Video Transcript: The Bible, Money, and Work

All right, welcome back. This is the second video on the introduction to  enterprise again. My name is Steve Elzinga. I'm a pastor at a church. I planted  churches, but I also have little enterprises going on. I'll tell you about those in a  later video. I'm going to keep saying that so that you keep coming back as  you're maybe curious as to what those things are. In fact, those are enterprises  that you might be able to do in your place as well. But we're going to hold off on  that. I want to talk about the Bible, money and work. Enterprise is any activity  that leads to making money, increasing money, helping other people get money.  And remember, money is just a common denominator that we use in our world  to take everyone's work and every product that exists and and bring it down to  one thing. It's like, it's like translating all the languages of the world into one  language so that we can deal with each other. So you notice on the world  economy, that that countries and different currencies, everybody can deal with  each other, because it's a common denominator that we've learned how to deal  with across the board. So money just brings all of work and all of products to a  level that we can trade more easily. But what does the Bible have to say about  money and work? So we're going to look at some verses. How is money the root of all evil? Perhaps you've heard that Jesus probably had more to say about  money than almost any other topic, and most of what he said seems quite  negative, and so I think we should look at that before we start thinking about  how we can make money or deal with money. In Mark 10, Jesus looked around  and said to his disciples, how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.  Disciples were amazed at his words, but Jesus said again, children, how hard it  is to enter the kingdom of God. It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a  needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. Now that  seems pretty negative, if you think of a big, huge camel, and how's it going to go through a little needle? A lot of scholars say that the needle that's being talked  about is not actually a sewing needle, but a little entry in a gate, a gate entry had a little opening, and it was called the needle, and it was still small, but it wasn't  as small as a sewing needle, and there's no way that you could get a camel  through even that gate opening. So it's still an impossible thing, but it wasn't so  outrageous later on in this conversation here in Mark 10, Jesus said, Well,  what's impossible with with human beings is possible with God. So it is possible  for a rich man to actually get through the eye of a needle, to actually come into  the kingdom of God. But Jesus is saying, there's a lot of problems with wealth  and we're going to talk about some of those problems. How is money the root of  all evil? Luke 16:13, Jesus said No one can serve two masters. Either you will  hate the one and love the other, or you'll be devoted to one and despise the  other. You cannot serve both God and money. So there again, we want to serve  God. We're here to serve God. It's God's kingdom. But somehow money  becomes a competing thing. That money somehow becomes like another God.  And you try to serve both, but you end up not doing that. How's money the root 

of all evil Proverbs, 23:4-5. Do not wear yourself out to get rich. Do not trust in  your own cleverness. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are God, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. You can make money, but money comes and money goes. There's the saying, Easy come, easy go, and  that's often true with money. How is money the root of all evil? Matthew 16:26,  what good will it be for someone to gain the whole world and yet forfeit their  soul, or what can you give in exchange for your soul? In some ways, our souls,  our bodies, who we are, is all we really have. And people often would give their  time and their energy to making money and whatever you give your time and  energy to is what you're giving your life to. You're living your life for that. You  think that's what life is worth. And if you were to gain everything, if you were to  become a millionaire, if you were to become a billionaire, if you gained things,  and yet you lose your soul at the end of it, then what have you gained? We have 50, 60, 70, 80, years on this planet, and then every single person dies. I  remember being at the house of a wealthy person. I had just met him. I was with Henry, and we went to this guy's house. He was older, and we were visiting,  talking about ministry and so on. And then he said to us, looked at us, and he  said, you know, we got to cut this short, because I have to catch a plane. I'm  flying my own personal plane to the Bahamas tonight. And I looked at him, and I  said, Wow, must be nice having your own plane. And without without missing a  beat, he pointed his finger at me, and he said, You know what, I will trade you  right now my plane, all my wealth for your youth, because his point was, you  know, you can have all the money in the world, but you only have one life, and  that, that life that you have, the time that you have on this planet, is worth more  than all the riches of the world. What good is it to gain all the stuff of this world if  you're going to leave it all anyway, How is money the root of all evil? I Timothy  Paul writes this letter to Timothy, and he said, Those who want to get rich fall  into temptation and the trap. What's a trap? A trap is something that you don't  see. You know, some people will dig a hole in the ground in the woods, and then they'll cover it up with branches and some twigs and so on. And then they put  some meat or something hanging from a tree above that trap. And then the  animal comes. They see what it wants. They don't know that this thing is going  to trap them. And that's what money is like. It looks pretty good on the outside,  but it ends up trapping you into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge  people into ruin and destruction for the love of and here's that phrase you know  people have that in the Christian world, we know that phrase that somehow  money is the root of all evil. This is actually the quote from the Bible, for the love  of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It doesn't say that money is the root of all  evil. It says that the Love of Money, Money itself is not evil. It's the love of  money that is the root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have  wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. And I want to  talk a little bit about how money becomes a trap. Number one, money promises 

more than it delivers. Most people think if I just had this kind of income, then all  my troubles would be over. Shows that we watch on television, movies that we  watch all give the impression that money somehow will solve your problem.  Number two, it consumes you your time little by little. When you know, Bill Gates was a young man. He was interested in computers, by the way, he didn't just  come out of nowhere. It wasn't like he just was so brilliant, and somehow he  figured this all out. His mother was on the board of IBM and and when IBM was  looking for some software thing, she said it to her son. And because she was on  the board of IBM, Seattle, at that time in Washington State, had one of the only  two super computers in the entire country. And because she had influence. She  actually got time for her son and some of his friends when they were teenagers,  to actually spend time on this computer that no one else had access to. So it  wasn't like, you know, he had special, you know, he had special advantages that other people didn't have it. Now, he's a smart guy, and he did this, okay. But if  you think about him when he was a teenager, he just got into this. He could  have gotten into that or some other thing, or sports or whatever, but he was into  this thing, and he was at the right place at the right time, with the right  connections. And then, you know, Microsoft and so on, took off. But if you look at it, it has consumed his whole life. He couldn't have done anything else. I mean,  once you you start into something and it succeeds, it becomes your entire life.  I'm not saying that he didn't have a bad, you know, had a probably had a good  life. Probably enjoys what he's doing, but all I'm saying is, when you get into  some. Thing, and you succeed in it, it takes over little by little. You're just trying  something out. You want to make a little extra money, generally, if it works well,  it takes over your life, little by little by little. Number three, it's very addictive.  Money is addictive. You know, the first paycheck you get, it's just an amazing  thing. I do this, and then people give me money, and you put it in the bank, and  then you you go to the store, and you can actually buy stuff. I remember as a kid figuring that out, that money actually allows you to get stuff. And for so some  people, they're addicted to what they can buy now for myself and my brother. My brother is only one year younger than I am. He got here, my dad made  opportunities for us to make money. He sold us everything as kids, you know, if  we wanted something, we had to buy it. But he provided things for us to do, to  do it. We eventually moved out to a farm. I grew up in the city, and all of a  sudden, one day, we're out on a farm, and there's cows to milk and all this stuff  to do. And he did all that because he wanted us to work. He wanted us. He  didn't want to just give us stuff. We had to work for, everything that we got. Well,  my brother did the same things that I did. He did the work, and he got the  money, and he was addicted to spending it. He spent every dime he got. I  became addicted to saving it. You know, I had this much money, and then the  next day I have a little bit more, and I'm watching the number go up. And I was  addicted to that. I didn't spend money on anything, because the game that I was

playing was, let's get this number to go higher and higher and higher. So when I  was five years old, I started making my first money, and I never didn't have  money. Rest of my life, I always had money. I never ran out. I always had  because I wanted, I wanted to see how far that could grow. When I bought my  first car, I didn't buy it on time. I didn't get a loan. I saved money for two years  before I could buy it. I was going to buy it with cash. I was not going to borrow  anything, and so I was making the interest on my money instead of paying the  interest. We'll talk about that in terms of saving. But my point is, you can be  addicted to it either way. You can be addicted to spending money. You can be  addicted to making money. You can be addicted to accumulating money. It's a  number. It's like, you know, playing soccer, and you score one goal, you want to  score a second goal. You go fishing, you catch one fish, you want a second fish.  And it just keeps you, driving you towards that. It consumes your time. Little by  little, it promises more than it delivers, and it becomes addictive to your life.  Number four, it suckers you into a game that can never totally satisfy. Howard  Hughes was once asked, you know, he said he was a billionaire. He had all this  money. And someone once asked him, How much is enough money. You have a lot of money. How much is enough? And Howard Hughes responded, just a little  bit more. Everybody wants just a little bit more. If you out there right now, if you  thought about your life, my guess is, your thinking is, if I just had a little bit more  then all my troubles would go away right now, I'm just a little short, but that's true about every single one of you out there. And some of you have a lot of money,  and some of you make very little, some of you have absolutely nothing. But it  doesn't matter how much you have right now, everyone, the wealthy, the middle  income, the people that have no money, everybody thinks that their life would be a lot better if they had just a little bit more. The problem is, when you get a little  bit more, then you just raise your life, your standard of life, a little bit to the point  where you need a little bit more. The wealthy are as insecure as the poor.  Everyone thinks they don't have quite enough, and so it suckers you into this  game. You get into it, and you think you're close, you're close to the goal, but  every time you get closer to the goal, the goal just moves a little farther back.  You get close to the goal, it just keeps moving. The end goal keeps moving on  you. It's a moving target, and you never, never hit it. How was money a trap?  Number five, it leads to jealousy, envy and judgmentalism. Maybe you have that  in your own family. If one of the siblings is doing well, then the other siblings are  kind of upset about it. They feel like, well, how come these things have  happened to you? How come I didn't How come it doesn't happen to me? Or if  you work in a company, or you work for an organization, and you see somebody  doing well, they get a raise, you don't get a raise, or they get a promotion, you  don't get a promotion. And a lot of unhappiness in life is because we look at  other people and we see what they have. We would. Be happy with what we  have. But then you see someone with something new, and well, you don't have 

that something new, and then you want it too and all of this is what money does. It traps you. It. You know, money in itself is not bad. Money in itself is not evil.  The text says that it's there. It's the love of money that is the root of all evil, not  money itself, but but money, it's such a interesting commodity that it can can sort of sucker us into all these addictions and things that that grab hold of us and  make us want it so, in and of itself, not evil, but somehow the devil uses this to  get a hold of our lives and in our hearts, and ends up, many people end up  ruining their lives over it. Okay. Well, how is the money the root of some good?  So if money in itself is not evil. It's the love of money that's evil. Then obviously  money can be used for some good, and the Bible actually says some things  about that. I Timothy 6 command those who are rich in this present world not to  be arrogant, nor to put their hope and wealth. Okay, don't be arrogant about the  money that you made, because God is the one who gave the ability to make the  money in the way, it was a gift that God is God has entrusted it to you. Don't be  arrogant, nor Put your hope in wealth. Wealth is just something that God is using so that you can accomplish things. It's not your ultimate hope. The money is not  going to get you into heaven, which is so uncertain, but put their hope in God  who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. So it's God ultimately  that provides all these good things that happen in our lives. Command them to  do good, the rich people that are making money, to do good, to be rich in good  deeds and to be generous and willing to share. In this way, they lay out  treasures for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they  may take hold of life that is truly life. So money, ideally, is used for the  betterment of other people, to be generous and to share, laying up treasures  and making a difference in people's lives, not only just for the things that you  can buy them, but you're making an eternal difference in people's lives. And  that's not just giving people money, it's creating an environment or creating  opportunities for other people to use their gifts and abilities to take care of  themselves. Ultimately, you want to help people do the same thing that you're  doing, and that way it gets reproduced. Whose money is it? Psalm 24:1, the  earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it, the money isn't yours. The money that you make is not yours. I Corinthians 4:7, what do  you have that God hasn't given you? And if everything you have is from God,  why boast as though, as if it were not a gift? So all the money that you have,  everything that you've worked hard for. Ultimately, this is God's money. He's  given you the abilities. He's given you the opportunities he throws these things  at you. Now, maybe you worked really hard, you've studied or you've you know,  you've worked from sun up to sun down. God is the one who gives you those  abilities. He gives you the discipline to do those things. Deuteronomy 8:18. But  remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce  wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors as it is  today. So even your ability to do things and make things happen, God is the one

who gets the credit for the ability that you have to produce wealth. Well, what of  our money do we owe God? Malachi 3:10. A lot of preachers like to use this  verse just before the offering. Bring the whole tithe into my storehouse, a tithe.  And the Old Testament was 10% 10% of your crops, 10% of your money. In  those days, you had to bring the 10% to the temple, and that was to support the  Levites. There were 12 tribes of Israel, but the Levites were the only tribe that  didn't actually get any land, so they have no way to produce money or food to  take care of themselves and their families, so all the other tribes would give 10% of their stuff so that they could live. It was like a it was, it was like an income tax, if you will. And it was a tax for the whole country. It was a theocracy, not a  democracy, like we have, we have separation of churches. States. So we have  taxes that are independent of the church. In Israel, the tax was one thing. You  paid the religious tax, and the country tax was all one thing. It was a tithe. So  many question whether we have to do tithe today. Does tithing? Is tithing in the  New Testament that you don't find the word tithe in the New Testament at all. So many think tithing was just what the Old Testament did. But the idea was, You,  you, you bring your tithes to the storehouse and then the promises you know,  God says, test me, and this is the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open  the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be  room enough to store it. So in other words, if you, if you give God what he  deserves, this tax or this tithe thing, then God will bless the whole country. You'll  have more to give. You will have more the people that you're giving to will have  more. That's sort of the idea. Now some think, well, that was just the Old  Testament. What does the New Testament have to say about our stuff?  Colossians, let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and  admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from  the Spirit singing to God with gratitude in your hearts and then this, and  whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord  Jesus, giving thanks to God, the Father through him in the New Testament,  there's this sense that everything you have, all that you are, is God's This is Not  10% some people have this idea. Look, you make all this money, and then you  take 10% of it, you give it to God, and the 90% you can just do what you want to do with it. You will answer to God for 100% of everything that God gives you,  100% of it is his, not just the 10% that you give to church. Now maybe that's a  good idea to give 10% to church, but that doesn't that doesn't leave you free to  do whatever you want with the 90% one day, you will stand before God, and  God will say, I give you abilities. I give you opportunities. I gave you this. You'll  just list all the things that he gave you, and they'll say, So what'd you do with it? I gave you those things as a steward to accomplish something in his life. My  father did, like I said in the first video, he was a businessman. He started 18  different companies, and you know, he did reasonably well at some of these  things. And he talked about, you know, inheritances and you know, and what will

happen when he dies with all the money and so on. And many times I said to  him, Look, this is God gave you these abilities and allowed you to do these  things. You should figure out what you do with that money, not me. Don't leave it all to me. And then one day, I have to stand before God and answer to God for  the money that you made, that you gave me. You take responsibility for the  money that God allowed you to make money. I don't want to. I don't know if I  want to be responsible for your money. You're responsible for whatever you're  given. So sometimes people, in their desire to for money and opportunity, they  don't really know what they're asking. You're really asking for more stuff to be  responsible for, and one day you'll have to answer to God for Colossians 3:23- 24 whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord.  Doesn't matter what you do. You're not working for human masters, since you  know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the  Lord Christ you are serving. It doesn't matter what you do. You might be a waiter at a restaurant, you might be a farm hand. You might be in some factory. You  might own your own business. Doesn't matter you are not working for that  business. You're not working for that farm. You are working for the Lord in  everything that you do, all the gifts, all the money, it's 100% his. But what does  the Bible then say about work? Okay, those are some things in the Bible has  some negative things to say about money, because money is, is a slippery  slope. It can grab hold of you. It can, in a way, can turn you to the dark side. It's  one of the favorite tools that the devil has to grab people and slowly, little by  little, that's what becomes important in their lives, money and making money  and what money can do. But the Bible has good things to say about money. It  can be used for God's kingdom, or it can be used to take care of your family.  Good things. Well, what did the Bible then have to say about this whole thing of  work? A lot of our life is work. Genesis 2:15, we read about work first in the  world. And remember Genesis 2:15 is before sin comes into the world. So this is God's. Perfect World. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of  Eden to work it and to take care of it. And I like those two words, it's work. The  stuff that is is hard to do, but it's a good thing. It's part of God's good creation.  And part of what work is is taking care of in some ways, that's what all of work  is. It's taking care of things. If you work at some factory that produces some  product, ultimately, that product has to be of some value to people, or no one will buy it. It has to help people's lives. All work, if you look at ultimately what it is, it's supposed to be helping people's lives, or no one's going to buy it. So it's part of  taking care of people. It's taking care of the creation that God has given us, and  it's part of a good thing. And so work is important, and it's good. Proverbs 12:11,  those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase  fantasies have no sense. So the Proverbs is very, you know, very practical. If  you don't work, lot of good things aren't going to happen. Proverbs. 13:4, the  sluggard. Those are little, these little worm like things that just seems like they 

sit around and do nothing. The sluggards appetite is never filled, but the desires  of the diligent are fully satisfied. So people that have no gumption, they have no  get up and go. They don't want to do anything, they don't want to work. They're  

always complaining. They're always unhappy. You know, things are never  happening, but those who work hard will be satisfied. Proverbs 14:23, all hard  work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. I just read some study  that people people that make goals about their lives and what they want to do,  and then communicate those goals to other people. Are less likely to work on  those goals than those who don't say anything and that. And the reasoning is, if  you come up with a goal, this is what I want to do, and then you go tell someone else about it, just in telling someone else about it, you get a little satisfaction, as  if you already started doing something about it, and because you already got a  little satisfaction about this goal without doing a thing, now you're less motivated  to actually do the hard work of doing it. So make a goal and then start working at it before you tell someone. Proverbs 6:10, a little sleep, a little slumber, a little  folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come to you like a thief and scarcity  like an arm. Land. II Thessalonians 3:10, for even when we were with you, we  gave you this rule. This is Paul, the one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.  Now that was, you know, that was sort of my father's motto, if you didn't do it,  then he was willing to let you not eat. He was willing to let you go without and  that's, that's a tough one to learn, because we end up feeling sorry. You know, I  know many parents who threaten their kids. Look, if you don't do this, you know,  you know, if you don't start eating the stuff on your table, we're just going to  send you to the room and you get nothing. And then the kid doesn't do it, so they send her to the room, and then Mom later sneaks in a little food up night,  because we don't want you to starve to death. We have to be willing to follow  through with what we say, Ecclesiastes 5:18, this is what I have observed to be  good, that it is appropriate for a person to eat and drink and find satisfaction in  their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life that God has given  them for this is their lot. So in other words, work is not just all work. Work is  working so that your life can actually be better, that God is not against you  enjoying the fruits of your labor. So if you're out there and you're trying to take  care of your family, and you're working and you're trying to get a little extra  money, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It has all the dangers the devil can  use money to to make you self absorbed, selfish. You know, it's all about you.  It's all about you. And you start comparing to people and and you're unhappy  because of you can always find someone who doing better. But God does want  us to enjoy the fruits of our labor. It there's nothing better than to have a hard  day of work, and then you get done and you feel like, hey, you know what? I  actually accomplished something. God made us that way. He made us to be  purposeful. He made us to want to make things happen. He made us creative.  He made us problem solvers that there's there's sin up there in the world and we

want to fix it. I. That's what salvation is all about. You know, we're going to fix  these things that are wrong. And that's all a part of the good part of what work is. Well, what does the Bible have to say about work and ministry? You know, work, making a living, getting money, all these things. And then we have ministry,  doing things to try to help people get to know Christ, discipleship, all of that.  Number one, you might be the worker wanting to do more ministry. Ephesians  4:11-12, he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherd, the  teachers. Why did he give these kind of leaders to equip the saints for the work  of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. So I'm a pastor, but my job is not to do all the ministry. My job is to equip the people in the church to do the work of  ministry. So who are the people in the church? The people in the church are all  these workers, people that have jobs, people that started businesses, but their  ultimate job is to build up the body of Christ. So that might be you. You might be  one of these worker people, and you're at a job and you make money and you're doing all these things, but ultimately your job is to do ministry. And so if you  could do your work better or more efficiently or get more pay, you could maybe  carve out more time to actually do ministry, and that's maybe why you're taking  this class, or you're in ministry already, but you need to work to take care of your family. I've been all over the world, and a lot of Christian workers love God, love  the mission, love the kingdom. Are working hard to bring people to Christ, to  disciple people, to equip people, all the good things of ministry, but they can  hardly make ends meet, and their families are suffering. And so you need to take care of your families. You need to take care of your spouse. If you're living in  poverty every day and you have no idea where your next meal is going to come  from, that is going to affect your ministry. And so maybe that's you Acts 18. This  is Paul. He found Paul found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently  come from Italy with his wife, Priscilla, because Claudius had commandeered  the Jews to leave, commanded them to leave Rome, so there was all this  persecution, and he went to see these people, and because he was of the same Trade, he stayed with them and worked for they were tent makers, and the tent  making, then was like leather workers by trade. So they had this trade of tent  making. Paul had the same trade, and he reasoned in the synagogues every  Sabbath and tried to persuade the Jews and the Greeks. So Paul, on the  weekends, was doing his ministry thing, but during the week, he was working  with these two people who had the same trade as him. So you're in ministry, you need to take care of your family. You need a tent making thing. And so that's  what we're going to talk about in the next video. What is this whole tent making  thing that Paul talks about here in Acts 18, and how does that maybe relate to  you?