Greed, American Affluence, and Christian Simplicity

I would venture to say that greed has become the most socially accepted sin among modern Western Christians.  American Christians committed to the Authority of Scripture spend a lot of time pointing out how American culture (and theologically liberal Christians) teaches a radically different sexual ethic than biblical sexual ethics, but spend relatively little time pointing out how American culture’s teachings about wealth contrast with biblical ethics.  This is not at all because American culture’s ideas about wealth are closer to what the Bible says than its ideas about sex; it is because Christians themselves are often so corrupted by American views of wealth that they are not even aware of the radical difference between American views of wealth and the teachings of Scripture about wealth, greed, and generosity.

Jesus and Money

The Bible’s teachings about money, its warnings against greed, and its commands to be generous and to care for the poor are so numerous that it would be tedious even to list all the citations here.  So here I will simply focus on some of the key teachings of Jesus on this topic.  “No one can serve two masters,” says Jesus, “For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and money” (Matt 6:24).  Jesus’s reference to “serving” money here strikes us as strange.  We typically think of money as an inert, neutral tool that we can use to serve whatever purposes we want.  Jesus’s words here, however, tell us that this is not the case.  If we seek to accumulate money, it will become our master, gain spiritual power over us, and take away our ability to serve God.  

“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal,” says Jesus, “Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.  Wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:19-21).  It is very common for Christians to say that it does not matter how much money you have; all that matters is the interior attitude of your heart.  You can accumulate as much wealth as you want and still be right with God as long as your heart is attached to God and not to the wealth you possess.  This is not what Jesus says.  According to Jesus, “Wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  If you accumulate wealth on earth, your heart will be attached to it rather than to God.  It is inevitable.  It is impossible to accumulate wealth and at the same time to be in right relationship with God.  

Jesus’s story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) illustrates this point.  “There was a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, who lived each day in joyous splendor.  And a beggar named Lazarus lay at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table.”  When they die, Lazarus is taken to rest with the patriarch Abraham, while the rich man is tormented in Hades.  When the rich man asks Abraham for a little relief from his torment, Abraham replies, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things.  But now he is comforted here, while you are in agony.”

There is no indication that the rich man did anything immoral in order to accumulate his wealth.  Nor is there any indication that he mistreated or oppressed anyone once he was wealthy.  Nor is there any indication that he was a glutton or a drunkard.  Abraham never accuses him of any of these things.  We can assume that the rich man earned his wealth through honest means and that he simply enjoyed the fruits of his honest labor.  His only crime was a sin of omission: neglecting to give his excess wealth to people like Lazarus, who were in need.  For this, he was condemned to eternal damnation.  The message is clear: if we do not give generously to the poor, we will be damned.

When a rich young man asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, “Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said to him, “There is one thing you lack: God, sell everything you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then, come follow me.”” (Mark 10:21).  In response, the rich young man went away sad, leading Jesus to remark, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. . . It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:23, 25).  

Christians have spent more effort trying to explain away Jesus’s clear teachings in this passage than they have spent trying to obey them.  Many argue that Jesus’s command to sell everything and to give it to the poor was a command only for this individual, and so we can simply ignore it.  It is true that not every Christian is called to sell everything they own.  However, the fact that this man was required to give up everything he owned in order to follow Jesus means that every Christian must be willing to give up everything they own if God calls them to do so, or else they are not truly following Jesus.  And if we are not being generous with the wealth we do possess, how can we claim that we would be willing to give all of it up if God called us to do so?  

Many Christians gloss over Jesus’s statement that it is extremely hard for a rich man to enter God’s Kingdom by focusing on Jesus’s subsequent statement that “All things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27).  But just because it is possible, through a Divine miracle (!), for a rich man to enter God’s Kingdom (which necessarily requires that he live a life of radical, Christian generosity), this does not take away the force of Jesus’s extreme warning that it is easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to be saved.^[1]The idea that the “eye of a needle” referred to a gate in Jerusalem that was somewhat hard to get camels through was invented centuries after Jesus in order to soften the force of what Jesus says … Continue reading  For Jesus, being rich is a position of extreme spiritual danger.  

Greed and Generosity

What does it mean to be rich?  In 1 Timothy, the apostle Paul writes, “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot carry anything out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.  Those who want to be rich, however, fall into temptation and become ensnared by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (6:6-10).  

Here we see Paul define “rich” as having wealth over and above what is needed to provide for our basic necessities.  The way most American Christians live, it seems their attitude is, “If we have food, clothing, a nice house, a nice car, all the conveniences of modern life, and enough money to regularly spend on entertainment and luxuries for ourselves, we will be content with these.”  We have bought into the lie that we “deserve” a certain level of luxurious living because that is what is presented to us as normal in American culture.  We have redefined what it means to be “rich” such that it only refers to millionaires and billionaires, and not to the American middle class.  Yet by global standards, and the standards of the New Testament, the average American is rich.  

This means that the average American Christian is in spiritual danger from the wealth that they possess.  We live in a world in which over 9% of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty (less than $1.90 a day).^[2]https://www.worldvision.org/sponsorship-news-stories/global-poverty-facts  In a globalized era, we have both the knowledge and the resources to provide help to people in poverty, even in other parts of the world.  This means that rich Christians the world over are in danger of coming under the divine judgment that the rich man experienced for his neglect of Lazarus.  

What is the solution?  The solution is simplicity and generosity.  “Sell your possession and give to the poor,” commands Jesus, “Provide yourselves with purses that will not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys” (Luke 12:33).  “Use worldly wealth to make friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, they [i.e., the poor whom you have helped] will welcome you into eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9).  Whatever our income level, if we choose to live simply and to live lives of radical generosity, we can avoid being enslaved to the power of money, and can instead be freed to joyfully serve and honor God.  As the great reformer and preacher John Wesley taught, if you are a Christian you must “gain all you can, save all you can, and give all you can.”  This is not optional; it is an essential part of being a disciple of Jesus Christ.  

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