Wartime Wisdom for the Wealthy

00:00:00.000 | A second question comes in from Rick Siegel who serves as the vice president

00:00:08.520 | of advancement and the distinguished lecturer of commerce and vocation at

00:00:13.080 | Bethlehem College and Seminary. He asks this, "Pastor John, is it sinful to be a

00:00:17.120 | high net worth individual, defined as assets minus liabilities being greater

00:00:22.640 | than 1 million US dollars? Here's the scenario. God blesses a Christian's

00:00:27.480 | personal industry with fruitfulness in the form of a large annual income. The

00:00:31.600 | biblical wartime lifestyle, as I may be admittedly misunderstanding it, would

00:00:36.000 | have this person use a portion of that income to meet modestly constructed

00:00:39.640 | needs, including the setting aside of similarly modest rain day reserves, and

00:00:44.360 | then give the rest to ministry, especially for the care of the poor.

00:00:48.040 | This person would not accumulate assets in such a model and therefore would

00:00:52.040 | neither be nor ever become a high net worth individual, only by God's grace a

00:00:56.840 | highly paid one during certain seasons. On the other hand, what about a Christian

00:01:01.160 | investor, the person who doesn't immediately give to Christian charity

00:01:04.600 | all of the difference between a modest lifestyle and a large annual income, but

00:01:08.720 | who keeps it and with great attentiveness accumulates assets that

00:01:12.640 | may produce future income and future charity beyond the immediate fruit of

00:01:17.640 | his annual labor. What's the difference between desiring to be rich, 1 Timothy 6

00:01:22.320 | 9, and skillfully, faithfully managing one's wealth in this manner? So let's get

00:01:29.080 | the powerful warning against the desire to be rich out on the table and then

00:01:35.360 | clarify a few things about wartime lifestyle, because there's where the rub

00:01:39.480 | is. So Paul says, 1 Timothy 6 6, "Godliness with contentment is great gain, for we

00:01:47.800 | brought nothing into the world, we cannot take anything out of the world, but if we

00:01:52.060 | have food and clothing with these we will be content. But those who desire to

00:01:57.000 | be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful

00:02:02.000 | desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction, for the love of money is the

00:02:08.320 | root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered

00:02:13.720 | away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs." That's about

00:02:18.160 | as strong a warning about the desire to be rich as I could imagine. So let me

00:02:23.960 | clarify what I'm talking about with wartime way of life. The answer to the

00:02:31.160 | question is no. A wartime lifestyle does not mean that you, after providing

00:02:38.880 | yourself and your family with a modest housing, food, clothing, now you're obliged

00:02:45.040 | to give all the surplus away immediately. That's not what wartime lifestyle says.

00:02:52.000 | Rather, the call for a wartime way of life says, with a lot more nuance and

00:02:59.600 | complexity, that the remainder of our resources, so after you've provided for

00:03:06.680 | yourself those necessities, might be ten dollars, might be ten million dollars

00:03:11.360 | left over. That's the one that's being asked about. What's left over

00:03:17.080 | is managed, stewarded, for the good of others, the glory of God, the advancement

00:03:25.100 | of His saving and sanctifying and healing purposes in the world, rather than for

00:03:31.600 | personal aggrandizement. So that may mean a huge and immediate sacrificial gift.

00:03:38.360 | You may give all your surplus away when profits rise or you get a windfall or

00:03:45.240 | whenever. Or it may mean, no, you don't give it all away. You build a large

00:03:53.600 | capital reserve for starting a foundation or for accompanying,

00:04:00.760 | accomplishing some larger, longer-term goal for the good of the culture or the

00:04:09.800 | society. Wartime way of life, as opposed to merely simple lifestyle, is meant to

00:04:17.880 | call attention to the kinds of choices that are made when tanks and rifles and

00:04:22.360 | grenades and B-52 bombers are needed to defeat the Germans and Japanese in the

00:04:27.840 | war of aggression, World War II. The complexities, think of it, of constructing

00:04:34.600 | tanks and rifles and grenades and airplanes were enormous and expensive.

00:04:42.160 | Factories for parts had to exist and massive paid labor force and logistical

00:04:49.560 | systems for transportation and delivery, all of it hugely costly. So, no, the

00:04:57.540 | answer is no. The building up of resources for the accomplishing of great

00:05:02.840 | and costly acts of love is not sinful. And it might be helpful just to

00:05:09.400 | draw this out a little more, not in relationship to any particular war, but

00:05:15.600 | rather ordinary business life in America. We live in a society in which many

00:05:22.320 | legitimate businesses depend on large concentrations of capital. You can't

00:05:27.200 | build a new manufacturing plant without millions of dollars in equity and

00:05:30.800 | therefore financial officers in these big businesses have the responsibility

00:05:35.960 | to build those reserves like they might sell shares to the community. And when

00:05:40.140 | the Bible condemns the desire to get rich, it's not necessarily condemning a

00:05:46.360 | business that aims to expand and therefore seeks larger capital reserves.

00:05:52.240 | Now, the officers of the business may be greedy. They may be greedy for personal

00:06:01.160 | wealth or for power, but they may have large noble motives of how their

00:06:08.800 | expanded productivity will create jobs and benefit people with products and

00:06:12.800 | services. It's not necessarily a greedy thing to want to amass that capital for

00:06:18.880 | the expansion of a new plant or something like that. Even if a person,

00:06:24.520 | let's just get it down to the individual, even if a person because of his or her

00:06:29.160 | competency in business is offered a raise or a higher paying job and accepts

00:06:37.280 | it, that doesn't automatically mean that he or she is driven by the desire to get

00:06:42.360 | rich. They may have accepted the job because they don't crave the power or

00:06:48.600 | the status of luxuries, but rather they want to do good. They want to

00:06:55.080 | build an adoption agency or give a scholarship or send a missionary or fund

00:07:01.080 | an inner-city ministry or something like that. So what Paul is warning against is

00:07:07.680 | not the desire to earn money to meet our needs and the needs of others. He's

00:07:13.320 | warning against the desire to have more and more money for the security and the

00:07:19.960 | ego boost and the material luxuries it can provide with no plan for loving

00:07:26.760 | other people with your increase. That's what my effort to teach

00:07:31.960 | on wartime lifestyle is aiming to avoid. Very good. Thank you, Pastor John. And you

00:07:39.120 | may be listening to this episode and you find yourself on the opposite end of the

00:07:42.720 | economic spectrum. If that's you, you're not alone. Many listeners are facing

00:07:46.840 | financial hardships right now and even facing poverty. If that's you, we recorded

00:07:51.560 | an entire episode titled "Biblical Hope for Christians Facing Poverty." That was

00:07:56.240 | episode number 289 in the podcast archive. You can find that episode in the

00:07:59.680 | Ask Pastor John app for the iPhone and the Android, which is free of charge to

00:08:03.440 | you because we are supported by some very generous financial donors to the

00:08:07.520 | ministry of Desiring God. So what does a holistic life of worship look like at

00:08:12.400 | work and at school? Tomorrow Pastor John will explain. I'm your host Tony

00:08:16.040 | Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:08:20.840 | you

00:08:22.900 | you

00:08:24.960 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Wartime Wisdom for the Wealthy

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