Money in the Bible

Someone says something about someone not paying their fair share of taxes and someone else says it's just class envy. The Christian Bible talks extensively about money, the rich, and the poor.

There are legitimate concerns on both sides of the rich-poor argument. I am someone who has always [so far] been poor and had needs. Someone I know is currently what you would call middle class. He worked for a local fire Department earning $40-50,000 or so a year. It was a nice income, yes, but not excessive by any legitimate standard. And he started out like me, poor. He worked 30 years and then retired. Then his 30 years of retirement took a big hit because he was suddenly "wealthy". First of all, he was never wealthy, and the year he retired was the only year in which he had that much money at once. The government took more than enough money from him to be able to buy a house in a Texas town for one of his children and pay off property for someone else.

But the government is there to help, right? Well, not really. They are very inefficient at it. God created money for us to use, not to for us to abuse. Many of the scriptures against the wealthy involve their greed and abuse of money.

Abraham bought a place to bury his wife Sarah with money. (Gen. 23:4-20), In the gospel of Matthew Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a merchant man (Matt. 13:45-46). There are 140 references in the Christian Bible to the term "money", 12 to the term "merchant", 27 to the term "wealth" and 175 to the terms "rich" (80) and riches (95)".

The Christian does not need to be against money, only to use it properly. The Christian Bible does indeed say that the love of money is the root of all evil; it does not say that money is the root of all evil.

Without money (or some medium of exchanging goods and services) it would be hard for us to survive on this earth. Is money important? Yes, but only to the extent that we need it to purchase things we need.

Scripture tells us that money is a defence but that wisdom is a better defence because it gives life to them that have it. (Eccles. 7:12). Scripture also tells us that money "answereth all things" (Eccless. 10:19).

The problem is not with money or with those who have it. Problems with money occur with misuse and abuse by those who have it, but not in the possession of the money itself. Money is like Food, Water and Toilet Paper, it can be easily misused and abused, but it would be hard to survive without it.