What Jesus and James Said About Money

This weekend more than half a million people filled the streets of France. Diesel is at multi-year highs, where one in seven fuel stations has run short, as oil sits at $110 a barrel. The same weekend brought crowds out in Italy, Belgium, and Portugal. Different countries with different complaints, but a shared feeling underneath it all that the cost of living keeps rising, and no one is doing anything about it. Some of us are doing fine, many of us are not.

I'm not here to tell you which side to support, but the moment raises a question worth bringing to Scripture. What exactly does God say about money, about the people who have it, and about what they do with it while others go without?

Most of us were handed one answer to this question that, "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." It's kind of true as we see what greed and corruption led to in 2008 and so on. However, it's also easier to dodge because you don't have to love money to make it or manage it. Nobody thinks they love money. We think we're simply being financially responsible and even wise.

Jesus and His brother James never let us off that easily. They don't stop at the love of money, but they go after something more visible and more uncomfortable—hoarding. The moment we don't believe we're "worth many sparrows" is when we begin to follow what Jesus called Mammon. Mammon refers to wealth treated as a security blanket in which a person places their total trust and confidence for the future. By using Mammon, Jesus elicits the shift where wealth ceases to be a practical tool and instead becomes an object of ultimate devotion.

James Comes Out Swingin'

"Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter."

— James 5:1–5 (ESV)

Read that very slowly. James never says "you rich felt the wrong way about your money." He lists what they did:

First they stored it, as he says their riches sat so long they rotted. Gold left so long it corroded. Stored wealth that does nothing is, in James's eyes, is already decaying.

Then they kept it from the people who earned it, the withheld wages "cry out," the same language Genesis uses for Abel's blood crying from the ground. Simply put, unpaid labor is a voice God hears.

Last, they lived in comfort during a crisis when others were struggling. "Fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter." They went on feasting while the world around them suffered and slowly fell apart.

Also notice the courtroom language that their corrosion "will be evidence against you." In this respect, the hoard itself becomes the testimony of the things you own begin to own you. What we keep while others lack doesn't sit neutral, for James it's speaking a direct rebuke of their behavior. Keep in mind James didn't invent this philosophy on money by himself, but learned it from his brother.

Jesus Characterizes Mammon

"Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

— Luke 12:15

One day Jesus tells a story about a rich man who has a great harvest. He has no crisis and no crime, just abundance. Jesus says that the man's first thought isn't 'who needs this?', but instead 'where do I secure it?'

"I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.'"

However, God's answer is one word: "Fool!"

"This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."

— Luke 12:20–21

Notice that the man isn't condemned for being successful, but instead for the bigger barns or for answering abundance with accumulation and treating security as something he could build and then rest inside. Jesus says it again in the Sermon on the Mount, and you'll hear James echo it word for word:

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

— Matthew 6:19–21

"Moth and rust" echoes James's moth-eaten garments and corroded gold. Then in an act of sheer brilliance, Jesus closes the door on the idea that we can split the difference:

"You cannot serve God and money (Mammon)."

— Matthew 6:24

Conclusion

It would be easy to read James 5 as a sermon for billionaires and oil executives and leave it there. James probably wouldn't object to that reading, but Jesus aimed the bigger-barns story at an ordinary man with a good harvest, which means it's aimed at the little guy too.

So is all saving considered hoarding at that point? I personally don't think so, because many of us are storing up for exactly the kind of moment Europe is living through now. Riots, unrest, political violence. These are real issues and it would be foolish not to take heed of the warnings.

Scripture has a great example of storing up goods with the story of Joseph. He saw seven years hunger coming in his dreams and filled the storehouses of Egypt. When famine came, "all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain" (Genesis 41:57). His storehouse fed the nations, and eventually his own brothers who had sold him into slavery.

So the logic isn't whether you store. It's who the storehouse is for. Are you prepping to take care of just yourself or also your neighbor? Or the sick, poor, orphaned, widowed, etc.

Joseph stored so others could live while the rich fool stored so he could stop needing anyone. Joseph's grain moved out when the need came, but the rich man's barns stayed shut. Joseph prepared out of foresight by having a relationship with God, the fool built out of the illusion that he could be untouchable.

When prices spike and shortages hit, a storehouse either opens or it doesn't. For the foreseeable future, prices will keep climbing, the rich will get richer and the middle class will get poorer. Some people will be fine and many won't. Jesus never promised His followers they'd be the ones who are 'feast during the slaughter'. He told them to be rich toward God, and the way you get rich toward God is by letting what you have stored up bless the people who need it most.