Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Luke 12:32-34
“This confidence partly rests on trust in divine Providence for the provision of ordinary needs: in the language of reference groups established previously, to be a disciple is a matter of belonging to the group of those who know they have a Father in heaven, rather than to the “nations” who must pursue the means of material sustenance. But partly it rests on a different account of security itself, an account that claims that even when they are supplied, material provisions remain continually subject to threat and contingency — to the “moth and rust which corrupt and the thief who breaks in to steal.” Beyond the assurance that God will provide what God’s children need, there is the claim that what they need is not finally the things that all pursue, but God’s own reign, to which all these are added almost incidentally…
As serious and flat-footed as the imperative “Sell your possessions,” we have seen that it cannot consistently be taken as Luke’s “rule.” Instead, it is an invitation to enact and thus to witness to the truth of Luke’s proclamation that in Jesus the Dayspring from on high has visited and redeemed His people. By their extraordinary generosity to the poor (21:1-4) or by their voluntary poverty (12:33), by their refusal to call anything their own (Acts 4:32) or by their simple hospitality to the messengers of the kingdom, the disciples celebrate the liberty of the people of God, who live proleptically under God’s reign even as they look for the kingdom to come.
But if this did not and does not produce a rule for the Christian treatment of possessions, it does rule out certain things: there is no room in this view for business as usual. The ordinary functions of possessions — to ensure status and power and invulnerability over against others — are all excluded. Possessions become useful and acceptable within the Christian community exactly insofar as they become dispensable to their possessors, and thus available for dispersal as the the material needs of others or the spiritual needs of their erstwhile owners make it expedient.”
Sondra Ely Wheeler in Wealth as Peril and Obligation: the New Testament on Possessions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 71-72.
It is a privilege to serve as spiritual and strategic counsel to Christian Super of Australia, as their mission is to help people live with financial health and understanding. In a recent Skype with Tim Macready, one of their senior administrators, we were discussing solid scholarly books that present NT views on money and possessions and this was one of the books we mentioned, so I pulled it off the shelf and read the chapter on Luke 12:22-34. This chapter, by the way, is required reading for all students who take my course: Life in the Economy of God (syllabus available upon request).
It’s our nature to seek a rule for handling money so we can fulfill it and check off a box, though such a course is not found in the NT because it would lead to pride and other vices. Such a path also reveals that our lives remain under our own reign. Wheeler rightly emphasizes that disciples need not fear because they have a faithful Father whose call to obedience is about something bigger than money. God wants us to take hold of life under His reign. Those who do shift from ordinary to extraordinary in all facets of their existence, including their generosity. They also cease using money “to ensure status and power and invulnerability over against others” because they have found the only source of safety and security is divine Providence.
Providence is my word for 2017. Though we are only about 1/3 of the way into the year, in contemplating “Providence” I am realizing how little any of us have control over, how vulnerable we all really are, and how silly it is that so many people put their trust in money. Thankfully we have a God who cares for us, sustains us, and desires that we grasp life in the kingdom and play our role as conduits of material and spiritual blessings. That’s what I am learning.
What about you? What are you learning? Have you taken hold of life under God’s reign? Are the money and possessions you steward both dispensable and available for God’s work, for the needy, and for other kingdom purposes?