What does the Bible say about Money?
Lesson 2 (The Danger)
In the previous lesson we looked at some of the things that the word of God had to say regarding money and riches. The conclusion of the lesson was that while money is a necessity in this life for living, it is spoken of in a negative context for most of the time in the New Testament. This stems from the fact that money is not the problem, the problem is man and his love of and desire to have money (1 Timothy 6:10). In this lesson we will take a more detailed look at the danger of loving and desiring money.
The main problem:
The problem is our heart (Proverbs 4:23). As we see in this verse the issues of life are a matter of the heart. This is why Jesus gave the warning regarding treasures in Matthew 6:19-20. Note the last verse tells us that our treasure and our heart are usually directly connected. The question is where is your heart, or should we say what has your heart? David tells us if riches increase set not your heart upon them (Psalm 62:10).
The dangers of money:
One of the greatest dangers of money is that it gives people something to trust in other than God (Psalm 49:1-9). Let’s face the truth, for many it is a false sense of security. But there are some other dangers as we will see below:
- Proverbs 11:28 (they that trust in riches shall fall)
- Ecclesiastes 4:8 (the eye is never satisfied with riches)
- Ecclesiastes 5:13 with Acts 5:5 (when they have our heart they can cause us to self-destruct)
- 1 Timothy 6:10 (Many have erred from the faith because of their heart being taken with money.)
A necessary reminder:
What we must remember is that there are monetary or riches of this world then there are things that money cannot buy. We must not forsake true riches for the treasures of this world (Proverbs 13:7). We will close this lesson with a few things that money cannot buy. Ask yourself are these things worth being rich for a season?
- 1 Peter 1:18-19 (Money cannot buy salvation)
- Proverbs 19:14 (Money cannot buy real love)
- Proverbs 21:31 (Money cannot buy true safety)
- Ecclesiastes 7:12 ( Money cannot buy Health)
- Proverbs 15:16 (Money cannot buy peace of mind)