What does the Bible say about Money?

Lesson 1 (The Conflict)

In this series we are going to be looking at some of the verses in the Bible dealing with money. Theses verses will be focused on words like money, riches, and treasures. The word of God does actually say a lot about money. This is not a series on how to handle money although we will discuss being a good steward in the last lesson, it is more to show us the biblical view of money.

When it comes to modern teaching from the bible on money they are many different beliefs and ideas on money. Some will say it is evil and you cannot be spiritually minded or faithfully serving God if you have it, while others teach the opposite. There are many who will say that God does not want anyone to be poor.

In this first lesson we are going to look at this conflict of teaching and hope to shed some light on the issue of money from the word of God.

Typical Uses:

In the word of God we see that there are some bases uses for money just like one would expect. This uses are for buying goods, food, and land (Genesis 17:12,13 ; 23:11,16,19 ; 47:15 ; 2 Kings 12:9). These verse are some examples of typical uses of money. For the most part when money is mentioned in the Old Testament is it used this way the majority of the time.

The Conflict:

Now when we come to the New Testament that is when money seems to be connected more with a negative connection. We will list a few examples below.

Matthew 6:19 (Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth)

Luke 12:21 (So he that layeth up treasure for himself is not rich toward God)

1 Timothy 6:10 (The love of money is the root of all evil, and some coveting after it err

from the faith)

With verse like these it is easy to see why some teach you should not have it.

The Problem with Money:

The real problem is not the money but man. Note 1 Timothy 6:10 says “the love of money is the root of all evil”. It does not say that money is the root of all evil. The real problem is our heart. Note what David says in Psalm 62:10. We must ask ourselves this question, does money have us, or do we have it? This is not always an easy question to answer because as we have seen in this lesson money is a necessity. The bible says if a man does not work he should not eat and one that does not provide for his own is worse than an infidel (2 Thessalonians 3:10 ; 1 Timothy 5:8). Therefore, the trick will be keeping our heart right when it comes to the matter of money and being content like Paul showed us (1 Timothy 6:6)