Guardian

TODAY, in this country called Nigeria, the craze for money has infiltrated every segment of our society. From the religious leadership through to the traditional and the political, there is no difference. The things being done and said in order to enrich ourselves with money are no longer moral. Immoral ways and means are, today, the norm in every facet of our national life. We read in our dailies of men and women who bear names that identify them as “Church-goers” who steal money meant for either those they are paid to serve, or used for the welfare of those who voted them to be in power. In years past, we heard of thousands and millions of naira stolen; today we hear of billions in naira and millions in dollars stolen!

No segment of our society is revered any more. Church leaders, in order to compete with politicians and shady business men and women, ride the latest vehicles and aircrafts, live in mansions, use the same methods to acquire the same astronomical amount of money. Business women and men delve into shady deals in order to keep their bank accounts very fat. They refuse to honour agreements made with business partners, and, in a bid to get justice, the one who feels cheated assassinates the cheat!

Politicians, in order to keep winning elections, use allocations meant for the development of their constituencies for private use, and the maintenance of their very expensive life-styles! Businessmen and women inflate contract sums, cut corners and produce sub-standard materials in order to make more money for their life-styles! The results are there for all to see: collapsed buildings, political assassinations, slow and painful deaths in hospitals due to sub-standard drugs! The press women and men are not shielded from this craze – they publish articles written by those seeking cheap publicity, and get paid; they distort facts and murder truth, all in the interest of stashing away money in their bank accounts.

Sadly, most of those involved in all these deals mentioned above bear names that identify them as church members. In a pluralistic country like ours, with two contending faith communities, the challenge is always there for these two to out-do each other in obeying the teachings of their scriptures! As followers of Christ, we are challenged to be faithful as stewards of all we possess. That includes money! This is what has informed our synod theme for this year: The Christian Attitude To Money (Heb.13:5).

Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for He has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

In studying what the Christian attitude to money should be, it is strongly advised to take seriously the whole of the New Testament canon, with all its variety. An important reason for a comprehensive approach is that when we take very situation-specific injunctions and attempt to universalize them, we quickly run into conflict with other New Testament imperatives that are equally important. For instance, some Christians take Luke 12:33 “Sell your possessions and give to the poor” to be incumbent on all Christians in every situation, and follow this injunction to the letter. When that Christian meets the commandment “Do not neglect hospitality” (Heb. 13:2), how does that Christian offer hospitality, having no home or possession? In other words, a canonical approach suggests that there must be a balance in the way we evaluate the evidence, not universalizing a calling or demand that may be meant for particular persons, living in particular circumstances and places.

It is also important for Christians to note that much of the orientation of the New Testament towards money and wealth are a carry-forward from Old Testament assumptions about the subject. These assumptions include the following:

• The assumption that God is the Creator and Owner of all things.

• God’s creatures are not owners but only stewards of the material things, even when one has worked for them and earned them in a sense.

• We find in the Old Testament the convictions that human beings are fallen, and that the internal battles with things like greed are on-going; one cannot afford to be naïve about that.

• Finally, in spite of the many warnings in the Bible about wealth (repeatedly associated with idolatry and apostasy), a believer must be wary and take a cautious approach to the issue of money and possessions:

– Isaiah’s caution to the wealthy in Israel (Isa.3: 16-24).

– Amos critiqued the idle wealthy, warning them that they were going to be the first to go into exile (Amos 6: 4-7).

– God Himself complained that having blessed Israel, she became rebellious and idolatrous, “forgetting the God who gave you birth” (Dt.32: 10-18).

Pitfalls in attitude to money

Today, prosperous Christians either deliberately ignore, or they are not aware of these warnings, and this is why our fallen attitudes about wealth and prosperity are no different from those of ancient Israel. The texts quoted above remind us that we cannot simply focus on the Old Testament or New Testament texts that say that sometimes, wealth can be a reward and blessing from God for good, honest labour. We must meditate on the whole witness of the Bible. This is where we create problems for other believers. When we treat, say, certain verses in the Book of Proverbs in isolation from what the rest of the entire Bible says, and without an understanding of how proverbs and maxims work, then we do not merely mistake the part for the whole but we even violate the character of the part which says that sometimes, material things are a blessing from God and a reward for good, hard labour.

When we turn to the New Testament, the warnings about wealth as a potential stumbling block is intensified. In other words, the New Testament is harder on the assumptions of the health-and-wealth Gospel than the Old Testament. It is the New Testament that stresses that a person is not to store up his or her treasure on earth, and urges that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Furthermore, the most we can get from the statement “Seek ye first ...and all these things shall be added “ text is that the believers are encouraged to rely on God, and not on their financial advisers, for the provision of their basic need (Acts 4:34; Lk. 6:31; 2 Cor. 9:10-11).

These texts do assure us that God can and will give His people what is necessary to sustain an obedient life, though there will undoubtedly be times of testing. When God is blessing a person with material prosperity, usually the text says that God is doing this for the righteous, which is to say those who are likely to use such resources in a good and godly way. For others, ruled by their errant desires and lust, prosperity is seen more as a temptation and a snare than a blessing. In any case, the New Testament is very clear that the goal of the Christian life is not success or prosperity, but godliness and contentment, which Paul stresses as the greatest gain of all.

Are the poor more spiritual?

The New Testament does not suggest that material poverty is inherently a more spiritual condition than wealth, though clearly there are a few stumbling blocks to a healthy relationship with God for the poor. According to Wheeler (1995), there is no repudiation of material goods as such in the New Testament. The disciples may be directed to sell their possessions and give to the poor; they are never directed to simply throw them away. The necessity and goodness of wealth as a resource for the meeting of human needs are affirmed, while the same epistles which condemn greed as idolatrous commend provision for oneself and one’s family as a duty.

The New Testament and the prosperity gospel

We begin this sub-topic with the question: to what extent is it possible for a prosperous Christian to hear a call to simplify one’s lifestyle and give more to the needy? This is a pertinent question because one of the great problems with the prosperity Gospel is that it removes any lingering guilt about being a conspicuous consumer and, indeed, accelerates the process of spiritual deafness to the cries of the poor. It gives permission to turn off such nagging voices in one’s head, or to write off poor people in general as victims of their own bad choices, or the like.

Some basic New Testament teachings on possession and wealth

In the New Testament, material poverty is never seen as a good thing in itself. By the same token, material possessions can be seen as a good gift from God meant to meet the needs of oneself and those of other persons. However, we are all fallen creatures and so self-centred, which create room for an infinite capacity for self-purification and rationalisation of one’s behaviour, especially the expenditure of our so-called disposable income. This is why a good thing, namely material possessions, can simultaneously become a means of turning human hearts away from God (Blomberg, 1999).

• To be continued tomorrow.

• The Most Rev. Idowu-Fearon, Ph.D (ABU) is the Bishop of Kaduna Diocese Anglican Communion, Kaduna.