Page 31 - The Prosperous Way _ (APRIL 2024 v3)

CAN YOU BE TOO RICH?

do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said
to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’” (Luke 16:5-7)

So, the manager won the favour of his master’s debtors by discounting
the debt that each one owed while he still had the power to do it.
Surprisingly, at the end of the story, the master commended the
dishonest manager for his shrewdness. Jesus then tells us to be just as
shrewd in how we use our money to gain “true” riches:

“I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous
wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the
eternal dwellings. One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful
in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest
in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous
wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?” (Luke 16: 9-10)

What this parable is teaching us is that there are ways to handle money
(“unrighteous wealth”) so that we can reap the spiritual reward of “true
riches.” For example, repeatedly through the Bible (Old Testament and
New Testament), we see the relationship between giving to the poor
and various spiritual rewards: Answered prayer (Isaiah 1:14&17); fasting
that yields results (Isaiah 58:5-9); the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts10:1-
45); bringing honour to God (2 Corinthians 9:13) and inheriting eternal
life (Matthew 25:31-46). These are all spiritual riches that in some
measure relate to how we handle material wealth.

BE ON YOUR GUARD!

Given the repeated warnings in Scripture on the danger to our spiritual
lives of pursuing money, how does the Bible tell us that we can avoid
this pitfall? We began this chapter with Jesus’ response to the man who
complained that his brother would not share his inheritance: “Watch
out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed…” (Luke 12:15). So then,
the first safeguard that we must put in place is a guard against greed.

The Greek word translated as greed in this Scripture literally means to
have numerically more. But its full meaning is to have a persistent
longing for a greater number of a thing: to have desire for more and
more. This word can also be translated as to “covet.”

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