The Institute of Faith, Work, and Economics has posted a couple of pieces adapted from my booklet Wholehearted: A Biblical Look at the Greatest Commandment and Personal Wealth (2016). The first post explores “Wealth as a Divine Blessing” (taking seriously the doxological commitment that we praise the “God from whom all blessings flow”), a blessing that provides us the opportunity to extends ourselves into the world around us.
In the second post, I talk about how our outlook on personal wealth reveals more about us than we might realize.
One of the gifts and challenges of wealth is seeing it as a divine blessing and not as a moral evil. The belief that wealth is a moral evil is usually supported by passages of Scripture cited as proof that the Bible opposes the accrual of wealth.
But these passages must be interpreted in light of the passages discussed last week, passages celebrating wealth of all types. When read in context, it becomes apparent that the passages are not undermining wealth per se. They are addressing either a wrong fixation on wealth or an oppressing use of it.
This leads to another gift and challenge of wealth: How one uses wealth reveals the commitments of one’s heart.