Tabitha Alloway has been a wife to Clifford Alloway and a mother to three children whom she has homeschooled. She became an electrician at the age of 20, and has helped her husband run a family business. Tabitha's interests have included reading, writing, music, art, and photography.

Born in 1794, John James Blunt was an English Anglican priest. He was educated at Cambridge and is most well-known for his work Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings both of the Old and New Testaments. More of his work was published after his death, including his History of the Christian Church during the First Three Centuries and his lecture material On the Right Use of the Early Fathers.

Frank Boreham, born in 1871, trained in Charles Spurgeon's Pastor's College and then accepted a ministry position at Mosgiel Church in New Zealand. He later pastored in Tasmania and then on mainland Australia. He is known for his prolific output of essays. Much of his work is marked by masterful prose and insightful observants, often drawing on nature or common experience to draw out or make a point. Boreham died in May 1959.

Paul Garner is the author of the book, The New Creationism: Building Scientific Theories on a Scientific Foundation and the main author of the book, Fossils and the Flood: Exploring Lost Worlds with Science and Scripture. He earned an MSc in Geoscience from University College London, and specialized in palaeobiology. He has been a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, has been a speaker and researcher for Biblical Creation Trust, and has had a 'Let's Talk Creation' YouTube show with Todd Wood (Website, YouTube Channel).

Paul Larson is the founder of Credible Faith. More information about Paul can be found by going to the biographical information page about Paul on this site.

Casey Luskin is a scientist and attorney with expertise in both the scientific and legal dimensions of the debate over evolution. He earned his PhD in geology from the University of Johannesberg, and then has worked as associate director for the center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute. He earned a B.S. and M.S. in earth science from the University of California, San Diego, and he earned a law degree from the University of San Diego. Casey is co-author of Traipsing Into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller v. Dover Decision and Discovering Intelligent Design. He is co-editor of The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos. Luskin has also contributed to the volumes Intelligent Design 101: Leading Experts Explain the Key Issues; Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Theological, and Philosophical Critique (Crossway, 2017); The Praeger Handbook of Religion and Education in the United States; Dictionary of Christianity and Science (Zondervan, 2017); Signature of Controversy; The Unofficial Guide to Cosmos; Debating Darwin's Doubt; and More than Myth. Dr. Luskin has published in both technical law and science journals, including Journal of Church and State; Montana Law Review; Geochemistry, Geophysics, and Geosystems; South African Journal of Geology; Hamline Law Review; Liberty University Law Review; Trinity Law Review; University of St. Thomas Journal of Law & Public Policy; and Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design. He also contributed to The Archaean Geology of the Kaapvaal Craton, Southern Africa (Springer Nature, 2019) and Ancient Supercontinents and the Paleogeography of Earth (Elsevier, 2021).

Lydia McGrew has been a wife, homemaker (household manager), mother, and in the past, a home schooler. Lydia married Timothy McGrew, who has been full professor in the Department of Philosophy at Western Michigan University. Professionally, Lydia has been an analytic philosopher with a publication record that includes work in testimony, independence, and probability theory. She has published a number of important books in the field of Biblical studies, including Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts (2017), The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices (2019), and The Eye of the Beholder: The Gospel of John as Historical Reportage (2021).

Timothy Mitchell earned or received his Biblical Studies PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK, in 2023. He has published in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament, the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Bibliotheca Sacra, Eleutheria, and Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. He has also published various pieces on his own blog, The Textual Mechanic, a blog appropriately titled given his years of working as a helicopter mechanic. Tim was also an associate editor for Eleutheria: Graduate Student Journal of Liberty University’s School of Divinity. Tim has been blessed with a wife and four children.

William Paley was an English clergyman, Christian apologist, and philosopher. His works include The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785), Horae Paulinae; or, the Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, by a Comparison of the Epistles Which Bear His Name with the Acts of the Apostles, and with One Another (1790), A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794), and Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature(1802). Paley was born in July 1743 and died May 25, 1805.

Dr. Walter Schultz has taught philosophy courses at University of Northwestern from 2004 through at least the end of 2020, and earned a PhD and M. A. in Philosophy from the University of Minnesota, and B. A. in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Dr. Schultz taught at three different colleges before coming to Northwestern. He has been published in various journals, including Jonathan Edwards Studies, International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, Philosophia Christi, The Journal of Science and Religion, and Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. His published books include Jonathan Edwards' Concerning the End for Which God Created the World: Exposition, Analysis, and Philosophical Implications and The Moral Conditions of Economic Efficiency.

Dr. Schultz's favorite course was the Seminar on Jonathan Edwards. Edwards influenced Dr. Schultz deeply and he has deliberately attempted to conceptually connect his research to biblical theology, especially the fundamental idea that what gives the world and the Bible its unity is that God is acting progressively according to His plan for His purposes. Dr. Schultz thoroughly enjoy teaching and discussing things with his students.

Charles Spurgeon was a highly influential English Baptist preacher often called the 'Prince of Preachers'. Born in 1834, he was converted as a teenager, and within not too much more than a year, preached his first sermon. Spurgeon was called to the pastorate of London's New Park Street Chapel before turning twenty years old, and thereafter had many years of impactful ministry. Spurgeon regularly preached to thousands and is known for his voluminous sermon material that has been left behind. Spurgeon died in January 1892.

...PROVIDING A CREDIBLE DEFENSE OF BIBLICAL CHRISTIANITY IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE

...FOLLOWING THE EVIDENCE WHEREVER IT LEADS

Credible Faith

The Bible's View of Human Nature Guarantees Conspiracies Will Happen

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A List of Conspiracies in the Bible

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The Ice Age and Ice Cores from a Young Earth Perspective

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Post-Babel Living Conditions and the Development of Ancient Mankind

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The Ecological Zonation Theory

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Problems with the Standard Evolutionary Interpretation of the Fossil Record

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Three Pillars of Catastrophic Plate Tectonics and Its Explanatory Superiority

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Population Statistics and Early Man's Intelligence Comparable to Ours Favor a Young Humanity

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Processes That Limit the Age of Earth to Thousands of Years

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Reasons for a Young Age of the Solar System

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Helium in Zircons as Evidence for a Young Earth

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Accelerated Nuclear Decay and a Young Earth Better Explain Radiometric Dating Data

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Three Challenges to a Catastrophic Interpretation of Sedimentary Rock Layers

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Widespread Coal Beds & Cross-Bedded Sandstones Support Catastrophic Formation of Sedimentary Rock Layers

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Turbidites As Evidence in Favor of Rapid Deposition of Sedimentary Rock Layers

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Why Uniformitarianism is Not A Philosophical or Scientific Obstacle to Young Earth Creationism

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Scientific Evidence for a Young Earth

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Luke 10:16 As An Argument for Inspiration Even If the Wording of The Autograph Were Not Known (with Timothy Mitchell

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A Consideration in Favor of Moving from the Initial Text to the Autograph (with Timothy Mitchell)

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Why Ancient Writing Practices Should Not Stop The Search for An Original Autograph (with Timothy Mitchell)

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Evidence from Pliny That 1st and 2nd Century Authors Thought in Terms of an Original Autograph (with Timothy Mitchell)

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How Wide Distribution from Single Manuscripts and Community Repetition Invalidate The Phone Game Analogy (with Timothy Mitchell)

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The Role of Social Networks in Protecting against Acceptance of Forgeries (with Timothy Mitchell)

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The Role of Community Reading in Protecting against Changes to New Testament Texts (with Timothy Mitchell)

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Why The Treatment of Galen's Writings Does Not Support Abandoning The Search For New Testament Autographs (with Timothy Mitchell)

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How Greco-Roman Writing Practice Mirrors Today and Does Not Negate The Search For An Original Autograph (with Timothy Mitchell)

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How Greco-Roman Writing Practice Undercuts Linguistic Arguments Against Traditional Biblical Authorship (with Timothy Mitchell)

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Greco-Roman Writing Practices and The Doctrine of Inspiration of New Testament Autographs (with Timothy Mitchell)

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The Dunning-Kruger Spirituality of the Non-Christian: How the Criticism that Christianity Is a Crutch for the Weak Misunderstands True Spirituality and Misjudges the Strength of the Christian and Unbeliever

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Some Criticisms of the So-Called Transgender Movement, and Its Logical Connection to the Homosexual Movement

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A Christian View of Conspiracy Theories

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How Should We Pray the Desires of our Hearts in the Face of an Evil Government and a Wicked Culture?

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Should You Live Your "Best" Life Now? Three Reasons Why a Life of Wealth, Luxury, and Extravagant Experiences Is Contrary to the Will of God

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What The Life of Peter and The Death of James Tell Us about The Prosperity Gospel, Suffering, and Death

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Summary of Evidence against Universal Common Ancestry (with Casey Luskin)

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Ontogeny Does NOT Recapitulate Phylogeny: Embryology’s Failure to Support Universal Common Ancestry (with Casey Luskin)

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The Fossil Record as a Problem for Universal Common Ancestry (with Casey Luskin)

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The Biogeographical Challenge to Universal Common Ancestry from Platyrrhine Monkeys and Other Animals (with Casey Luskin)

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Data Incongruence and the Hypothesis of Common Design as Obstacles to Assuming Universal Common Ancestry on the Basis of Shared Biological Similarities (with Casey Luskin)

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Conflicts between and among Genetic and Morphological Phylogenetic Trees as a Problem for Universal Common Ancestry (with Casey Luskin)

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So-called Convergent Evolution as a Problem for the Assumption that Biological Similarity is Evidence of Common Ancestry (with Casey Luskin)

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The Fallacy of Conflating Universal Common Ancestry with Unguided Evolution (with Casey Luskin)

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The Relationship of Intelligent Design to Universal Common Ancestry, and Three Definitions of Evolution (with Casey Luskin)

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Does the Evidence Support Universal Common Ancestry? (with Casey Luskin)

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Three Reasons Why There Is No Justified Belief in Atheism

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Did David Hume Prove That Miracles Are Impossible or Do Not Happen?

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Is Belief in Miracles and Christianity Unjustified If It Is Not Scientific?

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Who Are We to Judge? Is It Wrong to Judge the Religious Beliefs of Others?

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Walter Schultz on Jonathan Edwards' Work Concerning the End for Which God Created the World (Part 4): Edwards' Anti-Platonism, Panentheism, Occasionalism, and Continuous Creationism

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Walter Schultz on Jonathan Edwards' Work Concerning the End for Which God Created the World (Part 3): Edwards' Idealism, Emanationism, and Dispositionalism, and the Dionysian Problem of Goodness

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Walter Schultz on Jonathan Edwards' Work Concerning the End for Which God Created the World (Part 2): What God's Ultimate End Had to Be

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Walter Schultz on Jonathan Edwards' Work Concerning the End for Which God Created the World (Part 1): Walter's biography and the three goals of Edwards' work

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Ink on Paper: How God Loves You and Others through Your Pain and Sorrow

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Lydia McGrew on Blaming the Losers, the Noble Sacrifice, and How to Think About Losses in the Culture Wars (Part 2 of 2)

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Lydia McGrew on Blaming the Losers, the Noble Sacrifice, and How to Think About Losses in the Culture Wars (Part 1 of 2)

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The Explanation of Jesus Why Eternal Torment In Hell Is Just

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How We Know Jesus Lived a Sinless Life and Why a God Who Wants to Save Sinners Must Permit Murder

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Work of J. J. Blunt, Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings of the Old and New Testament, Part 1: The Veracity of the Books of Moses, Part 1

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William Paley's A View of the Evidences of Christianity, Part 5: Preparatory Considerations, Part 3

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William Paley's A View of the Evidences of Christianity, Part 4: Preparatory Considerations, Part 2

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William Paley's A View of the Evidences of Christianity, Part 3: Preparatory Considerations, Part 1

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William Paley's Horae Paulinae, Part 2: Chapter 1, Part 2 - Exposition of the Argument

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William Paley's A View of the Evidences of Christianity, Part 2: Editorial Introduction, Part 2

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William Paley's Horae Paulinae, Part 1: Chapter 1, Part 1 - Exposition of the Argument

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William Paley's A View of the Evidences of Christianity, Part 1: Introductory Letter and Editorial Introduction, Part 1

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Charles Spurgeon's The Sluggard's Field, Part 2 of 2

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Charles Spurgeon's The Sluggard's Field, Part 1 of 2

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Frank Boreham's A Slice of Infinity

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Chapter One, 'The Big Question' of Douglas Axe's Book Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed

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An Introduction to the Credible Faith Podcast, an Autobiography of Dr. Larson, and Some Thoughts on History and the Inspiraton of Scripture

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Learn About the Mission to Brazil

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An Introductory Letter from Paul About Credible Faith

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The Fancies of John and Mark

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Review of B. Ward Powers' The Progressive Publication of Matthew: An Explanation of the Writing of the Synoptic Gospels

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Some Autobiographical Reflections, Part 2

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Some Autobiographical Reflections, Part 1

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 16

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 15

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 14

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 13

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 12

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 11

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 10

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 9:2-50

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 8:1-9:1

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 7

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 6

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 5

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 4

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 3

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 2

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Gospel of Mark Chapter 1

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Bulbs, Breaches, and Bonne Nouvelle

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Review of Christopher Bryan's 'The Resurrection of the Messiah'

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Romans Chapter 16

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Romans Chapter 15

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Romans Chapter 14

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Romans Chapter 13

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Romans Chapter 12

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Romans Chapter 11

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Romans Chapter 10

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Romans Chapter 9

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Romans Chapter 8

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Romans Chapter 7

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Romans Chapter 6

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Romans Chapter 5

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Romans Chapter 4

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Romans Chapter 3

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Romans Chapter 2

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Romans Chapter 1

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Review of The Historical Jesus: Five Views

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The Tireless Trudge and the Caravan of Contentment

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Review of Grant Osborne's Matthew Commentary

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Review of J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig (editors), The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology

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Suffering, Deformity, and Curse

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Some Thoughts about the Future and Topics of Study

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Review of David Berlinski's The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions

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Review of Keith Yandell and Harold Netland's Buddhism: A Christian Exploration and Appraisal

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Should You Live Your "Best" Life Now? Three Reasons Why a Life of Wealth, Luxury, and Extravagant Experiences Is Contrary to the Will of God,

Paul considers whether a lifestyle of wealth, luxury, and extravagant experiences is compatible with what the Bible teaches.

Text Publication: Monday, February 13, 2023

Text Changes/Revisions: September 11, 2021

It is a popular belief, promoted by a variety of prosperity gospel preachers, that God wants you to have the "best" life now that you can. He wants you to have a life of wealth and luxury and health, to live life to the fullest and to experience the best things that you can while you are on this earth. To the fortunate few, that of course involves big houses, nice cars, luxurious resorts, weekend getaways, designer clothes, equisite cuisine and fine drinks, and lounging around in upscale restaurants. For the many others less fortunate, however, they don't quite make it that far, but that is what God wants for them (so it is thought) and accordingly they are at least to aspire to those heights of wealth, luxury, comfort, and ease.

The question that I would like us to consider has to do with this way of thinking. Suppose that God were to give you the choice to have all these things. Suppose you were offered the means to live a life of luxury and wealth, and to experience the finest foods, drinks, vacations, and exotic locales and resorts that money can buy. Should you say yes? Perhaps it is not always God's will for everyone to be healthy and rich and live what many deem a great life, but let us suppose that you actually had the opportunity to live just such a life. Suppose you were a famous sports star, or started a phenomenally successful business. So the choice is yours to live a lavish lifestyle, to wine and dine at the finest restaurants in the world, to travel to the most beautiful destinations on earth, and to experience things that most people would only dream of. So you can live your "best" life now. But that you can live such a life does not answer the question of whether you should live such a life. That is what I want us to consider. Supposing that you can live a lifestyle of wealth and luxury and extravagant experiences, should you?

The clear answer of the Bible is no. The answer is no, not because riches in themselves are wrong, but because seeking to live a lifestyle of wealth, luxury, and extravagant experiences on earth is contrary to the teaching of Christ, contrary to the purpose for which you were created and for which the entire universe exists, and contrary to the mindset of Christ and the example of Christ.

Seeking to Live a Life of Wealth, Luxury, and Extravagant Experiences Is Contrary to the Teaching of Christ

Let us start with the first reason that seeking to live a lifestyle of wealth, luxury, and extravagant experiences is against God's will for your life and thus wrong: it is contrary to the teaching of Christ. In Luke 12:16-21, Jesus recounts what is often called the parable of the rich fool. He says this:

The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.

Jesus here clearly condemns the man of the parable who sought to store up wealth for himself so that he would get to live an easy life, and to eat, drink, and be merry. God considers such a man a fool and promises him that the very night after he committed himself to that lifestyle, his life would be taken from him. Instead of seeking to live such a life of ease and wealth, Jesus indicates that one should be rich towards God with wealth. To put it plainly, God condemns the man who seeks to live a life of wealth, luxury, comfort, and ease.

In addition to this parable of the barns Jesus elsewhere said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Mt. 19:24 // Luke 18:25) I admit to being somewhat unsure about how to interpret this passage given that I am not convinced that he was intending to say that anyone with a large bank account is thereby barred from entering the kingdom of God. If a billionaire wrote me a ten million dollar check tomorrow, would I thus be barred from entering the kingdom? I am not convinced that it was the intention of Jesus to say that I would be, but whether the statement is or is not hyperbole, we still have to do justice to the text and not just fit what he said into our preconceived notions of what Jesus would condemn and would not condemn.

Further, on a practical level, how does one even define rich? Compared to much of the world, most Americans are rich. And yet many Americans consider the rich to be some other group of people with more money than they have. There is no easily discernable black or white line for what constitutes "rich". So even if we took the statement literally and not as hyperbole, at best we would be left with a vague idea of "rich" that does not actually tell us when somebody actually becomes rich.

At the same time, even if one thinks that the statement is hyperbole, the intention of Jesus was surely not to cause us to think that he was exaggerating and thus think that we can ignore the warning. If it was hyperbole, then whatever the intention of using hyperbole was, it must have included the desire to warn people against being "rich" (whatever that is) for the sake of their souls escaping damnation.

Still, granting that intention does not answer the question of just what counts as "rich". If we are unable to define what "rich" is, does that mean that we are off the hook from applying the statement of Jesus to ourselves? No, because the lack of a definition of what "rich" is does not stop us from finding the underlying principle behind the warning that Jesus gives when he says that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. In the particular case in which Jesus made the statement in Mt. 19:24, he had been approached by a rich young man who wanted to know what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus indicated that if the man wanted to have eternal life, he should obey the commandments, to which the young man asked, 'which ones?' Jesus then proceeded to list a number of them. The man said that he had obeyed them. (Mt. 19:20) It was at that point that Jesus told him that he lacked one thing. (Lk. 18:22) Jesus told him to sell all that he had and give to the poor, and he would have treasure in heaven. Jesus then says, "Then come and follow me". (Mt. 19:21 / Lk. 18:22)

I readily grant that this is a story about one individual. Not all believers are required to sell all their possessions. But, though the command to sell all that the rich man had does not apply generally to all Christians, what does apply beyond just this one person is the double principle that we are to be willing to give up all our possessions for the sake of Jesus and that we are to use for his glory whatever possessions we continue to posses. The latter part of this principle is merely a restatement of Paul's words in 1 Cor. 10:31 that "whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." That is, if you hold on to your possessions and don't sell them, hold on to them and use them for the glory of God. What prompted the statement that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God was this rich young man's unwillingness to give up everything he owned when Jesus told him to do so. That is, he was unwilling to use all he had as Jesus instructed, and for that, as long as he remained so unwilling, he would not enter the kingdom of God.

If you wanted a definition of what counts as "rich" so you can know if your bank account has become too big for you to be kept out of heaven, and so you can know how much you can have and use for your own gratification before you get into trouble, this principle that applies to all that you have is not good news. It means that you can have just pennies to your name and have the very same heart commitment that excludes rich people from the kingdom. What keeps rich people from entering the kingdom of heaven is that they fail in their heart's true response to this very question: are you committed to using every last thing you possess for the sake of Christ? If you are "poor", but you are unwilling to do whatever God would have you do with that little bit of money you have, your unwillingness, if persisted in, will keep you from entering the kingdom. What determines the eternal fate of the rich man, and indeed even the fate of the poor man, is not ultimately a matter of the size of his bank account, but whether his heart is committed to using all he has for the sake of Christ.

The same idea is basically expressed in different words in Luke 14:33, when Jesus says, "In the same way, any of you who do not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." The point here is not that the disciples of Jesus can not have possessions. On the cross, Jesus instructed his disciple to take the mother of Jesus as the disciple's mother, and that disciple took the mother of Jesus into his home. Apparently having a home did not disqualify him from being a disciple. The group of disciples had money, and other items. Paul had his parchments and scrolls and a cloak. (2 Tim. 4:13) The point of Luke 14:33 in our time is not whether one owns possessions, but what the purpose is for which one owns them and uses them.

Indeed, in order to best follow instructions that Jesus gave to his disciples, some possessions are necessary. At the least, one must provide for oneself now in order to provide for others in the future, so a part of loving others over time is generally to provide for oneself now. If right now you give away your home and all you have to others and then freeze to death homelesss in the cold of night, you won't be around to help others in years to come, nor will you be around to be a part of helping fulfill commands that Jesus gave to his church. Loving others requires having the resources to provide for your own sustenance. Continuing with that, it is prudent to have some amount of financial savings for unexpected expenses or expected limitations that could threaten that ability to love others effectively, such as unforeseen tragedies or the inability to do certain paid work as a result of old age or injury. Further, one has a special responsbility to one's own family, as Paul indicated when he stated that "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." (1 Tim. 5:8)

Even if one grants the foregoing admission that some amount of wealth is necessary to carry out the commands of Jesus, and concedes that what condemns a man is his unwillingness to use all he has for the sake of Christ, that leaves us with a question. If it is the willingness to use all one has for the sake of Christ that determines whether one enters the kingdom, a willingness that includes selling what one has if Jesus tells one to do so, why did Jesus not say that? Why did he instead say that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom? Why did he call out and target the rich specifically? If it is the heart that makes the difference, why did he call out an external characteristic and state that people with that characteristic would be condemned? This needs some type of explanation.

Given what I have said up to this point, the simplest and best explanation seems to be connecting the two dots we've already touched on. On the one hand, we've seen that what utlimately condemns the "rich" man is the unwillingness to use all he has for the sake of Christ. On the other hand, Jesus flat out condemns a broad class of people, the "rich". Putting those two together, we can surmise that for the "rich" to whom Jesus is referring, the accumulation of wealth has gone so far beyond what is needed for carrying out the instructions of Jesus and his mission that their wealth has become an external indicator that on the inside, the hearts of "rich" people are not willing to dedicate all that they have for the sake of Christ.

Here a "rich" person living in wealth and luxury might perhaps be tempted to say, 'Well, I do seek to use everything that I own for the sake of Christ, so I am fine. I don't need to worry about whether I will be excluded from the kingdom because of my wealth.' Unfortunately, while I have just emphasized that it is whether or not someone has this intention to use all one has for the sake of Christ that separates those who would be condemned from those who would enter the kingdom, the uncomfortable fact of the words of Jesus is that they judge the person based on his external "richness". They don't say, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a person who is not dedicated to using all that he has for my sake to enter the kingdom of God." The words of Jesus basically say that a "rich" man will not enter the kingdom.

What this targeting of the external characteristic of "richness" allows for is a situation in which a person's accumulation and possession of wealth contradicts what that person says and even believes about himself. A prime example of this type of situation in which what a person believes about himself is mistaken can be found in those persons in Mt. 7 who thought that they were saved when they were not. There, Jesus indicates that many will come to him on that day and call him Lord and will say, "'did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then [he] will tell them plainly, 'Away from me, you evildoers!'" (Mt. 7:22-23)

This passage is a part of a thread of Biblical teaching that emphasizes the idea that a person can say or believe one thing about himself and yet show by his actions that he does not believe what he says or that what he believes about himself was false. His actions deny what his words say. In Titus 1:16, Paul says,"They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him". When speaking to Pharisees and teachers of the law, Jesus says that the prophet "was right when he prophesied about you: These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men." (Mt. 15:7-9)

So one can not simply trust that what a person says about himself and his commitment to Christ is a true reflection of his heart, nor can we correctly assume that we really are saved from our sins just because we believe that we are saved. We can be mistaken about ourselves, and, not having access to the internal mental and spiritual lives of others, we can definitely be mistaken about others if we believe that certain people really are born again when they claim to be Christians.

If one moves beyond just words, the Bible is clear that in some cases it is possible to determine what a person's heart is by examining their external life. In Mt. 7:17-20, Jesus said:

Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Here the idea is that the exterior fruit of a tree tells us whether the state of the tree that we can not see is good or bad. We thus have these two Biblical truths: that one can tell the nature of a person's heart by the fruit of his life and that his actions can be sufficient to tell the true condition of his heart even when that internal condition is contrary to what he says it is or contrary to what the person even believes about himself. These two truths are important. They help explain why it is that Paul said to "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves." (2 Cor. 13:5) If it were not possible for you to be mistaken about whether you really are saved, if what you believed about whether you really seek to use all that you own for the sake of Christ can't be wrong, then these verses of scripture would be false, or at least pointless.

But these Biblical passages are not false. Because we can be in error in our belief about whether we are saved, it is important to examine our hearts by scripture to test whether we really are saved. Because we can be mistaken about whether we really do seek to use all that we have for the cause of Christ, we should test what we say or believe about ourselves against scripture about that very question. Simply saying that I really do seek to use all that I have for the sake of Christ is not sufficient. We have to ask, "What does scripture say about whether I really do seek to use all that I have for Christ?"

Against the backdrop of this question, the fact that Jesus appealed to the external measure of being "rich" as the defining characteristic of whether or not someone can enter the kingdom provides us with an external test for whether or not we really do seek to use all that we have for Christ. Thus, it may be dangerous and perhaps wrong to dismiss the external test of being "rich" simply on the basis that we think or claim that we are seeking to use all that we have for the sake of Christ. Scripture judges us, and ignoring our great wealth simply because we think that are using all we have for Christ might be refusing to let Scripture serve that role. If the response of James to the idea that one can have a real, living faith without works was to say "show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by what I do", (James 2:17-18) perhaps the words of Jesus would be fairly extrapolated to say, "Show me your faith with wealth and luxury, and I will show you my faith by the sacrificial giving of what I own". Whether that is so or not, if we are mistaken about our true attitude towards the possessions that we have, that attitude will eventually be exposed, possibly at our peril. Jesus will return to the earth and judge the entire world according to his own words, including his indication that the "rich" (whatever that means) would more easily go through the eye of a needle than enter the kingdom.

So, if we can't avoid the condemnation that the "rich" will not enter the kingdom on the excuse that we think that we are seeking to use all we have for the sake of Christ, then, since God desires that all be saved, his will for believers must be that they do not seek to be "rich". If we were to come up with some justifications for unusual situations, the point would still stand that in general it is not God's will for his children for them to seek to be rich, or live a life of wealth, luxury, and extravagant experience.

But are there some justifications for unusual situations? Are there situations in which someone is rich but their riches will not stop them from entering the kingdom? I've already pointed out that providing for oneself is a necessary prerequisite to providing for others, and to Paul's words indicating that someone must provide for his own household and relatives. But whatever amount of wealth is needed to achieve that, is there something that would justify having further wealth?

The most obvious answer to this is obedience to the commands of Christ. If his commands required that we have a certain amount of wealth in order to fulfill those commands, and that wealth was indeed being used to obey those commands, this would not be condemned but rather commended. The teaching of Jesus is consistent, so what is necessary to obey one command is necessarily not prohibited by another command. So however much wealth one has, if that wealth is actually being used to fulfill the commandments of Jesus, the possession of that wealth will not be condemned.

If we are going to claim that we are seeking to use our possessions for the sake of Christ, then we should be following what Jesus told us to be doing with the resources he has given us. It is here where we run into a flat contradiction between what Jesus commanded and the lifestyles of wealth and luxury and extravagant experiences that many prosperity preachers would have us pursue.

So what was it that he instructed his disciples to be doing with what he gave to them? Outside of the care of oneself and one's relatives, Jesus was very clear how his disciples were to use their resources for his sake, and for now we can focus on two such emphases. On a broad level, the claim of Jesus that the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself can justify the control of large amounts of capital and the retention of various possessions provided that such capital and possessions are used to fulfill that commandment. Here, for example, is where the successful businessman who seeks to use his wealth to employ thousands of people and to benefit the world at large with the products his company produces might have at his command a massive amount of financial and non-financial assets. However, control of that capital and those assets is not the same as a lifestyle of wealth, luxury, and extravagant experiences, so the aim of loving others through that business and its tremendous amount of capital does not require, and therefore does not justify, that lifestyle. The command to love one's neighbor as one loves himself also opens the way for holding onto possessions so that one can use them to provide hospitality or aid for others.

While the command to love one's neighbor as oneself might provide a reason to hold onto various posessions, the use of this command in this way needs to be constrained by other commands and emphases in the teaching of Jesus and in the Bible more broadly. Here we come to the two emphases I mentioned above. One of those emphases is the teaching of Jesus that we are to help the poor and suffering. We see this in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. The rich man lived his life in luxury and indulgence while at his gate was a beggar named Lazarus whose wounds were licked by dogs. The rich man did not use his resources to help that man in his poverty, and eventually the poor man died. In view of the rich man's focus on his own life and its comfort and pleasures, to the point that he gave no heed to helping the poor in their needs, his destiny was hell. Whether the parable was hypothetical or a reflection of a real case, its point about the eternal destiny of rich men ignoring the poor stands.

Jesus also instructed his disciples to go into the world and make disciples of all nations in Mt. 28:16-20. It is the eternal fate of people that ought to be a pre-eminent concern of believers everywhere, one that takes precedence even over poverty and suffering on this earth. Suffering on earth can be horrendous, but suffering an unending torment in eternity as just punishment for one's sins is incomparably worse. And so, as Piper has rightly indicated, Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.

If we were only to limit ourselves to just these two emphases in the teaching of Jesus, missions and mercy, seeking for the sake of Christ to see the salvation of souls and the alleviation of suffering and poverty in his name, we would have no end of the financial resources needed in this life, and this is where the accumulation of wealth is an effective refusal of the rich to follow the teaching of Jesus. Of course, it is not only the rich who can do this. Any one of us in our decisions can effectively show, through the particular decisions that we make, a greater love for things of this world than a commitment to obeying these two mandates of Jesus.

What happens with the rich is that the great accumulation of wealth has so far gone beyond the needs for the present and future provision of themselves and their families that the refusal to use some of those resources in the present for the needs of others - for missions or for alleviation of suffering or for other causes that would glorify Christ - shows that they are not committed to using all they own for the sake of Christ, and thus that they do not have Christ as their ultimate treasure and love, that they have never been born again, and are thus still in their sins.

Seeking to Live a Life of Wealth, Luxury, and Extravagant Experiences is Contrary to the Purpose for Which We Were Created

While missions' aim to save souls from eternal torment is indeed great news of the gospel, merely escaping hell is only part of the good news. Here is where we come to a second reason why it is wrong to seek to live a life of wealth and luxury and extravagant experiences if we have the opportunity to do so. Seeking to live a life of riches and wealth is wrong because it is contrary to the purpose for which we and the entire universe were created. The purpose of our existence is to glorify Christ. That is why we human beings and the entire universe were created; we were made to glorify God in Christ. This purpose of creation is in perfect harmony with the good news that God saves sinners. But while people being saved from the eternal wrath of God for their sins is indeed part of the gospel, the real good news of Christianity is that we can be reconciled with God and thus glorify him as redeemed sinners who delight in Him as the most precious, worthy treasure in all the world. The person who has come to know Christ as that treasure seeks to expend his life and all his resources in a way that Christ would be glorified more through other people coming to have him as that treasure.

If the purpose for which you exist is to glorify God, how would this be in conflict with living a lifestyle of wealth and luxury and extravagant experiences? On first glance, many people might fail to see how these two would be connected. Further, one might make a case from scripture's depiction of the life to come that a life of wealth and luxury and extravagant experiences is actually what God wants for his children. I do grant that there is nothing wrong with luxury, wealth, and extravagant experiences in themselves, and for proof of that, we can look to the experience of the saints in the new heaven and earth of the world to come in which they will have glorified resurrected bodies that will be free of sickness and disease. To be less verbose, let's call that experience of the saints in the world to come the experience of the saints "in glory". Those saints in glory will have the entire new earth as their inheritance, a place in which they will have wealth and luxury and experiences beyond what any person today has. There will be no sin there in glory, and no sin in the saints' magnificant riches and luxuries and experiences that they will have in glory. So obviously there is no inherent conflict between glorifying God on the one hand, and enjoying luxury, wealth, and extravagant experiences on the other.

Further, Paul stated in 1 Timothy 4:4-5 that "everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer." Whether someone finds himself on the beach or at home, he can give thanks for the majesty and beauty of God's creation, and for the provision that he has been afforded. All of this created world - even a field of grass or a simple tree, but also the beaches of the Bahamas or the Rocky Mountains or the Grand Canyon - reveal the glory of God, and so it could rightly be said that the person who wishes to leave his home and experience those places is wanting to see one aspect of God's glory. And provided that the person gives thanks to God, there is nothing wrong in itself with that.

However, the qualifier "in itself" here is important, as is the word "inherent" in the statement that there is no inherent conflict between glorifying God on the one hand, and enjoying luxury, wealth, and extravagant experiences on the other. In contrast to heaven, luxuries and wealth of this world are not experienced by themselves. There is something different about this world that sets it apart from the wealth, luxury, and extravagant experiences that saints will have in glory. Unlike here, in glory there will be no unredeemed persons who need to hear the gospel and be saved. The world will not be cursed to suffering as this one is, nor have the tremendous poverty that this world has, or have the limited resources to the extent that this one does.

Those differences taken together are what change the moral calculus about wealth and extravagant experiences in this world. We will not have the opportunity in glory to give our lives and resources for the salvation of the lost. We will not be able to imitate Christ who deprived himself of the glories of heaven so that others might be saved from spiritual poverty, for there will be no more spiritually poor in glory for whom we would have opportunity to divest ourselves of material resources for their benefit. We live in a world in which there are sinners who will spend eternity in hell if they do not hear the gospel.

The availability of these limited opportunities to glorify Christ and to help others means that our financial decisions in this life have a moral and theological significance that they would not have in the perfect world to come. In this broken and cursed world in which we live, our financial decisions show whether the primary aim of our hearts is to glorify Christ through loving him and others, or to gratify and exalt ourselves. A man's decision to buy that luxury car over buying the budget model and using the price difference to fund world missions is usually because a man values the comfort and societal prestige of the luxury car than he values Christ's name being glorified in the conversion of sinners. Purchasing expensive designer clothes often reflects a woman's preference for her own beauty, appeal, and social status over the alleviation of poverty or suffering that the exorbitant markup of the high end name brand might have funded. In both these hypothetical cases, the outward purchase of luxury items reveals a heart that does not love Christ in the moment of the purchase as much as it loves itself.

Of course, what counts as a "luxury" item or an "exorbitant markup" is just as vague as the earlier consideration of what counts as being "rich". Who is to say? Still, there will always be an either/or trade-off when we decide between spending money on our own gratification instead of giving that money to the ministries of missions and mercy that would glorify Christ in a way that our own gratification would not. Seeking to live a lifestyle of wealth, luxury, and extravagant experiences is just to commit ourselves in principle to consistently elevating our own gratification through created things and earthly experiences above the glorification of Christ. It is consequently antithetical to the purpose for which we were created. It is also at least in part the essence of the heresy of the prosperity gospel, for it encourages the hearer to treasure the world more than the one who made it.

While the differences between wealth in a cursed world and wealth in glory are sufficient to forestall concluding that the innocent experience of wealth and luxury in glory justifies wealth and luxury in this life, there still is Paul's statement that "everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer." Does that mean that it is okay to live a life of wealth and luxury as long as we are thankful for what we have?

No, it does not. In its context, this passage is not about wealth. It has to do with marriage and eating of food. In the two preceding verses (1 Tim. 4:2-3), Paul says the following:

Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.

This reference to receiving with thanksgiving ties verse three to the clause of verse four "if it is received with thanksgiving". The immediate context makes it clear that this has to do with eating of food. It is not about wealth and riches. So the point still stands that our choosing to live a lifestyle of wealth and riches, or even just seeking to have that lifestyle, is a refusal to pursue the glory of Christ through using much of the wealth in the tasks of missions and mercy that would result in him being glorified in the lives of those who were helped. In that sense, seeking to live that lifestyle is contrary to the purpose for which we were created.

But there is a different sense in which living a lifestyle of wealth and riches, or even seeking to do so, is a refusal to seek the glorification of Christ, and it has to do with the fact that a lifestyle of wealth and riches undercuts the believability of a person's testimony that Christ is supremely glorious and to be loved more than the entire world. If we look at the book of Job, God asks Satan if he has considered his servant Job. Satan's response is to say:

Does Job fear you for nothing? Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. (From Book of Job 1:9-11)

Satan's accusation about Job was basically that the reason that Job served God was because God gave him a good life. Job supposedly did not serve God because he loved God for who he is. He loved the wealth and luxury and created things that God gave to him, and because God gave him those things that he actually loved, he thus loved God. He loved him in the same way that one might love a butler who dutifully performs what is asked of him and procures for someone all he wants or asks. If that were true, then the thinking was that taking away all those earthly material blessings would show that Job never truly loved God. He only loved the stuff that God gave to him, and so, if God would take away that stuff, he would stop loving God.

God did permit that the sons and daughters of Job were killed, and that he lost most of his great wealth, and lost much of his health. It was then that others around him were able to see that Satan's theory was false. It was not true that Job only loved God because God gave to him the wealth and other material things that he actually loved. Even when God took those things away, Job still worshiped God and praised Him. After losing his sons and daughters and most of his wealth, Job said:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.
(Book of Job 1:21)

After it was clear that Job still served the Lord after losing his sons and daughters and much of his wealth, even this was not enough to dispel the accusation of skepticism that Job did not really love God for who He is. After God says to Satan about Job that "he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason" (Book of Job 2:3), Satan responds by saying the following:

Skin for skin! A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face. (Book of Job 2:4-5)

God then permits that Satan afflict the body of Job with "painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head." (Book of Job 2:7) At that point, the wife of Job tells him to curse God and die, but he replies, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" The text then says, "In all this, Job did not sin in what he said." (Book of Job 2:10)

Notice that even after Job praised God despite losing his sons and daughters and much of his wealth, Satan still entertained a skeptical accusation that Job really did not love God. The point to be taken from this example is that others will not believe our testimony that Christ is supremely glorious, or that it will be much harder for them to do so, if there is an alternative interpretation for why we love God. For unbelievers who are in love with this world and who are blind to the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, the accusation that Satan made of Job is the same accusation that holds them back from believing our claim that Christ is more valuable and more glorious than the entirety of all that we can own and experience in this world. If our lives are marked by wealth, luxury, and extravagant experiences, unbelievers will say of us that the reason we love Christ is because he gives us abundant blessings.

This is where our having a lifestyle of wealth, luxury, and extravagant experiences, or even seeking to have such a lifestyle, is a refusal to fulfill the purpose for which we were created. We were created to glorify Christ, and while we live in wealth and luxury, the world will not believe our testimony that Christ is supremely glorious and valuable. They will think that we love him only as a means to the created things that we supposedly love just as much as the unbeliever does. What we love in our hearts is no different than what the unbeliever loves; unbelievers just use a different butler to get the same thing. The means are different, but (so the accusation goes) the love of this world over the love of the creator is there in both the heart of the believer and unbeliever.

Lest one thinks that Satan's accusation does not reflect what the world thinks, or is not an accurate prognosis of what is really going on in the hearts of unbelievers when they evaluate believers' claim that God is more valuable and glorious than the things of this world, it may be good to consider that Jesus basically agrees with what Satan says. In Matthew chapter 6, He gives three examples of how religious leaders of his day used God in order to get the earthly rewards that they really loved. He counseled that when one does one's acts of "righteousness", one should not do them before men to be seen by them. If we do, he said, we will have no reward from the Father in heaven. (Mt. 6:1)

He then gives three examples - prayer, fasting, and giving to the poor - which religious leaders did publicly in such a manner that people knew that the religious leaders were doing these things. What those men really loved was the public prestige of being viewed as religious. When they prayed, they were using God as a tool to get what they wanted, which was the admiration and praise of men. They wanted men to think highly of them, and in that culture, religious men were highly regarded. So these men talked to God not because they loved God, but because they wanted praise from people who were tricked into thinking that these men loved God. When they performed the religious acts of giving to the poor and fasting, religion was merely a means to the end of public prestige that gentiles also desired. Gentiles just sometimes pursued it in a different way.

What was true of these outwardly religious men is true of people who love God because of the material possessions and blessings that he gives them; to use Paul's words, they think that "godliness is a means to financial gain". (1 Tim. 6:1) Unbelievers are not blind to the fact that this happens frequently among religious people, and so it remains a viable, and in their eyes likely, explanation for why rich people profess to serve God: "Those rich people do not love God. They love what God gives them." As long as you live a lifestyle of riches, wealth, and extravagant experiences, or profess that you strive to do so, unbelievers will not believe your claim that God is more glorious and valuable than all the wealth, luxury, and extravagant experiences of this world. God is thus less glorified than if you had opted to live a simple, modest life. Your living or seeking to live a life of wealth and luxury and extravagant experiences is accordingly a refusal to fulfill the purpose of glorifying God for which you were created.

Are vacations and extravagant experiences wrong?

Before moving on to the third reason why a lifestyle of wealth, luxury, and extravagant experiences is contrary to the will of God for the lives of his children, perhaps some words about vacations are worth saying. I have repeatedly referred to 'extravagant experiences', a category in which I would include vacations, and I have not defined that phrase in light of how many and varied are the experiences that it can encompass. For now, I would like to pause and consider perhaps the biggest category of extravagant experiences, and that is vacations.

As family considerations can change the situation significantly, for the moment let's just consider a young single man contemplating the decision to go for a fancy vacation that includes a cruise to various tropical destinations. He has only one life to live, he thinks, and so he is going to make it the best life he can. He is not going to miss out on experiencing some of the most beautiful destinations on earth and on the fun, revelry, and good times that a cruise vacation would give him.

This is just the sort of "extravagant experience" to which I referred earlier, and the point I made earlier about the difference between the experience in the glory of the world to come versus the experience of saints in this world applies here. There is nothing wrong with wanting to experience the warm weather and sandy beaches of a Caribbean island, and the saint who has the opportunity to experience that island can give thanks to God and glorify him for creating such a beautiful place. If there are oceans and beaches in glory, that is what saints will be doing for eternity.

But the fact remains that our experience in this world is different from the experience of saints in glory in that our world is marked by suffering and poverty that can be relieved in the name of Jesus through our financial resources. Our world is filled with unbelievers who will go to hell if they do not hear the gospel and put their faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. If the money for that cruise vacation were instead used on missions or in the cause of evangelism, the world would receive the message that the donor cares more about Christ being glorified through even one additional sinner coming to know Christ as his savior than the donor cares about whatever pleasure he might otherwise have had in the Bahamas or on a cruise ship.

God wants us to have hearts that so mourn over the suffering and poverty of the world, and that so love the lost souls whose eternal destiny hangs on what happens in this life, that we would deny ourselves the pleasures of a cruise vacation for the sake of Christ and give the money that we would have spent on that vacation for the evangelization of the lost and for the reduction of poverty and suffering in the name of Jesus. Our choices with our wealth on this earth can and do affect how much Christ is glorified or is not glorified in our lives and the lives of others, and those choices that glorify him less are accordingly contrary to the purpose for which we were created. The single man spending his money on a cruise vacation so he can experience the best life that he can is a choice that will result in Christ being glorified less, not more. It is thus contrary to God's will for that man's life.

The goal here is not to put rules on single believers against going on vacations. It is to say that, for the heart that prefers to spend exorbitant amounts of money on a tropical cruise vacation when that money could be used to glorify Christ in missions or in relieving poverty or suffering in the name of Jesus, the loves and affections of that heart are already so contrary to what God desires that the heart is not glorifying Christ. This is what the apostle Paul appears to have in mind when he says that "the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives." (1 Tim. 5:6) The downstream effect of a heart so disordered in its loves is a choice that results in Christ being glorified less in the world, or not at all, which is contrary to the purpose for which that person and all the universe were created.

For the single believer, this refusal to deny himself a tropical vacation for the sake of Christ is made more egregious by the fact that the entire new earth in glory will be the inheritance of God's children. The saint will have all of time in which he would be able to lie on a tropical beach and bask in the light of God and of the sun while overlooking a large body of water. Foregoing a cruise vacation is simply postponing until a later time the earthly pleasure that the saint is sure to have some day in much greater and more glorious measure. So the question is not between having that experience of a tropical beach or not having it. It is a question of delaying that experience of self-gratification now so that Christ might be glorified more in this life and so that others might be saved and thus also get to have that experience in glory with the believer in the next life. What if there are sinners who do not hear the gospel and thus who do not experience that tropical beach in glory for eternity because the young man spent his money on a cruise vacation now instead of using that money for missions?

Yes, someone might say, but that is just a what-if question. Can we really know that spending money on a cruise will result in one less soul being saved? Well, we can know that in general God uses means to accomplish his ends on earth. That includes his using financial resources to fund the missions of evangelism and of the alleviation of suffering for the sake of Christ. We can also observe that those who are actually doing the work of evangelism and who are being used to bring people to faith in Christ can't attribute any one specific dollar given to them as the dollar that was critical to the salvation of a particular person. Those people in ministry must live and eat and pay rent and provide for their own necessities as a prerequisite for their ministry. The same is true for ministry organizations. If the young man's cruise money goes to paying rent for the evangelist, that rent money is still contributing to the final result that people come to faith in Christ through that evangelist's preaching. It is accordingly misguided to ask whether the donation of that money for the cruise will save a soul. The right question to ask is whether the ministry to whom that money would be given would use that money and other money together in such a way that souls would be saved from hell.

There are plenty of ministries for which the answer to that question is yes, which brings me to the choice that the potential cruise-goer must face. He can either delay his gratification now and experience it in glory with an even greater degree of joy because of seeing other saved sinners there with him as a result of his sacrifice, or he can experience that gratification now at the cost of others not being saved or their continuing in the suffering or poverty that his funds could have ameliorated. That's his choice. Is he willing to delay his limited pleasure for a small time for the sake of the eternal salvation of souls and the glorification of Christ? If he chooses not to do so, he does not glorify Christ in that decision, or at least he does not do so to the extent that he should.

The preceding analysis could be applied to various purchase decisions, big and small, expensive and not so expensive, and I don't intend to say that any and all expenditures of resources for something that gratifies us are accordingly a failure to glorify Christ. Many expenditures are such failures, and I have likely failed in this respect in some of my own purchase decisions in the past. Because this train of thought is applicable to purchase decisions across the board, both big and small, attempting to make rules based on specific quantities opens the gates to an unending amount of rules that do not change the buyer's heart if followed and rules that might often forbid a decision made with a right heart. In a case such as this in which concrete rules would be unhelpful, it is easiest to pick out an extreme example, as I have done here, and contend that such an example is an indication of a heart whose loves are so disordered that it does not glorify Christ as it should. More examples could be found, but many of them would stem from situations of wealth, luxury, or extravagant experiences like the cruise vacation example I have given here.

I have also intentionally limited what I have said above to the situation of a person who is single. Vacations or trips that are intended to bless one's wife or children are in a different category, because the intention in such cases may be to benefit and love other(s), with the vacation or experience being a sort of gift to them. We are called to love others, especially our own family, and so a man might choose to expend significant amounts of money in his laudable aim of loving his wife and children. So it is not the case that vacations or trips away are necessarily bad, even if they require some expenditure of money.

Despite that acknowledgement, even in a family situation, it is still important to consider the question of what effect the expenditures have or what message they send to those whom they are intended to bless. If the purpose is to bless one's children, then too many vacations might pose the same danger as one faces when one gives a child too many gifts. It provides the child with the temptation to feel entitled to such things rather than receiving them with thanksgiving as gifts that are not owed. Further, the head of a house who seeks to bless his family with material gifts or trips should also consider that in some cases he might bless them more by using those funds for the sake of missions or mercy as a testimony to his own family that the glorification of Christ in those causes is worth more than the material possessions or experiences they might have otherwise received.

The question that the father and husband must face is this: What does his decision tell his wife and his kids about the value of Christ in relation to the value of the world? It may be that a husband, having considered these two concerns, may still in good conscience make the choice to bless his family or his wife with a vacation. Such a decision made for the benefit of others is not necessarily wrong, but at the least, the husband should not just automatically assume that any expenditure in this area will have an overall beneficial effect on his family.

Further, the sabbath principle instituted at the time of creation and later codified in the Mosaic law also limits how far one takes the reasoning given above. God explicitly mandated that his people would rest from work every week as a way to bless them. On top of it being an opportunity to devote time specifically to him that a typical work day might not allow, the sabbath was to give his people time for refreshment and recuperation. If God instituted one day a week to give his people time of rest and refreshment, and time to devote to him, there may be a principle in the weekly sabbath that extends beyond a day off once a week to taking an extended period of time off because of the weariness of work. If there is such a principle, it might even go so far as getting away to another place to escape from a personally draining environment. That, to put it differently, would be a vacation. Aside from its purpose of glorifying God, one purpose of the sabbath is that God's people might have rest from their work, which permits them to later take up their work with refreshed spirits. If a vacation is intended to provide the effect of the vacationer having a stronger relationship with his savior and returning to his work of serving Christ in his profession with renewed vigor and strength, there might be some justification for the trip.

In light of this, though I picked the example of a tropical cruise vacation as what I consider to be an example of a single person failing to glorify God as he should, it matters very much what the vacation expenditure is for. Someone wanting to love his wife and kids might innocently seek to bless them with the experience of some of God's amazing creation through a cross country trip or a cruise vacation. A person exhausted with work and the demands of his life might want to get away so that he would have time with the Lord and would find rest and refreshment from an environment that is dragging him down.

In addition to loving others and seeking rest and refreshment, one might argue that these two reasons are not an exhaustive list of what would justify large expenditures for extravagant experiences, and that there is a third reason that can be given. Paul speaks about God in Romans 1:20 and says:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Here Paul indicates that creation testifies to God's attributes. If that is so, then even the beaches on a cruise vacation testify to the glory of God, and the person who spends money to see them is spending money in order to see the glory of God. How could that be wrong? To start, I grant that wanting to glorify God through seeing his glory in his created world is not wrong. In itself, neither is it wrong to pay money to see some part of that glory, provided that one gives glory to God for the experience. If the purpose for a trip is that we would know God better through seeing his glory in the created world, and thus be encouraged to glorify him more through that acquaintance with his glory, this would be commendable.

Here we can return back to the single individual contemplating going on a cruise vacation. If we supposed that he were working eighty hours a week in the concrete jungle of a loud, major metropolitan city, the very lifelessness of his surroundings in regard to nature might instill in him a yearning to get away from that mass of buildings to experience the glory of God in his creation. Going on a tropical cruise might be one such option. If his noisy and concrete surroundings push him to leave where he lives and go somewhere else that he might glorify God in the enjoyment and rest of a beautiful natural environment that God created, why not have that glory surround him on a boat in the warm air of the tropics than find it in some other natural environment? I am at least open to thinking that it might be possible for a cruise in a situation like this to be justified, and if it were, then even in the case of the single man going on a tropical vacation, one can not just automatically assume that the trip is wrong. The question must be asked what the trip is for.

Still, it may also be true, and in many cases likely is true, that the pursuit of extravagant experiences such as the tropical vacation betrays a heart that does not find its pleasure in its creator as much as it does in the creation itself. And though they might not do it in practice as frequently as unbelievers, even believers can make a decision to spend large amounts of money in pursuit of the gratification of their own desires over the well-being of others in such trips. Such decisions do not glorify Christ as they should, and so are contrary to the purpose for which we were created.

With this, we come to three cautions about using one or more of these exceptions as a way to rationalize the decision to spend money for a vacation. The first caution harkens back to the observation that one's actions may contradict what one says or purports to believe. There is a very big difference between seeking to glorify God through seeing his glory in the world he has created, and seeking to serve our love of the world through that glory. If we return to what Paul says in the first chapter of Romans, there he says:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. (Romans 1:21-25)

Notice what Paul here says of these people who exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images. They worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator. Such idolaters loved the glory of God in the world around them. The problem was that they did not love the creator of that world. For a heart that does not love God, the desire to see his glory in the natural world at some vacation destination testifies to his greatness and magnificence in what he has made while at the same dishonoring him by refusing to acknowledge and love the greatness and magnificence of who He is. However much an unbeliever's admiration of God's work in creation might glorify Him, he is not glorified in the heart and life of the person who does not love Him for who He is. It is in accord with this that Hebrews says that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6) and that Paul says that what does not come from faith is sin. (Rom. 14:23)

From what has just been said, it seems reasonable to conclude that in so far as a believer does not treasure God for who He is, he fails to glorify and honor God fully in the experience that the believer has of God's glory in the created world, whether that is in the experience of nature in his everyday life or in the experience of a far off tourist destination. If the justification that a person has for a vacation is that he would glorify God through seeing God's glory in the vacation's destination, does this justification match the rest of the believer's life? If the ostensible reason for wanting to sit out on a tropical beach is to glorify God through enjoyment of and pleasure in his creation, do we also seek to experience God's glory in the other forms in which he has manifested his glory and has manifested it to a far greater degree?

One way in which his glory is revealed is through his own presence in times of solitary prayer. If we spend no time alone with the Lord in prayer and yet say that the reason for wanting some trip is to glorify him through beholding his glory in nature, our spending no time with him shows that we are not really seeking to glorify him in the vacation. Putting aside prayer, his glory is also revealed to a far greater degree in his Word, even more so than it is in nature. How much time is the would-be vacationer spending reading the Bible? If the answer is none, then it seems inconsistent to say that the aim in the vacation is to glorify God through experiencing his handiwork in nature. A better explanation might be that the person in question, being enslaved to the flesh and in love with the world, loves the creation and does not love its creator.

Going even further, the caution against seeking to use the experience of God's glory as a rationale for a vacation is not merely whether we are trying to see his glory in the places in which we can find it to an even greater degree than in nature. It is also whether we are actually seeking to glorify him in our lives through obedience to his commandments. If there is sin from which we have not repented, or we have wronged our neighbor and not sought his forgiveness, we are not seeking God's glory in the decision to spend thousands of dollars on a vacation to go see some part of his creation. If our desire was to glorify God through enjoyment of Him in his creation, which is the supposed reason for the vacation, we would also seek to glorify him through obeying what he has commanded. So the first question to ask when offering the desire to glorify him through enjoyment of his creation as the reason for wanting a vacation is whether we are in fact seeking his glory through obedience to the commandments he has already given. Are we doing that?

The second caution here is to consider whether the nature of the vacation actually matches the reason that is given for it. If the reason for a vacation to a tropical beach in Malaysia is to see God's glory there, and we lived on the coast of Miami beach, there is little or no difference between the experience we would have on Miami beach and the experience we would have on the beach in Malaysia. The cost of flying to and staying in a location on the other side of the world has to be weighed against how much God would be glorified in giving the money of the Malaysia trip to support a faithful missionary, for example, or to supporting a child through a ministry that provides food, education and Biblical teaching to poverty stricken children. In this scenario, a staycation in Miami beach with the excess funds given to one of these ministries would be justifiable in a way that the Malaysia trip would not.

What should be considered here is what the alternatives are for being able to experience the same or similar aspect of God's glory in his creation. Or, if one alternative permits us to experience his glory in nature to a greater degree but only moderately so, is whatever extra measure of his glory that we might experience in the more expensive vacation sufficiently large that it would offset whatever glory he might receive if we had chosen the cheaper option and used the price difference to support the work of missions or the alleviation of suffering or poverty in the name of Christ?

The third and final caution here is that, even if we were able to justify a vacation on the grounds that it would permit us to glorify God in the enjoyment of his creation, we have good examples in the lives of Jesus and of Paul in which they were willing to deprive themselves or be cursed for the sake of others. Prior to Paul, Jesus himself willingly accepted that the wrath of God would be laid on him and he be cut off from the glory of the Father so that sinners might be saved from their sins. The apostle Paul wished that, if it were possible, he would be cut off from the glory of God if it meant that his fellow Jews were to be saved (Romans 9:3). After talking about food sacrified to idols, Paul also said, "Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall". (1 Cor. 8:13) Paul was willing to forego his right to eat certain food for the benefit of others; if a specific vacation were legitimate, the same principle can be applied such that one would decide to forego the right one has to go on vacation for the benefit of others.

Assuming the ordinary experience of God's glory in the world around us, for which no vacation is required, all else that the believer would need to remain faithful to God and glorify Him can be found in the hearing or reading of God's Word and the presence of Christ through the indwelling of his Spirit. We can not say that we need this or that vacation in order to glorify Christ or in order for our faith to survive. He gives grace where grace is needed.

It is consequently open to us to adopt the same attitude as the apostle Paul and follow the example of Christ, who were both willing that they would be cut off from the glory of God for the salvation of others. Of course, denying ourselves the opportunity to see God's glory in a vacation destination is nowhere near what Christ suffered or what Paul would have suffered if it were possible, but the same rationale applies. Even if the vacation can be justified as an opportunity to know God more through experiencing some part of the world he has made, are we willing to temporarily deprive ourselves of that small additional glimpse of his glory in order that others might see a great amount of his glory for the very first time as they move from spiritual death to life because of the ministry funded by our generosity with the money that we would have used for the vacation?

If we were to examine the motivations behind many decisions to pay exorbitant amounts of money for vacations or extravagant experiences, many of them would not pass the preceding tests given here. Further, the counsel of many prosperity preachers that wealth, luxury and these experiences should be sought by believers and that no thought need be given to whether living a life of wealth, luxury, and extravagant experiences is really God's will for the use of those resources is to dress up in false assurances of God's blessing the love of creation over its creator that Paul condemns. (Romans 1)

Stepping back a bit and looking at the issue of wealth, luxury and extravagant experiences as a whole, what condemns the wealthy man is this love of creation over its creator. Prosperity preachers thus encourage people to pursue the very thing that will condemn them. Of course, man's love of the creation over its creator and over his fellow creatures happens in both rich and poor alike, but it is among the rich where holding on to major wealth is, at least in many cases, an exterior sign of a continuing conscious decision to seek his own gratification and exaltation above the glorification of Christ in missions and in the alleviation of poverty and suffering of others in the name of Christ. That is what makes a lifestyle of wealth, luxury, and extravagant experiences contrary to the will of God for the believer's life.

Seeking to Live a Lifestyle of Wealth, Luxury, and Extravagant Experiences is Contrary to the Mindset and Example of Christ

Now, let us return to the question from earlier. If you were to be given the opportunity to live your "best" life now, a life of wealth and luxury and extravagent experiences, should you seek to do so? I have already indicated that you should not do so because it is against the teaching of Christ and because it is against the purpose for which you were created. There is a third reason why you should not do so. It is against the mindset of Christ that believers are to have, and against the example of Christ that believers are to follow.

In 2 Corinthians, although Paul was not commanding the Corinthians to give a certain sum of money, he did ground his appeal for them to give in support of Judean believers in the mindset of Christ and in the example of Christ. He says in 2 Cor. 8:9:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

Paul's appeal for Corinthians to be financially generous in giving for the poor in the Jerusalem area was based on God himself giving up his heavenly riches so that we spiritually poor and dead sinners could be made spiritually rich through the material poverty of his incarnation. That same appeal applies to all of us, for there are plenty of people all over this world who are afflicted by spiritual and even material poverty. Some of that poverty could be alleviated or removed by the generous giving of God's people who give up their riches to imitate Christ, who gave up his riches for them.

Although Paul goes on to characterize his request as an appeal for equality, this appeal necessarily carries with it the idea that believers who are materially more prosperous and wealthy have an obligation to provide for fellow believers who are poor. In 2 Cor. 8:13-15, he says:

Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, as it is written: “He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.”

Notice that Paul desires of believers who have wealth that they give up that wealth so that others who are poor may be relieved of their hardship. The abundance of the wealthy will supply what the poor need. So living a lifestyle of wealth and luxury is to ignore Paul's call for equality and to turn a blind eye to the poverty of one's brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world. Paul would have the rich person relieve that poverty by his generous giving.

Paul elsewhere speaks of the attitude that believers are to have in relationships with one another. He does not call out money explicitly in the passage, but what he says is relevant to that issue. In Philippians 2:5-8, Paul says the following:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!

Paul here points to the example of Christ, who left the glory of heaven, put aside rights that he had as the Lord of the universe, and humbled himself to suffering and death for those who deserved God's wrath. God the Son made himself nothing so that we spiritually poor might be made spiritually rich through the incarnation and atonement. Although all of creation belongs to God, there is a sense in which we also have rights to the wealth we possess, but imitating the example of Christ to which Paul points here would have us also be willing to put aside those rights for the salvation of others. There are multitudes of men and women in this world who are on the road to hell, spiritually dead and impoverished persons who need to be snatched from the path of perdition. Seeking to live a lifestyle of riches and wealth is to refuse to have the 'mind of Christ' towards these people. (1 Cor. 2:16) It is to refuse to imitate his example of giving up the wealth of heaven and his divine rights that he had as Lord of the universe for the salvation of sinners who had no claim to that salvation.

This call to imitate Christ in his death for others is merely to echo what he himself taught while he was on earth. He said in Mt. 16:24-26:

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

The call to take up one's cross was a call to die for Jesus, and to live for him. That involves following his teaching, living according to the purpose for which he created us, following his example, and imitating him. All four of these pursuits are contrary to a lifestyle of wealth, luxury, and extravagant experiences. We are called to use all our possessions for his sake. His words require that we use all that we own for his glory. That is incompatible with our seeking to live a life of wealth and luxury and extravagant experiences, and that is why choosing to live your "best" life now is against the will of God for your life.

Endnotes:

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