5). Although one who is knowledgeable in these subjects has an obligation to point out errors, discussions of these matters without the presence of the Holy Spirit are doomed to be locked in a closed loop of human posturing without conclusion—leaving the resolution to be settled by whoever has the upper hand temporally.
Instead, study of the Scriptures provides clear guidance on economic matters regardless of the ideology being applied to the larger economy at any given time—this guidance focuses on the intentions and actions of individuals, and their respective roles in spiritual and economic relationships that are sometimes very complex. The aggregate of these individual actions in turn has an effect on larger societal and global relationships. After all of the mathematical and philosophical arguments have been exhausted by all sides, the true test of any system is how well it works for individuals in making an honest and reasonable effort that is productive and fair to them and their neighbors. The practical answer to this dilemma is not easy to attain, but “easy” can be a stumbling block and is not the focus of the message of Christ.
Let us examine the several references in the Hebrew scriptures that address economic matters. These references are too numerous to cite all of them here, but the point they make is clear—actions such as these are detestable to the Lord, and they were prominent among the causes that led God to drive his chosen people into exile in Babylon. Regardless of one’s ideological affinity, generosity is included as a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), and arguably can be a metric of how much spiritual fruit one is bearing. To illustrate this point, the following examples from the Hebrew scriptures are instructive.
- Deuteronomy 25:4 “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” (Cited by the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 5:18, in the context of paying those who work in the church.)
- Proverbs 16.8 “Better is a little with righteousness than large income with injustice.”
- Proverbs 20.10 “Diverse weights and diverse measures are both alike an abomination to the Lord.”
- Proverbs 22:16 “He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich—both come to poverty.”
- Proverbs 23:4 “Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint.”
- Proverbs 28.5 “The evil do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it completely.”
- Isaiah 1.21 “How the faithful city has become a whore! She that was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her—but now murderers!”
- Isaiah 10:1-2 “Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey!”
- Isaiah 29.20-21 “For the tyrant shall be no more, and the scoffer shall cease to be; all those alert to do evil shall be cut off—those who cause a person to lose a lawsuit, who set a trap for the arbiter in the gate, and without grounds deny justice to the one in the right.”
- Jeremiah 5.28 “they have grown fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy.”
- Jeremiah 22.13 “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice; who makes his neighbors work for nothing, and does not give them their wages;”
- Ezekiel 8:17 “Is it not bad enough that the house of Judah commits the abominations done here? Must they fill the land with violence, and provoke my anger still further?” (The meaning of “violence” in this text includes oppression of the poor and deceit for the sake of greed.)
- God was justly angry with the people of ancient Israel, as they had violated clear instructions in their own scriptures—the following are examples of the decrees they had transgressed.
- Leviticus 19:13 “You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning.”
- Leviticus 23:22 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the alien: I am the Lord your God.”
- Leviticus 25:50 “They shall compute with the purchaser the total from the year when they sold themselves to the alien until the jubilee year; the price of the sale shall be applied to the number of years: the time they were with the owner shall be rated as the time of a hired laborer.”
The jubilee year, also mentioned earlier in Chapter 6 of this book, is an idea that is wholly foreign in our contemporary world. How much misery could be abated if only a just and practical way to implement such a thing today could be devised! But we must first come to grips with the wages of sin and the cost of discipleship.
No nation today is an isolated island in the world economy—neither is each of us as an individual. When any of us purchases something from any vendor, other than a local farmers’ market, chances are very high that another country was involved in the manufacture and delivery of the product. Chances are good also that some of the tools for the farmers’ market were from somewhere in the global economy. No one can claim the moral high ground in today’s world—we all, including those less well off, use electronics and wear clothing made in sweat shops. As a practical matter, it is impossible to not be intertwined in world economics. Those in all economies demand of practical necessity the lowest prices and the highest returns on investments that are critical for financial survival—but this is done while at the same time turning a blind eye to the iniquitous means of obtaining those profits.
Greed is frequently identified as one of the root causes of global financial troubles. Certainly greed, by both great and small, is a contributing factor. But if all one is doing is trying to make a “decent” living, and there is no living that is separate from the global economy full of greed, then we are all tied to this greedy economy whether we like it or not. “O wretched man that I am!” complains the Apostle Paul, referring to the conflicting laws of God and the flesh operating within him, “who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7.24) Paul promptly identifies Jesus Christ as the answer to this dilemma (Romans 7.25), but that does not diminish the greatness of the dilemma—it only highlights the omnipotence of God against it.
This dilemma is not new, as evidenced by at least two accounts in Acts. The first involves a slave girl (Acts 16:16-21), and the second an artisans’ guild (Acts 19:23-40).
In the passage from Acts 16 it is clear that the slave girl was not normal. In effect her masters were using her condition for their own financial gain, disregarding the girl’s welfare; she was not just a normal servant carrying water and waiting tables. The income derived from this girl’s abnormal condition was great, and likely was over and above most other legitimate lines of business—or losing it would not have become a provocation for accusations leading to the imprisonment of Paul, the one who caused their loss of profit by curing the girl. It is clear that the profits gained were from an exploitative method, that of taking advantage of the slave girl’s unnatural condition. Note the slave masters’ clever mis-application of the law to wreak their revenge on Paul (the Roman citizen) and Silas—their true complaint, loss of profit, had nothing to do with Jewish customs and practices.
A whole “industry” is impacted in Acts 19. Some economic sympathy (but no other type) is due the craftsmen. Imagine every auto-related company collapsing in one day in Detroit—that would be like running from a hot sauna and jumping into a lake of freezing water. But the basis of the craftsmen’s livelihood in Ephesus was a sinful thing of idolatry, clearly in conflict with God’s will. How would a whole trade and craft re-orient itself from a sinful basis? Think hard before you answer—the cult of Diana had long been established and was ingrained in Ephesian culture.
Just as in the First Century, today’s world is full of individuals, great and small, striving for economic dominance over each other—it is a system that is destined to collapse. Consider the passage in Revelation describing the merchants’ reaction to God’s judgment of the Great Whore (the contextual narrative regarding the demise of “Babylon” is in Chapters 16-17): “And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo any more, cargo of gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all articles of ivory, all articles of costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, choice flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, slaves—and human lives.” (Revelation 18:11-13) Note that the merchants did not necessarily love the Whore, as their cause for mourning was explicitly that “no one buys their cargo any more,” and by inference their complaint here also was loss of undeserved profit in much the same way as the artisans in Ephesus. The effect of the Great Whore can be seen within the dominant framework of many economies today—it is similar to needing the mark of the beast to buy or sell (Revelation 13:16-17), as “the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxury.” (Revelation 18:3)
The economy of the temporal world in which we live imposes requirements that are out of our control—and those not in Christ are under the dominion of the evil one (1 John 5:18-20). Not only are we compelled to pay taxes to our temporal Caesar, but most people also incur debts out of necessity to conduct our daily lives. With extremely few exceptions, everyone is an economic slave to someone. The Apostle Paul provides little relief, at least on the surface, regarding this: “Pay to all what is due to them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Romans 13:7-10)
There is much insight in this, even though Paul is no easy read—as noted in 2 Peter 3:15-16: “So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him, … . There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.” The Pauline passage above is from the sometimes abused Romans 13 part of Christian scripture, from which the misbehavior of governments and other temporal authorities is justified in error as being sanctioned by God. Not all taxes are fair; neither are all private debts justly incurred—and any payment of them is extracted ultimately by force. The Christian is obliged by temporal authorities to comply, but not required by Christ to condone such practices. What clarifies the matter is that ultimately we are serving God in our work, regardless as to the worthiness of any temporal masters served. When we are “obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ (Ephesians 6:5-8),” we are not approving anyone’s wrongdoing. Instead, we are demonstrating to our fellow humans how they ought to be treating us as well—for they “know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.” (Ephesians 6:9)
The covenant of temporal economics also works in both directions. Payment of “revenue to whom revenue is due” includes fair wages, as noted repeatedly in the Hebrew scriptures cited earlier. In the practical temporal sense, the only difference between the rich and poor is that the rich are able to pay what they owe. Just debts of any kind are to be fully paid. This is especially central to Christian theology, in that Jesus paid our debt for our sins partly due to our hopeless inability to pay that debt—we are forgiven our sins expressly from the payment of our blood debt by Jesus, and not any annulment of our blood debt.
And we are likewise to treat our fellow humans in the same forgiving spirit—that things work both ways is pointedly illustrated in Jesus’ parable of the Unforgiving Servant: “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow-slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow-slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow-slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow-slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he should pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” (Matthew 18:23-35)
One’s motivation is central to the point. What is in your heart matters together with the act of giving. To give out of obligation, that is to pay off a debt owed, is not by definition an act of love—it is an act of obligation, extracted from the giver. This is far too prevalent already, to the extent that demanding more of “owing” only exacerbates human suffering. But removing temporal debt is not the whole solution—it only points the way to the solution. The solution is to love one another, and the only way we can truly love is to first receive love. The impure motivation, debt, must be supplanted by the pure motivation, love. Absent debt, we need another source of motivation to live.
That is not an easy task, and working hard is unfruitful if the work is done outside of the will of God. Christians must constantly remember that we are part of Jesus’ eternal kingdom, which is manifested through us in our temporal lives. As Christ has left us in the world to be light to the world, the words of John the Baptist provide practical points of reference in our economic decisions: “And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’ In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ Even tax-collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’” (Luke 3:10-14)
Exactly when the point is reached that enough worldly goods are accumulated and income achieved for “neither poverty nor riches” is a practical question that no one can avoid. In Jeremiah 40:9-10, “Gedaliah … swore to them and their troops, saying, ‘Do not be afraid to serve the Chaldeans. Stay in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall go well with you. … gather wine and summer fruits and oil, and store them in your vessels, and live in the towns that you have taken over.’” In context, this passage from Jeremiah is not a pardon of the Babylonians for their cruelty—it only counsels the people to live peaceably, and presumably comfortably, the life available to them. Jesus’ parable of “bigger barns” is directly instructive here: “And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’ He said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.” (Luke 12:15-23)
The misappropriation of people’s feeling of obligation to God for undeserved gain is especially abhorrent to God—this is in the same category as blasphemy and is on a practical level taking the Lord’s name in vain. The empirical examples addressed earlier in Chapters 5 and 9 apply here as well. Note the intensity Jesus displays in one of the few accounts of his being angry: “Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you are making it a den of robbers.”’” (Matthew 21:12-13) This in no way indicates that we should not be generous to the church, and to those in greater need—it instead highlights the evil of collecting payments falsely in the name of those things.
There is also what may be called an “economy of the soul”—and we must be careful to avoid a “woe is me” trap of defeat. Although the über rich are justly called to be generous to those less fortunate, the vast number of people who are not as well off must guard against resentment of them solely due to envy—one does well to keep in mind the wisdom from the references in Proverbs cited earlier, especially regarding not wearing one’s self out to get rich. Although temporal servanthood, including financial slavery, does not separate one from the grace of Christ (and thus is irrelevant spiritually), escape from such bondage is clearly proper and desirable, especially as it allows one to more freely serve the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:21). The Apostle Paul further advises: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” (Romans 12:19) This is not an idle statement about judgment, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews says the same thing: “For we know the one who said, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:30-31) We may rest assured that God will judge more righteously and thoroughly than we ever could hope to do ourselves those who accumulate undeserved wealth, especially those who take his name in vain to do so.
As there is no justification at all for obtaining wealth by deceit or oppression, the denouncement of differing weights and measures noted earlier (Proverbs 20:10), as well as dishonest scales (Proverbs 11:1), applies here also—and in our contemporary times, dishonest weights and scales come in digital form as well. Such practices as reaping where one has not sown and gathering where one has not scattered (as described in Matthew 25:26-27), which is done today also in the digital realm, violates the cited parts of Proverbs above, as well as other scriptural passages—even as the employees of those persons serve them in their legitimate tasks as to God, and not to human masters (Ephesians 6:7). The Prophet Micah provides a poignant example of God’s wrath and judgment on those in ancient Israel who extracted wealth from their fellow humans through deceitful means: “Can I tolerate wicked scales and a bag of dishonest weights? Your wealthy are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, with tongues of deceit in their mouths. Therefore I have begun to strike you down, making you desolate because of your sins. You shall eat, but not be satisfied, and there shall be a gnawing hunger within you; you shall put away, but not save, and what you save, I will hand over to the sword. You shall sow, but not reap; you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil; you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine. … Therefore I will make you a desolation, and your inhabitants an object of hissing; so you shall bear the scorn of my people.” (Micah 6:11-16) The same theme continues into canonical Christian scripture—the letter of James is an example, in which he addresses the wealthy: “Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts on a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.” (James 5:4-6)
The solution is counterintuitive to human instinct. We must do as Jesus did and Paul describes: to empty ourselves and find our lives in serving others. Our temporal stations in life are irrelevant to this; the greater our worldly authority, the greater service is required of us. The more we are given, the more we owe, as Christ Jesus declares: “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.” (Luke 12:47-48) This clearly includes temporal economics as well. The main lesson in this is to experience Who is our source of love and to Whom we are spiritually accountable in our temporal stations.
There is no political doctrine, economic theory, social code, or form of government that can solve the problems of human suffering separate from the spiritual substance provided by the Lord, Jesus Christ. A narrow righteous cause can be won only through application of the whole Gospel—although this is humbling, it also is empowering. Humans are incapable of imagining this on our own, as it is too contrary to our inherent selfish nature. There is no other way to cut through the economic distractions in our temporal world than to trust and heed daily from the heart the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Being humble before God is the only way we may become bold to overcome the evil in ourselves and our fellow humans. In doing so we become instruments of the richest blessings to all humans, all in the name of the Lord of All, Jesus Christ.