This has to be one of the easiest heresies to argue against and yet it is one of the most pervasive throughout the world and throughout time. I guess it's the whole concept of, let's take a few verses we like and ignore the ones we don't and build an entire theology out of it. You know who these theologies make rich? The ones selling it to you!
Somehow, I don't seem to recall Jesus parading through Jerusalem or Galilee in a 20 horse chariot and wearing the finest scarlet robes. Or Paul taking his personal yacht on his missionary journeys. Maybe they just weren't spiritual enough for God to bless. Okay, let me break it down for you: Jesus did not die and rise again so that you could have the American dream. Especially when that dream is defined by a mansion, two vacation homes, a BMW and endless time to indulge your leisure and pleasure.
Yes, God has given us the ability to create wealth. Yes, we are to be wise stewards of this. No, this does not mean the purpose of life is to follow some shady teacher's six magical steps to manipulate God to give you some serious bank.
I am currently reading William Law's A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.
They weren't as big on soundbytes back in 1728 so you'll have to bear with me for awhile. From a chapter entitled "Containing the Great Obligations, and the Great advantages of Making a Wise and Religious Use of Our Estates and Fortunes":
As the holiness of Christianity consecrates all states and employments of life unto God, as it requires us to aspire after a universal obedience, doing and using everything as the servants of God, so are we more specially obligated to observe this religious exactness in the use of our estates and fortunes. The reason of this would appear very plain if we were only to consider that our estate is as much the gift of God as our eyes or our hands and is no more to be buried or thrown away at pleasure than we are to put out our eyes or throw away our limbs as we please. But, besides this consideration, there are several other great and important reasons why we should be religiously exact in the use of our estates.
First, because the manner of using our money or spending our estate centers so far into the business of every day and make so great a part of our common life, that our common life must be much of the same nature as our common way of spending our estate. If reason and religion govern us in this, then reason and religion gave great hold of us; but if humor, pride, and fancy are the measures of spending our estate, then humor, pride, and fancy will have the direction of the greatest part of our life.
Secondly, another great reason for devoting all our estate to right uses is this: because it is capable of being used to the most excellent purpose and is so great a means of doing good. If we waste it, we do not waste a trifle that signifies little, but we waste that which might be made as eyes to the blind, as a husband to the widow,
as a father to the orphan; we waste that which not only enables us to minister
worldly comforts to those that are in distress, but that which might purchase
for ourselves everlasting treasures in Heaven. So that if we part with our money
in foolish ways, we part with a great power of comforting our fellow creatures
and of making ourselves forever blessed.
If there be nothing so glorious as doing good, if there is nothing that makes us so like to God, then nothing can be so glorious in the use of our money as to use it all in works of love and goodness, making ourselves friends and fathers and benefactors to all our fellow creatures, imitating the Divine love and turning all our power into acts of generosity, care, and kindness to such as are in need of it.
Thirdly, if we waste our money, we are not only guilty of wasting a talent which God has given us, we are not only guilty of making that useless which is so powerful a
means of doing good, but we do ourselves this further harm, that we turn this
useful talent into a powerful means of corrupting ourselves; because so far as
it is spent wrong, so far it is spent in support of some wrong temper, in
gratifying some vain and unreasonable desires in conforming to those fashions
and pride of the world, which, as Christians and reasonable men, we are obliged
to renounce.
We would do well to remember that Jesus warned in the parable of the sower that
"the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for
other things enter in and choke the word and it becomes unfruitful."
4 comments:
If there is anything that could ever bring the Church to ruin, it is the rot that can occur within, the rot that is so obvious to those outside of the Church. The snake oil salesman displaying how to get all we could ever want on TV and waving the Bible simultaneously is an example of this rot.
Although we would never acknowledge this man as a member of the church, even in the most distant fashion, he is percieved as such by those outside of it. We are forever fighting the battle with those who view the Church as irredeemably corrupt and useless, and they use wicked men such as this ans cases in point.
But what these people overlook is that Christianity is not a religion that you are accepted into by default. I do not simply accept Christ and then go about my business. Becoming like Christ IS my business now, and if I am not, then he is not in me. Therefore, a man like that does not have Christs and his grace within him, and so is not a Christian. Because being Christ-like is not his business, making money off of mislead people is.
The problem is that many people are not willing to do the thinking required to see the difference. And since they are not willing to think and clearly see that men such as this have nothing to do with the Church, we must strive not to become like this man.
Another problem is that what people on the outside of the Church can so plainly see, we on the inside often cannot. We as members of the Church, as membes of the Vine must be ever vigilant that this rot does not manifest itself in whatever portion of the vine we are in, and muust work to root it out at all costs. Do do any less is to allow our testimony in Christ's name to become faulty.
There has to be a balance. We cannot succumb to pride, saying that the Church is perfect and that it is those outside it who are, nor can we go to such an extreme in examining the Church that we become those outside of the Church ridiculing it. Balance. Everything requires it. There are almost infinite conditions in temperature and environment which are possible in this universe, from the thousands of degrees of heat from the sun to the numbing cold of the void, from the airless expanse of the moon to the choking haze of Venus. it is in betwen all of these extremes that life miraculously exists. Likewise, the Church and truly following the Path that Christ laid out before us exists in perfect balance.
Very true Steve.
Might I suggest you try the "blockquote" tag though? It makes large quotes a lot more readable by delineating them from the rest of your text.
Hey Steve, I get Time magazine and was mentioning the following article to someone (can't remember who...) who said I should read your blog about this subject. Check it out - very interesting article. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1533448,00.html
Oops, it's the "Does God Want You To Be Rich?" cover story (9/18/06)
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