Ep. 030 - What did Jesus say about money? Part 1

Episode Transcript

Austin

Spencer, If I were to walk down a Christian bookstore aisle about money management, there would be a whole lot of choices and a whole lot of choices that conflicted with one another. And the reality is, when you're walking down a cereal aisle, you want choice. When I'm walking down a bookstore aisle that talks about biblical money management. I would hope that I would actually see what is good and true and beautiful from the scriptures. So today what we're going to do is a little bit different, but we're going to look into what did Jesus say about.



Spencer

Given how much the church writ large talks about money. You might think that Jesus doesn't talk about money that much. We don't love to talk about money as Americans. Now, some of us do. Just what? Stock or bond buying or whatever it might be.

But in terms of our own personal finance, the people who love to share that with everyone else kind of become ostracized. Most of us don't like to talk about these things, and I think that's reflected in a lot of the biblical teaching that we see these days. But let's not confuse this with the fact that Jesus spoke a whole lot about money.

He was dealing with a lot of the same issues and he was dealing with them head on. A lot of parables, a lot of direct statements, a lot of rebuking, a whole lot of different things. And so today we're going to do something a little different. We are not going to focus just on one passage, but we're going to start into looking at a lot of what Jesus said on money.

And I think this comes from really part of what we went through last year in training personally and seeing that when we're confronted with just a tremendous amount of scripture and teaching on money, it starts to help us to understand this wasn't just an off topic here or there. This is really central in many ways to our lives as Christian.

I love that comment that grace is unconditionally given to us, but there are conditions that we then live with. We have responses that the Lord expects of us. It's not unconditional forever that we receive benefits. Now we receive those benefits. We don't earn them. But at the same time there is an expected response. And part of that expected response is we see our hearts redeemed.

Is that our approach to money is different when we're when the gospel comes in and grace comes in and really takes a grasp on us. So we get to dive into that today. So where does the culture go when we think about maybe what Jesus says about money or what the biblical teaching on money is?



Austin

Well, I think like to your point, we're never talking about it. Then we'll just assume, like if our churches aren't teaching biblically, we're just going to write our own assumptions. And now the sad flipside is that churches will either say, you get to get whatever you get and make as much money as possible because it's a blessing from God, right?

Or they'll say, You need to give everything back to us. And so I think there's oftentimes this misconstrued. It's either this or that, or you just give 10% and you go on your hunky dory way. And it's just that that's the baseline. You don't do any more. Don't do any less. That's what God says done. Sadly, that's not how Christians respond, though.

There's so many statistics that have been done for the last hundred years that show that Christians rarely get close to that 10% mark—in aggregate. There are individuals that definitely give more. Some give none though, but that aggregate is about a 2 to 3% over the last hundred years. And so we can see that this isn't sinking in to the depths of our being.

And so we really need to think through, okay, if Jesus is true, if his words are are true, then we probably should do something about it.

You know, tact that we take is this Bible is a guidebook. And that just means I get to look at what it says and I'm going to do exactly what it says. And it's that this Psalm means this. And so I'm going to take it and I'm going to run with it. Or this Proverb means this and I'm going to take it.

I'm going to run with it without looking at the greater narrative or the greater meaning of what is this Psalm saying holistically? What are these Proverbs saying holistically? Because the Bible was written to a specific people at a specific time and a specific point in history. Right. And we can extrapolate that there are universal truths. But if the Bible is saying something very specific to a very specific person, then we don't need to take that as a guide for always.



Spencer

Well, in different genres as well. You know, it's interesting to note that the Book of Proverbs was the one that was most hotly debated among early Christians as to whether it should even be in the canon because they recognized it doesn't always work. You can follow the Proverbs and you can abide by that wisdom, but you might not get rich, you might not be blessed in the eyes of the world.

You might have suffering. We have a lot of brothers and sisters in Christ in Myanmar, North Korea, Iran, other places that they are being persecuted for their faith. They are not this is not their best life now, you know, so we have to look at that and say, okay, the genre is in Proverbs and wisdom literature is this is generally applicable in most situations.

This is good wisdom to live by. It is not. If you do A then B will always follow, but that's the prescriptive way. When we look at the Bible as a how to manual, we start to say if A, then B, you know, in the United States we are a culture that loves efficiency. So we say, if I can just line up my ducks over here, then all of these blessings will come.

And that's not that the Bible is a is God's word to us. It's a story. It is not primarily a how to manual. And we do want to abide by what the Bible tells us. But we have to understand genre.



Austin

Another thing, and I think to your point too, I have heard several Christians from Iran talk about their time where they were persecuted and went to jail and they talk about it as a blessing. They have all their material blessings taken from them. They go to prison and they're celebrating and seeing people come to faith in prison.

And so for them they are receiving a blessing. But it's not the blessing that the formula says that they're going to receive. The formula says you get more material. And they said, they say, no, I receive more of Jesus. And that's the heart that we want to take, is may we see more of Jesus. So with that, what we're going to do today a little bit different.

We're going to go back and forth and just start reading a whole lot of scripture about what Jesus says about money. It's going to be overwhelming. That's okay. Sit in the fact that it's overwhelming because Jesus says a lot and not all of it's easy to to take in and to ingest. So, Spence, you want to start us off with Luke 12?



Spencer

So first theme, we're going to kind of break this down into five different themes, and we may even have to do two episodes on this, just depending on the pace that we can work through this because we don't want to give short shrift to these passages and kind of an amalgamation of these pieces. So first theme, really, God is our provider.

This is right from Jesus, from not just like one passage from kind of all over, but the one that we highlight first Luke 12:22-23. And Jesus said to his disciples, therefore, if I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or about your body, what you will put on for life is more than food and the body is more than clothing.

So he's telling us that he's going to take care of us. He is our provider. He knows that we need those things. You know, the passage, Matthew, has a little bit different language. It's clear that Jesus taught on this subject a lot. And it really it follows then that we think about the Lord's Prayer. He tells us to ask him for daily provision.

So that's just a core part of the Lord's Prayer. You know, if, if we're ones who maybe when we wake up or before we go to bed, we say the Lord's Prayer, Lord, give us this day our daily bread. That's just a core part of we have to look to God as our provider and then finally, one of the passages, and there's other ways that we could go in here as we think about God is provider.

But Matthew 20:1-16, the laborers in the in the vineyard in this parable. So Jesus doesn't just say, okay, pray this way, or he doesn't just give them instruction in a particular way, but he's giving a parable now he's saying he gives the parable and says that of laborers coming into the vineyard and them working different times during the day.

So some will work the entire day, some will work half the day, some will just work for an hour and they all get paid the same way. And so Jesus is saying that he treats us with grace, not by a wage. What is dependent on the amount of work that's done? He's going to provide enough. But it's not going to be one hour equals one unit of money.

He's a provider in a far different way. So, any any thoughts that you have on any of those pieces. God is provider.



Austin

Yeah. I think we start with this one because it is our bedrock. Like we finished the last episode. If we don't sit in and know and trust that God is our provider and whether we work one hour of the day, come to faith early in life, or come to faith very late in life, his grace is still the same.

Has provision for us through our lifetime is still the same. He was always the one moving and working and providing for us. And if we try to take that away, then bad things happen. We are not the provider we don't need to try to be.



Spencer

And we see that early in Jesus's ministry. We see it late in his ministry. You know, you could say we see it early in his ministry in a passage that will highlight later in the temptation. He says, Man does not live by bread alone does. I'm not going to just focus on the fact that my stomach is full.

I'm going to focus on the fact that God has provided what I need In the same way, at the end of life, we see him praying in a way that he is giving up his sleep through that Thursday night when he's going to be arrested because he knows that he needs something more and sleep. He needs God's wisdom, God's guiding.

So what's that second one that we'll dive into here?



Austin

The second one is a relationship with Jesus is more valuable than all money and all resources and kind of building off what you were just saying in Gethsemane, Jesus knew that the most important thing for him to do was be with the Father. He is going to the cross. He's not thinking about the earthly things that he needs anymore.

He's thinking, I need time with the father. And similarly us. We need to look at our life in that lens. It's that all of our relationship with Jesus is far more valuable than anything this Earth will ever give to us. And so we start off with Matthew 13:44-46, and these are the parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great value.

And we're just going to say, Matthew says, the kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure in a field which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field again. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls who, in finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

You know, one of the books that we really love is Neither Poverty nor Riches by Craig Blomberg and he says “those who follow Christ must be willing to risk whatever they have if the priorities of the kingdom threaten the security of their earthly existence.” And this really kind of starts to hit home. Do the things that I have here on Earth threaten my relationship with Christ, and if so, I need to sell them all to gain Christ.

I need to sell everything. I need to get it all, get rid of all of it to treasure Jesus, because he needs to be my treasure at the end of the day. And that's what we see in these two parables. These men are seeing that the treasure is worth far more than what they have. So they pursue it with all of their being.



Spencer

Well, it goes to the early church as well with Hebrews 12, where were to lay aside every weight, every hindrance. It's not even just shirking sin. It's saying this is going to slow me down in following the Lord. So we see that really play out, not just in Jesus's words, but in the disciples and those who follow it thereafter. What else in this theme do we see?



Austin

We come back to Matthew 6:19-21. Do not lay out for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay out for yourselves treasures in heaven for neither moss nor rust destroys. And we're thieves. Do not break in and steal from where your treasure is There your heart will be.

Also Jesus instructs us not to lay up treasures on earth. He doesn't say don't store possessions, but we must really determine Is that necessary? We think about this again. We'll come back to building bigger barns. Jesus doesn't say it's not okay to have barns. He says don't have bigger barns that store more than you need, because at that point, that's where my treasure becomes my treasure becomes the storehouse.

My treasure becomes the retirement savings. My treasure becomes the income that I'm earning. If that's the treasure and Jesus isn't the treasure. So get rid of it, because where your treasure is there your heart will be. Also, we need to treasure Jesus. If Jesus isn't that treasure, then our hearts are going to drift away and choose something else.



Spencer

And it's almost as though we've got to get rid of those other things because there is a natural pull in a direction away to us forgetting what is most important there. So, we've talked God is our provider. You know, Jesus clearly shows that and teaches that in several different passages. Relationship with Jesus is more valuable than all money and resources is the second theme that we've gotten into with that third theme that we want to touch on today.



Austin

The third one is our lives are exchange lives. Jesus owns at all. God owns it all. We come back to this over and over and over again. We're kind of building an intensity here. You know, we think about, okay, God is our provider. I think we all get on board with that. Yeah, we need to treasure Jesus. Okay.

His intensity is ramping up a little bit. Yeah, Okay. God owns it all in our lives. Our lives are exchanged lives. We're really starting to get to the heart of Jesus. Is intensity here. Luke 12:32-33 Jesus says, Fear not little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, sell your possessions and give to the needy.

Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. He instructs us to focus on eternity. He says, Sell your possessions and give to the needy. He has exchanged all for us. Will we exchange things and give everything that we have back to him.



Spencer

Christians have grappled with this teaching from Jesus for centuries. It's not just one time he calls his disciples to do this. He tells a rich young ruler to do this. You know, this is this is not just a one off. At the same time, we see it from the example of the early church.

Not everyone gave up all material possessions, but there was this posture that was very, very open handed. And we see from the early church they weren't building bigger barns. There was just enough to say, okay, I've I'm going to be able to use this for the kingdom.



Austin

And when they did build better barns, like I think about the church in Corinthians, Paul is very strong in verse Corinthians about the sin that comes because they're living an extravagant life. And I was hearing N.T. Wright talk about First Corinthians recently, there was a famine going on. So even think about the heightened nature to which Paul is talking about how much the Corinthians are thinking about themselves and excluding the poor, it becomes way more important when you put that context in that they were in famine.

And the rich were only thinking about themselves. And Paul is very strong in Corinthians. And so again, coming back to this, it's not just Jesus saying it. It reverberates through the epistles.



Spencer

Well, and we see really Jesus lay things out in the parable of the tin miners and then the parable of the talents, you know, and Luke, 19 and Matthew 25, we come back to this and he's given us everything that we have. So, so often it's easy to say, okay, well, I've got this gift or this talent or I've worked really hard to develop this.

We kind of start to internalize that these are things that maybe they're mine and I'm doing a good job by giving some of it to God. But in these parables we see no, the owner was the one that gave the steward, the manager everything that he had. Now, he may be commended for doing well with what was given in each one of these situations, but we have to recognize that he came in with nothing and any growth that he was able to see happen.

He needed the owner, you know, to make that happen. So if we see that God owns it all, we have an appropriate humility, I think. And this wasn't again, this is not something that's just like, oh, Jesus told one parable here. No, he told multiple parables here. They're recorded in different ways. And it's not just like a verse or two, you know, you've got all of a significant part of Luke 19, a significant part of Matthew 25 going towards these. Money was a big thing that he's talking about here.



Austin

We look at even Luke 12:33 or Mark 10:17-22. You talk about the young ruler. Luke 12:33 says Sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail or no thief approaches and no more destroys. you pair that with the rich young ruler. Jesus calls some people to give everything that they have. He doesn't call everybody.



Spencer

Well, and you know, I think it's important for us to note here, he doesn't just call some people to give everything away. He he calls people that it's the hardest for them to give everything away because it's the idol that they have in their lives. So if we have a tough time giving things away, you know, maybe Jesus is calling us even more to give those things.

He kind of confronts things head, head on. He takes the bull by the horns and says, okay, well, rich and ruler. Yeah, you've answered me correctly with respect to the law, but what I see is your heart, and you're not going to want to give up these funds. So I want you to give up not just some of them. I want you to give up all of them.



Austin

And I think the reality here is contemporary churches. If we were really to wrestle with this type of radical transformation, radical giving, I think would shock us to the core. You know, we think about I think about a lot of churches that I've been to, a lot of the posture towards comfort, towards living a good life that is maybe it's not spoken of from the pulpit, but it's the ethos in the pews.

It's that this life is meant to be enjoyed and comfortable and good and God loves you. But we don't wrestle with the fact that this is radical even for that time. It's radical. And Jesus spoke as if it was radical. He calls the people that it's going to be the hardest to account. He knows their hearts that are going to be turning towards bitterness, to coldness, to I get to choose what I want and he's calling it to bear.

And we can't just sit there and be like, Well, that was just Jesus back then. It's like now that was really important to Jesus. Then. It should be really important to us now.



Spencer

Well, you know, we love what Thomas Schmidt says. “Most of us could travel a considerable distance on that road before anyone suspected us of extreme obedience.” Some folks will say, well, I don't want to get overboard, you know, go in that direction. We're not really in that, you know, we're not really in danger of going overboard. They're the more significant danger for most of us is just dismissing it out of hand.



Austin

And I think about my own life in particular, and our salary has increased a lot since we were missionaries because we were missionaries. And thankfully the Lord always provided for us. But if I said to my wife, we can cut back pretty substantially because how much more we make now, the conversation would be hard. But if God called us to do it like you're saying, we could go pretty far way down that road without feeling like we've gone that far.

And I think that's the challenge that we have to wrestle with, is I put my life in in context of where my life is now versus where we were as a family 3 to 5 years ago. Income wise, where we are having to trust God every day to provide to make sure that funds came in. All of that together we're not to live in that same intensity that we did. But my faith should have the same intensity that it did back then.



Spencer

But because for a lot of us, if we were required to live on half of what we do right now, it would be really, really hard. It would be jarring. But for a lot of us, you could do it because you start to say, okay, how many of the things out there, you know, the food that we eat that could be simplified in a remarkable way.

Again, that's not saying that we're called in that direction, But, you know, we could go quite a distance there towards Jesus's words probably, and learn some things, you know, in the midst of it. It may not be the path that he's calling us do. And so we have to be always careful with that of just taking on a challenge that maybe this isn't you know what he's up to.

But seeing him as the owner of all things that he does own, it all is good for all of us.



Austin

So as we close out this episode, really the heart behind it, as we're starting to get over well, we've got Jesus says about money. We've unwrapped the first three of our our themes that Jesus talks about God as our provider Relationship with Jesus is far more valuable than anything this world can offer. And our lives, our exchange lives.

He owns it all. In our next episode we're going to dive into what does this mean for us in a more tangible way? Money is a direct competitor to God and can very easily lure us away from intimacy with Him. And then God wants us to use His money to care for the poor and share his love with others.



Spencer

We hope that you enjoyed this episode. Austin and I are sorry we failed. We didn't get through all of the five different areas, but that just means that next time we get to unpack the last two. And so we're excited about that. In some ways, just because we get to sharpen each other and get to learn more as we do this.

And until then, if you have questions or would like to reach out to us, be more than happy to interact with you and take care.