“Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. But godliness with contentment is great gain.”

(1 Timothy 6:5-6)

“Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. But godliness with contentment is great gain.” — 1 Timothy 6:5-6

If you wanted an increase in your income, what would you do? Would you ask your boss for a raise? Would you join a union? Work harder? Switch your investments to other securities? Go to church and say your prayers? Call a jack-leg loan company and negotiate a loan at high interest and live for a spell in a fool’s paradise of deficit spending?

If, in this time of rapid rises in the price of gasoline and food and other essentials for living, we need and want an increase of income, what do we do?

For everyone, this is an important question and the answer is important, too. It’s important, not so much for the amount and the immediacy of the cash brought in through any given channel, but more for what the question and answer reveal about our personal philosophy of finance.

St. Paul once wrote Timothy warning him about some people who had a false philosophy of finance and whom the great apostle said were the source of all sorts of arguing, contention and wrangling in the early church. Paul seemed to think that a false philosophy of finance might affect the whole tenor and temper of a person’s life. He describes this false philosophy of finance as “supposing that gain is godliness,” or “supposing that godliness results in gain.”

“One of the commonest superstitions which masquerades as religion is the idea that godliness is a means to gain.” (Interpreters Bible on text) Some people have reasoned thus: “If God rules in His universe, if everything belongs to Him, does it not follow inevitably that He will reward those who are obedient and faithful by bestowing on them material possessions?” So religion can become in all its observances a ritual to be run through in order that one may get what he wants out of God.

Some Christians have imagined that their prosperity was a proof of their godliness. There has sometimes flourished in church a proverbial sort of teaching which encouraged young people to cultivate those qualities of character such as honesty, industry, and sobriety, as a means of getting wealth. “There have been modern movements in the church which held out material prosperity as the promised reward for prayer, meditation, and directed thought.”

“This, of course, is to distort New Testament religion. This is trying to use God for our selfish purposes instead of offering ourselves to God to be used for His purposes. Jesus did not say: ‘Seek first all these things and the Kingdom of God will be added unto you.’” (Interpreters Bible) Neither did He say: “Seek the Kingdom of God in order that you may get all these things.”

This false philosophy of finance which supposes that godliness issues inevitably in gain is very ancient and its falseness, both as to motive and achievement, was exposed as far back as the days of Job, but it dies hard. There are those who still cling to it and are disappointed and downcast when God won’t fit into their nice little scheme of the way they think He ought to run His universe. Always a problem to the pious Jews were the unscrupulous people who succeeded, those who got ahead by refusing to play by the rules, those they thought God should punish. When God did not punish them and the wicked rich grew richer and richer, instead of casting off their discredited theology, many lost their faith. “There is no God,” they would say. Too bad when one can’t see that in the eyes of the Eternal, equally despicable with the man who makes his money by disregarding moral and ethical principles is the man who observes moral and ethical principles solely because he believes that they will make him money.

To suppose that gain is godliness is a false supposition.

But just as false, is the philosophy of finance that supposes that gain has nothing to do with godliness. For there is a manner of thinking, about life and things and man’s struggle for possessions, which leaves God and godliness completely out of it. It goes something like this and can sound quite pious and super spiritual: “God is not concerned with man’s sweat and strain for material success. That is a game men have hatched up among themselves. The competition and the high stakes and the wins and losses may briefly exhilarate or depress people, but God is placidly and patiently unmoved. Spiritual values, not material values, are the arena of God’s concern. He neither pays off His rewards in cash prizes, nor exacts His penalties in cash fines.”

But this, too, is a false philosophy. To think that God is unconcerned with the way people labor for their living, to fail to recognize that there is a godly and an ungodly way both to gain wealth and to use it, is to miss disastrously the meaning of existence. A certain man thought it was his business and his alone how he got his wealth, how he stored it away, and how he planned to use it in the future. Jesus said that God called that man a fool.

John Ruskin told a story of a man who tried to swim to safety from a wrecked ship. About his waist, he tied a belt containing 200 pounds of gold — money which he could not bring himself to leave behind. Unable to reach the shore with the extra weight, the man sank and drowned. Ruskin asked: “As he was sinking, had he the gold, or had the gold him?”

It is a false and damning philosophy of finance which supposes that gain has nothing to do with godliness.

That brings us to a consideration of the only truly Christian philosophy of finance. It runs something like this: God, the Creator and Preserver of life, is Lord of all. Everything belongs to Him. All people, across the short span of our years on earth, have what we control and use of this world’s goods through the goodness and mercy of God. “We bring nothing into this world and it is certain that we take nothing out of it.”

But when gain comes, it is no proof of our godliness. Nor is the bitter experience of want and poverty the sure stigma of the forsaken of God. Forever a mystery must be the reason for the wide disparity of native endowments with which men and women are born into the world. Some arrive with ten talents, some with five, some with only one talent. Inexplicable also is the inheritance of wealth and station, of poverty and disgrace.

But this does not mean that the arena of our struggle with the things of this world is outside the realm of God’s concern. Neither does it mean that God doesn’t care whether we work and scheme and strive by the rules of justice, honor and sympathy. Jesus and all the prophets proclaim that God cares desperately about these things.

The clear, reiterated teaching of Holy Scripture about God and man and possessions comes to just this focal point: Godliness is proven not in the gain which we get, but in the use to which we put everything that Providence places under our control. Godliness is shown in an attitude, a spirit, a way of life, which acknowledges God’s sovereignty by using all God’s gifts of life and time and strength and possessions to serve His holy purposes.

Once, in a congregation where I was serving, a couple who preferred to remain anonymous came with a sum of money in five figures and said: “This is not a part of our yearly pledge to the church. This is in addition to that. God has blessed us in a special and wonderful way and we want this to be used through the church for some of those things that are always left undone when the church budget is made up.”

The gospel is not a Horatio Alger success story. Proof of godly living is not to be found in a ledger’s black ink or in a corporation’s steadily rising margin of profit. The high water mark of godliness in human existence was marked by a cross and blood and death. But there is lasting success and eternal profit in everything any man or woman invests in the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The other day while making out a check and a deposit slip, I had some random thoughts. I thought of how my father used to send me checks from time to time and how I entered them on my deposit slip. They were the expressions of his love, and they always kept coming as long as he lived. Sometimes they were not for much in terms of today’s inflated dollar, but they were a lot for him to send in his circumstances and a lot for me on my salary to receive. They helped to educate our children, they furnished some extras, but mostly they were a symbol of love, a tangible evidence that he was right with me in the things that concerned me most and the things I was trying to do. How much more is this so of our Heavenly Father’s bountiful care of us.

Now believe me on this: I’ve lived long enough, seen enough of the pluses and minuses of life, had my successes and my losses, to know that my greatest joys now are those joys which come from the remembrances of the expressions of my love in words, deeds and gifts. My greatest regrets are the remembrance of those opportunities I passed by to express my love, my support, my confidence in words, deeds and gifts to my family, my friends, my church, and above all, to my God for His merciful ministries to a needy world.