Why the Bible Talks So Much About Money

For those of you new to Free Money Finance, I post on The Bible and Money every Sunday. Here's why.

Despite the fact that I write on the issue every Sunday, many people wonder if there's a real connection between the Bible and personal finances. So when I found this article that starts with the importance of money in the Bible, I just had to share it. Here's what they say about money and the Bible:

Money is such an important topic in the Bible that it is the main subject of nearly half of the parables Jesus told. In addition, one in every seven verses in the New Testament deals with this topic. The Bible offers 500 verses on prayer, fewer than 500 verses on faith, and more than 2,000 verses on money.

In fact, 15 percent of everything Jesus ever taught was on the topic of money and possessions-more than His teachings on heaven and hell combined.

Ok, so the Bible is full of verses about money. This begs the question "why?" Their answer:

[Because] there is a fundamental connection between our spiritual lives and how we think about and handle money.

I've often heard that you can get a good feel for someone's spiritual commitment by looking at two pieces of tangible evidence -- their dayplanner and their checkbook. While this may be a bit simplistic, it's certainly true that how we spend both our time and money is a good reflection of who we are. Give this, is it really so surprising that the Bible talks so much about financial issues?

Comments

[Meoip]

I respectfully disagree. Many people site the fact that the Bible talks about money more than prayer and faith as a supporting point its importance. To attempt a direct correlation between the number of mentions of a topic and its importance is a fallacy. Money is mentioned more than faith, grace and even salvation but it is not more important.
Money is a universal, atheists, agnostics, Muslims, Jews, and even Christians spend money so they all relate to money parables. Atheists and agnostics don't relate to teachings on faith and grace since they have none. Jesus went to a subject that is universally understood. It's like talking College Football in Columbus, Ohio or the ocean in Hawaii the crowd can relate to the subject but if try to talk College football in Indianapolis, IN it's not as understood, and if you talk snowfall in Florida it will fall on many deaf ears but money is everywhere.

[Robert in SF]

I am no theologist, more a theotician (and if anyone knows a good Bible study site or program (s/w or book) please post references), so my interpretation is pretty casual.

God speaks so much about money for a particular reasons. It's a day to day concept, one that humans, in our sinful nature, will have the hardest time dealing with when it comes to accepting God's will in lieu of our own. Faith, love, grace, works even, are all things that we can see will have positive effects in our lives the more we let them in. Money however? God seems to want less of that, he wants us to give it away! That's tough to fathom and deal with on a practical level, so God needed to speak on it more. It's not more important, just harder to internalize

Human nature is hypocritical when it comes to actually believing that every aspect that God mentions in the Bible is of equal importance and priority. We have special, pet peeve issues that plague us each. To some it's wanting to see more importance to morallity code, to some it's more for ritual codes, and to some it's drinking, or gambling, or the gays, or the end times, whatever else concerns us personally. We tend to focus on that and forget the other (supposedly?) equal-importance topics covered.

Sometimes I wish your webpage was supplemented by podcasts, where we could call in and leave voicemails to better explain our points of view...

[Dave]

FMF, have you seen this article yet? You're going to love it! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/fashion/08halfmill.html?_r=1&em

[FMF]

Dave --

Wow!!!!

[Wise Finish]

I think it may talk a lot about money to warn us of the dangers of money. Certainly there are other topics that are more essential to the Christian life (salvation), but if Christians are lead away from God by their lust after money, they will miss the satisfaction that they could have by drinking from the "living water" of Jesus Christ.

[Wise Finish]

Robert in SF-

I would recommend the following sites for Bible study:

www [dot] rbc [dot] org
bible [dot] gospelcom [dot] net
bible [dot] cc

I would also encourage you to get involved with a local gathering of Bible Study Fellowship (BSF for short) - www [dot] bsfinternational [dot] org They study the Bible in a very straightforward way.

Also, settingcaptivesfree [dot] org is a great site with several online studies covering many topics.

[JimL]

The article does not talk about one topic being more important that they other. Instead, it just says that the topic of money was important. The fact that there is so much in the bible about it, tells me that God knew we would be having so much difficulty with this particular topic. As a loving father, he wants what is best for us. If we think about what causes people the most amount of problems, much of it does stem from money issues (#1 cause of divorce, for example). As such, God wanted to take care of us and has left us an significant amount of information on the subject to help us.

[TDCJr]

For Robert in SF: Also try The Navigators and the affliated NavPress.

[poor boomer]

Okay, what does this say about my spiritual committment:

Income $1,050

Rent: $650
Student loan: $145
Medical: $110

Everything else: $145

[been there]

I don't see tithes worked into your budget. God asks us to cheerfully, trustingly, return a 10% tithe to him FIRST. Then He multiplies the rest, and you will find with God's math, y ou don't always need money- he has other ways to provide for you.

[Rusty Pang]

There is a lot more here than it seems on the surface, but I will comment on something obscure, poor boomer's statement.

The statement, "You can tell a lot about someone based upon their checkbook and day planner," is absolutely true. To infer a spiritual commitment from this data can also be accurate, but it does assume a confession of faith, which we cannot verify because Mr. boomer does not make the claim himself.

If your budget is accurate, which I do not believe it is and maybe even a complete lie, it does not contain all the pertinent information. It is near impossible to have 61% of your income go to housing. You cannot maintain this lifestyle for very long, the numbers do not add up. Furthermore, $145 for everything else? One can only assume that if you do not poop, brush your teeth, or bath regularly you can devote all of this money to food, but even then that works out to $4.83 per day to eat. Unless, you are a starving student in Somalia, this is also impossible, based upon the info you provided.

Do I believe anything boomer has posted? No, absolutely not. This is why we cannot take anything someone posts at more than face value. I am not above this and should be scrutinized with the same intensity.

With that said, my conclusion about an individual who has poor boomer's budget is a young man who is not willing to read FMF's article for what wisdom he may glean. Instead, he would rather joke at such a profound statement that relates spent money and time to "where your treasure is." And, unfortunately, there are too many Christians who, unwittingly, are doing something similar.

Wisdom resonates with seekers of wisdom and that cannot be taught or passed on. If you want it, you will find it. As it says in Proverbs, she [wisdom] cries out "How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in their mockery and fools hate knowledge?"

[John Grissom]

Yeah the Bible also says in 1Timothy 6:10 says: Money is the root of all evil and I believe it to. We don't never have enough money to spend anyway because of these stupid bills we have here.

[FMF]

John --

It actually says that "the LOVE of money is the root of all evil."

[FinancialBondage]

Jesus knew that money would be the #1 threat to our walk with him. The bible has over 2300 verses about money. That is a lot.