The New Testament View Of Wealth And Possessions
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THE NEW TESTAMENT VIEW OF WEALTH AND POSSESSIONS
Historically the church has repeatedly had to wrestle with its existence as a pilgrim people in an alien, temporal society. This has been true especially of its attitude toward wealth and material goods. For the first two Christian centuries that struggle was relatively easy. Christians, by and large, stood over against culture on this matter. When the emperor adopted the faith, however, the struggle began in earnest. The monastic movement was one of the direct results. Subsequent history has been an ebb and flow of accommodation and rejection. From time to time accommodation has brought guilt, which in turn caused some to construct a theology for rejection, while others constructed a theology to justify wholesale accommodation.
This historic struggle is currently an existential reality for American Christianity. In recent years the economic situation has increased wealth for most Americans on a grand scale, producing considerable tension for large numbers of American Christians—especially in light of the biblical mandate to care for the poor and the fact that one and a half billion people in today’s world are malnourished. Most affluent American Christians have accommodated rather easily to an affluent life style, without giving it much thought. Others have sensed the tremendous disparity between their affluent circumstances and the lowly Nazarene, whose perfect humanity is seen as a model for us, and have opted for a simpler way of life. Still others have begun to argue that affluence is God’s intention—His perfect will for His children.
My interest in this essay is not to try to resolve these tensions for the individual Christian in modern American society. Rather it is my hope to indicate what the New Testament itself teaches about wealth and material goods, so as to provide a biblical frame of reference for discussion and decision making.
Anyone with even a surface acquaintance with the New Testament has come to recognize that the Christian faith is decidedly on the side of “the poor” and that “the rich” seem regularly to “come in for it.” Thus Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor” and “woe to you who are rich” (Luke 6:20, 24, NIV). His messianic credentials are vindicated by the fact that “the good news is preached to the poor” (Matt. 11:5; see Luke 4:18), while of the rich He says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eve of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:25). In his parable of the Sower He warns of “the deceitfulness of wealth and the desire for other things” that choke out the Word of God (Mark 4:19), while elsewhere He says that one cannot serve God and money—they are mutually exclusive masters (Matt. 6:24).
Such an attitude toward wealth is reflected further in James and Paul, not to mention John’s Revelation (18:16-17: “Woe, Woe, O great city, dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet, and glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls! In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin”). James shames the church for showing favoritism to the rich (2:1-7) and especially in 5:1-6 condemns the rich for their oppression of the poor (“Now listen, You rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming up on you”). And Paul warns that the rich who eat their “lovefeasts” and Lord’s Supper with regard to the poor are coming under God’s judgment (1 Cor. 11:17-34): elsewhere he warns those who want to get rich that such people “fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction” (1 Tim. 6:6-10).
In the light of such texts it is no wonder that affluent Christians sometimes experience guilt, as though wealth, or being wealthy, in itself were evil. But such is not the case. As we shall see, it is the abuse or accumulation of wealth while others are in need that is called into question.
It is possible of course, to argue—as some have—that these texts merely reflect the sociology of the early Christians, whose Founder was a peasant carpenter, and whose early adherents were “not many wise, nor influential, nor of noble birth” (1 Cor. 1:26) and who had sometimes experienced the confiscation of their property (Heb. 10:34). Blessing the poor and condemning the rich was simply their form of making a virtue of necessity.
But such a sociological reading of the New Testament is a thorough misunderstanding of the deeply theological motivation of New Testament ethics, which ultimately derives from the Old Testament revelation of God as the One who Himself champions the cause of the poor.
It should be noted here that “the poor” in both the New and especially the Old Testaments, refers not merely to those in economic poverty. The “poor” are the powerless, the disenfranchised, those whose situation forces them to be dependent on the help of others. Thus it includes especially the widow and the orphan, as well as the alien, and even the Levite. The Old Testament Law, therefore, is filled with statutes that protect such people from the aggrandizement of the powerful, who of course are people with authority—and money
Interestingly enough, it has been the Old Testament that has often been seen as the “balance” to the New with regard to personal wealth and prosperity. For here indeed one regularly finds prosperity (especially lands and children) as evidence of God’s favor (e.g., Deut. 28:14; Psalm 112:1-3; 128:1-4). So much is this so that Sir Francis Bacon could write: “Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.”
But what is often overlooked in such texts is that they are invariably tied to the concepts of God’s righteousness and justice. It is only as one is righteous—i.e., walks in accordance with God’s Law—that one is promised the blessing of abundance and family. But to be righteous meant especially that one cared for, or pleaded the cause of, the poor and the oppressed.
Such a concern is so thoroughgoing in the Old Testament that it is found in its every strata and expression: Law, Narrative, Poetry, Wisdom, Prophet.
Thus in the so-called Book of the Covenant (Exod. 21-23), right in the midst of laws about seducing a virgin, sex with animals, practicing magic, and sacrificing to foreign gods, Israel is told not to mistreat or oppress an alien (22:21) and not to take advantage of a widow or an orphan (22:22). If they do the latter, they are warned, “My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless” (22:23-24). In the same context they are commanded to lend to the poor without interest and to return a poor man’s coat taken in pledge by sundown, because “I am compassionate.” In Exodus 23:10-11, the Sabbath year was instituted expressly for the poor, as was the Jubilee year in Leviticus 25 and 27.
This same concern for the disenfranchised is thoroughgoing in Deuteronomy (e.g., 10:17-19; 15:1-4, 7-11; 24:14-22; 27:19) and in the Psalter, which especially extols God because He cares for the poor and comes to their rescue (e.g., 9:8-9, 12, 18; 10:9-14, 17-18; 12:5; 22:24-26; 35:10; 68:4-5, 10). In the great messianic Psalm 72, the “royal son” above all else, “will judge your afflicted ones with justice” (v. 2); “He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy” (v. 4; see vv. 12-14).
Precisely because God is like this, and His Anointed One will be like this (see Isa. 11:4; 42:1-4; 61:1), it is required of His people that they too plead the cause of the poor. This is especially true of those in authority. Thus it is only after he has murdered and stolen Naboth’s vineyard that God’s final judgment is pronounced on Ahab (2 Kings 21); and a strong part of Job’s defense of his own righteousness was that he had in fact cared for the Poor (29:11-17; 31:16-23).
All of this comes to its focal point in the prophets, whose condemnation of Israel repeatedly has three elements: idolatry, sexual immorality, and injustice to the poor (see Exod. 22:21-27 above). It is because “they sell into slavery honest men who cannot pay their debts, poor men who cannot even repay the price of a pair of sandals” (Amos 2:6-7 GNB), and because they “twist justice and cheat people out of their rights” and “prevent the poor from getting justice in the courts” (5:7, 12) that God condemns Israel (see Isa. 1:17, 23; 3:15; 5:8, 23; 58:1-12; Micah 2:1-2, 8-9; 3:1-4, 11; 6:8-12; Zech. 7:8-14; and many, many others).
Righteousness in the Old Testament, therefore, calls for fair treatment of the poor. This is the way God is; this is the righteousness He demands. The poor are not to receive better things, or to be treated differently, but to be treated justly—and mercifully. Since the powerful and wealthy controlled the judges, the poor had only God to plead their cause. Thus it is not surprising that in messianic passages the needs of the poor are going to receive God’s special attention.
It is within such a context of “fulfillment” that one must view the ministry of Jesus. But there is an added dimension. With Him the Kingdom of God had made its appearance. This meant for Him—and the early Christians—that in His own person and ministry the messianic age, the “blessedness” of the future, had dawned in human history. Jesus, therefore, is the beginning of the End, the inauguration of God’s final rule. Thus He came with good news for the poor, which for Jesus meant not only the time of justice for the economically deprived, the vulnerable, but also the time of the gracious acceptance and forgiveness of sinners.
Precisely because with Him the New Age had dawned, this meant that the overthrow of the old order with its old values and injustices had begun. Because God’s Rule had come, people were freed from the tyranny of self-rule and the need “to get ahead.” One cannot serve God and Mammon. Because God accepts and secures us, we need no longer be anxious about material things (Matt: 6:24-34). And because God thus accepts and secures us, we can freely sell our possessions and give to the needy (Luke 12:32-34) and freely love our enemies and lend to them without expecting to get anything back (Luke 6:32-36). Indeed, the apostle John later says, if one has material possessions and cares nothing for the poor, such a person knows nothing of God’s love (l John 3:17-18: see 4:19-21).
It is within this twofold framework—the revelation of God as the One who brings justice to the poor and the inauguration of God’s Rule in the ministry of Jesus—that we must view the New Testament texts on money and possessions. Poverty per se is not being glorified, nor is wealth condemned. In the new age a whole new order has been inaugurated, with a new way of looking at things and a new value system.
It is clear that Jesus sees possessions in the old age as doing the possessing, not being possessed. Possessions tend to tyrannize or lead to a false security. Hence some of His strongest words move in this direction. “Woe to the rich, the full,” He says (Luke 6:24-26), not because there is evil in wealth, but alas, because the rich “already have received their comfort.” They see themselves as “in need of nothing,” including God. Like the rich fool, they seek more and more because they think life consists in having a surplus of possessions. but they are “not rich toward God” (Luke 12:13-21).
“How hard it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom,” Jesus says. Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Jesus’ point is that it takes a miracle for the rich to be saved, because they are secure in their possessions.
But it is equally clear that Jesus did not have an ascetic’s eye toward property. If He had “no place to lay His head” (Luke 9:58), He and His disciples were in fact supported by the means of well-to-do women (Luke 8:2f.); and Peter owned a home in Capernaum to which Jesus repaired. In reflecting on the fourth commandment, He says that parents are to be supported from their children’s possessions (Mark 7:9-13). In requiring money to be lent without hope of return there is the presupposition of money. Jesus went to dinners with the rich as well as the poor. Zaccheus was not required to give up all his possessions: that he made a surplus reparation was the evidence of his salvation.
All of this is true because for Jesus wealth and possessions were a zero value. In the new age they simply do not count. The standard is sufficiency: and surplus is called into question. The one with two tunics should share with him who has none (Luke 3:11); “possessions” are to be sold and given to the poor (Luke 12:33). Indeed, in the new ageunshared wealth is contrary to the Kingdom breaking in as good news to the poor. Thus, as Martin Hengel has so eloquently put it:
Jesus was not interested in any new theories about the rightness or wrongness of possessions in themselves, about the origin of property or its better distribution; rather he adopted the same scandalously free and untrammelled attitude to property as to the powers of the state, the alien Roman rule and its Jewish confederates. The imminence of the kingdom of God robs all these things of their power de facto, for in it “many that are first will be last, and the last first” (Mark 10:31; Matthew 19:30, 20:16; Luke 13:30). Of course, Jesus attacks mammon with the utmost severity where it has captured men’s hearts, because this gives it demonic character by which it blinds men’s eyes to God’s will—in concrete terms, to their neighbour’s needs. Mammon is worshipped wherever men long for riches, are tied to riches, keep on increasing their possessions and want to dominate as a result of them (Property and Riches in the Early Church[Fortress, 1974], p.30).
It is precisely this new age attitude that one also finds reflected in the early chapters of the Acts. The early church was not communal. But it was the new community—the new people of God. Hence no one considered anything owned to be his own possession. The coming of the Spirit that marked the beginning of the new order had freed them from the need of possessing. Hence there was sufficiency, and no one was in need.
This same carefree attitude toward wealth and possessions also marks all of Paul. He is a free man in Christ, who knows contentment whatever the circumstances. He knows both want and plenty, both hunger and being well fed. He “can do all things”—which in this context clearly refers to being in need!—“through Christ who gives him strength” (Phil. 4:10-13).
Thus he tells those who have nothing to be content with food and clothing: “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap” (1 Tim. 6:6-10). But then he remembers those who happen to be rich. They are to treat their wealth with indifference: they must not put any stock in it. Rather they are to be “generous and willing to share,” for this is true wealth (6:17-19).
It seems to me that this is the biblical framework within which American Christianity must once again begin to move and have its being. For many of us this will mean the adoption of a simpler way of life—not as Law, but as gratitude to Grace. For many it will also mean courage—courage to withstand the paganism of our materialistic culture and courage to give time and money to “unpopular causes,” such as prison reform and world poverty. Such programs as Bread for the World, John Perkin’s Voice of Calvary in Mississippi, the Catholic Worker Movement, and Charles Colson’s Prison Fellowship are leading the way for us in these matters. God’s call to us is for a return to biblical faith and to a radical obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ. This does not require poverty, but it does require righteousness, which in this context means to use our wealth not to manipulate others, but to alleviate the hurt and pain of the oppressed.