Proverbs wisdom, money, and righteous living

I'm taking my blog in a new direction and pledging regular updates. From now on, instead of ambitiously large posts that no one cares about, I will use this space for short little theological, philosophical, or homiletic reflections. They'll be easier to read and less time consuming to prepare.

Proverbs 10.16
"The wages of the righteous bring them life,
but the income of the wicked brings them punishment."

Pastor Don preached on Pr. 10 this past Sunday. In light of this chapter, I've been wrestling a lot with coming to terms with the American economy and Capitalism. The American economy (very broadly speaking) is run on the assumption that if you are rich, it's because you worked hard for your money and if you are poor, it's because you didn't try enough and you deserved your poverty. In short, "everyone gets a fair chance". But today no one can look at the folly of our economic system and turn a blind eye to the people that fall through the cracks. Everyone knows someone who's hard-working and disciplined and smart but simply can't pull himself out of his circumstances.

"bill, i believe this is killing me"
as a smile ran away from his face
"well i'm sure that i could be a movie star
if I could get out of this place."

Likewise we are all too familiar with the rich boys riding of the coattails of their father's wealth; we've all heard stories of Asian parents who sacrificed so much to bring their kids to the U.S. and give them a better chance, a better education, and those kids who didn't understand how much their opportunities cost their parents.

But then there's Pr 10.4 "Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth." How do we understand money and finances in light of Proverbs wisdom? I think ultimately the Bible doesn't make any value judgments of any man-made economic system. Pr 10.16 acknowledges no correlation between righteousness and wealth or wickedness and poverty. All it says is, if you faithfully obey God, your money will bring you life. Likewise, no amount of gold or dollar bills will save the wicked from the ultimate wrath of God. Underlying all of the verses that we looked at on Sunday is the idea that righteous living far out-values monetary wealth. The bottom line is, regardless of wealth or poverty, the goal is to please God with whatever we have.

"Ill-gotten treasures are of no value,
but righteousness delivers from death" Pr 10.2

Comments

  1. CharlesSeptember 8, 2009 at 7:46 PM

    i've wanted you to blog regularly for a long time now. this is good.

    i miss you so stinking much. you don't even understand.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you first have to invent the universe

Draper sent me this link: http://melindataub.com/god-twitters-creation/ and it reminded me of a lofty thought I had while I was taking a physics class over the summer. It is called: How to create the universe in infinity easy steps 1) Create light. 2) Back up a second, you have to invent the concept of creation. 3) You can't back up without first explaining the concept of progress and sequence 4) But you can't have sequence without first setting in place the skeleton of sequence, which is time! 5) Okay, okay, it's clear what we need to do first is invent time. 6) Wait, what do you mean by "first"? 7) First is like, what takes place all the way on one end of the timeline; the end marked "beginning" 8) Alright, seriously, we're getting nowhere with this. If we want to invent time, let's just start by inventing numbers. 9) One.... 10) Two... 11) Three... 12) Quick question, if we haven't got sequence yet, is this happening all at once? 13) Yes, ...
Read more

A Brief Theology Of Clothing And Fashion

          A couple of weeks ago, I turned up at church wearing the new outfit that I had purchased back in New York last December. Blue dress shirt with a Navy Tommy Hilfiger top, DKNY jeans, and a pair of Polo Ralph Lauren boots. That was the first time in a long, long, long, long time that I can remember being complimented for my clothing. No fewer than three people responded with some variation of "Dan! Nice shoes!" when I said hi to them, and Roy Wu actually saw me from across the whole hall and came over just to comment on my attire. It felt nice. It made me smile. It confirmed that I like it when I wear nice clothing and people notice.           Truth be told, I didn't acquire a single article of clothing that I was wearing that day on my own. My fiancee Jo picked out the shirt and jumper, I was assisted with the jeans, and my friend Phil Thai practically had to hold a gun to my head to make me buy those nice brown shoes. "But, wh...
Read more

The Stanley Files - On Priority

[ and we know, new jack city gotta keep my brother but to be number one, i'ma beat my brother -Kanye, Big Brother I've redacted my last post "On Pain" and the one on "Diligence" and have decided to work them into a 5-part series of posts inspired largely by the thoughts of my dear friend and mentor. ] when it feels like livin's harder than dyin for me givin up is way harder than tryin -Kanye, Champion A few weeks ago I wrote an entry in which I quoted Stan; "The euangelion for me is that anyone can be better with nothing more than diligence". I have since added to my understanding. I was in Sydney city today meeting up with a couple of Gracepoint guys. As I walked down the street, I could have scanned over the street signs and ignored the cars driving on the wrong side and imagine myself back at home walking down Wall Street. "Power suit, power tie, power steering." The well-dressed men and women that passed me all exuded determi...
Read more