Hardly anyone wants to be poor; most people would like to be rich. Wealth brings power, standing in the community, increased leisure and freedom from worry—so it is thought. Not surprisingly, in the richest part of the world many Christians are preaching a “prosperity gospel”—that faithfulness to Jesus will lead to personal wealth. Tragically, this distorted message is now taking root in some of the poorest countries of the world. Is wealth a sign of God’s blessing? Is money the main measure of wealth? Why does money “talk”? Does the Bible endorse wealth, promote it or exclude it? How are we to respond in spirit and action? Our souls hang on our answers to these questions.
Principalities and powers form an invisible background to our life in this world. One of those powers is money. Mammon, as it is sometimes called, comes from an Aramaic word, amen, which means firmness or stability. It is not surprising that a common English phrase is “the almighty dollar.”
As an alternative god, mammon inspires devotion, induces guilt, claims to give us security and seems omnipresent—a godlike thing. It is invested with spiritual power that can enslave us, replacing single-minded love for God and neighbor with buying-selling relationships in which even the soul can be bought (Rev. 18:11-13). So money, wicked “mammon” (Luke 16:9 KJV), is a form or appearance of another power (Ephes. 1:21; Ellul, pp. 76-77, 81, 93). “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7). Joseph, the righteous and Jesus are sold (Amos 2:6).
Money is not the only form of wealth, and not the first one named in Scripture. In ancient societies of Old Testament times, real wealth was associated with land. Even today in many Third World countries, land is the only permanent possession. Crops, cattle and houses could be destroyed by calamity, but the land will remain. So will the family. In God’s threefold promise to the descendants of Abraham (presence of God, peoplehood and a place to belong) the land figures prominently. Poised on the edge of Canaan, Israel was promised a good land to gain wealth. “Remember the Lord your God . . . gives you the ability to produce wealth” (Deut. 8:18). Land belonged to God but was trusted to families. When the land had been mortgaged or sold to pay debts, the Jubilee year (Leviticus 25) was the instrument of returning land to the original families.
How this applies to Christians today is a sensitive question. The meaning of “in the land” to Israel has now been encompassed by the phrase “in Christ” through which both Jews and Gentiles become joint heirs (Ephes. 3:6). This includes economic sharing and justice but does not literally mean a common piece of geography. So we are already seeing that Scripture appears to be ambiguous on this subject.
There are two voices of Scripture: one blessing the rich, the other cursing; one declaring that wealth is a sign of God’s redemptive love to make us flourish on earth, the other declaring that wicked mammon (Luke 16:9), usually gained at the expense of the poor, is an alternative god (see Money). We need to look at each of these in turn in subsequent blog posts.