![]() ![]() Nevertheless, when the desire to accumulate wealth becomes all-consuming, it can eclipse the realities that make having money worth anything: Like health, finances are one of the things that are easy to take for granted until they are gone. Granted-money can make life a lot easier. “Then he said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed life does not consist in an abundance of possessions’” (Luke 12:15). Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34). Jesus’s claim in the Sermon on the Mount is the ultimate antithesis to greed: “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. God could have given Israel an endless supply of gold, weapons, and a pillar of fire to fight their battles.īut he deigned not to do this so that Israel would trust God. “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you never will I forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5). Greed prevents us from resting in God’s faithfulness The more one dips into greed to fuel aspiration, the less satisfying are the goals to which one aspires.Įventually, all other goals are forced to subserve greed’s accumulative goals. The goals of greed are unquantifiable and endlessly evasive. It is unrelenting-the only thing it wants is: “More.” Insatiability is one of the defining characteristics of greed. This too is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 5:10). “Whoever loves money never has enough whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. ![]() Greed promises satisfaction, but never satisfied Rich and poor alike can be generous or greedy.īut if there is such as a thing as an antonym to greed, it is generosity.Īnd if there is a virtue at the heart of godliness, certainly it is generosity: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). This isn’t the same thing as asking: “How many rich people are cheerful givers?” How many greedy people are cheerful givers? “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). Greed is the inordinate, insatiable desire to accumulate money, power, and security to such as a degree that it supersedes moral integrity, and even spiritual integrity. “For everything in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-comes not from the Father but from the world” (1 John 2:16)īecause physical blessings-even earthly power and money-come from God, the inordinate desire to amass and accumulate wealth in a way that distorts human nature should be guarded against diligently. God understands this, and engages greed as the tangled and tangling reality in the human heart that it really is. Greed is such an alluring disposition of the human heart, because power is so … powerful.Īnd money is one way of representing that power. The more money you have, the more opportunities are available to you. In Scripture, we find an engagement with the reality of money-and the desire for money-as that which it has always represented: power. That’s why, in the Bible, we don’t find strict absolutisms that demonize or obscure the complex realities of aspiration, wealth, growth, inheritance, success, profit, and the opportunity for greed to plant itself in the human heart and grow like a weed. The line between greed and aspiration-between the bottomless desire for more and the human drive to succeed-are easily blurred.
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