Let me know what you think about this – agree/disagree/why
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The Christian presented with an opportunity to make great wealth is obliged to take it; in what clearer way could God say, “You will be the financier of my kingdom.”
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4 comments
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April 28, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Peter
What do you mean by “the opportunity to make great wealth”? I don’t see any scriptural basis or examples for acting on greed to be a basis for blessing. Wise stewardship is the scriptural basis for great wisdom, responsibility and sometimes wealth to go along with with it. Christian should look askance at get rich quick schemes and avoid actions based on greed, and the delusion that God will bless them. The wise Christian when blessed with great weath looks for opportunities to worship and be thankful by giving their substance to further the kingdom of God.
Have you read your Grandfather’s book “The Dollars and Sense of Honesty”? There are some good examples there. Find a biography of R. G. LeTourneau who purposed, with his wife, to invert the tithe percentages and live on 10% and give 90% to the Lord’s work. And they did this long before God blessed them with GREAT wealth.
Count me in on the “disagree” ballots because the premise is flawed.
April 28, 2009 at 3:21 pm
benjaminpeterrabbit
yeah, I’ve gotten this response from a lot of people.
I guess I have a different presupposition about money than a lot of people – perhaps that is something I inherited from my father
Most read this and immediately disagreed because of issues like temptation, greed, corruption, selfishness, and because so many of the “opportunities” for wealth can be sinful.
But here’s what I was envisioning with the above statement:
An entrepreneurial Christian who is so excited about the kingdom of God that he searches for ways of making money. Not for the sake of success, and not for extravagance, but because he’s obsessed with the work of God, realizes money can fund it, and he pursues business with the full intention of financing the kingdom of God with his revenues.
With the above statement I wasn’t saying, “The Christian should be greedy and excuse this by saying God wants them to be rich.”
I was more saying, “The Christian should be so obsessed with the work of God that when an opportunity for making money presents itself, their first thought is immediately: Wow, Think of what I could do for God with this money!”
Hope that clarifies.
May 16, 2009 at 6:31 am
Peter
You have successfully made your position clearer. However, I still maintain that your thinking on this one is inside out. Character and availability are the assets God looks for in the people He works through and with, not great wealth. My prayer is to be an Onesimus, useful to the Lord/Master because of good character and a willing spirt, not to win the lottery so I can give to charity.
September 7, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Josh W
Well I’d take it three ways;
1 – If your not getting the money from exploitation or dishonest marketing, and you don’t see any way it could be harmful to those paying you, then you are actually making a load of money by doing people good! Your already blessing people. What is more, you could follow the money lender parable, go non-profit (or just lower profit), and give people a discount/pay better wages out of the love of God.
2 – God can tell you if he wants you to be financing his kingdom loads of ways, so you can make the decision of how much of that cash to use on what based on scripture, prophesy, signs, personal revelation etc so long as you are really careful to test stuff. It may be that God doesn’t want you making that money because he has a specific other thing he wants you to be doing, if so, find out what and pass the money on to someone else who will use it for God.
3 – You’re totally right on the excitement front, people should be able to go “Yes God! Another chance to bless people!” and try to fire off the money themselves or give it to someone godly they trust to administer, as part of submitting it to God. I know a lovely friend who didn’t get this, and felt God’s work should be money-free. My take is that “despising” money is thinking little of it, as nothing compared to our devotion to God, that’s my take on the “two masters” parable. So I reckon we should be as worried about money as we are of dust, we walk on both to get places!
Hmm that last sentence’s sort of poetic and almost true, I’m sure you can see the corrections needed.