Matthew 6:19-24
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,[c] your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,[d] your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Matthew 6:19-24
ReplyDeleteQuestions:
- No long term savings?
- What kinds of things can we store up in heaven?
- What does it mean that the eye is the lamp of the body?
- What does it look like to serve money?
Many of the articles I read seem to say that the Bible says you should save money - but they don't really address this verse and other verses of Jesus. Jesus never said that we should save for the future. Proverbs says that the wise man does save.
ReplyDeleteHere's what http://moneyhelpforchristians.com/what-does-the-bible-teach-about-saving-money/ says:
"Both giving and saving should be practiced at the same time.
Those who save and do not give exemplify attributes of a hoarder. Saving in excess is a sign of greed, lack of trust, and a love of money.
Each of the above choices (squander, save, or hoard) reveal something about our character:
One who squanders lacks self-control.
One who saves has self-control.
One who hoards has greed.
Each Christian must prayerfully find the right saving balance. Squandering our money does not honor God. Hoarding our money dishonors God. We must find the right – God pleasing – balance of saving.
http://moneyhelpforchristians.com/is-it-biblical-to-save-for-retirement-part-i/ mentions the example of Joseph saving food in the 7 years of plenty for the 7 years of famine.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/should-i-invest-for-retirement says:
ReplyDeleteThe way I think about retirement—though I don't believe in "retirement" if you can avoid it—is that you should start doing different things for Jesus. And if you can do them without having to be paid by people because you've set it aside, then that's all the more wonderful.
I think of that like this: I don't want to get rich. I don't want to sit on a pile of money. I just want to be able to survive between the ages of sixty-five and eighty-five. And I'd like to be spent for the kingdom. So if I can have a house and have my bills paid and pour my life out for the kingdom, I would be thrilled.
Laying up treasures for yourself on earth is reflected in the man who built the barns. He had many goods. "What shall I do with them?" he said. "I'll build more barns." But he didn't need all those barns. He said, "I will eat, drink, and be merry." He shouldn't have been eating and drinking and being merry, he should have been using his money strategically to meet needs. But he was just cavalier about having all this money.
I look at some of those things such as the option to contribute three-percent more to retirement savings and have it matched. But I don't do it, because I look at what I'm putting away and say, "That's enough!" I've got Social Security that I've been paying the government for all these years, and I've got this little retirement plan that I started when I joined the Baptist General Conference. I could put away more, but I look at what I have already and say, "That'll do. That'll bring in enough to live on."
I don't want to be an all-or-nothing type person here. I want people to think soberly and maximize their generosity.
I hardly put anything away for cars either, because we always get used cars. But I know it's stupid to not put some money away, because when trouble arrives I'm always scrambling to find a way to take care of the refrigerator that's broken or the car that's having issues. And I don't think it's an honor to my wife to be careless about that.
So, all that to say, Put a governor on your life. Make as much as you can, give as much as you can, and save what you need to in order to be a responsible non-borrower. Then do retirement with some minimalistic plan that frees you up for gospel ministry till the day you drop.
My 2 cents on long term savings:
ReplyDeleteAll the articles I found seemed to be from the American financial point of view: "Christians should save for the future - and here's a bunch of Proverbs that say you should - and don't worry about all those verses by Jesus saying you shouldn't save - he's just talking about hoarders - I'm sure you won't have a problem with that". The problem with that concept is that all of us are champions at justifying why our hoarding doesn't cross the line.
The article above this was the only one I could find that seemed to address some of the issues.
So, here's my thoughts: Jesus didn't save. Paul didn't save. The disciples didn't save. The prophets didn't save. No one who served God with their whole lives saved money. If we really live for God, it's probably best to follow the same pattern.
However, most of us are nowhere near living for God. Instead, we tend to spend every extra penny on ourselves. If we are in this situation, it's better to save, forcing ourselves to live on less. But this is pretty much the lesser of two bad choices.
It would be better to give. It would be better to have a "giving" plan, in which we give a percentage of our money away until we have nothing left for ourselves. (And forget about the old justification you hear about saving a fortune so that then you will have a lot to give - the needs are now).
On the other hand, when the benefit/loss ratio is extremely high, it's probably better to be wise (although we risk not depending on God, unless we really do plan to give the whole thing away). The example I'm thinking of is matching 401Ks. The post-tax difference in our paycheck is very small (on the order of 20 - 40 dollars), but the benefit is something like a million dollars 40 years down the line.
Some would ask, "But I don't want to be a burden on my kids or society when I'm old." Bull! I have become convinced that we should be much more of a burden on each other than we already are. Christians can live in community together, and there is nothing wrong with living with your kids in your older years. (I think having the perspective of grandparents around would help a lot for teenagers when they stopped listening to their parents).
Confession: Even though I believe the above, my heart is not there yet. I have been conditioned to save for retirement and I will continue to do so. Once the kids are on their own, my current plan is to sell the house and live on 50% of my salary, saving at least some portion of the rest. I pray that in the years to come, my plan will change to God's plan.
Final thought: As in everything, what God wants us to do is very different for each of us. I have no doubt that God would direct certain of us to put away money for the future. However, with the extent of the decay in American culture caused by the love of money, I would think that God would want us to live free from that. I think that we Americans are much more trapped than we realize.
Concerning what do treasures in heaven look like:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.desiringgod.org/resource/dont-be-anxious-lay-up-treasure-in-heaven-part-1 says:
But let’s be more specific. If Jesus means "devote your life to accumulating treasure in heaven" – which I take to mean increasing your joy in God in heaven – what is the main thing he has in mind that we should do now? My judgment from the context would be that it is giving rather than accumulating. If laying up treasures in heaven is the opposite of laying up treasures on earth, then probably laying up treasures in heaven will be NOT laying up treasures on earth but giving them away in ways that magnify the worth of Jesus.
In other words, possessions on earth are not for accumulating, they are for distributing in ways that Christ is honored and our joy in heaven is increased (see Ephesians 4:23). When we give – especially when we give so generously that we have to sell something to have anything to give – we show that Christ is our treasure and that we love others more than we love our own security and comfort.
My 2 cents on what do treasures look like in heaven:
ReplyDeleteI'm having difficulties finding anything intelligible on this. Most articles just repeat what the verse says and don't mention what the treasures are. The article above this was the only thing that I thought was worth anything.
Anyway, I believe that it's very difficult for us to understand this verse because the paradigm of heaven is so different from our paradigm on earth. When we hear, "store up treasures for yourself" we immediately think of things that we "own". I believe that heaven's paradigm is one of complete sharing - that we won't own anything on our own (like we think of in western culture now). I think what we will own is God's business, His master plan. And I think that this business will continue in heaven.
I speculate that when we get to heaven, our investments here will have grown God's business, and it will continue to grow from there. I Corinthians 3:15 says, "If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved--even though only as one escaping through the flames."
I believe that even when we get there, there won't be a thought of "there's the treasure that I created, where's yours?". I don't even think that we will necessarily know what treasure we have stored up - except for the grand total of what everyone stored - the entirety of God's business. In that we will rejoice and continue on from there.
Will there be different "roles" in God's business? I think so. Will people be put in roles that they were faithful in down here? Probably.
In conclusion, my opinion is that, rather than wearing crowns and jewels around in heaven (our earthly view), the treasure is the entirety of God's business. There will be no individual accomplishments in God's business. However, there may be roles in which some of us will fit in better than others. Even then, those roles will be suited to us. So, there will be no thinking like, "If I do so well, I will be promoted to Janitor second class". I think that we will be very happy to be given the role that we have been given.
One important clarification to the above: When I say God's business, I am including God Himself. In fact I would go so far as to say that God and His business are one. He is not only the head of His corporation (which includes everything), He is the corporation.
Deletehttp://www.gotquestions.org/eye-lamp-body.html says concerning that our eyes are the lamp of our bodies:
ReplyDeleteOur eyes are the entrance to our hearts and minds and, as such, they provide a doorway to our very souls. When He referred to “good” eyes, He meant eyes that not only see well, but also perceive well. It is not only what we see, but how we perceive what we see that makes the difference between godliness and ungodliness, between light and darkness. Bad eyes lead to bad perception, but if our eyes are good, our whole person will be illuminated. If we are in a lighted room, we see everything clearly. We can move around obstacles and locate whatever we’re looking for. But walking in darkness results in stumbling, falling, and groping for some secure thing to hang on to.
Our eyes can be used to see that which is good or evil, that which is beneficial or harmful, and the things we see and perceive affect our whole being. If we perceive goodness, that will radiate outward from within our hearts and minds. But if we allow our eyes to linger on evil, we are so affected by what we see that darkness actually begins to emanate from within and can corrupt us and those around us.
The Bible tells us that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. That's his great deception—to make people think they’ve found the light when in fact it's the darkness of false light (2 Corinthians 11:14). His intention is to blind us to truth and corrupt our minds, and he uses our eyes to gain entrance to our hearts.
If we want to be filled with the true light, we have to turn from sin and repent and ask God to forgive and cleanse us and open our spiritual eyes. Then we must commit to being careful where we allow our eyes to go. We guard our hearts and souls by guarding our eyes.
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-eye-is-the-lamp-of-the-body says:
ReplyDeleteSandwiched between the command to lay up treasures in heaven (6:19-21) and the warning that you can't serve God and money (6:24) are the strange words about the eye being the lamp of the body. If the eye is good (literally: "single"), the whole body will be full of light. But if the eye is bad, the body will be full of darkness. In other words: How you see reality determines whether you are in the dark or not.
In 6:19-21 the issue is: you should desire heaven-reward not earth-reward. Which, in short, means: desire God not money. In 6:24 the issue is whether you can serve two masters. Answer: You cannot serve God and money.
This is a double description of light! If you are laying up treasures in heaven not earth, you are walking in the light. If you are serving God not money, you are walking in the light.
One clue is found in Matthew 20:15. Jesus has just said, in a parable, that men who worked one hour will be paid the same as those who worked all day, because the master is merciful, and besides, they all agreed to their wage. Those who worked all day grumbled that the men who worked one hour were paid too much. Jesus responded with the words found here in Matthew 6:23, "Is your eye bad because I am good?"
What is bad about their eye? What's bad is that their eye does not see the mercy of the master as beautiful. They see it as ugly. They don't see reality for what it is. They do not have an eye that can see mercy as more precious than money.
What would the good eye be that fills us with light? It would be an eye that sees the Master's generosity as more precious than money. The good eye sees God and his ways as the great Treasure in life, not money.
You have a good eye if you look on heaven and love to maximize the reward of God's fellowship there. You have a good eye if you look at Master-money and Master-God and see Master-God as infinitely more valuable. In other words, a "good eye" is a valuing eye, a discerning eye, a treasuring eye. It doesn't just see facts about money and God. It doesn't just perceive what is true and false. It sees beauty and ugliness, it senses value and worthlessness, it discerns what is really desirable and what is undesirable. The seeing of the good eye is not neutral. When it sees God, it sees God-as-beautiful. It sees God-as-desirable.
That is why the good eye leads to the way of light: laying up treasures in heaven, and serving God not money. The good eye is a single eye. It has one Treasure. God. When that happens in your life, you are full of light.
https://bible.org/seriespage/8-god-or-greed-matthew-619-24 says about the reasons we store up treasure here on earth: (by the way, I disagreed with many of the premises of this article, but liked the following)
ReplyDeleteSo why do you and I seek to accumulate “treasure” on earth?24 (1) Security. We want to know that we are taken care of, so what brings us the greatest security of life and soul is to have material security. (2) Personal worth, esteem, and value. Material possessions and wealth often indicate that people are successful in what they have done with their lives. We feel good about ourselves if we dress, drive, dine, and decorate well. (3) Power. With wealth and material success, we believe that we can have and get and be what we want. Wealth gives us control over our own fate and over other people. (4) Independence. With wealth I can be my own “god” and not rely on anyone else. (5) Pleasure. With wealth we can indulge our every fantasy, whether it is the exotic vacation, the luxurious wedding, the finest dining, or the most decadent home.
How do you know what has your heart? Let me ask you a few quick questions: (1) What occupies your thoughts when you have nothing else to do? What occupies your daydreams? Is it your investments, your position? If so, those are the things you treasure, and that is where your heart really is. (2) Similarly, what is it that you fret about most? Is it your home or perhaps your clothing? If so, then you know where your treasure lies. (3) Apart from your loved ones, what or whom do you most dread losing? (4) What are the things that you measure others by? Do you measure others by their clothing? By their education? By their homes? By their athletic prowess? Do you measure others by their success in the business world? If so, you know where your treasure lies, for these questions are a very revealing mirror because we measure other people by that which we treasure. (5) Lastly, what is it that you know you cannot be happy without?
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/brothers-tell-them-not-to-serve-god says:
ReplyDeleteHow does a person serve money? He does not assist money. He is not the benefactor of money. How then do we serve money? Money exerts a certain control over us because it seems to hold out so much promise of happiness. It whispers with great force, "Think and act so as to get into a position to enjoy my benefits." This may include stealing, borrowing or working.
Money promises happiness, and we serve it by believing the promise and walking by that faith. So we don't serve money by putting our power at its disposal for its good. We serve money by doing what is necessary so that money's power will be at our disposal for our good.
We will serve by believing His promise of fullest joy and walking by that faith. We will not serve by trying to put our power at His disposal for His good, but by doing what is necessary so that His power will be ever at our disposal for our good.