Archives by: Gary Hoag

“Lord, we are all kingdom builders.
We confess to you our kingdom-building ways;
We are all in bondage to worldly things,
We pray to you to set us free;
We submit everything we have and everything we are
to the Lordship of your one, gracious kingdom.
Help us to serve only you with obedience and joy.
In the name of the One who came to set us free,
Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.”

R. Scott Rodin, prayer concluding CLA class at CNLA 2011.

“What makes us more close-handed than we ought to be is when we look too carefully, and too far forward, in contemplating the dangers that may occur—when we are excessively cautious and careful—when we calculate too narrowly what we will require during our whole life, or, in fine, how much we lose when the smallest portion is taken away. The man that depends upon the blessing of the Lord has his mind set free from these trammels and has, at the same time, his hands opened for beneficence.”

John Calvin (1509-1564) in Institutes 3.7.7.

“A good and pious man ought to be bitterly and greatly ashamed that suffering ever moved him, when we see how a merchant, for the sake of earning a little money, of which, too, he cannot be sure, will travel so far overland on arduous tracks, up a hill and down dale, across wilderness and oceans, risking robbery and assault on his person and his goods, going in great want of food and drink and sleep and suffering other hardships, and yet he is glad and willing to forget all this for the sake of his small and uncertain profit. A knight in a battle risks possessions and body and life for the sake of a transient and very fleeting honor; and yet we think such a great matter that we should suffer a little for God’s sake, who is everlasting blessedness.”

Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1327) in Meister Eckhart Sermons ed. Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1981) 238.

“Greed is easy to hide—from ourselves. But the people around us know. Because although it may be difficult to spot greed in the mirror, it isn’t difficult at all to see in the people around us. In fact, we can identify it almost instantly in someone else.

• Greedy people talk a lot and worry a lot about money.
• Greedy people are not cheerful givers.
• Greedy people are reluctant to share.
• Greedy people are poor losers.
• Greedy people quibble over insignificant sums of money.
• Greedy people talk as if they have just enough to get by.
• Greedy people often create a culture of secrecy around them.
• Greedy people won’t let you forget what they have done for you.
• Greedy people are reluctant to express gratitude.
• Greedy people aren’t content with what they have.
• Greedy people attempt to control people with their money.

Greed knows no socioeconomic boundaries. I’ve met greedy poor people and greedy rich people. Greed isn’t a financial issue; it’s a heart issue. Financial gain doesn’t make greedy people less greedy. Financial gain or loss doesn’t change anything, because greed emanates from the heart.”

Andy Stanley in Enemies of the Heart (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2011) 70-71.

Honour the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. Proverbs 3:9-10

“These two verses have been a mainstay of “prosperity gospel”-type preaching for many decades. A superficial reading suggests two related ideas—one general, the other specific: first, these verses appear to suggest that godliness automatically leads to wealth; second, they appear to suggest that the giving of generous offerings of money to Church work or Christian ministry organizations automatically leads to prosperity, especially financial rewards.

In practice, this often leads to calls for people to give the so-called “tithe,” a tenth of their financial income. Such preaching is regularly accompanied by promises that faithful and generous, even sacrificial, giving would make relatively poor people prosperous. However, this is in fact not what these verses are saying. Rather, they are addressed to rich people, for verse ten clarifies that their barns (plural!) and their vats (plural!) will be filled beyond capacity. Only relatively well-off people have a barn or a vat of their own. Those with several barns and vats are wealthy.

What does this mean? Rather than providing a prosperity gospel for the poor, these verses constitute a genuine “gospel to the rich”: Those with significant wealth (they already own several barns and vats just to contain their regular income) are encouraged to put God first in their lives by being generous to others. The motivation for such reorientation and generosity is given in promises—barns filled to overflowing, wine containers filled to bursting—that imply two related but distinct positive outcomes.

The first outcome is that any giving to the work of God will not diminish the giver’s wealth, but increase it. The barns and vats will not be empty or half full—they will be completely full. Giving will not diminish the giver. And the second outcome is that such giving, by contrast, enriches the giver to the level of surplus without excess. Not more barns and vats to be filled with ever more corn and wine are promised, but an overflow just beyond the present level of prosperity.

An imaginative interpretation will ask the question ingeniously prompted by this mysterious abundance: “What is the generous giver to do with this excess of fortune beyond his or her actual needs?” The obvious answer, ingeniously built into the poetic design of this astonishing piece of advice, is this: Give it away! Honour the Lord with it, continue the “virtuous cycle” of abundant generosity begetting generous abundance—not for one’s own enrichment, but for a prosperity of the heart that glorifies God through enriching others.”

Knut Heim is my Postgraduate Advisor at Trinity College, Bristol, UK. This excerpt comes from his article: “How and Why We Should Read the Poetry of the Old Testament for Public Life Today” which can be read in its entirety at: http://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/2981/

God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Galatians 6:14a

“I have heard Christians glory in fine church buildings; I have heard them glory in their denominations, their numbers, their wealth, their riches…I have heard Christians glory in the amount of money they gave or spent on ecclesiastical adornments; I have even heard them glory in church organs.

Think what [the Apostle] Paul might have gloried in. He might have gloried in his descent from Abraham, one of the kingliest men in history; he might have gloried in the long line of lawgivers, prophets, priests and kings, whose goodness and genius shed luster on the Jewish nation and brought blessing to the world. He might have gloried in his flawless morality; in his piety; in his zeal; in his superbly trained powers; in his matchless success. But what Paul did glory in was the cross.”

C.I. Scofield (1843-1921) from In Many Pulpits with C.I. Scofield (New York: Oxford University Press) 255.

“Men do not get life through baptism or the Lord’s Supper, or through doing penance, attending church or giving money. They receive eternal life through hearing and believing the voice of the Son of God. “Hear and your soul shall live” (Isa. 55:3). Have you heard that voice? Men turn away from it. Christ is speaking all the time, down through the ages, but many turn away and go on in their sins.”

H.A. Ironside (1876-1951) in John: An Ironside Expository Commentary (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006) 119.

“God opposes usury and greed yet no one realizes this because it is not simple murder and robbery. Rather usury is a more diverse, insatiable murder and robbery…Thus everyone should see to his worldly and spiritual office as commanded to punish the wicked and protect the pious.”

In his 1525 advice to the town council of Danzig, Luther stated that government regulation of interest should be according to the principle of equity.

For example, a mortgage of 5 percent would be equitable, but it should be reduced if it does not yield this return. At the same time, one should consider the individual’s personal economic situation. The well-to-do could be induced to waive a part of his interest, whereas an old person without means should retain it.

But these views were of minimal influence.

Legislation introduced in Dresden in 1529 prohibited 15 to 20 percent interest in favor of a 5 percent rate, in turn influencing the reform of the Zwickau city laws in 1539. Yet it was also noted how often such legislation was violated. That these examples may indicate more a failure than success is confirmed by the 1564-65 controversy in Rudolstadt. The Lutheran pastor there refused to commune two parishioners who lived by usury. The theological faculties of Wittenberg, Leipzig and Jena were requested to give their opinions. They concluded against the pastor who then had to leave town, and they did not recognize Luther as an authority on this issue.

After this there was never again a serious effort to acknowledge Luther’s position on capitalism.

Luther’s efforts to turn the early capitalist world upside down by insisting on government regulation of business was countered by the powerful of his day, the analogues to the CEOs of today’s financial, energy, and pharmaceutical industries. Luther was not utopian in these matters.

Nevertheless, throughout his career Luther fought against what he saw as the two-sided coin of mammonism: ascetic flight from money and the acquisitive drive for it. His foundation for this battle was the good news that a person’s worth is not determined by what he or she does or does not possess, but rather by God’s promise in Christ. That is the gospel.”

Foster R. McCurley in Social Ministry in the Lutheran Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008) 63-64.

“Luther believed that the church was called publicly and unequivocally not only to reject the destructive elements of the growing profit economy but also to develop a constructive social ethic in response to them. He and his colleagues promoted public accountability of large business through government regulation. Here Luther is not rejecting the profit economy out of hand, but rather promoting government control that would limit the interest rate to 5 percent in contrast to the 30 to 40 percent that was common in his time. Luther proposed a state-regulated economy that could enact price controls.

For Luther, the biblical call to love the neighbor is expressed in society by justice and equity.

While Luther’s efforts to develop welfare legislation were well received in the cities and territories that accepted the Reformation, his efforts to encourage civic control of capitalism did not gain comparable support. Of course, it is hardly surprising that when interest rates could soar up to 40 percent, bankers turned a deaf ear to his call for a 5 percent ceiling on interest. Also, Luther’s criticism of capitalism included far more than exorbitant interest rates.

He argued that social need always stood above personal gain:

“In a well-arranged commonwealth the debts of the poor who are in need ought to be cancelled, and they ought to be helped; hence the action of collecting has its place only against the lazy and the ne’er-do-well.”

Luther experienced that it is easier to motivate assistance to individuals than it is to curb the economic practices that create their poverty. Poverty’s squalor calls out for redress, whereas the attractive trappings of business muffle criticism. Yet the effects of early capitalism could be felt, and the common good was being undermined by the activities of large businesses that could not be held accountable even by the emperor. In Wittenberg between 1520 and 1538 prices doubled, but wages remained the same. Luther called this disguised murder and robbery.

“How skillfully Sir Greed can dress up to look like a pious man if that seems to be what the occasion requires, while he is actually a double scoundrel and a liar.”

Indeed, “greed has a pretty and attractive cover for its shame; it is called provision for the body and the needs of nature. Under this cover, greed insatiably amasses unlimited wealth.”

Foster R. McCurley in Social Ministry in the Lutheran Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008) 62-63

“A man is generous because he trusts God and never doubts that he will always have enough. In contrast, a man is covetous and anxious because he does not trust God. Now faith is the master workman and the motivating force behind the good works of generosity, just as it is in all the other commandments. Without this faith, generosity is of no use at all, it is just a careless squandering of money.”

Martin Luther (1483-1546) Treatise on Good Works 3 in Selected Writings of Martin Luther: 1529-1546, ed. Theodore Gerhardt Tappert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1967) 191.