God's money

In homegroup right now, we're doing a small study on the topic of money. This is a pretty big topic, because God talks an awful lot about money in the Bible and Jesus said that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. Notice the tenses as well, it says that treasure leads and the heart follows. So, if you put your money in a direction that you don't want your heart heading, your heart will head there nonetheless. And, indeed, we know this is true. If we just bought a new house, our heart will be in the house. If we just invested in a business venture, then our heart will be in the venture, and so forth.

I'll be facilitating this upcoming Wednesday's discussion, and the broad theme is that all money is God's money and God is just entrusting it to our care. That's a pretty big deal as well. The book we're basing the study on is The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn. Unfortunately, I think Alcorn makes one critical mistake in the chapter (which I think causes some diversions through the rest of the book). He seems to embrace the modern western notion of money manager - that is, someone that you give your wealth to for the purpose of growing it. One right of the money manger is to draw a salary. And he basically says that we can draw a salary from the money that God has given us for the purpose of subsistence. I think that misses the point of money manager. Rather, the Biblical image of a money manager is the image of a steward. The steward of a household manages the household finances, just as we are entrusted to manage God's finances, but the steward is a member of the household. So, the roof over his head is his Master's roof and he eats at the Master's table. He does not draw a salary for subsistence. Rather, his subsistence comes from the Master. This lines up with 1 Corinthians 10:31 where Paul talks about doing everything, even eating and drinking, for the Glory of God.

So, even our subsistence belongs to God and shouldn't be viewed as a salary out of God's money.