Wealth captures our trust by opening opportunities and fulfilling many of our needs, but so often the love of money leads to an unhealthy view of the world. This disturbingly broad trust in wealth doesn’t just blind us to our obligations to each other, but also creeps into Christian worship of God.
Wealth lures, sometimes for the right reasons
The pursuit of wealth leading to corruption is seen fairly frequently. I’m sure there are examples you can think of at both a political level as well as at a community, social or familial level. However, the danger of pursuing wealth extends also to our ability to relate to God.
Jesus says, “You cannot serve two masters … you cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew chapter 6 verse 24)
I think a large part of wealth’s lure is that it appears to provide prosperity and protection. When I think of raising a family, the question of whether I will be able to provide for them and pay any medical bills or other sudden expenses quickly comes to the fore.
Further, I feel pressure to give any future children the kinds of opportunities my own parents were able to give me (even though times are different, and it seems unlikely I could). Even this is clearly a warping of my own viewpoint in that the most important thing my parents tried to help me reach was a firm faith in God. Wealth will not help in the latter.
This is a marker of how wealth doesn’t help where it matters most. Yet I see people (sometimes including myself) trusting in wealth where we should be trusting in God.
God provides, but do we give?
God is the one who provides, yet we choose so often to rely on our own strength. I often think of the harsh words of Malachi to the Israelites when they were reluctant to follow their duties in the Old Covenant to give to the temple and to the priests:
Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. (Malachi chapter 3 v. 8–10, ESV trans.)
Testing God is normally considered a bad thing in the Bible, as it is a mark of distrust towards God. Psalm 78 points to this as the cause God’s anger towards the wilderness generation in Exodus: “They tested God again and again and provoked the Holy One of Israel.” (verse 41, ESV trans.).
Yet here it seems to me that God is saying it would be better to put God to the test than to be as tight-fisted as the Israelites were being in Malachi’s time. They lacked generosity and charity, failing to uphold their duties in the Old Covenant to care for the priestly Levites.
Although our situation is different in many ways, I wonder if there is a similar lack of trust in God sometimes when we choose to forgo contributing to the work of the church.
Limits to giving?
There are reasons not to contribute. In Israel’s context, God’s laws for them put a great deal of weight on being socially just. Looking after community, even including sojourners and other foreigners, was part of their worship of God. In our context this is similar, if not extended.
If someone does not look after their brother or sister when they are in need, but gives to the church, how does this reflect God’s love? I think it is more likely to bring God’s name into disrepute. Many already see the Church as merely a set of greedy institutions conning people with fairy tales.
Our actions should not confirm this view, and far worse if our actions displease God while we are at it.
Additionally, while the challenge in Malachi pushes us to give and trust that God will provide. Provision from God is rarely mystical. As mundane as toiling for the means to live can be, it is generally how we are provided for and how we provide for others.
However, giving to the Church is not only bound by our duty to provide for ourselves and others. Jesus notes a widow in the temple who clearly gives based on a different metric:
Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” (Luke Chapter 21 verses 1–4, ESV trans.)
This widow gives beyond her means, but Jesus does not criticise this as irresponsible. It appears that this widow’s actions are commendable and that Jesus’ followers are to take after her actions far more than the others in the temple that day.
I don’t think it is easy to fully understand what this means for us. Perhaps we are called to be more radical in giving than I am comfortable to recommend. However, whatever the case, we need to give with the right motives.
Watch your motives
There are many wrong motives we could have, though the most common form I see seems to be the God as vending machine problem. Our inputs do not determine God’s actions. He has more independence, will and character than we can fully comprehend—more personhood than people.
We shouldn’t use our giving to try to manipulate God. Bargaining is not the right way to relate to God, and attempting to force God’s hand into providing for us is sinister. Several of the prophets to Israel warned that their offerings were repugnant to God. Giving out of the wrong motives is deeply offensive. If we are trying to control God through giving, it would be better to not give at all.
God provides for us and is our truest protection in life. We cannot afford to live life with wealth as our master and cannot expect it to rule over God either. Wealth can give us the means to look after ourselves and those around us, including the Church, so use it wisely.
Alexander Gillespie is an Arts Honours graduate of the University of Sydney. Particular fields of interest include Nineteenth-Century migration history, conceptual philosophy, social policy and ecclesiology. He currently lives in Sydney with his wife and enjoys researching and writing.