A brief teaching on money
Good teaching on money?
We all hear multiple messages on money, all at the same time. Some of these will grab us, some will repel us. We may be unaware of how much our culture disciples us in how to act with money.
Money is a major news story at the moment. We are told we should be very worried about the shocking increase in the food, fuel and travel costs; we need to hoard money and cling onto money. Money continues to be at the root of nearly all advertising; we are urged to spend money on everything we desire, so as not to miss out on what really matters in life. borrowing money on credit (with just the click of a button) in order to do so. Many of us are told that our salary determines our worth. Many of us carry shame over secret debt. Many of us - if we are honest - aren’t exactly sure what our financial position really is.
Into this mix we hear “christian language” pitches by charities for us to give them money to help overcome injustice in the world. And then churches ask for money as well. While some people seem to be brilliant with money (and they really are brilliant with it) many of us find this environment to be confusing and highly stressful. We want to help with that. Jesus wants to help with that. We want to set out some good teaching on money. We also want to give you our annual update on Croydon Vineyard's finances.
The Good News of Jesus about money
Jesus spoke about money a huge amount. Jesus calls all of his disciples into a radically different way to view money. Jesus’ prime teaching was that God does not expect us to care for him but that he has promised to care for each of us individually out of his bountiful resources. Some of us tend to think that God (or his church) always wants to wring money out of us. We want to reassure you that God is not like that and so we are determined not to be either. The gospel of Jesus is that God (unlike most other gods) does not see you as his ATM. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and he is more than secure financially! You will always be looked after financially by Jesus. That is eternal truth.
From this place of utter security, Jesus urged his followers to see what they do with money - alongside forgiveness - as being the greatest indicator of what is really going on in our heart. Jesus said that stress about money, or chasing after money, shows there’s something inside that is not quite convinced about the generosity (or reliability) of our God. When our actions show that we treasure money they also show that we do not really treasure God as God… causing not only us to be poorer in the long term, but also for all others around us to be poorer as well.
Jesus’s heart for you is that you become salt and light with money. Jesus wants to help you not only to have enough but to abound in generosity through being wise as a serpent in how you manage your money.
Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can
In summarising the New Testament teaching on money, John Wesley famously said “earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can”.
Earn all you can
In the instruction to earn more money Wesley followed the clear biblical principle that prosperity is good. In the final chapters of Deuteronomy Israel climbs two mountains and proclaims two destinies over Israel, depending on how they obey the covenant. One mountain - for disobedience - proclaims failed harvests and food shortages and hunger. The other mountain - for faithfulness - proclaims bountiful crops and overflowing vineyards and banquets for all. This bounty was for Israel to enjoy; they could feed their families, do well and become “a great nation”. It was also for them to offer up in blessing to every family upon the earth. Absolutely inherent in Israel’s vocation was to let every nation come to them to share in the bounty of the generosity and truth of God. Promises of material prosperity are repeated in the prophets (eg in Malachi, Hosea, Isaiah) and are then fulfilled in Jesus’ miracles of abundant beautiful wine in Cana and abundant loaves and fish for the 5,000. Jesus confirms that the Kingdom is a rich and abundant place of plenty. And Jesus shows that this plenty is to be served up for the poor and the pilgrims as part of God’s mission to the globe. So, says Wesley, if you can earn more money - unless it is in a way that could be considered “unjust gain” - you should feel the encouragement of the bible to take that opportunity.
Some takeaways:
It is a good thing to try to earn more money.
It is no bad thing to ask for a raise or to pursue another money-making opportunity that fits with the wisdom and call of God.
If you are on a lower income, it is good to draw on any government benefits available to you.
Money in your hand enables you to care for your extended family, to feed the poor among you and to release blessing to the people of the world so ask God for more.
Saving money is good, but don’t do it to gain security
Wesley’s second epithet - on saving - was focused on those who already knew that their Father would provide for them (or who had earned a lot), and therefore were frittering away a lot of their money on needless purchases while neglecting being rich towards God. Wesley called people to consider the letter of James which asks how the love of Jesus can be in us if we are buying everything we desire while our brother is going hungry.
The kind of saving Jesus advocates, therefore, is not just to save money for the sake of saving money but on cutting back on certain kinds of spending so that Christians can “give all they can”. Jesus’ parable of the rich fool who built bigger and bigger barns ends with a crushing act of God’s judgement because the man spent his money on his own security rather than being generous to others. If you are either spending or saving more and more money just because it makes you feel secure, or because you love the status of having lots of money… then give it all away - you will be more secure both spiritually and materially. This is a serious comment. The danger of accumulating for the sake of status or security is written large all over Jesus’ teaching. You will be better off being poor and right with Jesus than rich and lukewarm in your faith.
Jesus urged his followers to learn from the world in how to save money. Martin Lewis (Moneysavingexpert) is a wise man when it comes to saving money. CAP is also a great organisation with strong Christian ethos that can help us think about saving money and getting out from under debt. You would do really well to actively seek out wisdom on how to save money on stuff you don’t really need so you can spend and give to stuff that really counts.
To be really clear,
Saving money must always be done in the context of deep security that your Father loves you and will provide for you. If you end up getting anxious about every purchase you would do well to lean in again to how much God loves you and how generous he wants to be towards you.
At the other end of the scale, saving money is a very hard discipline to learn if you have not been taught it from a young age, and you might be tempted not to bother. In the long run, you will lose out hugely if you fail to make these hard decisions now.
A great start to saving money is to set a monthly budget for your spending that sees less money going out than coming in. If this is not the current case you must change what you are spending. Cancel direct debits and standing orders to reduce needless spending where you can. You can find lots of online resources to help you with this.
If you save up towards future purchases or pay into a pension you will do really well. In the long run that is actually you saving money as you will spend less on interest payments and will have money to give away well into your retirement. .
Give all you can
Finally Wesley advocated massive levels of generosity. To give is the vocation of the people of God. God loved the world so he gave. Giving is a narrow gate to so many of the Ways of God. But who should we give money to? The New Testament teaches two things; 1) giving firstfruits to the church community you are part of and 2) weaving strategic generosity and hospitality into all of your other spending.
The New Testament church members (certainly in Jerusalem, and in the Pauline churches) seem to have followed the pattern of the Jewish law by giving to God the first of their income; the first of their fruit. This wasn’t enforced in the Jerusalem Council instructions (Acts 15) but does seem to have been common practice. We strongly advocate giving firstfruits of your income to God, through your local church.
While the Old Testament clearly teaches tithing income we are not convinced that the New Testament teaches exactly what the firstfruits should be. We are conscious that giving firstfruits will always seem sacrificial and - as the name suggests - should go out “first”. It isn’t how much we actually give that matters (think of the widow’s mite). Instead it is our heart in giving that God sees and God loves. Therefore you can ask Jesus what percentage he would like you to give as your firstfruits and then cheerfully do that.
Beyond firstfruits the bible encourages strategic generosity and hospitality. Hospitality - especially for the poor and the stranger - was written into the Mosaic law. Jesus taught his disciples to give to whoever asked of them. Jesus lived a materially un-rich life and yet he abounded in generosity in every way. However - as is standard with Hebrew wisdom - we do also see some slightly contradictory examples of what “giving to everyone” looks like in practice. Of course it is impossible to actually give to everyone everything that they ask of you. Peter and John don’t give silver and gold to the beggar at the temple gate even though they could presumably have rushed back to the church and asked for some. Jesus at times refused to continue to give to a village as he knew he needed to move on to other places. In the parable of the shrewd manager Jesus spoke shockingly about a manager effectively taking money from his boss in order to win friends and to store up heavenly riches. This is quite a surprise. What Jesus seemed to teach about generosity and hospitality was that disciples always have a desire to give and yet they use wisdom to steer that desire into the places that will be most effective for the Kingdom and will most please Jesus. Paul applies this same idea when addressing which widows should be supported by the church (1 Timothy 5). He says those who can access support other than the church should be told to either stop being lazy or to get their relatives to stop bucking their responsibility.
The key principle being advocated is that you should be careful how you use your giving so that you generate maximum benefit from it. Many charities today are quite useless. Many people who ask you for a loan because they have run out of cash just need to cancel their phone contract and reduce their spending. But others genuinely need support and it pleases Jesus very greatly when we give it. So, as Wesley says - we give all we can… giving it to the places which most please Jesus.
To be really clear:
We urge every follower of Jesus to give firstfruits to their local church as a sign of allegiance to God. We do not mandate how much this should be. If CV is your local church you can see how to do this on our website.
We personally give 10% of our take home pay to Croydon Vineyard by standing order. Sometimes we give much more. We believe this both invests in God’s Kingdom in incredibly powerful ways and opens us up for God to pour more of his riches into our lives. We have experienced the reality of this many, many times over 20 years.
If you are earning all you can and saving all you can, then we believe you will be able to allocate another portion of your income for charity and hospitality. Focus on the poor you know and specific causes that you care about the most. Investigate what you are giving to, start small and increase it as you see the fruit being born.
And don’t forget hospitality; buying people coffees, gifts, having people over for dinner or sending cards to people we believe Jesus has asked us to be kind to.
Giving all you can, while sounding painful, is almost always one of the most joyous things we can do. It is an overflow of the work of Jesus in our lives and builds our faith as we see Him give back to us more than we could ever give him.