Movements in recent years such as Occupy Wall Street and “socially responsible investing,” and industry initiatives like Google’s (former) motto, “Don’t be evil,” have attempted to push against a longstanding rupture between economics and ethics in modern societies—with varying levels of success. Can the Bible be of help?
The biblical texts were written during times when subsistence agriculture was the predominant economic mode of existence. In fact, only late in the historical period in which the Old Testament texts were written did commercialization, markets, trade, and money expand to claim more of everyday life. Thus, the economic challenges of biblical times differed vastly from our own, and thorough study is required to hear their concerns beyond soundbites that can be instrumentalized in favor of or against our global structures.
Fuller Seminary intentionally educates at the uncomfortable intersection of deep academic study of the Bible and implementation of the Scriptures’ teaching for all of life, including how we earn, save, spend, and share the money and wealth that come into our hands. We ask questions like, what do the Bible’s texts mean for us in a world largely governed by global capitalism, a system based on the premise that allowing each individual to make their own choices about what to do with their own resources will lead to the most efficient and profitable outcomes for humanity? Today’s dominant economic system erects a deep divide between questions of money and economics for individuals on the one hand, and faith, justice, and worship of God for communities on the other.
Yet rather than compartmentalizing these issues, Jesus, in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, pits the two against each other: “You cannot serve both God and wealth” (Matt 6:24). This leaves many Christians today feeling that they must choose between ignoring this teaching (by saying that Jesus is concerned only with something like our “spiritual attitude” toward wealth) and inferring that there is no place for celebrating wealth.
In contrast to Jesus’ teaching, the Old Testament as a whole views wealth as basically a good thing, particularly when it is produced by people’s faithful agricultural work. After creating an abundant wealth of creatures, “God saw that it was good” (Gen 1:11, 18, 22, 25, cf. 1:31). God interweaves wealth with the creating and giving of life. Furthermore, God promises abundance—wealth—to Israel if it pays close attention to the stipulations that God sets out for them: “The Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give you” (Deut 28:11).
How can these biblical voices be brought together for Christian action? Careful study of the biblical texts does not resolve the tensions between God and wealth, but it does offer promising—if wandering—paths to explore when it comes to incorporating the outsized economic sphere of our 21st-century life into our worship of God.
First, the Bible begins with the basic goodness and blessedness of wealth, discussed above, which Christ-followers are invited to embrace. However, the Bible does not stop there. Various texts offer a number of caveats to indicate that wealth wisely produced is one value, but not the most important. It must not be allowed to define the value of everything else on its own terms. Yet this is the goal toward which modern economics strains: to define value only and always in terms of monetary wealth, no matter how it has been produced. The book of Ecclesiastes criticizes this aim:
Again, I saw vanity under the sun: the case of solitary individuals, without sons or brothers; yet there is no end to all their toil, and their eyes are never satisfied with riches. “For whom am I toiling,” they ask, “and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business (Eccl 4:7-8).
A heart’s desire cannot be satisfied with money; as long as community and relationships are missing, satisfaction will remain out of reach. Moreover, mere possession of wealth does not guarantee an ability to derive enjoyment from it. Satisfaction with one’s riches also depends on divine gift: “It is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil” (Eccl 3:13).
As God connects wealth with life and creative action in Gen 1, humans’ uses of wealth—as representatives of God on earth, according to Gen 1:26–28—should imitate the Creator’s. That is, our interactions with wealth should be marked by justice, which aims to bring life to others. The Old Testament witness overall invites individuals, communities, and rulers to participate in economic life-giving. The laws in Deuteronomy 15 and the rich landowner Boaz’s care for widows Ruth and Naomi in the book of Ruth suggest individual action. Psalm 72, on the other hand, calls for royal (state) action. Both states and individuals can function as good stewards.
The apostle Paul calls people of faith to bring all money or wealth, like everything else, to glorify God. As Col 1:16 states, “All things have been created . . . for him”—Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God (cf. Rom 11:36). To mimic God with wealth is to concretely increase God’s glory on the earth by distributing wealth as God would and in gratitude for what we have received.
The Bible does not offer an easy system through which we can answer every particular question about faith and wealth, yet it calls us into constant reflection on how our wealth is produced, on our motives, and on whether we are acting in submission to ongoing divine direction. It is finally God—as the one who knows, evaluates, and redeems human intentions—who judges when charity, investment, or enjoyment is most appropriate with a certain piece of wealth. God is our gracious judge, whose judgment, Psalm 9:7-9 tells us, always tilts in favor of the oppressed:
7 But the Lord sits enthroned forever;
he has established his throne for judgment.
8 He judges the world with righteousness;
he judges the peoples with equity.
9 The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
Peter Altmann is the David Allan Hubbard associate professor of Old Testament.