Let’s return to the early church View of Money
1Timothy Chapter six
Michael H Koplitz
[Paul supports slavery] 1Tim. 6:1 All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be 1spoken against. 2 Those who have believers as their masters must not be disrespectful to them because they are brethren, but must serve them all the more, because those who 1partake of the benefit are believers and beloved. Teach and preach these principles.
[Must follow Paul’s ways] 1Tim. 6:3 If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, 4 he is conceited and understands nothing; but he 1has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, 5 and constant friction between amen of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. 6 But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. 7 For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. 8 If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. 9 But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
[Must follow because Yeshua died] 1Tim. 6:11 But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 I charge you in the presence of God, who 1gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which He will bring about at the proper time — He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of Lords, 16 who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.
[Teach the rich] 1Tim. 6:17 Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. 18 Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, 19 storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.
[Ending comments] 1Tim. 6:20 O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called “knowledge” — 21 which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith. Grace be with you.
Chapter 6 of 1 Timothy is a hard passage to talk about today. However, if you have watched any of my sermon videos or listened to any of my podcasts, you know I will not shy away from Scripture. This chapter is difficult because the modern church today totally contradicts what Paul was talking about. I am not referring to the slavery question as much as I am referring to the money question.
Let me talk about the slavery question just for a moment. We remember that the ancient church was emerging inside of the Roman empire. Roman culture and most cultures of the known world had a belief in slavery. What Paul said almost 2000 years ago is based on what we believe today. I’m sure everyone who is reading or listening to this message would agree that slavery is 100% wrong. However, it is incorrect to judge an ancient society on our current cultural norms. There are acceptable practices in our society and culture today that ancient Romans would find offensive. There are a lot of things that our society does today that Jesus would 100% object to. Therefore, you can see why I’m saying it’s incorrect to judge an ancient culture by 21st century norms. Enough said about that.
The love of money is important to understand in this chapter. Paul tells Timothy that it is not a problem for someone to be rich. It is what a person does with wealth and how it was accumulated that matters. Paul’s primary concern about someone being rich and joining the faith was that they may allow their wealth to guide their decisions. The Corinthian letters show how rich people would come together for communion and exclude the poorer members of the congregation. This was so that the richer members could eat and drink the best and they did not want to share it with the poorer members.
Apparently, the same problem was happening in the churches in Asia minor which Timothy was visiting. Rich people were not sharing their wealth with poorer people. Now you may ask, how much are you supposed to share? Preachers will tell you that the Bible says that you need to give 10%, a tithing, to the church. That number comes from when Abraham met Melchizedek and offered him 10% of everything he had. The Bible continues in the book of Leviticus to talk about charity and if you add it all up, it’s 35% of income is supposed to be given away.
Considering churchgoers give an average of 2% of their income to the church, that’s a far cry from 35%. However, not all your giving should go to the church necessarily. There are plenty of wonderful organizations that are doing the good that deserves to receive your charity. Therefore, when you determine your charity giving, you need to add up all of those areas. Charities that determine what a fair share is, like the United Way, are ones that I am not as thrilled with because I don’t feel that these outside organizations that are not being driven by Scripture should determine what I should or should not give. That I don’t want to get too deep into. If you're supporter of United Way that’s wonderful. I prefer to give the money directly to the organization that I’m interested in.
The big question is why did the church abandon first Timothy chapter 6? I will not go through the history of the development of wealth in the church. Let’s just stick to what’s happening today. Large mainline denominations are not poor. Let me give you one example that really bothered me. In January 2001, I was in a church in northern Mexico. The church had a large hole in its roof. I asked why the hole was not repaired and the answer I received was that the congregation just didn’t have the money to fix it. This was very common in northern Mexico, which is a very impoverished area. What bothered me was during the worship service, a special collection, which was taken every Sunday, was sent to the Vatican. The Vatican has more money than they’ll ever need, so the question is why was the Vatican demanding more money from this little church rather than allowing that little church to plug the hole in its roof?
Now I’m going to say something that some will say is unkind about the church today. The denomination I’m referring to is the United Methodist Church. After a long battle over sexual doctrine, the United Methodist Church has decided to shift towards a more liberal stance. That’s fine if that’s what the people wanted. However, several church congregations did not like where the denomination was going. The United Methodist Church opened a window of opportunity for congregations to leave the denomination. To me, that was the right thing to do.
However, what really troubled me in the conference that I live in is that the bishops of the conference decided that the churches that want to disaffiliate had to pay a large sum of money to leave. It is my belief that any congregation that wanted to leave the United Methodist Church because they were drastically changing the doctrine of the church should have an allowed to leave at no cost. Along the way, the United Methodist Church created a rule that said that they owned the property of the individual local churches. I believe that is wrong and should be challenged in court.
However, the fact that the conference owns all the local church property was in place as the disaffiliations were occurring. Therefore, the conference demanded money for each congregation that left. The congregation could’ve abandoned their building and property and just simply rebuilt, but that did not happen. Many congregations, approximately 17%, left the denomination and paid an enormous sum of money to leave.
That’s just wrong. It goes totally against 1 Timothy chapter 6. Paul says to Timothy that he was concerned that materialism would surpass spiritualism with rich people. I strongly believe that materialism has surpassed spiritualism in the United Methodist Church. During this breakup, the bishops were more concerned about making money and filling their coffers than they were about the spirituality of the congregations that wanted to leave. The decision on whether to ordain openly gay people is a spiritual matter. It doesn't matter whether you agree with it or disagree with it; it is a spiritual matter.
When a congregation decided that they did not agree with that idea, the denomination should have allowed them to leave at no cost or penalty. Certainly, the congregation had the responsibility to make sure that they paid all of their financial obligations for their pastors, including retirement benefits. The congregation leaving had to ensure that they paid any funds needed for the normal operation of the conference for that year. However, I strongly believe it was wrong that the bishops demanded large sums of money for churches to disaffiliate.
A church that I served in the past was disaffiliated and they had to pay $200,000 to the annual conference. This church is a small congregation and did not have that kind of money in the bank. Therefore, they had to borrow $200,000. What did they get for that $200,000? They received the opportunity to disengage from the United Methodist system and avoid being compelled to follow doctrines that were being introduced because of societal pressure and lacked biblical support. The bishops of this conference declared that the Bible was merely a book of ancient stories and didn't have to be adhered to. Therefore, they could justify their anti-biblical doctrinal changes.
For those people who believed in the changes that these bishops proposed, those congregations needed to stay inside the United Methodist system. For congregations who disagreed with these doctrinal changes they needed to be let go but not put under the materialistic burden. It will hamper the church that I just mentioned from doing ministry in its community because it has to raise the funds to pay back the bank loan. Therefore, the annual conference has forced this church to stop doing ministry for several years until it pays back this loan. This is a simple example of materialism being more important than spiritualism.
Wow, this sounds terrible. I think it’s important to state this because the people in the congregation need to shield themselves from allowing materialism to take over their spirituality. This is the main point of chapter 6 of 1 Timothy. I know that what I’ve said is very harsh about the church and what I’m also saying is that we as individuals need to learn about the difference between materialism and spirituality. What is happening in the mainline churches is a warning to us that if we allow materialism to run our lives, it will shatter our spirituality.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we must learn from the mistake of the church and do whatever we can to hold on to our spirituality and, if change the spiritual direction of the mainline churches from money to saving lives for Jesus Christ. Our mission is not to raise money so that we can be rich, but to use our resources to evangelize and spread the word of Jesus Christ. I pray money does not take you over and will always remember that it’s more important to be right with God than have a dollar in your pocket.
