Sunday: The Love of Money

AT A TIME WHEN TRILLIONS OF DEBT, INTERNATIONAL CURRENCIES, AND GLOBAL STOCK AND BOND MARKETS are daily rocked with volatility, uncertainty, fear and greed, it seems appropriate to recall what our Lord said about making money and material wealth the ultimate center of our lives rather than keeping God central and letting money issues follow.

MATTHEW 6:19-24:

19 “DO NOT STORE UP FOR YOURSELVES treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.


22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. (NIV)

---The Lord Christ, Sermon On the Mount

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ANY LIFE directed toward money is death.

— Albert Camus, Journal

WHAT WE ONCE DID ‘for the sake of God’ we now do for the sake of money.... this is what at present gives the highest feeling of power.

— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Dawn


MAN MUST HAVE AN IDOL...No idol is more debasing than the worship of money...To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery.

I will resign business at age thirty-five.

— Andrew Carnegie, Personal Memorandum (Famous last words)