The Danger of Riches

A rich young man ran up to Jesus and knelt in front of Him. He was eager, sincere and morally upright. He had kept the commandments since boyhood. He asked the most important question there is: “Good Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17).

Mark tells us something lovely: “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” And then Jesus said the one thing the young man didn’t want to hear:

“‘You are missing one thing,’ He told him. ‘Go and sell everything you own, and give the money to the poor. Then you will have treasure in heaven. After that, come and follow Me.’ At these words his face clouded over, and he went away sad, for he owned a great deal of property.” (Mark 10:21-22)

He went away sad. He wanted eternal life, but he wanted his property more. As he walked away, Jesus turned to His disciples and said something that astonished them: “a camel could pass through the eye of a needle more easily than a rich person could enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24).

Why riches are dangerous

The disciples were amazed because in their culture, wealth was seen as a sign of God’s blessing. If the rich can’t be saved, who can? Jesus answered that with God all things are possible. A rich person can be saved. Abraham, Job, Zacchaeus and Joseph of Arimathea all prove it. But it is hard, and Jesus wanted His disciples to know why.

Riches compete for trust. It is very hard to depend on God when you don’t seem to need Him. Proverbs says, “Those who put their trust in riches will fall” (Proverbs 11:28). The more we have, the more tempting it is to trust what we have.

Riches choke the word. In the parable of the sower, some seed falls among thorns: “the cares of the present age and the false promises of wealth smother it, so that it yields no crop” (Matthew 13:22). Notice “false promises.” Wealth promises what it can’t deliver.

Riches make us proud. Paul told Timothy to command the rich “not to be proud and not to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain” (1 Timothy 6:17). Money can make us feel superior, as if we are worth more because we have more.

Riches blind us. Jesus spoke to the church in Laodicea, which said, “I am rich. I have built up my wealth, and I lack nothing.” His reply was devastating: “You do not see that it is you who are wretched and to be pitied, poor and blind and naked” (Revelation 3:17).

Riches make us forget others. In Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man’s sin isn’t that he was rich. It is that a beggar lay at his gate every day, and he never saw him.

The tyranny of things

A. W. Tozer saw that the problem goes deeper than money. It is about possessing. In his classic The Pursuit of God, he wrote a chapter called “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing.” He described the human heart this way:

“There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess.”

He said that before the fall, things were meant to be “external to the man and subservient to him.” But now, he wrote, “The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die.”

That is the danger. Not that we have things, but that things have us. You don’t have to be a millionaire for that to be true. You can be gripped by a phone, a car, a wardrobe or a savings account of any size.

Tozer pointed to Abraham as the answer. When God asked Abraham to give up Isaac, his son, the most precious thing he had, Abraham obeyed, and God gave Isaac back. “He had everything,” Tozer wrote, “but he possessed nothing.” Abraham was a rich man, but he held it all with an open hand.

If riches increase

The Bible’s answer to the danger of riches is not that every Christian must take a vow of poverty. Most believers in the Bible were not commanded to sell everything. Zacchaeus gave away half, not all. Jesus didn’t tell Joseph of Arimathea to sell his tomb. But to the one man for whom wealth was the idol that kept him from Jesus, He said, “Sell everything.”

The general rule is in the Psalms: “If wealth multiplies, do not give your heart to it” (Psalm 62:10). Riches may come. They are not sinful in themselves. But do not give your heart to them.

How do you keep your heart from riches when they increase? Paul gives Timothy a four-part answer for the rich:

“Tell those who are rich in this present world not to be proud and not to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but in God, who richly gives us everything to enjoy. Tell them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, to give generously and to share. In this way they will store up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the age to come, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.” (1 Timothy 6:17-19)

Don’t be proud. Don’t trust your wealth. Enjoy God’s gifts with thanks. And give generously. That last one is the key. Giving is how a rich person keeps riches from becoming a master.

Are you rich?

It is easy to read this chapter and think it’s about someone else, the billionaires and celebrities. But if you have a roof over your head, food in the cupboard, clothes for more than one season and some money left at the end of the month, you are richer than most people who have ever lived, and many who are alive today. This chapter is for you. It is for me.

A voice from the past

John Wesley saw many of his early converts grow rich through hard work and thrift, and then grow cold toward God. He did not tell them to stop working. He warned them that riches had to be given away to be safe. In one of his sermons he asked:

“Suppose ye that money, though multiplied as the sand of the sea, can give happiness?”

And elsewhere, plainly:

“Money seldom brings happiness, either in this world or the world to come.”

John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions

Practice this week

Pray Tozer’s prayer from The Pursuit of God each day this week, naming specific possessions: “O God, be Thou exalted over my possessions.” Then choose one possession you hold too tightly and decide what it would mean to hold it with an open hand: lend it, share it, or give it away.

For groups

• Why were the disciples so surprised by what Jesus said about the rich?
• Read Tozer’s idea that the problem is “possessing.” What is the difference between having things and possessing them?
• By world standards, are you rich? How does that change how you read 1 Timothy 6:17-19?
• What is one thing you hold too tightly? What would holding it loosely look like?