Should a Christian Be Rich?

The short answer: probably not.

The longer answer…

Christianity and Money Don’t Go Together

Christianity has had a complicated relationship with money and wealth throughout its existence. In its early period, Christians were almost universally poor, oppressed, and at risk of their lives. They were frequently enslaved people, from ethnic minorities, and women. The Bible teaches us that the first Christian communities held their money and property in common and used it for the benefit of the most needy. Indeed, a couple who lied about withholding money rather than giving it all to the community died (Acts 5:1-11).

Jesus gave many warnings about the dangers of money, and in many of his parables he inverted the listeners expectations by making the rich person the one who was outside of God’s blessing or who was acting against God’s interests. Jesus called out the injustices within his society which were caused by the sins of greed and the idolatrous worship of wealth and the power that comes with it.

The Corruption of Power and Money

But as Christianity became legal, and then became institutional, the problem of how to deal with money became an increasing tension for the church. The church started to own property. People donated money at a rate which went beyond its ability to give away and instead was used for its maintenance and subsistence. As the leaders of the church, its bishops and priests, gained social status and political power, they became wealthier and further distanced from their congregations. In response, the monastic movement formed.

This becomes the basis for the dynamics within the church of consolidation and reform which characterised the remaining fifteen hundred years of church history. The church consolidated, became wealthy and powerful, and so a group broke away seeking to return to the root of the Christian faith, seeking an authentic kind of discipleship which mirrored what they saw in the Bible.

To be a ‘radical’ meant to return ‘to the root’ and this was what the monastics, and later reform movements, sought to do. In this sense, the protestants and their reformation-minded forbears such as the Lollards and the Hussites, were acting in the same tradition of protest and reform that the monastics such as Anthony, Benedict, and Francis were all part of.

Chief amongst their protest was the belief that wealth, power, and privilege were antithetical to the truths of the Gospel. Which takes us to one of the most controversial claims made by Jesus and the New Testament. That material success does not equal divine blessing. Being rich did not mean God had blessed you, and being powerful did not mean you had been touched by providence. In fact, the opposite was true. It was the poor who were closest to God. It was the oppressed who were most beloved by God. It was on the margins that Christ chose to live and it was the poor and the lost and the weak and the lowly that the Spirit of God was at work.

So should Christians be rich? Let’s see what the Bible has to say.

What Does The Bible Say?

Lets start with the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:19-34:

¹⁹ ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰ but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ²² ‘The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; ²³ but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! ²⁴ ‘No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. ²⁵ ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? ²⁸ And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” ³² For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³ But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

In the first few verses Jesus tells us to be careful about what we value and about where our heart is to be found. Jesus says not to store up treasures here on earth, where those treasures are fleeting and temporary. Instead, we are to build up our treasure in heaven, where our treasure is lasting and eternal. We are to place our value on the things of God, not on the things of the world. This is clarified in the following verses where we are told that we need to be careful about what we let illuminate our life. What we value will have an impact on how we see the world. If we value wealth and privilege and material possessions then that will affect how we see our neighbours and how we view our relationship with the world.

Which is why Jesus then says we cannot serve both God and wealth. We can have only one master. Because of that, Jesus says not to worry about our life. Not because our lives don’t matter, but because when we rush after the things that make us feel safe and secure, we place our treasure in the wrong place. This doesn’t mean we should just go hungry, or we shouldn’t care about trying to make sure we have somewhere to live. But it does mean we should not value those things more than they are worth. We need food to live, we need a place to sleep, we need clothes to wear. But those things cannot make us safe, they are temporary, and so we must not treat them like they are eternal. We have to keep our perspective.

Next we will look at a parable of Jesus from Luke 12:13-21 rather wonderfully titled the parable of the rich fool:

¹³ Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ ¹⁴ But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’ ¹⁵ And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ ¹⁶ Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. ¹⁷ And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” ¹⁸ Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ²⁰ But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” ²¹ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’

Jesus comes right out and calls having too many things what it is: greed. He warns about the dangers of greed and what happens when we get our perspectives wrong. There is a rich man with loads of crops. Far more than he needs. What he could do is give away what he doesn’t need to the poor and the hungry to help them. Instead, what he does is destroy the barns he already has and builds even bigger ones so he can store even more than he needs.

He does this so that he relax and eat and drink for years. But where are these crops coming from? It does not look like he is the one in the field doing all the work! But God rebukes the man, reminding him that his death is coming and what he has stored up in those barns is temporary and ultimately meaningless compared to eternity. There is a danger is storing up treasurers on earth rather than treasures in God.

Can Wealth Be A Positive Thing?

Part of that danger is what a person must do to have that level of wealth to begin with. The kind of behaviour they need to have to store up that much wealth rather than sharing it. Think for a moment of the richest people in the world. Imagine the good they could do with the money if they spent it or gave it away.

How many homes could they build, how many people could they feed, how many schools they could construct, how many people they could help through education or hardship or struggle? But they don’t, because they hoard their wealth like an angry dragon sitting on its pile of gold. To even get that much wealth in the first place you will have had to put yourself first again and again and again. It is not just that the wealth itself is dangerous, it is the kind of mindset you need to have and then to keep that level of wealth which is destructive.

Wealth becomes your master, it becomes an idol.

A classic text to refer to is the story of the rich young man from Mark 10:17-27,

¹⁷ As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ¹⁸ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. ¹⁹ You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.”’ ²⁰ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ ²¹ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ ²² When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. ²³ Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ ²⁴ And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ ²⁶ They were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ ²⁷ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’

The man was already righteous according to the Law. The rich young man was keeping the commandments. However, there was one thing missing in that rich man’s life. He had to go and sell what he had and give the money to the poor so that he would have treasure in heaven. Only then could he follow Jesus. The young man couldn’t do it, because he had many possessions.

In the end, his possessions, his wealth, and the security and safety and position and status that they gave to the young man, prevented him from following Jesus. They were too important for him. Then we have that wonderful phrase from Jesus, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

People have often said this was just a metaphor about having to take the baggage off of the camel’s back so it can go through a narrow gate in Jerusalem’s walls. But what if we take this seriously. What if Jesus actually did mean it is easier for a camel, a big old animal, to go through the eye of a needle. I struggle to get simple cotton thread through the eye of a needle, let alone a full grown camel!

Jesus meant it when he said it is difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God, because he had just seen the rich young man walk away from him because he could not sell his possessions and give the money to the poor. His possessions, his wealth, was holding him back. He couldn’t let them go.

Wealth, and the kind of life that goes along with it, easily separates us from God. Wealth becomes a barrier between us and Jesus because wealth becomes an idol. It ends up becoming our master. The rich man could have helped the poor, but only at the expense of his own wealth, and he chose not to do so. He chose to keep his wealth rather than helping those who could benefit from it and then following Jesus.

Lets also look the example of the early church in Acts 4:32-35,

³² All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. ³³ With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all ³⁴ that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales ³⁵ and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

In the early church, the believers held everything in common. No one claimed that their possessions were their own. They shared everything. God’s grace powerfully at work meant there were no needy persons because the people who had more sold what they had to share it amongst the poor and the needy. They did not say to the poor that it was their fault for not working. They did not give out help only if they decided a person had deserved it. They did not make the needy fill out an application form first, nor did they screen out deserving from underserving poor, neither did they say that they would give a hand up rather than a hand out (or other such patronising language). They simply gave out of their abundance to those who had little because God, in God’s infinite abundance of grace, had gratuitously poured out grace and love upon us.

The Task of a Disciple

To love and care for the poor, the needy, the weak, the outcast, the rejected, the oppressed, is the task of the disciple. To hold onto possessions and wealth when they could be used for others is to walk away from the truth of the Gospel. What made the church distinctive was that it cared for everyone who needed it, regardless of background. If a person was poor, they were taken care of. If a person was hungry, they were fed. If a person was naked, they were given clothes. This was the way of Jesus.

This kind of community is what it looks like when the kingdom of God comes with power here and now. It is a foretaste of heaven. It looks radically and subversively different from the kind of communities and structures we live within today, both secular and sacred. To assume that wealth is a blessing rather than a responsibility is the opposite of the Gospel. The responsibility for a person who has wealth, is to use it to benefit others. Not in dribs and drabs, but gratuitously and absolutely. So that it is poured out to benefit others, and not hoarded for one’s own safety and security.

Jesus never says to a person “you must build up your wealth so that you can help others” Jesus says to us “you must help others to have treasure in heaven.” We need to completely re-assess how we perceive value.

Which brings us onto the final Bible reading. This has not been an exhaustive list of Bible readings about wealth. They are demonstrative of the kind of teaching we see throughout the Bible. The one we are finishing with might be a surprise. It is Revelation 21:21,

²¹ And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass.

The streets of heaven are described as being made of pure gold, so pure that it is as transparent as glass. We can read this as ‘look how rich and amazing heaven will be’, but I think we can read it another way which is more direct towards the rest of scripture.

That gold, this thing which the world values so much, is going to be the thing that you’re walking on in heaven. Its value is reversed. In heaven, gold will be like dust and mud and dirt. Something we walk on, with no other value to it at all. The things that are valued in this world are meaningless in heaven. Instead we need to put our value where it belongs.

The Bible seems to be pretty clear, or at least Jesus does! You cannot serve God and money. You should not store up wealth for yourself here on Earth but place your value in the things of heaven. You should consider your possessions and your wealth as there to be used for the benefit of others and not to store up for yourself. It will be difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God, as difficult as getting a camel through the eye of a needle. Those people who think God has blessed them with wealth will learn differently. Wealth is dangerous, it leads to idolatry, it ensnares and captures and tempts. It chains people up rather than setting them free.

A Christian should not be rich. Or at least I do not think that they should and I think the Bible is pretty clear about it as well.

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