Last week I reminded you that tools don’t make you wise, but the wise do make tools. One of the tools that has recently been fashioned, and which virtually all of you use, is the smart phone. A central task that lies in front of you is therefore figuring out the relationship of that phone in your pocket and your responsibilities as a disciple of the Lord Jesus.
There are two easy responses to this kind of thing, responses that take virtually no thought at all. The one is that of enthusiastic adoption, no reflection, and the other is the response of a simple bigoted rejection—not in my house. “We will continue to use the old rotary landline phones, the kind the apostles had.” The common element is the missing aspect of thoughtful reflection.
Your smart phone, together with all of the apps, is a store house of wealth. The Scriptures do not talk about high tech phones, but the Scripture do talk about wealth, and they address the subject quite a bit. Put it in the category of wealth, and the Bible tells you exactly how to think about it. Your phone is a tool that has been given to you, and it was given to you in order to increase your dependency upon God (Dt. 8:7-14), your love for your neighbor (1 Tim. 6:17-18), and your usefulness to your generation (Acts 13:36). As A.W. Tozer once put it, unless you have been useful to your generation, you have no business dying.
It is true that some people retreat into the cocoon created by their phone, but this is nothing new. Selfish people have always had the means of retreating from other people. Can you not retreat into a newspaper, a book, or a bedroom? And it is also true that some people have figured out wonderful ways to love their neighbors with their phones—an encouraging text, a calendar reminder, and so on. These are the people who used to send encouraging scrolls. And so here is the exhortation—be that guy.
I have small children and don’t get near as much time to sit down with paper books as I used to. I can hold a kid with one hand and flip pages in a smartphone book reader app with the other.
“We will continue to use the old rotary landline phones, the kind the apostles had.”
LOL, so you’ve met my husband? We had to get rid of our rotary phone when I finally convinced him none of the kids knew how to dial the thing, and therefore could never call for help. He calls computers an abomination and he is pretty sure they signal the last gasp of mankind. Sometimes I suspect he is right.
If it’s gain you want, though, there is plenty to be had in godliness–if it’s combined with contentment. We brought nothing into the world, after all, and we certainly can’t take anything out. If we have food and clothing, we should be satisfied with it. People who want to be rich, by contrast, fall into temptation and a trap, and into many foolish and dangerous lusts which drown people in devastation and destruction. The love of money, you see, is the root of all evil. Some people have been so eager to get rich that they have wandered away from… Read more »
I think the emphasis is on gratitude and remembering – Deut 8:18 is key – wealth accumulation is a gift from God.
Abraham, Job, Solomon, were all fabulously wealthy.
So don’t make riches the goal, make giving generously the goal.
And remember we are the rich – richer (wealthier) than 99% of people back then.
I agree that we should realize that the rich people Christ was speaking to or that the letters of James/Paul/John mention were likely less wealthy than us. And tremble. I just don’t see, anywhere in the Gospels or the letters, an apostle of Christ or Christ himself coming up to a rich person with the primary message “accumulation of wealth is a gift from God”. In fact, there are several places where Jesus Christ makes it clear that accumulation of wealth is something that often goes hand-in-hand with following false gods. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t some room to… Read more »
Jonathan, “…with the primary message “accumulation of wealth is a gift from God”.” And they would be wrong to do so. The thinking back then is that riches were a reward from God, and so most rich people would go to heaven, also. Jesus corrected that with Matt 19:23-26. Hard, but not impossible! So, we shouldn’t take His correction and re-adjust it to fit our current ideas, either. Riches can be a false god to the rich or poor, or middle class. Maybe more so to the poor and middlers. “…”have gratitude towards your wealth and take full advantage of… Read more »
I appreciate cultural context which helps one to better understand the words of Scripture. I don’t believe in the existence of cultural context which invalidates the clear commands of Jesus Christ. NONE of the relevant passages, or any of their context, or any of their reasoning lead to the interpretation you give that allows them to be invalidated in the way you imply. The statements I refer to in the Gospels and the letters of James, John, and Paul are firm, and only in some cases situational yet in other cases appear quite clearly universal. When reasoning is given, it… Read more »
OK, Jonathan – You win on volume! I have struggled with these same verses since the 60’s, when it was fashionable to (act like you) live on nothing. It doesn’t work, because God wants us to be engaged in bringing forth bread by the sweat of our brow. He wants us to be productive with the material goods that we have been given. My definition of wealth has become: Wealth is the ability to increase productivity from existing materials. Wealth is different from money, but money is usually thought to be a measure of wealth, so: Money is a measure… Read more »
I agree that not too many people want money for money’s sake. Most of them want money for security’s sake, which is why it’s such a clear rival to God. The other big motives are greed for possessions and peer pressure to keep up with/surpass others. Some people are just deceived by the constant advertising from all sides that tells us to buy more and spend more and get bigger and get new and on and on. But the greatest motive in most of the people I know is security. We should be productive with the time and energy and… Read more »
I know many Christians who ask these kind of questions.
Note I consistently said, “American Christians”. ;) The average New Zealander has little more than half the purchasing power of the average American, and that money is spread far more equally, yet they’re much happier. My impression is that New Zealander’s don’t feel the same degree of peer and cultural pressure to chase wealth that Americans do. Also, they may have found things other than wealth (or God) to base their security in. The rarity with which such questions are addressed on this blog is matched in my experience in almost all areas of American Christianity. Even when the question… Read more »
Jonathan, you keep overwhelming me with volume! I think only the poor and lower middle income people look at money as security. The rich don’t think about money as being static; instead money is a tool and a game. They focus on wealth building. The upper incomes use money to impress and as an ego builder. I think you have a rather gnostic/agrarian view of the material world. It is God’s glory to have us make His creation more and more complex as time goes on. Imagine a high tech lab worker being transported back into the 1700’s and looking… Read more »
I think only the poor and lower middle income people look at money as security. The rich don’t think about money as being static; instead money is a tool and a game. They focus on wealth building. The upper incomes use money to impress and as an ego builder. If you don’t notice this point, it’s hard to proceed further. There is a giant swath of people in the area between “lower middle income” and the rich at the top who are playing financial games. That huge swath is probably the group that is most full-on devoted to the idea… Read more »
Jonathan – That ‘huge’ ‘swath of incomes’ probably only exists in the US. and the US is only 5% of the world population; most of the rest of the world has a vacancy in this income bracket. I mean Gnostic, in the sense of a separation between the value of ‘spiritual’ vs physical work. (Not that material is bad and spiritual is good). Maybe its closer to the Neo-Amish or Luddite, mixed with a Late American revivalist idea that our job is to bring in more believers rather than take dominion. One way we take dominion is through capitalism. Capitalism… Read more »
Though my statements were certainly with the USA in mind, the security-lusting wealthy (which includes the “middle-class” in the USA is not a particular dollar amount, it’s “people who make more than their average countryman, far more than they need to cover food and clothing, yet who are still chasing security above serving their fellow man and the Kingdom of God. In “wealthy” Western countries, at least the ones I’m familiar with, that phenomena is in operation in every country. Perhaps not as bad as in the United States, but it’s certainly in process. For instance, despite the continued growth… Read more »
Jonathan – We are probably splitting hairs, thinking we know the motives of most people, but I think comfort and pleasure are the main motives of the middle class – right after they have enough to make them feel secure. Either way we would both agree that it is an unsatisfiable quest. The ‘latent’ gnosticism shows up when you evaluate the goodness or correctness of someone’s vocation. At what point is ‘good’ work enough, and needs to cease? Most things we have are not bare necessities. Cars, phones, dishwashers, etc are all superfluous, but all these things make our lives… Read more »
Here are some things that I think are far more accurate in identifying the source of endemic poverty than “economic liberty” or “welfare-ism”. Greed. There is FAR more than enough for everyone, and the vast majority of the poor are doing far more than enough work to get their share, but the primary reason they don’t get it is due to the greed of those who have but want more (or want to control the profits of distribution). Perhaps this should be many separate issues, as there are so many aspect of this (how goods are priced, how workers are… Read more »
Jonathan – I think you have a good list, but we are mixing up causes and results. All of your good points are the result of a lack of economic freedom. (Either that, or you have a very different definition of these terms.) And, we would agree that these problems are all caused by man’s disobedience to God’s laws. My basic principles of economics in a free society, are:1) people produce more than they consume; 2) the buyer sets the price; 3) everybody chooses how to spend 24 hrs each day; 4) God gives us all the natural resources we… Read more »
Jonathan, Here’s another thought… How many hours should we work at our vocation? The Agrarian of 200 years ago would expect to answer about 60 to 70 hrs. Genesis/Exodus tells us that we have 6 days of work, and 1 day of rest. The unions wanted a 40 hr week, and now want us to go to 32 hrs. How about you? Aren’t we being blessed If we get our job finished in 40 hrs, and have extra time for leisure, art, ‘ministry’ activity, etc? The shorter workweek is another example of wealth. We have washing machines, breadmakers, cars, phones,… Read more »
> We have washing machines, breadmakers, cars, phones, etc. all which saves us thousands of hours of drudgery.
Traffic jams and the time Americans spend in cars in general is so much better than “drudgery,” isn’t it (especially if it’s outdoor “drudgery” that might make us sweat over something that’s not as “leisurely” as an exercise treadmill)?
Hi, WDH –
Given what you know about past cultures, is there any other time you would rather have been born?
I assume you appreciate an agrarian lifestyle; do you live one now?
As relating to the Adamic curse, yes, it is my goal to reverse this curse. On earth, as it is in heaven. l think we honor God in doing so.
And a related question for you: are you suggesting that the curse found in Gen 3:17-19 can be shed by shedding the agrarian life of 200 years ago? Is that what you’re looking to do? Any chance trying to outsmart God could backfire?
I haven’t seen the slightest evidence that we’ve been saved “thousands of hours of drudgery”. Globally, the industrial workforce looks like it spends far more time in machine-like drudgery than at any other point in human history. The vast majority of time-saving devices have not fulfilled the promise that they clearly should have. How is it that Americans, for all their wealth and time-saving and lack of drudgery, are less happy and less satisfied than they were in the 1950s and 1960s? Speak to a laborer who used to work his own farm, alongside his family, in the outdoors, tending… Read more »