The Bible is controversial because people hold very different opinions about what the Bible is. Some people believe that every word of the Bible is literal truth. Some believe that the Bible is a source of moral guidance and compelling stories. Some believe that the Bible is nothing more than ancient superstitions.
Whatever you believe about the Bible, the Bible has shaped attitudes about the meaning of life, human worth, marriage, slavery, war, sex, government, and money, just to name a few topics. Let's pick just one topic that affects all of us in one way or another. What does the Bible teach about money?
As soon as we ask the question, we have to stop and analyze the question itself. No matter what the topic, the biggest problem for any question about "what the Bible teaches" is that the Bible is not really a single book. We think of the Bible as a single book because we can buy it as a single book in the bookstore. But the word "Bible" comes from the Greek word meaning "books." The Bible is a collection of books rather than a single book.
You will always find people who "prove" what "the Bible teaches" on any particular topic because they can quote particular Bible verses to make their case. You will also find people who "prove" just the opposite based on other Bible verses.
The only way to get beyond such contradictory arguments is to recognize that the Bible was not written as a coherent, organized book. Instead, it is a collection of widely divergent material from different historical eras, geographical locations, and originally written in different languages. And the collection itself has been edited and expanded, and then edited some more.
The Bible has many stories about money and wealth, but they come from different economic eras than our own. Many of the earliest stories in the Bible are about nomads, who lived as herders rather than farmers. Other stories were written about people living as farmers in agrarian societies, where wealth was based on control of the land. Money in a capitalist economy is far different from money in societies based on herding or farming. If you consult the Bible to find out "what the Bible teaches about money," you need to be clear about the economic system behind the particular stories.
People often read the Bible as if they are stories written in today's newspaper. People will ignore the differences between these economic systems, to look for direct answers to apply directly to our own capitalist era.
Do you believe that stories about nomads such as Abraham prove that God wants you to be rich? Do you believe that sayings of Jesus, such as, Blessed are the poor," prove that God wants you to be poor? Or are you simply confused by the conflicting stories? If you want to know what the Bible teaches about money, what do you do?
At a seminar about creating wealth, I saw a man who was confused about what he thought the Bible teaches about money. I heard him ask the speaker, "How can you say it is good to be rich? Jesus said that a rich man cannot get into heaven"
The first problem is that the man had misquoted a story told in the Gospel of Matthew. (The same story is also told in the Gospels of Mark and Luke.) "Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God'" (Matthew 19: 23-24.)
The point that the man at the seminar missed was that a rich man at the time of Jesus was rich for one reason. He was part of the ruling class in an agrarian society. It was a society in which a few very rich people controlled the land and made life miserable for the vast majority of the society.
In its own context, the story was not about a being rich in a capitalist economy, where it is possible to be rich without exploiting other people. The man who asked the question simply assumed that the words of Jesus could apply directly to life in a capitalistic economy.
This is the kind of misunderstanding that happens again and again when people use Bible verses without paying attention to the economic context behind the story. The only real answer to the man who asked the question at the seminar would be to understand the point of the story in an agrarian society.
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What if most of what you believe about Jesus and money is not true? Don't let misunderstood Bible verses prevent you from enjoying an abundant life.
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