{"id":1176,"date":"2010-08-24T21:15:49","date_gmt":"2010-08-24T21:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2010\/08\/jesus-and-money--the-convocation-address.html"},"modified":"2010-08-24T21:15:49","modified_gmt":"2010-08-24T21:15:49","slug":"jesus-and-money-the-convocation-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/08\/jesus-and-money-the-convocation-address.html","title":{"rendered":"Jesus and Money— the Convocation Address"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jesusmoney.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My book Jesus and Money is being picked up as a textbook this Fall, including at Greenville College in Ill. where I will be giving the Convocation Address this week.  Here is the text of the address.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

JESUS AND MONEY<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

            <\/span>Money
\nis like truth serum. Whoever touches it turns either into gold or lead, which
\nis to say, money, and what people do with it reveals their character.  <\/span>The hoarder, like the man who stored things
\nup in barns in Jesus’ parable, simply further indulges his propensity to
\nhoard.  <\/span>The miser like Scrooge continues
\nto be miserly unless he has the extreme makeover or a character change.  <\/span>The compassionate person is given further
\nopportunities to express that character, and so on. <\/p>\n

            <\/span>There
\nis a reason why there are more warnings about the dangers of money and riches
\nin the NT than there are remarks about dying and going to heaven.  <\/span>‘Where a person’s treasure is, therein lies
\nthat person’s heart.’   <\/span>We must talk
\nseriously about these things, but first we need to set the framework for our
\ndiscussion.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Is there such a
\nthing as a Biblical theology of property, a normative statement on
\n‘materiality’?   <\/span>I think the answer to
\nthis is yes.  <\/span>The Psalmist enunciates it
\nquite well reflecting on his creation theology—- ‘the earth is the Lord’s and
\nthe fullness there of’.   <\/span>Not just ten
\npercent, but everything belongs to God. 
\n<\/span>It is all God’s property.  <\/span>In
\nfact, we are God’s property.  <\/span>Now if this
\nis true, then in the ultimate sense we are not really owners of anything.  <\/span>We did not bring anything with us into this
\nworld and even if we are buried with our pink Cadillacs we can’t really take it
\nwith us.  <\/span>Joke about man who took gold bullion
\nto heaven with him. <\/p>\n

What the Bible
\nsays about property is that God is the owner, and we are only stewards of God’s
\nproperty. Now this cuts against theories of both godless communism and godless
\ncapitalism as well.  <\/span>And if we are merely
\nstewards of God’s property, then we need to constantly be asking God—- what
\nshould I be doing with this or that piece of property you have loaned me?   <\/span>In other words, like any good steward, we
\nneed to check with the owner before making financial decisions, even seemingly
\ntrivial ones. And if all else fails, we should read the Owner’s Manual—- I
\nmean the Bible of course.  <\/span>Alas, however
\nwe live in a Jesus haunted culture that is Biblical illiterate, and that
\nilliteracy has allowed us to give free reign to all kinds of false ideas about
\nmoney, investing, retirement, the freedom to spend money of luxury items and
\nthe like.  <\/span>One of the great problems in
\nthe Christian life is not merely that we live without proper theological and
\nethical reflection about what we do, we in fact give free reign to impulse
\nbuying, subjecting ourselves to the bombardment of thousands of advertisements
\na week.  <\/span>Even worse, we sometimes
\nconvince ourselves we have some sort of patriotic duty to shop until we drop
\ncause ‘it’s good for the economy’.  
\n<\/span>Christian approaches to money and spending and saving and work hardly
\nenter our thought processes, so controlled are we by our urges, longings,
\ndesires, wants…. even more than by our actual needs.  <\/span>Jesus understood that the heart of the matter
\nis a matter of the heart.  <\/span>The heart is
\nthe heart of the problem.   <\/span>Let’s listen
\nto what Jesus says. <\/p>\n

First of all Jesus
\ntells us “do not store up treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume, and
\nthieves break in and steal, rather store up treasures in heaven”. What is he
\ntalking about?  <\/span> <\/span>Is he envisioning some sort of heavenly bank
\naccount we can invest in, in order to have ‘our best life now’?  <\/span>Well no. 
\n<\/span>He is talking about stifling the acquisitive instinct, and instead of
\nsaving for your own future, you should be investing in the lives of others and
\ntrusting God for the future.  <\/span><\/p>\n

This word just
\nin— there is no theology of retirement in the Bible, no theology of pension
\nor nest egg.  <\/span>There is a theology of rest
\nand blessing, but that is a different matter. 
\n<\/span>The real issue here is where one places one’s ultimate trust (as
\nmanifested in what one does with one’s money) and where one’s sense of ultimate
\nsecurity lies— in one’s bank account or in one’s Lord.   <\/span>It’s a heart issue and a faith issue.   <\/span>Jesus warns that there can be no half and
\nhalf solution— you can’t half way serve Mammon and half way serve God.  <\/span>Then you have two absolute masters, and that absolutely<\/i> doesn’t work.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Anytime you see a
\n‘therefore’ in Scripture you need to ask what is it there for, and we have
\nprecisely this sort of thing after Jesus’ famous two masters aphorism.  <\/span>Since you cannot serve two masters, therefore
\nwhat you ought to do is “don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or
\ndrink, or about your body what you will wear.” 
\n<\/span>He is saying we should not be fretting and sweating over the necessities
\nof life, how much less should we be having an anxiety attack about what
\nluxuries we don’t have.  <\/span>Anyway, he tells
\nus we can’t add a moment to our lives by worrying, even about the necessities
\nlike where our next meal is coming from. 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Worry is a
\ncondition of the heart— a heart matter. 
\n<\/span>Are you a worry wart?  <\/span>What this
\nreflects is a lack of trust in God— put bluntly.  <\/span>God knows what we need to live, what we need
\nto thrive, what we need to be good stewards and we should trust God will
\nprovide these necessities of life.  <\/span>It is
\nin that context that Jesus adds “Seek first the kingdom of God
\nand all these things will be added”. 
\n<\/span>What are these things<\/i>?  <\/span>The context is clear. They do not include gas
\nguzzling SUVs, bling, expensive cellphones, expensive clothes etc.  <\/span>‘These things’ in this text clearly refers to
\nthe necessities of life.  <\/span>So we should
\nnot be praying the old Janis Joplin song in our heads—- ‘Oh Lord won’t you
\nbuy me a Mercedes Benz…..’   <\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly, in Mt.
\n7 when Jesus says ask, seek, and knock and it will be given, he is not talking
\nabout God blessing you with wealth and riches and things that ruin your
\ncharacter and turn you into a narcissistic fool, he’s talking about God taking
\ncare of your basic needs in life.  <\/span>There
\nis a false theology, very popular in some quarters in the conservative
\nProtestant church.  <\/span>The name it and claim
\ntheology, or the ‘God wants you rich’ theology. 
\n<\/span>Besides the fact this is totally false and unbiblical, it fails to
\nrecognize that God knows perfectly well we are all fallen creatures with fallen
\ndesires, and you can pray until you are blue in the face, but God is not likely
\nto give you things that will ruin your Christian character because he knows
\nwhat is best for you, and is a good Father to us all.  <\/span>He is not like the Father who gives his
\ndaughter a snake when she asks for a fish. God is also not a cosmic prize
\npatrol Dude at your beck and call just because you ask nicely for this that or
\nthe other. You can’t make God an offer he can’t refuse’ Period. <\/p>\n

Is money
\ninherently evil then?  <\/span>Of course not. It
\nis part of God’s good creation.  <\/span>The
\nproblem lies in the human heart, hence Paul stresses ‘the love<\/i> of money is a root of all sorts of evil’.  <\/span>He’s right about that— the lusts of the
\nheart plague us all in one form or another.  <\/span> <\/span>If its
\nnot the love of money it’s the love of clothes, if its not the love of clothes
\nit’s the love of Ipods and downloads, if its not the love of Ipods it’s the
\nlove of cars, if its not the love of cars, it’s the lusting after girls, girls,
\ngirls, or boys, boys boys.  <\/span>There is a
\ndifference between lusts of the heart and real love, but our culture hardly can
\ntell the differences any more. <\/p>\n

It is a fact that
\nJesus told us to pay our taxes to the Emperor, or to the temple.  <\/span>It is also a fact that he encouraged us to
\ngenerosity and self-sacrificial behavior. 
\n<\/span>The story of the widow and her two ‘mites’ or lepta urges us to do more
\nthan tithing, it urges us to self-sacrificial behavior.  <\/span>There is not a mandate in the NT for
\nChristians to tithe, but there certainly is a mandate to give
\nself-sacrificially.  <\/span>  <\/span>By now I think you catch my drift.  <\/span>If you are well grounded in God’s Word, you
\nwill realize that the siren song of our culture about money and material
\npossessions is not the trumpet call of God. 
\n<\/span>We have been led down the path to massive debt, ridiculous indulgence of
\ndesires, not needs mind you, but wants and desires. We are a debtor nation, and
\nChristians are often the worst examples of this problem.  <\/span>Fortunately, there is a way back from the
\nbrink of disaster, a way to life wisely and without anxiety about
\nnecessities.   <\/span>Here are some of the basic
\nprinciples of life:<\/p>\n

1)                         
\n<\/span><\/span>recognize each day that you are not an owner of
\nanything, only a steward of God’s property;<\/p>\n

2)                         
\n<\/span><\/span>this leads to the necessity of consultation. You must
\npray and seek Biblical guidance before buying things, especially luxury items<\/p>\n

3)                         
\n<\/span><\/span>Make up a list of the necessities and luxuries in your
\nlife.  <\/span>God has promised to help you with
\nthe former, but he may well want to alleviate you of the latter, especially if
\nit gets in the way of his soul work in you.<\/p>\n

4)                         
\n<\/span><\/span>Ask the hard questions and learn how to critically
\ndiscern the differences between a necessity in your life and a luxury. For some
\nof you, having a car is a necessity of life, for work purposes etc.  <\/span>For some of you, it is not.  <\/span>No one set of rules fits us all in most
\nmatters of material possessions.  <\/span>The
\ngifted concert trumpet player needs a trumpet. 
\n<\/span>I do not. <\/p>\n

5)                         
\n<\/span><\/span>Stay out of debt to the best of your ability.  <\/span>Pay for things as you go, and don’t borrow
\nridiculous amounts of money at crushing interest rates. By the way most credit
\ncards have crushing interest rates if you don’t pay them off each month.  <\/span>Tear up such cards, and live with just a
\ndebit card. <\/p>\n

6)                         
\n<\/span><\/span>Don’t waste any of the currencies of life— your
\nmoney, your time, your talents etc. <\/p>\n

7)                         
\n<\/span><\/span>Give and give back more than you take and acquire. Set
\nan example of self-sacrificial behavior like that of Jesus<\/p>\n

8)                         
\n<\/span><\/span>Trust God, and move on faith in the directions he wants
\nyou to go. God reveals enough about the future to give you hope, but not so
\nmuch that you don’t have to live by faith every day of your life.  <\/span>Put your trust in God, not your possessions,
\nor else they will possess you. <\/p>\n

9)                         
\n<\/span><\/span>Some things in life really are priceless— your
\nsalvation, your relationship with the Lord, life experiences that form you in
\nthe image of Christ and his great love for everyone.  <\/span>Make the main thing the main thing and count
\nyour blessings.  <\/span>Money can’t buy you love
\nor happiness or a good relationship with parents or children or friends or with
\nGod. <\/p>\n

10)                     
\n<\/span><\/span>Learn in detail what the Bible says about the earth and
\nall its material things.  <\/span>You have been
\nblessed to be a blessing to others— this means no hoarding, no miserly
\nbehavior.  <\/span>The sign of the Christ is the
\nopen hand, giving to others, not the clinched fist, clinging to what loose
\nchange one has.   <\/span>Read the parable of the
\nrich man and Lazarus. It is a sober reminder that how you deal with money and
\nthe poor and other related matters can affect your eternal destiny.   <\/span>No wonder Jesus said—- ‘Blessed are the
\npoor, for yours is the Kingdom
\nof God’.   <\/span>I suspect many of you can claim that
\nbeatitude as your own, because many students are poor today.   <\/span>The test will come when you begin to have
\nmoney.  <\/span>That will reveal what your real
\ncharacter is.   <\/span>Are you ready for that
\ntest\/  <\/span>I hope you are, and I pray that
\nyou pass it. <\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My book Jesus and Money is being picked up as a textbook this Fall, including at Greenville College in Ill. where I will be giving the Convocation Address this week.  Here is the text of the address. JESUS AND MONEY               Money is like truth serum. Whoever touches it turns either into gold or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nJesus and Money- the Convocation Address - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/08\/jesus-and-money-the-convocation-address.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus and Money- the Convocation Address - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My book Jesus and Money is being picked up as a textbook this Fall, including at Greenville College in Ill. where I will be giving the Convocation Address this week.  Here is the text of the address. 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}