Proverbs 30:7-9
“Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, ”Who is the Lord? “or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.” (Proverbs 30:7-9)
Both Testaments have much to say about poverty and wealth. What is wealth? We shall never agree.
There is a reason is that society and culture differ in how material possessions are secured, used, and viewed. Suppose we agree that poverty is a state in which resources are chronically insufficient to meet one’s necessities and that absolute poverty means less than adequate food, housing, or clothing. Immediately our agreement will founder on the definition of necessity and adequate. Suppose we define wealth as material resources more than necessary for basic livelihood. What is a necessity? What is a basic livelihood? The answers depend, to some extent, on what is considered poverty or wealth in a given community or society.
The second problem is that these questions are very personal and charged with intense emotion. It is difficult to be detached and objective because any definition may threaten my own status. Since Scripture has so much to say on the subject, let us assume the definitions given above and grant in advance that agreement on specific applications of these definitions may not be possible. Also, let us assume that the vast majority of Americans are wealthy if wealth is considered anything more than basic necessities. Let us also assume that the primary emphasis in Scripture on this subject is the loving response of those who have to those who do not.
Still, grave problems remain. A basic problem is the apparently radical difference between what the Old and New Testaments say about wealth. Jacques Ellul says: “Incontestably, in the New Testament wealth is condemned. To my knowledge there is not one text that justifies it. The Old Testament, on the other hand, presents wealth as a blessing, willed by God and pleasing to him. There is no more apparent radical opposition between the two covenants than the one concerning wealth.”[100]
How the Old and New are to be reconciled is a matter of continuing debate. Is the Old Testament view of wealth part of the overall this-worldly structure of a (transient) earthly kingdom to be superseded by the spiritual kingdom, the church? Whether or not this is the correct explanation, it must be conceded that the New Testament nowhere teaches that wealth is the evidence of God’s blessing but is often stark in its condemnation of the rich.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. (Matt. 19:24; Luke 18:25) Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. (Luke 6:20)
But woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation. (Luke 6:24)
Sell your possessions and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Luke 12:33-34)
“No servant can serve two masters. . . . You cannot serve God and mammon.” The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they scoffed at him. (Luke 16:13-14)
These passages are merely a sample. I wish the Bible consistently and clearly condemned only the wicked rich, but often it fails to make the distinction. Is that because it is impossible to be both wealthy and godly, or because it is uncommon? Taking all the biblical evidence into account, it seems that the generalized condemnations result from the fact that the temptations of wealth are so strong that few handle them successfully, and therefore rich people as a class are sometimes grouped together in condemnation. But this should not be taken as evidence that there are no exceptions, for the Bible never says that possession of wealth in itself is sinful.
Wealth is, in any event, a temptation—not an evil in itself, but a temptation . . . because it urges us to put our confidence in money rather than in God. . . . It is almost impossible to have many possessions and remain righteous. Righteousness is total dependence on God’s action.21
How do we fight such strong temptation? The biblical antidote to the virus of avarice or the fatal illness of relying on the phantom of wealth is the act of giving it away.
We have very clear indications that money, in the Christian life, is made in order to be given away. Note especially Paul’s lovely text (1 Cor. 8:1-15). . . . If among fellow Christians we study Paul’s law of equality, we see that money must be used to meet our needs, and that everything left over must be given away.22
The Bible does not advocate appropriating the wealth of the rich. And though there are passages that instruct us to sell and give, when the rich are directly addressed, they are not instructed to divest themselves totally, but rather to be rich toward God and toward those in need.
Perhaps rather than taking Abraham as our model and the Old Testament as our instruction in this matter, we would be safer in taking Jesus Christ as our model and New Testament teaching as the norm. If we follow the example of one who, having everything, became poor for our sakes, and if we submit to his sometimes painful teaching, will we not voluntarily divest ourselves of all excess wealth in order to provide for those in spiritual and physical need?
But what is “excess”? Each man is accountable to his own master. “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?” (Rom. 14:4). But it must mean something, and something that consumer-oriented Christians apparently find difficult to comprehend.[101]
[100] Jacques Ellul, Money and Power, trans. LaVonne Neff (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1984), 35.
[101] IBE (2014), 474-475.