1 Timothy 6:17 – Saved by Saving?
17 Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches…
As John Steinbeck considers the American landscape in his penetrating Travels with Charley, he considers Texans. "The subtlety of their ostentation drew my attention."
The same sort of second-look phenomenon draws Paul's attention also in 1 Timothy 6:17. Thus it should draw ours. He has already marked haughtiness 's more obvious manifestations for destruction. Timothy is to target the same sorts of practices James lambastes in which the rich use poor people to augment their status – in church.
Showy demonstration the one's resources are out. Constant name and price drops engineered to imprint inferiority are banished. From the Law to the prophets, and clearly in the New Testament, the principle is established. God made both rich and poor, and both are accountable to him.
But did I hear a sigh of relief as the Angel, meaning messenger in this case, of the Lord passed by with His just indignation? For, there is a class of materialists he did not single out. They would never be haughty. Their idolatry is more insidious. So, in his next swipe in his next phrase, inspired Paul is equally ready to confront intent.
There are those in Timothy's congregation, and in congregations ever after until Christ perfects us all, who would never countenance gaudy displays of wealth, but would still trust in it. A mutual fund or a 401(k) can make just as seductive an idol as does a shopping spree. Savers, we are not exempt from conviction.
The means of production, and the fungible reserve He could use to manifest them, are just as much within the scope of Christ's sovereignty. A revolution of surrender here is a worshipful revolution will begun, the spiritual equivalent of America preparing to make machine tools as she lumbered into action to fight World War II.
Assuage indignation? No. Make headlines, much like ostentation with wealth does? No, it's too quiet. But, as A Call to Arms discerns with prescience, "Machine tools or the cradle of production, machines that built other machines."
Much of "our" material blessing, savers, is withheld in a netherworld between the ostentation we habitually deny ourselves, and the absolute surrender to which Christ is entitled. It's our second bull, our just-in-case, and, as with Gideon in Judges 6:25-26, He lays claim to it, as He did with Gideon. Our disposition even of that we don't spend on our pleasures is an active confirmation of where we really place our trust.
What is Stephen Johnson's adjacent possible here, savers? Christ is calling all of us to instantly liquidate all of our savings as a slavish, conforming gesture done because everyone else is. There are too many Scriptures praising the discipline of saving. Peter too clearly tells the dissembling Ananias that the proceeds from his property sale where his to give to the Lord in whole or in part. But 1 Timothy 6:17 is a check on where our heart, our hope, and our treasure are.
This sort of a check can have some unsettling implications as the Holy Spirit reveals WHY we don't spend. Perhaps we don't spend because we don't trust the Lord to provide for tomorrow. Perhaps we don't spend because we like the grudging respect we get from a world of spenders.
Perhaps, like Harry Chandler in David Halberstam's The Powers That Be, we are not greedy because overt greed might create too much opposition. Perhaps we are just as much at the service of impression by possession as those who spend freely.
By this Word, though, and the breath and mercy to carry it out, we get to look at our goods again. Very likely, we get to prepare our hearts, to get our heads in a place where we can do the audacious, or at least the uncomfortable, when He calls for it. He is worth our trust right now, and worth us paying in installments on that trust which will compound for eternity.
As John Steinbeck considers the American landscape in his penetrating Travels with Charley, he considers Texans. "The subtlety of their ostentation drew my attention."
The same sort of second-look phenomenon draws Paul's attention also in 1 Timothy 6:17. Thus it should draw ours. He has already marked haughtiness 's more obvious manifestations for destruction. Timothy is to target the same sorts of practices James lambastes in which the rich use poor people to augment their status – in church.
Showy demonstration the one's resources are out. Constant name and price drops engineered to imprint inferiority are banished. From the Law to the prophets, and clearly in the New Testament, the principle is established. God made both rich and poor, and both are accountable to him.
But did I hear a sigh of relief as the Angel, meaning messenger in this case, of the Lord passed by with His just indignation? For, there is a class of materialists he did not single out. They would never be haughty. Their idolatry is more insidious. So, in his next swipe in his next phrase, inspired Paul is equally ready to confront intent.
There are those in Timothy's congregation, and in congregations ever after until Christ perfects us all, who would never countenance gaudy displays of wealth, but would still trust in it. A mutual fund or a 401(k) can make just as seductive an idol as does a shopping spree. Savers, we are not exempt from conviction.
The means of production, and the fungible reserve He could use to manifest them, are just as much within the scope of Christ's sovereignty. A revolution of surrender here is a worshipful revolution will begun, the spiritual equivalent of America preparing to make machine tools as she lumbered into action to fight World War II.
Assuage indignation? No. Make headlines, much like ostentation with wealth does? No, it's too quiet. But, as A Call to Arms discerns with prescience, "Machine tools or the cradle of production, machines that built other machines."
Much of "our" material blessing, savers, is withheld in a netherworld between the ostentation we habitually deny ourselves, and the absolute surrender to which Christ is entitled. It's our second bull, our just-in-case, and, as with Gideon in Judges 6:25-26, He lays claim to it, as He did with Gideon. Our disposition even of that we don't spend on our pleasures is an active confirmation of where we really place our trust.
What is Stephen Johnson's adjacent possible here, savers? Christ is calling all of us to instantly liquidate all of our savings as a slavish, conforming gesture done because everyone else is. There are too many Scriptures praising the discipline of saving. Peter too clearly tells the dissembling Ananias that the proceeds from his property sale where his to give to the Lord in whole or in part. But 1 Timothy 6:17 is a check on where our heart, our hope, and our treasure are.
This sort of a check can have some unsettling implications as the Holy Spirit reveals WHY we don't spend. Perhaps we don't spend because we don't trust the Lord to provide for tomorrow. Perhaps we don't spend because we like the grudging respect we get from a world of spenders.
Perhaps, like Harry Chandler in David Halberstam's The Powers That Be, we are not greedy because overt greed might create too much opposition. Perhaps we are just as much at the service of impression by possession as those who spend freely.
By this Word, though, and the breath and mercy to carry it out, we get to look at our goods again. Very likely, we get to prepare our hearts, to get our heads in a place where we can do the audacious, or at least the uncomfortable, when He calls for it. He is worth our trust right now, and worth us paying in installments on that trust which will compound for eternity.
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