Jesus And Money

Money, Bible Verses, And Context

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By Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.

What happens when people try to build a Christian doctrine of money?  They usually start by quoting Bible verses, without putting them into a larger context. This is the basic problem with many Bible study guides. They quote Bible verses out of context.

As a theological seminary student in my first preaching course, I learned an adage that has stayed with me ever since. “A text without a context is a pretext.” Often, paying attention to the origin of a word gives insight into its meaning. In Latin, the word, “text,” refers to what is woven. A pretext is a fringe or covering, often obscuring what is behind it. A context refers to weaving together.

When a Bible verse is separated from its context, it becomes a pretext, obscuring what is behind it.

Every Bible verse has multiple contexts. A Bible verse is part of some sort of written document. The document was written in a particular language, at a particular time, in a particular place, in a particular social and economic environment, based on a particular theology. The Bible also developed over time, and so it has layers upon layers of text, language, and historical, social, political, and theological contexts. Every single one of these particular factors is a context. And so a Bible verse is not simply a discrete group of words, but words in a set of overlapping contexts.

©Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.

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Did Jesus Really Say You Won’t Get Into Heaven If You’re Rich?

by Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D. 

The world is divided into at least three types of people.

•  People who either don’t know or care what Jesus said about money.
•  People who care profoundly about what Jesus said about money and do their best to be obedient to those words.
• The people who know what Jesus said about money-or at least they think they know-and wish they didn’t.

Here is an example of the third type of person. I was at a seminar about creating a millionaire mindset. After a break, I was returning to my seat when I saw one of the students talking with the speaker. As I got closer, I heard the student ask: “How can you say it is good to be rich? Jesus said that a rich man can’t get into Heaven.”

I knew what the man was talking about. He was referring to a statement about a rich man who asked Jesus a question about eternal life. The story ends with words of Jesus about a “rich man,” “a camel,” “the eye of a needle,” and “the Kingdom of God” or “Kingdom of Heaven.” 

This one comment about a rich man and the Kingdom of Heaven is probably the single most misunderstood verse about money among all of the words of Jesus. And it is my candidate for the Bible verse most likely to produce people who are afraid of becoming rich out of fear for their own salvation.

The distressed questioner had misquoted the verse itself. Jesus did not say that a rich man can’t get into Heaven. In the three biblical versions of the story, Jesus made a statement about a rich man entering the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven. By identifying the “Kingdom of Heaven” with “Heaven,” the questioner had significantly missed an important point. 

The point is that the Kingdom of Heaven is not the same as Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is about changing the economic reality of people living on planet earth.

The only liberating  remedy for people who know-or think they know what Jesus said about money-is to put the words of Jesus into the context of the story, and to put the story in the context of the economic society in which Jesus lived.

The alternative is to live your life feeling guilty about wanting money and guilty about having it. This is what happened to the man at the seminar. He misunderstood the point of the story. As a result, he was stuck in the Eye of the Needle about money, without realizing that he had completely missed the point of the story.

Jesus was not saying that the rich cannot get into Heaven. Jesus was condemning an economic system that produced so much poverty, not glorifying lives of poverty.

©  2007 Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.

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Welcome to “Going Broke With Jesus Blog”

by Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.

What does the Bible really say about money?

 Time Magazine ran a cover story with the provocative question:  Does God want you to be rich? http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1533448,00.html

The story itself follows the typical journalistic format of consulting experts on either side of what it calls “the Prosperity camp.” At the end of the article, the reader is left with nothing more than opinions.

The fact that a national newsmagazine would even ask such a question on its cover demonstrates that what the Bible says about money is not just a religious matter.

Biblical statements about money affect all of us, whether we are overtly religious or not, or even whether we are aware of it or not.

This blog goes beyond Time’s question: “Does God want you to be rich?”  to ask an even more provocative question: “Does Jesus want you to be broke?”

In American society, the question, “Does Jesus want you to be broke?” is profoundly relevant as a financial question. Economists claim that 96% of the population will reach the age of 65 without enough money to be financially independent, and forced to rely on social security and meager savings. Promised pensions are disappearing. The polite way to put it is that more and more people retire with financial challenges. The more accurate way to put it is that most Americans retire broke.

Meanwhile, the middle class is getting squeezed by higher mortgages, rising health costs, and increasing personal debt. Many people depend on equity lines and borrowed money to make ends meet.

A large percentage of people are dependent on government assistance, and never manage to become financially self-sufficient.

The enormous national debt is creating a burden upon generations to come.

Meanwhile, some people are making extraordinary amounts of money. There are more and more millionaires and even some billionaires. In short, a tiny percentage of people make billions while millions either go broke or teeter on the edge.

The question is: Does Jesus have anything to do with creating an economic system in which so many people go broke?

The United States is a pluralistic society, comprising people from every nation on planet Earth. Our population includes people of every religion and no religion. Officially, our constitution requires the separation of church and state, and offers freedom of religion and freedom from religion.

In reality, the Christian roots of the United States are extremely deep and the majority of the population identify themselves as Christian. In addition, many people who no longer identity themselves as Christian grew up Christian and remain deeply influenced by Christian beliefs about money.

And so, in a society shaped by Christian beliefs from the beginning, and still predominantly Christian, most people go broke. Is this a coincidence?
My premise is that there is a direct line between Christian beliefs-particularly the words of Jesus-and a society of people filled with people who teeter on the edge of going broke, or even tumble over the precipice.

The purpose of this blog is to demonstrate a method to get beyond the impasse of laying out Bible verses and leaving it up to you to decide which ones you will accept as relevant to your own financial life. As a biblical scholar who grew up without money, I have learned the hard way that almost everything I learned about money and the Bible was simply wrong. My method is to put Bible verses into context, to discover what they meant, before we can decide what they mean.
 
©  2007 Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D.

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