Many are confused about money and tend to stereotype people into two artificial categories of people… the “rich” and the “poor”. For starters, even how people view these categories is very inconsistent. People in the U.S.A say there are rich and poor in our country. From a certain point of view that is correct. However, compared to people around the world, even most of the “poor” in the U.S.A. are wealthy.
God has a lot to say about money in the Bible.
Not all “rich” people are greedy and not all “poor” people are virtuous. In fact some “poor” people are greedy. Greed is best defined as the love of money, not the possession of money.
1 Timothy 6:10 – For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
Ecclesiastes 5:10 – He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity.
Sometimes scripture can be taken out of context and misunderstood… confusing people to believe that rich people can not be righteous and that being rich is wrong or only achieved through greed.
Matthew 19:24 – “Again I say to you, 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.”
For starters, it is not referring to a sewing needle, but rather a narrow entry into a city… but essentially what Jesus is warning about here is not that all who have money are evil or greedy or cannot be saved. That is not the point. The warning is that often those who have much wealth come to rely on it instead of God, thus presenting a significant challenge for them. Jesus goes on to say that it is possible for the rich man to be saved with God’s help.
Matthew 19:25-26 – When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?” 26And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Some will then say… “why did Jesus tell the rich man to go and sell all his possessions earlier in Matthew 19:16-28 and give all the money to the poor?”
The answer is that Jesus was identifying for this specific man that he (not all rich people) was putting money before God. That was his primary obstacle stopping him as an individual from truly following God. Truth be told, we all need God’s help to be saved. Some may struggle with love of money, but others struggle with different but equally devastating idols or sin such as sloth, gluttony, drunkenness, adultery or sexual immorality, etc.
Not all rich people struggle with love of money. Abraham is an excellent example of a wealthy person who routinely trusted God and did not fall prey to the love of money. There are multiple examples in Genesis including where he lets Lot pick the best land to take for his flocks instead of Abraham picking first (Genesis 13) and again after battle when Abraham is offered the treasure recovered through Abraham’s efforts, Abraham refuses it (Genesis 14:17-24).
Despising people because they have a lot of money or feeling that it is wrong to have money is not biblically sound. It makes no more sense than despising someone because they are poor. Neither position is correct.
Money is a tool , which can be put to use to serve God or used selfishly. It is the condition of our heart rather than how much money we have that determines whom we serve and if we are righteous.
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