John White: Have you found the buried treasure in the Word of God that causes your perspective on your possessions to change?

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Matthew 13:44

“It is only when he discovers buried treasure that his perspective changes.

Suddenly his possessions look cheap and paltry. A joy is rising in him and an excitement that makes his sweat and tremble. There may have been regret about a cherished piece of furniture or a family heirloom. But it is only momentary. The choice he faces lies between his worthless bits and pieces and the field with buried treasure.

There is nothing noble about his sacrifice. There would, on the other hand, be something incredibly stupid about not making it. Anyone but a fool would do exactly as the man did. Everyone will envy him for his good fortune and commend him not on his spiritual character, but on his common sense.

What I have called “his miserable bits and pieces” are the things of this life to which we naturally cling—money, property, cars, prestige or a good job…If we were to grasp the glories he has for us we would realize how silly we are to cling to such rubbish.”

John White in The Cost of Commitment (Downers Grove: IVP Classics, 2006) 38-39.

But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them. 2 Samuel 24:24

“David understood the religious imperative of true sacrifice. For him, religion that cost nothing was worth nothing, either to God or humanity…

In purchasing the Land from Araunah and then utilizing it for sacrifice to the Lord, David was apparently following Torah guidelines regarding the dedication of land to the Lord (cf. Lev. 27:20-21)…

Because of David’s decisive and costly actions, “the LORD answered prayer in behalf of the land and the plague on Israel was stopped.”

In making these sacrifices for his people, David foreshadowed the actions of Jesus, the ultimate son of David, who also gave sacrificially on a hill near Jerusalem for His people so that an even more tragic plague might be stopped.”

Robert D. Bergen in 1, 2 Samuel (NAC; B & H Publishing, 1996) 480.

“God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many professing Christians have been deceived by this doctrine is how little they give and how much they own. God has prospered them. And by an almost irresistible law of consumer culture (baptized by a doctrine of health, wealth, and prosperity) they have bought bigger (and more) houses, newer (and more) cars, fancier (and more) clothes, better (and more) meat, and all manner of trinkets and gadgets and containers and devices and equipment to make life more fun.

They will object: Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper his people? Indeed! God increases our yield so that by giving we can prove our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man’s business so he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that 17,000 unreached peoples can be reached with the gospel. He prospers a business so that twelve percent of the world’s population can move a step back from the precipice of starvation.”

John Piper in Desiring God (Portland: Multnomah, 1987) 163-164.

“There was once in man a true happiness of which there now remains to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself. He only is our true good, and since we have forsaken him, it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature which has not been serviceable in taking His place; the stars, the heavens, earth, the elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, pestilence, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest. And since man has lost the true good, everything can appear equally good to him, even his own destruction, though so opposed to God, to reason, and to the whole course of nature.” (cf. Psalm 49).

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées (Thoughts) #425, trans. W.F. Trotter.

“Like every human organization the Church is constantly in danger of corruption. As soon as power and wealth come to the Church, manipulation, exploitation, misuse of influence, and outright corruption are not far away. How do we prevent corruption in the Church? The answer is clear: by focusing on the poor. The poor make the Church faithful to its vocation. When the Church is no longer a church for the poor, it loses its spiritual identity. It gets caught up in disagreements, jealousy, power games, and pettiness…The poor are given to the Church so that the Church as the body of Christ can be and remain a place of mutual concern, love, and peace.”

Henri Nouwen in Bread for the Journey reading for October 31 (New York: HarperCollins, 1997).

“The outcome of greed is poverty…People that choose wealth over freedom can have neither…People are satisfied by becoming reconciled to God, not by acquiring wealth…Idols of mammon invite us to place our hopes on wealth, tell us that taking is better than giving, tempt us to covet what our neighbor has, convince us that we have been wronged because we do not possess as much as we desire, and finally, pervert the sense of justice that alone can preserve peace. If we continue to worship them, the unrest and discontent that mark our society now are only a sample of the destruction that is to come.”

Herbert Schlossberg in Idols for Destruction: The Conflict of Christian Faith and American Culture (Wheaton: Crossway, 1990) 132-139.

“Wherein blessedness doth not consist: it doth not lie in the acquisition of worldly things; happiness cannot by any art of chemistry be extracted here: Christ doth not say, Blessed are the rich, or blessed are the noble; yet too many idolize these things…Transitory things are not commensurate to the desires of the soul; therefore they cannot render him blessed; nothing on earth can satisfy. Eccl. 5:10. ‘He that loveth silver, shall not be satisfied with silver;’ riches are unsatisfying.

The soul is a spiritual thing, riches are of an earthly extract, and how can these fill a spiritual substance? A man may as well fill his chest with grace, as his heart with gold; if a man were crowned with all the delights of the world, nay, if God should build him an house among the stars, yet the restless eye of his unsatisfied mind would be looking still higher, he would be prying beyond the heavens for some hidden rarities which he thinks he hath not yet attained to; so unquenchable is the thirst of the soul, till it come to bathe in the river of life, and to centre upon true blessedness.”

Thomas Watson in Discourses on Important and Interesting Topics (Glasgow: Blackie, Fullarton, & Co., 1829) 38-39.

“For wherever true Christianity spreads, it must cause diligence and frugality, which, in the natural course of things, must beget riches! And riches naturally beget pride, love of the world, and every temper that is destructive of Christianity. Now, if there be no way to prevent this, Christianity is inconsistent with itself, and, of consequence, cannot stand, cannot continue long among any people; since, wherever it generally prevails, it saps its own foundation.
But is there no way to prevent this—to continue Christianity among a people? Allowing that diligence and frugality must produce riches, is there no means to hinder riches from destroying the religion of those that possess them? I can see only one possible way; find out another who can. Do you gain all you can, and save all you can? Then, you must, in the nature of things, grow rich. Then if you have any desire to escape the damnation of hell, give all you can; otherwise I can have no more hope of your salvation, than of that of Judas Iscariot.

I call God to record upon my soul, that I advise no more than I practice. I do, blessed be God, gain, and save, and give all I can. And so, I trust in God, I shall do, while the breath of God is in my nostrils. But what then? I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus my Lord!”

John Wesley in Sermon CXVI: Causes of the Inefficacy of Christianity delivered in Dublin, Ireland, 2 July 1789, and recorded in The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., Vol VII, Fourth Edition (London: John Mason, 1840) 277.

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Matthew 6:24

“Christ returns to the former doctrine, the object of which was to withdraw his disciples from covetousness. He had formerly said, that the heart of man is bound and fixed upon its treasure (Matt. 6:21); and he now gives warning, that the hearts of those who are devoted to riches are alienated from the Lord…

Where riches hold the dominion of the heart, God has lost his authority. True, it is not impossible that those who are rich shall serve God; but whoever gives himself up as a slave to riches must abandon the service of God: for covetousness makes us the slaves of the devil…

What is here said with a special reference to riches, may be properly extended to every other description of vice. As God pronounces everywhere such commendations of sincerity, and hates a double heart (1 Chron. 12:33; Ps. 12:2), all are deceived, who imagine that he will be satisfied with the half of their heart. All, indeed, confess in words, that, where the affection is not entire, there is no true worship of God.”

John Calvin in Commentary on harmony of the evangelist, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, trans. William Pringle (Calvin Translation Society, Edinburgh, 1845) 337-338.

“Many Christians have one issue that haunts them and never falls silent:  for some, it involves sexual identity; for others, a permanent battle against doubt. For me, the issue is money. It hangs over me, keeping me off balance, restless, uncomfortable, nervous.

I feel pulled in opposite directions over the money issue. Sometimes I want to sell all that I own, join a Christian commune, and live out my days in intentional poverty. At other times, I want to rid myself of guilt and enjoy the fruits of our nation’s prosperity. Mostly, I wish I did not have to think about money at all. But I must somehow come to terms with the Bible’s very strong statements about money.”

Philip Yancey in Money: Confronting the Power of a Modern Idol (Portland: Multnomah, 1985) 3.