Chapter 81.
OUR LORD’S
TEACHINGS ABOUT MONEY
BY
ARTHUR T. PIERSON
Our
Lord’s teachings as to money gifts, if obeyed,
would forever banish all limitations on church work and all concern about
supplies. These teachings are radical and revolutionary. So far are they
from practical acceptance that, although perfectly explicit, they seem
more like a dead language that has passed out of use than like a living tongue
that millions know and speak. Yet, when these principles and precepts
of our Lord on giving are collated and compared, they are found to contain
the materials of a
complete ethical system on the subject of money, its true
nature, value, relation
and use. Should these sublime and unique teachings be translated into
living, the effect not only upon benevolent work, but upon our whole spiritual
character, would be incalculable. Brevity compels us to be content with
a simple outline of this body of teaching, scattered through the four Gospel
narratives, but gathered up and methodically presented by Paul in that
exhaustive discussion of Christian giving in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9.
1.
THE PRINCIPLE OF STEWARDSHIP
The
basis of Christ’s teaching about money
is the fundamental conception of stewardship. (Luke 12:42; 16:1-8). Not only
money, but every gift of God, is received in trust for His use. Man is
not an owner, but a trustee, managing another’s
goods and estates, God being the one original and inalienable Owner of
all. The two things required of stewards are that they be
"faithful and wise," that they study to-employ God’s
gifts with fidelity and sagacity —
fidelity so that God’s entrustments be not
perverted to self indulgence; sagacity, so that they be converted into as
large gains as possible.
This
is a perfectly plain and simple basal principle, yet it is not the accepted foundation
of our money-making and using. The vast majority, even of disciples,
practically leave God out of their thoughts when they engage in finance.
Men consider themselves owners; they "make money" by their industry,
economy, shrewdness, application; it is theirs to do as they will with
it. There is little or no sense of stewardship or of its implied obligation.
If they give, it is an act, not of duty, but of generosity; it ranks, not
under law, but under grace. Hence there is no inconsistency felt in hoarding
or spending vast sums for worldly ends and appropriating an insignificant
fraction to benevolent purposes. Such methods and notions would
be utterly turned upside down could men but think of themselves as stewards,
accountable to the one Master for having wasted His goods. The great
day of account will bring an awful reckoning, not only to wasters, but to
hoarders; for even the unfaithful servants brought back to their lord the talent
and the pound at last, but without profit, and the condemnation was for
not having used so as to increase the entrusted goods.
2.
THE PRINCIPLE OF INVESTMENT
In
our Lord’s teachings we find
this kindred principle of investment: "Thou oughtest to have put my money
to the exchangers" (Matthew 25:27). Money-changing and
investing is an old business. The "exchangers," as Luke
renders, are the bankers, the ancient Trapezitae, who received money on
deposit and paid interest for its use, like modern savings institutions.
The
argument of our Lord refutes the unfaithful servant on his own plea, which
his course showed to be not an excuse, but a pretext. It was true that
he dared not risk trading on his own account; why not, without such risk,
get a moderate interest for his Master by lending to professional traders?
It was not fear but sloth that lay behind his unfaithfulness and unprofitableness.
Thus
indirectly is taught the valuable lesson that timid souls, unfitted for bold
and independent service in behalf of the kingdom, may link their incapacity
to the capacity and sagacity of others who will make their gifts and
possessions of use to the Master and His Church. James Watt, in 1773, formed a
partnership with Matthew Boulton, of
The
Church partly exists that the strength of one member may help the weakness
of another, and that by co-operation of all, the power of the least and
weakest may be increased.
3.
THE SUBORDINATION OF MONEY
Another
most important principle is the subordination of money, as emphatically
taught and illustrated in the rich young ruler. (Matthew 19:16-26).
This narrative, rightly regarded, presents no enigma. With all his attractive
traits, this man was a slave. Money was not his servant, but his master;
and because God alone is to be supreme, our Lord had no alternative.
He must demolish this man’s idol, and when He
dealt a blow at
his money, the idolatry became apparent, and the slave of
greed went away
sorrowful, clinging to his idol. It was not the man’s
having great possessions
that was wrong, but that his possessions had the man; they possessed
him and controlled him. He was so far the slave of money that he
could not and would not accept freedom by the breaking of its fetters.
His
"trust" was in riches how could it be in God? Behind all disguises of respectability
and refinement, God sees many a man to be an abject slave, a victim
held in bonds by love of money; but covetousness is idolatry, and no idolater
can enter the
4.
THE LAW OF RECOMPENSE
We
ascend a step higher, and consider our Lord’s
teaching as to the law of recompense. "Give, and it shall be given
unto you" (Luke 6:38). We are taught that getting is in order to
giving, and consequently that giving is the real road to getting. God is an
economist. He entrusts larger gifts to those who use the smaller well. Perhaps one
reason of our poverty is that we are so far slaves of parsimony. The future
may reveal that God has been withholding from us because we have been withholding
from Him.
It
can scarcely be said by any careful student of the New Testament that our
Lord encourages His disciples to look or ask for earthly wealth. Yet it is
equally certain that hundreds of devout souls who have chosen voluntary poverty
for His sake have been entrusted with immense sums for His work.
George
Muller conducted for over sixty years enterprises requiring at least some
hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars a year. Note also the experiences
of William Quarrier and Hudson Taylor, and D. L. Moody and Dr.
Barnardo. Such servants of God, holding all as God’s,
spending little
or nothing for self, were permitted to receive and use
millions for God, and in some cases, like Muller’s,
without any appeal to men, looking solely to God. This great saint of
5.
SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS
Kindred
to this law of recompense is the law of superior blessedness. "It is more
blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). Paul quotes this as a saying
of our Lord, but it is not to be found in either of the Gospel narratives.
Whether he meant only to indicate what is substantially our Lord’s
teaching, or was preserving some precious words of our Great Teacher,
otherwise unrecorded, is not important. It is enough that this saying
has the authority of Christ. Whatever the blessedness of receiving, that
of giving belongs to a higher plane. Whatever I get, and whatever good
it brings to me, I only am benefited; but what I give brings good to others
to the many, not the one. But, by a singular decree of God, what I thus
surrender for myself for the sake of others comes back even to me in larger
blessing. It is like the moisture which the spring gives out in streams and
evaporation, returning in showers to supply the very channels which filled
the spring itself.
6.
COMPUTATION BY COMPARISON
We
rise a step higher in considering God’s
law of computation. How does He reckon gifts? Our Lord teaches us that it is
by comparison. No one narrative is more telling on this theme than
that of the poor widow (Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4) who dropped into
the treasury her
two mites. The Lord Jesus, standing near, watched the
offerings cast into the treasury. There were rich givers that gave
large amounts. There was one poor woman, a widow, who threw in two mites,
and He declared her offering to be more than any of all the rest,
because, while they gave out of a superfluity she gave out of a deficiency —
they of their abundance, she of her poverty.
She
who cast her two mites into the sacred treasury, by so doing became rich
in good works and in the praise of God. Had she kept them she had been
still only the same poor widow. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?
And the two mites "make a farthing." He who, as the Superintending
Providence of nature, watches the fall of a sparrow, so that "one
of them is not forgotten before God," also, as the Overseer of the treasury,
invisibly sits and watches the gifts that are dropped into the chest, and
even the widow’s mite is not
forgotten.
He
tells us here how He estimates money gifts not by what we give, but by what
we keep — not by the amount of
our contributions, but by their cost in self-denial. This widow’s
whole offering counted financially for but a farthing (, a quadrant, equal to four mills, or two fifths
of one cent,
as three-fourths of an English farthing). What could he much more insignificant?
But the two mites constituted her whole means of subsistence. The
others reserved what they needed or wanted for themselves, and then
gave out of their superabundance ().
The
contrast is emphatic; she "out of her deficiency," they "out of
their super-sufficiency." Not
all giving — so-called —
has rich reward. In many cases the keeping hides the giving, in the sight of God.
Self-indulgent hoarding and spending spread a banquet; the crumbs fall from
the table, to be gathered up and labeled "charity." But when the
one possession that is dearest, the last trusted resource, is surrendered to God,
then comes the vision of the treasure laid up in heaven.
7.
UNSELFISHNESS IN GIVING
We
ascend still higher to the law of unselfishness in giving. "Do good and lend,
hoping for nothing again" (Luke 6:35). Much giving is not giving at
all, but only lending or exchanging. He who gives to another of whom he
expects to receive as much again, is trading. He is seeking gain, and is selfish.
What he is after is not another’s profit, but his own
advantage. To invite
to one’s table those who will
invite him again, is simply as if a kindness were done to a business
acquaintance as a basis for boldness in asking a similar favor when needed. This
is reciprocity, and may be even mean and calculating.
True
giving has another’s good solely in view,
and hence bestows upon those who cannot and will not repay, who are too
destitute to pay back, and too degraded, perhaps, to appreciate what is
done for them. That is like God’s
giving to the evil and unthankful. That is the giving prompted by love.
To
ask, therefore, "Will it pay?" betrays the selfish spirit. He is the
noblest, truest
giver who thinks only of the blessing he can bring to another’s
body and
soul. He casts his breadseed beside all waters. He hears the cry of want and
woe. and is concerned only to supply the want and assuage the woe.
This
sort of giving shows God-likeness, and by it we grow into the perfection
of benevolence.
8.
SANCTIFIED GIVING
Our
Lord announces also a law of sanctification. "The altar sanctifieth the gift"
— association gives dignity to an offering
(Matthew 23:19). If the cause to which we contribute is exalted it
ennobles and exalts the offering to its own plane. No two objects can or
ought to appeal to us with equal force unless they are equal in moral
worth and dignity, and a discerning giver will respond most to what is
worthiest. God’s altar was to the Jew the
central focus of all gifts; it was associated with His worship, and the whole
calendar of fasts and feasts moved round it. The gift laid upon it acquired
a new dignity by so being deposited upon it. Some objects which appeal
for gifts we are at liberty to set aside because they are not sacred.
We
may give or not as we judge best, for they depend on man’s
enterprises and
schemes, which we may not altogether approve. But some causes have Divine
sanction, and that hallows them; giving becomes an act of worship when
it has to do with the altar.
9.
TRANSMUTATION
Another
law of true giving is that of transmutation. "Make to yourselves friends of the
mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into
everlasting habitations"
(Luke 16:9).
This,
though considered by many an obscure parable, contains one of the greatest
hints on money gifts that our Lord ever dropped. Mammon here stands as
the equivalent for money, practically worshipped. It reminds us of the
golden calf that was made out of the ear-rings and jewels
of the crowd. Now our Lord refers to a second transmutation. The golden
calf may in turn be melted down and coined into Bibles, churches, books,
tracts, and even souls of men. Thus what was material and temporal becomes
immaterial and spiritual, and eternal. Here is a man who has a hundred
dollars. He may spend it all on a banquet, or an evening party, in which
case the next day there is nothing to show for it. It has secured a temporary
gratification of appetite — that is all. On the
other hand, he invests
in Bibles at ten cents each, and it buys a thousand copies of the Word
of God. These he judiciously sows as seed of the Kingdom, and that seed
springs up a harvest, not of Bibles, but of souls. Out of the unrighteous
mammon he has made immortal friends, who, when he fails, receive
him into everlasting habitations. May this not be what is meant by the
true riches the treasure laid up in heaven in imperishable good?
What
revelations await us in that day of transmutation! Then, whatever has been
given up to God as an offering of the heart, "in righteousness," will
be seen
as transfigured. Not only the magi’s
gold, frankincense and myrrh, and the alabaster box of ointment of spikenard,
very precious, and the houses and lands of such as Barnabas, but
fishermen’s boats and nets, the abandoned
"seat of custom," the widow’s
mites, and the cup of cold water — yes, when we had
nothing else to give, the word of counsel, the tear of pity,
the prayer of intercession. Then shall be seen both the limitless possibilities
and the "transcendent riches" of consecrated poverty.
Never
will the work of missions, or any other form of service to God and man,
receive the help it ought until there is a new conscience and a new consecration
in the matter of money. The influence of the world and the worldly
spirit is deadening to unselfish giving. It exalts self-indulgence, whether
in gross or refined form. It leads to covetous hoarding or wasteful spending.
It blinds us to the fact of obligation, and devises flimsy pretexts for
diverting the Lord’s money to carnal
ends. The few who learn to give on Scriptural principles learn also to love to
give. These gifts become abundant and systematic and self-denying. The
stream of beneficence flows perpetually —
there is no period of drought.