I used to believe that prosperity and discipleship in Christ were incompatible.
But, at the same time, I could never square this idea with all the personal wealth-protecting ordinances the Lord God established for His people Israel in the ancient writings of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
Not only that, I couldn’t find any evidence in the Bible that Jesus Christ ever condemned any type of legitimate entrepreneurial venture. Instead, He often described different types of money making scenarios in the parables He spoke—all told with the premise that personal profit was a good, desirable thing!
And it would seem absurd to suggest that His New Covenant challenged the very idea of capitalism simply because the early church He established was sustained by a system of monetary communalism. [Ac. 2:42-47] These specific “acts” of the first apostles certainly exist as a paradigm for our congregations even today, however, nothing prohibited them [or prohibits me] from creating and keeping wealth.
Their combined decision to share with one another was voluntary.
Consider also that the snake oil salesmen peddling the “prosperity gospel” today are actually nothing new. [see: Phil. 1:15-17; 2Tim. 4:1-4] The only difference is they’re accumulating Gulfstream jets and real estate rather than camels and precious metals.
But they’ve all given the desire to create wealth a bad name.
And it’s for that reason that I appeal to every disciple of Jesus Christ to embrace the Scriptural principle that seeking personal gain doesn’t always have to clash with the Lord’s expectations, but can often be an integral part of them. And perhaps the key to a achieving financial security in this age is to simply not focus too much on it!
While poverty is all too often a consequence of Biblical obedience and suffering, Jesus never suggested it to be an emblem of virtue outside of those parameters. But the badge of poverty has become an effective signaling tool utilized in the utopian progressive agenda today.
So, it seems that profit should be both a subtle goal and a burning ambition.
As disciples of Jesus Christ, we seek it as a natural consequence of our temporal objectives, but as an unfathomable promise to be realized in the age to come!
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Last Updated: October 25, 2023 by cjournalme
The Almighty and the Almighty Dollar
I used to believe that prosperity and discipleship in Christ were incompatible.
But, at the same time, I could never square this idea with all the personal wealth-protecting ordinances the Lord God established for His people Israel in the ancient writings of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
Not only that, I couldn’t find any evidence in the Bible that Jesus Christ ever condemned any type of legitimate entrepreneurial venture. Instead, He often described different types of money making scenarios in the parables He spoke—all told with the premise that personal profit was a good, desirable thing!
And it would seem absurd to suggest that His New Covenant challenged the very idea of capitalism simply because the early church He established was sustained by a system of monetary communalism. [Ac. 2:42-47] These specific “acts” of the first apostles certainly exist as a paradigm for our congregations even today, however, nothing prohibited them [or prohibits me] from creating and keeping wealth.
Their combined decision to share with one another was voluntary.
Consider also that the snake oil salesmen peddling the “prosperity gospel” today are actually nothing new. [see: Phil. 1:15-17; 2Tim. 4:1-4] The only difference is they’re accumulating Gulfstream jets and real estate rather than camels and precious metals.
But they’ve all given the desire to create wealth a bad name.
And it’s for that reason that I appeal to every disciple of Jesus Christ to embrace the Scriptural principle that seeking personal gain doesn’t always have to clash with the Lord’s expectations, but can often be an integral part of them. And perhaps the key to a achieving financial security in this age is to simply not focus too much on it!
While poverty is all too often a consequence of Biblical obedience and suffering, Jesus never suggested it to be an emblem of virtue outside of those parameters. But the badge of poverty has become an effective signaling tool utilized in the utopian progressive agenda today.
So, it seems that profit should be both a subtle goal and a burning ambition.
As disciples of Jesus Christ, we seek it as a natural consequence of our temporal objectives, but as an unfathomable promise to be realized in the age to come!
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