WISDOM ON WEALTH

“The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.” – Proverbs 22:7

For those of you who joined us for our last Christian Education class before the Summer, you are already aware that we have entered a new part of our stewardship campaign over the course of the year. Over the next few weeks we are going to be focusing on personal finances. Whenever stewardship is talked about, the focus is on giving, but very little time is spent setting the groundwork for how that is possible.

Before class on Sunday, we played this video from Christian YouTuber Allen Parr. It’s a great video because it helps to remind us that God cares what we do with our money and that we are expected to use it for the benefit of the Lord and others. So, how do we get to a point where we can use our money in the God-honoring ways that Parr discusses in the video? Well, one of the ways, and this is what Parr himself points out, is that we can get out of debt.

Per these statistics from Lendingtree, the average debt on credit cards in the United States is $7,279, but in New Jersey it is higher (third highest in the country) at $9,044. If one were to add up all the credit card debt in the United States it would be $986 billion dollars!

There are all sorts of ways that people can end up in debt. Sometimes it is due to unexpected, much needed expenses and they snowball. Other times it simply is poor money management. Still other times it is us being lured or tempted to spend lavishly with money that is not ours. I’m not writing this to pass judgement on how one would end in debt, but chances are all of us, whether we are in debt or not, know people who are. So, how do we as Christians manage our money in a helpful way and how do we help others do the same, because after all we are our brother’s keeper.

Biblically speaking the Lord offers a lot of financial advice, but many of them are hard truths or hard to enact in general because it requires self-control, which is the cornerstone of good-stewardship. In Proverbs 22 the first 16 verses can be seen as a dialogue on wealth and how one can be mislead by wealth or use it in ungodly ways. For our purposes we see that one of the most important pieces of wisdom has to do with debt. We are told that “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”

The first part of that sentence, “The rich rule over the poor,” is a statement of fact. Just like today money allows people to have power, whether this is good or bad isn’t commented on. Instead, the author tells us what this means in our own relationships. Without going on a massive tangent, what can be said is that the Bible is clear that wealth is a stumbling block when it is misunderstood, and it is often misunderstood (see Jesus in Matthew 19:16-30.) It is because wealth is misunderstood that those who lend will often be tempted to abuse those who have borrowed from them. In order to avoid, this the best for all involved is not take out debt or owe anything to anyone.

In our world though that is hard to do. Debt itself is built into our way of life. If we ever hope to own a house or go to college most of us are going to have to borrow money from a bank. So, practically, our best tools are those that are simplest: budgeting and saving. Boring, not sexy at all, but that is the case. We may get lucky enough with the lottery or hope that our lenders forget or stop giving us calls, but at the end of the day it is through budgeting and saving that we defeat debt and are able to do with our money what God wants us to do with it: serve others.

If you are looking for budgeting tools there are many out there, but this list from Forbes Business seems to give the best advice (I for one have heard good things about You Need a Budget).

In all this talk of debt though I remember the words of Jesus when he tells his disciples that in their prayers they should pray “and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.” God has forgiven our debts through the cross and we should remember that. Debts keep us trapped and God desires us to be free.

Pastor George