Greed is the Absence of Trust in a Rich God

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

The following is an excerpt from Building Your Financial Fortress in 52 Days: The Lessons of Nehemiah. This post is from Day 35.

What happens when we have egg on our faces? What if your failure is much worse than mine? Are you wrong and am I right? What if God reveals to us that we all have been tempted by greed? Simply put, greed is the absence of belief in a God who provides generously.

Think about it for a moment.

We get caught up in the refinance game, the allure of flipping property, investing in risky investments, or that sure thing that will double, even triple our holdings. We question that if we follow the biblical axioms such as slow and steady brings prosperity or “... he who gathers little by little makes it grow,” in the old-school way, we will be seen as foolish.

Nehemiah could either spin the blame on someone else, minimize his involvement in the greed scheme, or just face it, confess it, and make a statement and a law that would keep everyone honest, accountable, and fully aware of the pain of not managing finances God’s way.

The Mosaic Law prescribed lending without interest to a fellow countryman, but charging foreigners since ideally they would come to town for profit. What should catch our eyes in verse 10 of Nehemiah 5 is the word usury. We think of this in terms of credit cards, check-cashing stores, even loan sharks, but in Nehemiah’s time the “hundredth part” was 1 percent. To charge 1 percent per month would be considered usury.

But it wasn’t so much the charging of interest that was so wrong. It was their lack of faith in God’s provision if they didn’t take matters into their own hands. They felt that in order to survive, it was absolutely necessary to charge interest to even the poorest of people. Those people, of course, were working without pay on the city and they were the same ones who had formerly been enslaved and were now extremely poor. This was where they doubted God’s promises. This is where we doubt God, too.

Josephus explains the Law and the spirit of the Law in Nehemiah’s day: “Let it not be permitted to lend upon usury to any Hebrew either meat or drink; for it is not just to draw a revenue for the misfortunes of a fellow countryman. Rather, in consoling him in his distress, you should reckon as gain the gratitude of such persons and the recompense that God has in store for an act of generosity.”

The more benevolent they were, the less they would earn, and subsequently the less they would have for themselves. Therefore, human nature compels us to seek a profit even at someone else’s expense, as the simple Maslow hierarchy of needs explains. But that is where we go wrong.

We default in our thinking and acting when we engage in the belief that “we will take it from here.” Thus, trusting in God to provide for us is a foolish decision. In Nehemiah’s case he may not have been getting interest on his loans, but he was certainly not planning on writing off the debt. Interest-free is one extreme, but lending without expecting anything in return is just plain dumb. Here is what our hearts say, “If everyone did this we would all be broke.”

Plain and simple, greed says that I cannot trust whoever or whatever my god is and must take matters into my own hands. I must truly lean on my intellect, my abilities, and my power and do what I need to do to survive and thrive.

Nehemiah had experienced the power, provision, and pleasure of an intimate sweetness with God. Could he trust Him for what he was about to do? This was the first step.

God did not force it out of his hands. Nehemiah saw his lack of faith was exactly the same as the usury being charged by some of his people to one another. This enlarged Nehemiah’s faith like no other single action in the area of finance. Had he not associated himself with those who were doing things even more abusive, he may not have considered exempting his people from tax, a move that could have proved to bankrupt this new city.

Nehemiah trusted God not only with his possessions and his ability to earn money, but he trusted the Provider to take care of him as he followed and listened to Him.

This single event changed Nehemiah’s future financial goals forever and gave us a pattern to follow for generations. Now it is your turn. Nehemiah set the standard and it started with trusting God financially. He and his people stopped lending, loans that were outstanding were forgiven, and the interest charged given back. No financial book could or would ever be written endorsing these types of foolish financial techniques.

This entire book was inspired by the actions and change in Nehemiah’s heart as recounted in Chapter 5 of his memoirs. These clear violations of the world’s way of handling money either cause a contradiction or a confirmation of the wisdom of God’s economy. Clearly throughout history man has tried it the world’s way. The extent of this mindset has turned people into profit, and we have used people and loved money. God’s way is just the opposite—use money to love people.

Nehemiah tapped into the love channel. Read my lips: “No more greed.”

Comments

[Terry]

Doesn't Genesis say that the lot of fallen man is toil, toil, and more toil?

You gotta get up and toil every day, except the Sabbath, of course.

[Jonathan]

Greed is something that can be all consuming, but it's amazing how subtle it can also be sneaking up on people until they don't realise that they are being greedy.