Growing up, I was taught that growing and accumulating wealth should be a major life priority, and it made plenty of sense. I had interests, passions, ambitions, and having wealth would only make these pursuits more achievable, thereby leading to a better and more fulfilling life. Why then, as I entered my collegiate years, did I meet so many Christians who believed exactly the opposite?
Through the time I spent at two different Christian universities, I have come across what seems to be a consistent view among a large portion of my peers. This view is that Christians can either serve the materialist world and seek riches or serve the heavenly realm and pursue grace. After all, Luke 16:13 reads that “no servant can serve two masters… you cannot serve both God and money” (New Catholic Bible).
Admittedly, I am sympathetic to this understanding of the material and the divine being at odds with each other. The seven deadly sins all involve seeking out things that harms the soul in return for physical stimulus and pleasure. It leads us away from God’s love and can directly lead to eternal damnation. Additionally, the fact that our culture seems to exist to maximize these vices makes it understandable how some Christians of good will view the idea wealth-building as standing in the way of our relationship with God.
All the same, however, this worldview can lead to isolation as well as ridicule and rejection by mainstream society, which arguably contributes to why our culture is so progressive in the first place. Rather, the pursuit of wealth can be, and should be, a virtuous pursuit that benefits our communities, our families, and ourselves.
The word ‘wealth’ comes from the old English word ‘wela’, meaning “happiness and prosperity in abundance.” It is very telling that this was the understanding of wealth prior to its association with money. When we view wealth along the lines of this original definition, the pursuit of wealth takes on a completely different meaning. It is no longer about becoming rich or having a large bank account. Rather, it is about growing in your capacity to live a happy and fulfilling life. A mentor of mine often referred to wealth as the ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want.
To speak the obvious, of course “wealth-building” involves money. The term “wealth building” refers to intentionally growing assets over time while minimizing liabilities to determine a financial net worth. A common misconception with net-worths—one that I held for a long time—is the belief that a man’s net worth is similar or equal to how much money he has. This could not be further from the truth. Cash is an asset, and it is a very valuable utility, but there are far larger and more tantalizing assets to invest in. Land, for example, is an asset. Stocks and bonds are assets. An ownership stake in a business is an asset.
From this understanding, wealth involves the growth of our assets in order to pursue a more prosperous and happy life. How then, do we use this newly acquired wealth to live a happier and more virtuous life? Think of all the causes of stress in life. The first thing that comes to mind will likely be every day expenses. How are you paying for housing, for school, food, etc? Often, to acquire these things, we choose to trade our time, usually up to 8 or 9 hours a day, working for a business or entity that pays in exchange for our time. You then use this money to afford your expenses.
While you might be passionate about work and enjoy your job, you must to work either way. Ceasing to work jeopardizes your capacity to make a living and thus sustain yourself. Imagine, however, if you did not need to sacrifice your time to make a living. What if you had perpetual income that flowed from fixed assets that sustained your housing, your food, your travels, and even perhaps your education? Imagine if, instead of living paycheck to paycheck, you had wealth.
Wealth can be obtained and used in accord with virtue because it grants you the most valuable asset in the universe: time.
Time grants us the freedom to serve God and pursue virtue more than any other force. It is the ecstasy of our society that culture teases us with. It gives us a weekend, Saturday and Sunday, to be free and happy. We are socially trained and conditioned into feeling depressed on Monday and Tuesday, optimistic on Wednesday and Thursday, joyful on Friday, and finally “happy” for 48 hours, before the cycle repeats.
Those who can recognize the value of time and treat it as an asset are like the humans who fight the machines in the movie franchise The Matrix. The rest of us are in the Matrix, reliving a perpetual cycle that makes us think we are free, when in reality we are slaves.
A Christian that possesses the will to seek and serve God, with the asset of time on their hands, can accomplish much for His Kingdom. From launching a business that provides a good or service , to simply volunteering time in travel or work that brings about service, simply having time is the luxury that wealth affords.
Ultimately, no matter how you approach it, wealth building takes time. A strong degree of patience, temperance, and discipline is needed to build meaningful wealth. As the Oriental proverb goes, there are only two good times to plant a tree; 20 years ago, or today. You either started this journey in the past and are all the better for it, or you haven’t started yet. In which case, beginning the journey today is vital. Do not filibuster your growth by deferring it to the future, because the future never comes to pass.
Wealthy people are the elites of any given society, because they have a combination of time and ambition that yields them great degrees of power. Why should Christians not want to sit at that same table? Historical Christianity does not condemn the material world as irrelevant. On the contrary, there was long an understanding that the salvation Jesus brought into the world was meant for the entire world, and that it would rise as a perfected domain upon his return. We should not be retreating from this domain. It is our domain.
By taking wealth building seriously, Christians can elevate their potential to serve the world and aid in its virtuous restoration. We should always caution against the deadly sins that take healthy goals and twist them into lustful greed. And we should also view the battles of our time with an eternal perspective, recognizing that there is something greater to come.
However, we should not view our ambitions as forsaking our faith in God’s grace. If our ambitions are guided by virtue and acceptance of God’s grace, our pursuit and goals will lead us closer to Christ in the end. If we allow ourselves to become relentless in this pursuit, we will achieve cultural victories that Christendom has not seen in a long time.
