Beating the Myths About Money

Money is important. All of us who spend money (and that’s just about all of us!) understand that. We work to earn the money we need in order to live. We give, save, and spend the money we earn. Most of us interact with money in some way pretty much every day.

The Bible consistently emphasizes the importance of money. Over 2,000 verses in Scripture reference money in some way. Jesus identified money as the chief rival to God, warning us that it’s impossible to serve both God and money and exhorting us to store our treasure in heaven (Matthew 6:20-24).

Money drives our culture. Entire industries like marketing and banking exist for the purpose of helping companies and individuals make money. Nearly every commercial we see (and that’s a lot of them!) entices us one way or another to spend money. Of course, what the culture says about money doesn’t exactly line up with what the Bible teaches.

In our culture and even in the church, myths about money abound. We’ve heard many of these myths (either expressly or implicitly) so many times that they sound like truth. But they’re not. In this article, we’ll look at several money myths – both inside and outside the church – and encourage a balanced, Biblical response.

Money Myths: The Nature of Money

Is money good or bad? Is debt necessary or is it sin? Are money decisions logical or emotional?  If we can dispel the myths about the nature of money and how we relate to it, we can free ourselves from the grip of money to serve God wholeheartedly.

Myth: Money is Evil

This myth comes from the church and from other well-meaning (but minority!) folks in reaction to the pull that money has on us. In reality, it’s not money that’s evil – it’s the love of money that we have to avoid. Jesus doesn’t tell us to avoid money – he tells us to avoid serving money.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

1 Timothy 6:10

Paul warns Timothy what loving money can do to people. A few verses later he gives Timothy specific warnings for the rich in the church at Ephesus. All kinds of evil come from loving money – including even deserting the truth. Paul would experience this with Demas, a former co-worker (Colossians 4:14; Philemon 1:24) who deserted him for the world (2 Timothy 4:10). In fact, love of money is a disqualification for leadership in the church (1 Timothy 3:3).

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

   “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

So we say with confidence,

   “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

Hebrews 13:5-6

Loving money is a sign that we’ve put money ahead of God in our lives. Where does this lead? It leads to the sin of Achan, who coveted things that God had devoted to destruction and took some of them, contrary to God’s command. The end result was the destruction of his entire family (Joshua 7). Such destruction won’t always come so immediately and so visibly, but loving money prevents the growth in faith and discipleship that God wants for us.

Beating the Myth

We need to recognize that money is not evil; in fact, as we’ll see later, it can be put to good use. At the same time, anything that we put ahead of God in our lives becomes evil for us. We keep money from becoming evil for us by storing our treasure in heaven and choosing to love God above all. We love God and leverage money.

Myth: Money is Neutral

Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants…

The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.

Matthew 13:7, 22

While money isn’t evil inherently, it’s also not neutral. It has a definite pull – and that pull is away from God. Jesus described wealth as deceitful – as something that chokes out the word and makes it unfruitful in our lives.

Solomon may be the best example in all the Bible of how wealth can turn a person’s head. He began with a humble heart and an earnest desire to rule God’s people with wisdom and for God’s glory. But as time went on, the blessing of wealth pulled him away from this God-centered beginning.  He accumulated chariots and horses (1 Kings 10:26) – something God had expressly forbidden for the king (Deuteronomy 17:16). He imposed heavy taxes on the people to increase his wealth even more and passed this priority on to his son (1 Kings 12:4, 14). The ultimate result was the splitting of the kingdom.

The rich young ruler who encountered Jesus experienced the pull of money. Unable to let go of his money and possessions to follow Jesus, “he went away sad, because he had great wealth” (Matthew 19:22). How often do we think of great wealth making us sad? But Jesus went on to identify wealth as an obstacle to entering the kingdom (Matthew 19:23-24) – one that only God can surmount in our hearts.

Agur, the writer of Proverbs 30, understood this:

Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.

Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you

and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’

Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.

Proverbs 30:8-9

Beating the Myth

Jesus warned us to guard against greed (Luke 12:15) and Paul equated greed with idolatry (Colossians 3:5). David similarly cautioned, “Though your riches increase, do not set your heart on them” (Psalms 62:10). We beat the myth of money’s neutrality by recognizing that money vies with God for our affection, and choosing to love and serve God. The discipline of giving helps us here – when we give away money, we break the hold it has on us (exactly what the rich young ruler couldn’t do!).

Myth: Money is Logical

We’re tempted to think of spending plans, debt retirement programs, and investment strategies as math problems. But they’re not logic issues – they’re emotional ones. This is why marital fights over money can get so heated – if money was just a math problem, the answers would be objective and easily agreed on. But in reality, our use of money reflects our priorities (whether deeper, lifelong priorities or momentary impulses). It’s emotional, not logical.

Some of the emotions surrounding money come from our money motivations. We might be motivated by love, freedom, security, or power – but all of these are emotional drives. For example, if our primary motivation is security, then our primary emotion surrounding money is likely to be anxiety; because we’re relying on money for our security, we’re naturally worried that there won’t be enough. We’ll make money decisions from a place of worry.

On the other hand, emotion also drives impulse spending. We feel inadequate so we buy something that makes us feel better. We feel like we don’t fit in, so we buy clothes like our friends have. We’re upset, so we splurge on an event that takes our mind off our situation or on food to help us feel better. Most of our impulse spending can be traced back to an emotional response.

Beating the Myth

As long as we persist in believing that money is logical, we’ll find it difficult to control our emotional relationship to it. Beating this myth means understanding our own emotions in relation to money and how those emotions drive our financial decisions. Once we recognize this, we’re in a position to flee temptation. For example, if we medicate our emotions after a hard day at work by spending money online, then a good preventive response would be to stay off our computer that evening.

Myth: Debt is Normal and Expected

Just about everyone we know lives on credit cards. It doesn’t really matter whether we have enough money to purchase something – if it’s something we “need,” we can buy it now and pay later (with interest, of course). As long as we’re keeping up with the minimum payments, we’re OK. This is what our culture tells us, but the Bible has a different take.

The rich rule over the poor,

and the borrower is slave to the lender.

Proverbs 22:7

Scripture envisions debt as a function of poverty – poor people borrowed money or sold themselves into servitude in order to have enough to live. But in today’s culture, consumer debt typically has nothing to do with poverty – it has to do with materialism.

Consumer debt may be normal and expected for those outside the kingdom of God, but for believers, it’s usually a reflection of a heart not totally devoted to God. We’re the center of our own worlds, so feeling good about ourselves is a core value, so we spend – and get into debt in the process.

And because we spend all we have (and more), we don’t have margin set aside for a crisis. Then, when a real need arises, we reach for the credit card. But there are several problems with this approach:

• It denies God the opportunity to provide for us, keeping our faith small and unexercised (see, for examples, the widows God took care of through Elijah and Elisha – 1 Kings 17; 2 Kings 4).
• It presumes on the future by assuming that we will be able to repay it at some point (James 4:13-15).
• It fosters greed and envy (Colossians 3:5) and leads us away from Biblical values such as patience, perseverance, and contentment.
• Compound interest works against us, forming an obstacle to getting out of debt.

Beating the Myth

We don’t have to accept the culture’s insistence on the normalcy of debt. Beating this myth requires our hearts and our heads:

• Heart: Developing a heart of patience, contentment, and gratitude keeps us from the constant allure of more.
• Head: Developing consistent practices like tracking and categorizing spending and reviewing our priorities and non-negotiables helps us keep spending aligned with the most important things in our lives.

Myth: Debt is Sin

Some in the church go to the opposite extreme, labeling all debt sin. But debt is not the problem – it’s a symptom. The truth about whether or not any debt is sin results not from the debt itself but from the cause of the debt. So, yes, most consumer debt – driven by greed, envy, and having our treasures on earth rather than in heaven – has sin at its root.

But there are other kinds of debt not envisioned in Scripture that can be leveraged in today’s economy to produce positive results. Some examples include:

• Home mortgages, which enable a family to purchase a house (virtually no one can purchase a house without a mortgage in our economy);
• Education loans, which can help a person become more productive and establish a positive career;
• Business loans, which can help a person start a business to provide jobs for those who need them or purchase property to provide low-cost housing for those who need it.

Debt is not inherently good or evil. It’s dangerous, and all debt does presume on the future. But debt is better characterized as efficient or inefficient. Efficient debt is incurred on something that increases in value or provides opportunity; inefficient debt (which would include consumer debt) is incurred on something that depreciates or is used up quickly.

Beating the Myth

Debt must be treated with caution; even efficient debt can still be unwise, depending on a person’s financial condition and other circumstances. For example, a mortgage is generally efficient debt; but many people overextend themselves on their houses and become “house-poor” – unable to afford other needs and wants due to the expense of the house. As we consider entering into debt, we need to prayerfully ask, “Is this debt for the right reasons? And is it the right amount?”

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Money Myths: The Impact of Money

How exactly does money affect our lives? How much does it matter? Should we care about how much we make?

Money Myth: A Little More Money…

Most of us have thought it at one time or another: “A little more money will solve all my problems.” When we nearly make it to the end of the month before the money runs out; when we almost make that payment on time; when we mostly manage to stay within budget. Just a bit more income would have made the month work.

Or so we think. But more often than not, it’s not the size of our income that determines whether we’re making it or not; it’s the way we manage the income we have. Almost managing to pay the cable bill is less likely an income problem and more likely an issue of all those premium channels. Being late on a credit card payment is more likely an issue of how much we’ve charged than it is an issue of how much we make.

The thing is that a little more income nearly always leads to a little more spending in a spiral called lifecycle creep. Instead of using that additional income to begin to build some margin into our lives, we trade in our car on a newer, nicer, and more expensive one. Rather than paying down that credit card balance, we go out to eat a bit more often because, well, we’ve earned it.

Whoever loves money never has enough;

whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.

This too is meaningless.

Ecclesiastes 5:10

Beating the Myth

The answer? A heart of contentment leading to a lifestyle cap – an answer to the question, “When is enough, enough?” As we prayerfully discern the lifestyle that would meet our needs and determine what that lifestyle costs, we close the door on lifestyle creep. We draw a line in the sand (and at the bottom of our Spending Plan!) and say, “I don’t need more. If I earn more than this, I can devote it to giving and saving.”

Money Myth: Money Doesn’t Matter

We’ve said it before and we’ll continue to say it – our net worth has nothing to do with our worth in God’s sight. But this doesn’t mean that money doesn’t matter. We see over and over again in Scripture examples of the positive use of money:

• The women of means who supported Jesus’ ministry (Luke 8:1-3);
• The disciples with houses who sold them to provide for the needy (Acts 2:44-45; 4:32-27);
• The offerings given for the building of the tabernacle (Exodus 35:20-36:7).

Beating the Myth

Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.

1 Corinthians 4:2

When God entrusts resources into our care, he expects us to be faithful with those resources. Jesus illustrated this in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25). Part of that faithfulness is recognizing that all that we have comes from God (James 1:17) and that he has put it in our care for a purpose. The way we earn, spend, give, and save reflects our gratitude for God’s provision and our understanding that it all belongs to him. And this leads us to our final money myth.

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Money Myth: The Ownership of Money

Our culture constantly reinforces the idea that anything we have truly belongs to us – and as a result, it’s at our disposal to do with whatever we want. We work hard to earn it, so we deserve to enjoy it. But the Bible tells a different story:

The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it,

the world, and all who live in it;

for he founded it on the seas

and established it on the waters.

Psalms 24:1-2

In fact, Scripture tells us that the earth and everything in it belongs to God. Not only did God create the world, but he sustains it moment by moment (Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:17). He didn’t simply set the earth spinning and then leave it to us; he entrusted it to us as his representatives (Genesis 1:28).

And lest we get too enamored with our own abilities, Scripture reminds us that even our ability to produce wealth comes from God (Deuteronomy 8:17-18).

Beating the Myth

In the Parable of the Talents we mentioned earlier, each of the servants knew that the money they had been entrusted with belonged to the master. When the master returned, they would account for what they had done with his money – and it would all go back to the rightful owner. Beating the ownership myth requires that we understand that everything belongs to God and that we respond in gratitude and faithfulness with what he has provided.

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Money Managed: Our Response

We can’t get around money – we need it to live. So how do we respond to it in a way that honors God and avoids the myths? The two Great Commandments should govern our response to money (as to all of life!).

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:37-40

Love the Lord

“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

We can’t love both God and money. Over and over again in Scripture we see that there’s a choice. Zacchaeus chose God; the rich young ruler chose money. Loving God by definition doesn’t leave room to love money. As we grow in our love for God, that love protects us from the myths surrounding money.

Love our Neighbor

Going back to the question of whether money really matters, the consistent example of Scripture is that money is a key way to love and serve our neighbor.

• The Good Samaritan paid the innkeeper to take care of the wounded person he found on the road (Luke 10:30-37).
• Paul enjoined the Ephesians to do something useful with their hands so that they would have means to share with those in need (Ephesians 4:28).
• James similarly urged his readers to take care of the poor as an evidence of their faith (James 2:14-26).

Time after time, when we see commands and examples in Scripture about taking care of those in need, the underlying assumption is that we’ve built some financial margin into our lives so that we’re in a position to help.

Loving God and our neighbor is incompatible with loving money. But by recognizing and evading these common myths, we put ourselves in a position to love God and our neighbor with our money.

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