“The organized churches must become schools of spiritual discipline where Christians are taught how to own without treasuring (Matt. 6:21); how to possess without, like the “rich young ruler”, being possessed (Mark 10:22); how to live simply, even frugally, though controlling great wealth and power.
We continue to be misled by the world’s view of well-being, which holds riches to be well-being, and that is why we react by thinking of possessions as inherently and essentially evil, instead of as a domain of spiritual work of the purest sort. So, obviously, we fail to develop adequate teaching and examples for those who do prosper. We can only lamely suggest that maybe they ought not to prosper when we should be those who do, whose to whom much has been given, how to serve God and humankind through their prospering.”
Dallas Willard in The Spirit of the Disciplines (San Francisco: Harper, 1988) 214-215.