The Use of Money

1After finishing the beautiful parable of the Prodigal Son—which he had directed especially to those who grumbled because he welcomed tax collectors and sinners—our Lord tells another story of a very different kind, addressed instead to the children of God. “He said to his disciples”—rather than primarily to the scribes and Pharisees to whom he had just been speaking—“There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer’” (verses 1–2). After recounting the shrewd plan this dishonest manager used to provide for himself when crisis hit, our Savior adds, “The master commended the dishonest manager”—specifically in this one respect, that he acted with timely foresight—and then adds this weighty observation: “The people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light” (verse 8). Those who seek no share beyond this present world “are wiser”—not in an absolute sense, for every last one of them is an utter fool and the most tragic madman under heaven, but “in dealing with their own kind,” in their own sphere! They are more consistent with themselves, more faithful to their own stated principles, and more determined in pursuing their goal “than the people of the light”—those who see “the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.” Then follow the words of our main text: “And I”—the only begotten Son of God, the Creator, Lord, and rightful Owner of heaven and earth and everything in them, the Judge of all, to whom you must “give an account of your stewardship” when you “can no longer be stewards”—“I tell you,” learn in this respect even from the dishonest manager: “use worldly wealth”—by wise, timely foresight—“to gain friends for yourselves.” The word “mammon” means riches or money. It is called “unrighteous mammon” or “worldly wealth” because of the dishonest ways in which it is so often acquired, and because even money that is earned honestly is generally spent in ungodly ways. “Gain friends for yourselves” with it by doing all the good you possibly can, especially for the children of God, “so that when you die”—when you return to dust and have no place left under the sun—those who have gone ahead of you “may welcome you into eternal dwellings.”

2Here our Lord teaches all his followers an essential branch of Christian wisdom: the right use of money. People of the world talk about this subject constantly in their own way, yet it is not considered nearly deeply enough by those whom God has chosen out of the world. Generally speaking, believers do not give this valuable resource the serious attention its importance demands, nor do they understand how to use it to the greatest advantage—even though the introduction of money into the world is a remarkable example of God’s wise and gracious providence. Of course, across almost every age and nation, poets, orators, and philosophers have made a habit of railing against money as the great corrupter of the world, the enemy of virtue, and the plague of human society. Nothing is more commonly heard than the Latin verse:

Nocens ferrum, ferroque nocentius aurum:

“Deadly is iron, and deadlier still is gold than the sharpest steel.”

Hence also comes the familiar lament:

Effodiuntur opes, irritamenta malorum.

“Wealth is dug up from the earth, the spur to every evil.”

Indeed, one celebrated ancient writer solemnly urges his fellow citizens, in order to banish all vice at once, to “throw all their money into the nearest sea”: In mare proximum,

Summi materiem mali! (“the very substance of the greatest evil!”)

Yet isn’t all of this just empty rhetoric? Is there any sound reasoning in it at all? None whatsoever! No matter how corrupt the world may be, is gold or silver to blame? We know that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,” but not money itself! The fault lies not in the money, but in those who use it. Yes, it can be used badly—and what cannot? Yet it can also be used well; it is just as capable of serving the noblest purposes as the worst. Money is of immeasurable service to all civilized nations in all the ordinary affairs of daily life. It is a remarkably practical tool for conducting every kind of business and—when used with Christian wisdom—for doing every kind of good. It is true that if humanity were still in a state of sinless innocence, or if every person were “filled with the Holy Spirit” so that, like the early church in Jerusalem, “no one claimed that any of their possessions was their own” and distribution “was made to anyone who had need,” there would be no need for money—just as we cannot imagine anything of the sort among the inhabitants of heaven. Given the present condition of humanity, however, money is an excellent gift from God that serves the noblest purposes. In the hands of his children, it becomes food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, and clothing for the naked. It gives the traveler and the stranger a place to lay their head. Through it, we can stand in the place of a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless. We can be a shield for the oppressed, a channel of healing for the sick, and relief for those in pain. Money can become eyes for the blind and feet for the lame—indeed, a lifter up from the very gates of death!

3It is therefore of the utmost importance that all who fear God know how to use this valuable resource, and that they be taught how it can fulfill these glorious purposes to the highest degree. Perhaps all the guidance needed for this can be summed up in three simple rules; by following them faithfully, we will prove ourselves trustworthy stewards of “worldly wealth.”

1The first of these rules is (let anyone who has ears to hear understand!): “Gain all you can.” Here we may sound like the people of the world; we meet them on their own ground. In fact, it is our solemn duty to do so: we ought to earn all we possibly can, without paying too high a price for gold—without paying more for it than it is worth. For there is one thing we must certainly never do: we must never earn money at the cost of our life, nor (which amounts to the exact same thing) at the cost of our health. Therefore, no financial reward whatsoever should persuade us to enter into, or remain in, any occupation whose nature or grueling hours of labor would ruin our physical health. Nor should we start or stay in any business that inevitably robs us of the regular time for food and sleep that our bodies require. Of course, jobs vary widely in this regard. Some occupations are inherently and completely unhealthy—such as those that involve working heavily with arsenic or other toxic minerals, or breathing air poisoned with fumes from molten lead, which will eventually break down even the strongest constitution. Other jobs may not be unhealthy for everyone, yet are harmful to people with weaker constitutions—such as work that requires spending many hours a day writing, especially if a person writes while sitting hunched over, pressing against the stomach, or staying for long stretches in a cramped posture. Whatever reason or experience shows to be destructive to our health or strength, we must not submit to it, since “life is more important than food, and the body more than clothes.” If we are already working in such an occupation, we should trade it as soon as possible for work that, even if it reduces our income, will not destroy our health.

2Second, we are to gain all we can without harming our mind and soul any more than our body. We must not injure our inner life either; at all costs, we must preserve a healthy mind and a clear conscience. Therefore, we must never enter or continue in any sinful trade—any business that violates either the law of God or the law of our land. This includes every enterprise that involves cheating or defrauding the government of its lawful taxes and customs duties. For it is at least as sinful to defraud the sovereign of his rightful revenue as it is to rob our fellow citizens; the government has just as much right to its lawful customs as we have to our own homes and clothing. There are other businesses that, while innocent enough in principle, cannot be practiced with a clear conscience now—at least not in England—such as trades that will not provide a decent living without cheating, lying, or going along with industry practices that violate a good conscience. These too must be strictly avoided, no matter how profitable they might be if we followed the customs of the trade, for we must never lose our souls in order to gain money. Still other occupations can be pursued by many people with complete innocence, without harming either body or mind, and yet perhaps you cannot pursue them safely. Either they would entangle you with companions who would ruin your soul—and repeated experience shows that you cannot separate the work from that company—or else there is a particular sensitivity in the makeup of your own soul (just as people have sensitivities in their physical bodies) that makes an occupation deadly to you even though someone else can follow it safely. For instance, I am convinced from repeated experience that I could not study mathematics, arithmetic, or algebra to any high degree of mastery without becoming a deist, if not an atheist; and yet others can study them their entire lives without suffering any spiritual harm at all. No one can make this call for someone else; each person must judge for themselves and stay away from whatever they personally find harmful to their soul.

3Third, we are to gain all we can without harming our neighbor. We cannot possibly harm our neighbor if we truly love our neighbor as ourselves. If we love everyone as ourselves, we cannot hurt anyone in their finances or property. We cannot devour the income of a neighbor’s land—or even swallow up their lands and homes themselves—through gambling, through inflated bills (whether for medical care, legal services, or anything else), or by demanding and collecting extortionate interest that even the laws of our country forbid. This completely rules out pawnbroking: whatever occasional good might be done through it, every impartial observer can see with grief that the good is overwhelmingly outweighed by the harm—and even if it were not, we are never permitted to “do evil that good may result.” Nor can we, consistent with brotherly love, sell our goods below the market price. We cannot seek to ruin our neighbor’s business in order to build up our own; much less can we lure away or hire our neighbor’s employees or workers whom they still need. No one can profit by swallowing up a neighbor’s livelihood without gaining the condemnation of hell!

4Nor may we earn money by harming our neighbor’s body. Therefore, we must not sell anything that tends to ruin people’s health. Chief among these is all that liquid fire commonly called hard liquor or distilled spirits. True, distilled spirits may have a legitimate place in medicine and may be useful in treating certain physical ailments—though even then, they would rarely be needed if physicians were more skilled. Those who prepare and sell spirits strictly for medicinal purposes may keep a clear conscience. But who are they? Who prepares them strictly for that purpose? Do you know even ten such distillers in England? Then excuse those ten! But all who sell hard liquor in the usual way, to anyone who will buy it, are nothing less than poisoners at large. They murder their fellow citizens wholesale, without pity or mercy. They drive people to hell like sheep! And what is their profit? Is it not the lifeblood of these people? Who then could possibly envy their sprawling estates and lavish mansions? A curse rests right in the middle of them! The curse of God clings to their stones, their timber, and their fine furniture! The curse of God hangs over their gardens, their pathways, and their groves—a fire that burns down to the deepest hell! Blood—human blood—is there: the foundation, the floors, the walls, and the roof are all stained with blood! And can you really hope, O man of blood—even though you are “dressed in purple and fine linen and live in luxury every day”—can you really hope to pass your bloodstained estates down to the third generation? Never! For there is a God in heaven; therefore, your name will soon be uprooted. Just like those whom you have destroyed in both body and soul, “your memory will perish with you!”

5And do they not share in the very same guilt—even if to a lesser degree—whether surgeons, pharmacists, or physicians, who toy with people’s lives or health in order to pad their own income? Who deliberately drag out pain or illness that they could quickly cure? Who prolong a patient’s treatment in order to drain their bank account? Can any medical professional stand innocent before God who does not shorten every illness “as much as he can” and relieve all sickness and pain “as quickly as he can”? He cannot! For nothing could be more obvious than that such a person does not “love his neighbor as himself,” nor “do to others as he would have them do to him.”

6That is profit bought at far too high a price. And so is anything earned by harming our neighbor’s soul—for instance, by contributing either directly or indirectly to someone’s sexual immorality or excessive eating and drinking, something no one who has any fear of God or any genuine desire to please him could ever do. Everyone involved with taverns, eating houses, opera houses, theaters, or any other venues of popular, worldly entertainment needs to weigh this seriously. If these places genuinely benefit people’s souls, then your conscience is clear, your occupation is good, and your income is innocent. But if they are either sinful in themselves or natural gateways to all kinds of sin, then it is to be feared that you will have a dreadful account to give. Oh, beware, lest on that day God say to you, “These people have perished in their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood!”

7Once these cautions and boundaries are firmly in place, it is the solemn duty of every Christian engaged in secular work to follow that first great rule of Christian wisdom regarding money: “Gain all you can.” Earn all you can through honest hard work. Apply all possible diligence to your calling. Waste no time. If you truly understand yourself and your relationship to God and your fellow human beings, you know that you have no time to waste. And if you understand your particular calling as you ought, you will never have idle time hanging heavy on your hands. Every legitimate occupation provides enough worthwhile work for every day and every hour. If you pursue the calling in which God has placed you wholeheartedly, it will leave you no spare time for silly, pointless distractions. You always have something better to do—something that will be genuinely productive in one way or another. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” Do it as promptly as possible: no stalling, no putting things off from day to day or from hour to hour! Never leave until tomorrow what you can do today. And do it as well as you possibly can. Do not sleepwalk or yawn your way through your work; put your whole strength into it. Spare no effort. Never do anything halfway, or in a sloppy, careless manner. Leave nothing in your work undone if it can be accomplished through diligence and perseverance.

8Gain all you can by using common sense—by bringing all the intelligence God has given you to bear on your daily work. It is astonishing how few people actually do this, and how many just plod along in the same dull rut as their ancestors! Whatever those who do not know God may do, their habits are no standard for you. It is a disgrace for a Christian not to improve upon the world’s ways in whatever work they undertake. By learning from the experience of others, as well as from your own experience, reading, and reflection, you should continually strive to do everything you are responsible for better today than you did yesterday. And make sure you put into practice whatever you learn, so that you make the absolute most of everything entrusted to your hands.

1Once you have gained all you can through honest wisdom and tireless diligence, the second rule of Christian stewardship is: “Save all you can.” Do not throw this precious resource into the sea; leave that foolishness to pagan philosophers. And do not throw it away on pointless expenses, which is the exact same thing as tossing it into the sea. Spend no part of it merely to indulge the cravings of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life.

2Do not waste any part of so precious a trust merely to gratify the cravings of the flesh—chasing physical pleasures of any kind, and especially pampering your appetite for fine food and drink. I do not mean merely avoiding outright gluttony and drunkenness; any decent pagan would condemn those. There is a respectable, socially acceptable kind of sensuality—a refined gourmet lifestyle—that does not immediately upset the stomach or noticeably cloud the mind, and yet (to say nothing right now of its other harmful effects) cannot be maintained without considerable expense. Cut off all such expense! Turn your back on luxury and elaborate variety, and be content with what simple nature requires.

3Do not waste any part of so precious a trust merely to gratify the lust of the eyes through extravagant or expensive clothing, or needless jewelry and accessories. Waste no part of it on lavishly decorating your home—on unnecessary or expensive furniture, pricey artwork, paintings, gilded trim, or luxury books, or on ornamental rather than useful gardens. Let your neighbors who know nothing better spend their money on such things; “let the dead bury their own dead.” “What is that to you?” says our Lord. “You follow me!” Are you willing? Then you are able to do so!

4Spend nothing to feed the pride of life—to win the admiration or praise of other people. This motive for spending is often tangled up with one or both of the previous two. People spend lavishly on food, clothing, or home furnishings not merely to please their palate or delight their eyes and imagination, but to feed their vanity as well. “As long as you pamper yourself, people will speak well of you.” As long as you are “dressed in purple and fine linen and feast lavishly every day,” plenty of people will undoubtedly applaud your refined taste, your generosity, and your hospitality. Do not buy their applause at such a steep price! Instead, be content with the honor that comes from God.

5Who would ever spend a penny indulging these desires if they stopped to realize that indulging them only makes them grow stronger? Nothing is more certain than this: everyday experience proves that the more these cravings are fed, the more they demand. Every time you spend money to pamper your taste buds or other senses, you are paying to increase your own sensuality. Every time you spend money merely to please your eyes, you are paying to deepen your restlessness and tighten your attachment to fleeting pleasures that vanish the moment they are used. Whenever you buy something because people admire it, you are buying yourself more vanity! Didn’t you already have enough vanity, sensuality, and restless craving before? Did you really need to add to them—and pay good money to do it? What kind of wisdom is that? Wouldn’t literally throwing your money into the ocean be a far less destructive folly?

6And why should you throw money away on your children, any more than on yourself, by buying them rich, indulgent food, flashy or expensive clothes, or luxuries of any kind? Why would you purchase more pride or lust for them—more vanity, or more foolish and harmful desires? They do not need any more; they have plenty already by nature! Why should you spend extra money to multiply their temptations and traps, and to “pierce them through with many griefs”?

7Furthermore, do not leave a fortune behind for them to throw away after you are gone. If you have good reason to believe that they would squander what is currently in your hands by indulging—and thereby inflaming—the cravings of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life, then at the peril of both their souls and your own, do not set those traps in their path! Do not sacrifice your sons or daughters to Belial any more than to Molech. Have mercy on them, and keep out of their reach whatever you can easily foresee would multiply their sins and plunge them deeper into eternal ruin! How astonishing, then, is the delusion of parents who think they can never leave their children a large enough inheritance! What—can you not leave them enough arrows, firebrands, and death? Not enough foolish and harmful desires? Not enough pride, lust, ambition, and vanity? Not enough eternal torment? Pitiful soul, you are afraid where there is nothing to fear! Surely when both you and they lift up your eyes in hell, you will have more than enough of “the worm that never dies” and “the fire that is never quenched”!

8“What would you do, then,” someone asks, “if you were in my shoes and had a substantial estate to leave behind?” Whether I would actually have the courage to do it or not, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt what I ought to do; no reasonable person can question it. If I had even one child, older or younger, who truly understood the value of money—one whom I believed would put it to its true Christian use—I would consider it my absolute, inescapable duty to leave the bulk of my estate to that child, while leaving the others just enough to support them in the standard of living to which they were accustomed. “But what if all your children were equally ignorant of the true use of money?” Then I ought (a hard saying—who can accept it?) to leave each of them enough to keep them out of poverty, and dedicate all the rest in whatever way I judged would bring the greatest glory to God.

1Yet no one should imagine that they have fulfilled their duty merely by going this far—by “gaining and saving all they can”—if they stop there. All of this counts for nothing if a person does not press on and direct all of it toward a higher goal. Indeed, you cannot truly be said to “save” anything if you merely hoard it. You might just as well throw your money into the sea as bury it in the ground; and you might just as well bury it in the ground as lock it away in a strongbox or in the Bank of England. Failing to put money to good use is effectively throwing it away. Therefore, if you truly want to “use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves,” you must add the third rule to the first two. Having first gained all you can, and second saved all you can, then “give all you can.”

2To understand the foundation and reason for this rule, remember that when the Possessor of heaven and earth brought you into existence and placed you in this world, he placed you here not as an owner, but as a steward. In that role, you have been entrusted for a season with resources of various kinds; yet the sole ownership of all these things still belongs to him and can never be transferred away from him. Just as you yourself do not belong to yourself, but to him, so too everything you enjoy belongs to him. Your soul and your body are not your own, but God’s; and the exact same is true of your money and possessions. Moreover, he has told you in the clearest, most unmistakable terms how you are to manage your resources for him, so that all of it may be a holy sacrifice, acceptable through Christ Jesus. And he has promised to reward this light, joyful service with an eternal weight of glory.

3The instructions God has given us regarding how to use our material resources can be summed up in the following priorities. If you want to be a faithful and wise steward of that portion of your Lord’s goods which he has temporarily placed in your hands—while retaining the right to call for them back whenever he pleases—first, provide what is genuinely needed for yourself: food to eat, clothes to wear, and whatever your body reasonably requires to stay healthy and strong.

Second, provide these essentials for your spouse, your children, your employees or household workers, and anyone else who belongs to your household. Once that is done, if there is a surplus left over, then “do good to those who belong to the family of believers.” And if there is still a surplus left after that, “as you have opportunity, do good to all people.” By living this way, you give all you can—indeed, in the truest sense, you give all you have, because everything spent in this manner is truly given to God. You “give back to God what belongs to God” not only through what you give to the poor, but also through what you spend to provide the necessities of life for yourself and your household.

4If a doubt ever arises in your mind about whether you should spend money on something for yourself or a member of your family, there is a simple way to resolve it. Calmly and seriously ask yourself four questions: “(1) In making this purchase, am I acting in keeping with my true role—not as an owner, but as a steward of my Lord’s goods?

(2) Am I doing this in obedience to his word? In what passage of Scripture does he call me to do this?

(3) Can I offer up this action, this expense, as a holy sacrifice to God through Jesus Christ?

(4) Do I have good reason to believe that for this very expenditure I will receive a reward at the resurrection of the righteous?” You will rarely need anything more than this fourfold test to clear away any doubt and receive clear guidance on the path you should take.

5If any doubt still lingers, you can examine your heart further through prayer along these same four lines. See whether you can honestly say to the Searcher of all hearts, with a clear and uncondemning conscience: “Lord, you see that I am about to spend this sum of money on this food, clothing, or furniture. You know that my motive is pure, acting as a steward of your goods and spending this portion of them to fulfill the very purpose for which you entrusted them to me. You know that I am doing this in obedience to your word, as you command and because you command it. Please accept this, I pray, as a holy sacrifice, pleasing to you through Jesus Christ! And give me the inward assurance that for this act of love I will receive a reward on the day when you repay each person according to their deeds.” If your conscience confirms through the Holy Spirit that this prayer is pleasing to God, then you have no reason to doubt that the expense is right and good, and that it will never put you to shame.

6Now you see what it means to “use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves,” and how you can ensure “that when you die, they may welcome you into eternal dwellings.” You see the true nature and scope of Christian wisdom when it comes to using that great trust, money. Gain all you can—without harming either yourself or your neighbor in soul or body—by applying yourself with steady diligence and with all the intelligence God has given you. Save all you can by cutting off every expense that serves only to indulge foolish desires—whether the cravings of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life—wasting nothing, either in life or in your will at death, on sin or folly for yourself or your children. And then, give all you can—or in other words, give all you have to God. Do not limit yourself, like a Jew rather than a Christian, to this or that fixed percentage. Give back to God not merely a tenth, or a third, or half, but everything that belongs to God, whether great or small! Do this by using all of it for yourself, your household, the family of believers, and all humanity in such a way that you will be able to give a good account of your stewardship when you can no longer be a steward; in the way that God’s word directs, both in its general principles and its specific commands; so that whatever you do may be “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God,” and so that every act may be rewarded on that day when the Lord comes with all his holy ones.

7Brothers and sisters, can we truly be wise or faithful stewards unless we manage our Lord’s resources in this way? We cannot—as both the word of God and our own consciences testify! Why, then, should we hesitate? Why should we consult any longer with our own selfish desires or with the people of the world? Our kingdom and our wisdom do not belong to this world; pagan customs mean nothing to us. We follow no human being any further than they follow Christ. Listen to him! Yes, today, while it is still called “today,” hear and obey his voice! From this very hour forward, do his will and fulfill his words in this and in everything else! I urge you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, live up to the high calling you have received! No more laziness! Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might! No more waste! Cut off every expense demanded by passing fashion, whim, or selfish indulgence! No more greed or hoarding! Instead, put everything God has entrusted to you to work in doing good—all the good you possibly can, in every possible way and to the fullest possible extent, for the family of believers and for all humanity! This is no small part of “the wisdom of the righteous.” Offer everything you have, along with everything you are, as a spiritual sacrifice to the One who did not spare his own Son, his only Son, for you—and in so doing, you will “lay up treasure for yourselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that you may take hold of eternal life!”