Posted by Yong TM (202.172.43.132) on March 14, 2003 at 09:51:30:
In Reply to: Re: Wealth and the Christian posted by Johanes Wibowo on March 12, 2003 at 13:00:07:
The LORD's prayer actually sets the correct model of prayer for material things. Our LORD acknowledges the need to seek God for provision of daily needs (as opposed to other faith that preaches that all things material are evil), but there is an acknowledgement of needs versus want. To say "Give us this day our daily bread" acknowledges that God is the provider of our DAILY needs. For people like us in the modern city, daily food seems to be taken for granted. But for many people in the world, daily bread may not be something that comes every day.
Prosperity in itself is not a sin. Many people in the Bible were very rich, and many good Christians in this world are rich. But clearly, Christ said without a doubt that wealth can be a great obstacle for Christians to get close to God. And in the priorities of life, wealth should be a low one as compared to eternal things.
The Bible has always emphasized the difference between want and need. We want many things, but we really need few things. Matthew 6:33 says we are to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to us. This means that beside the basics in life, God will add blessings to us if we get the priorities in life correct. But that blessings have never been guaranteed to be material in nature. It may be, it may not be.
In the expository preaching at Romans just two days ago, Dr Tong said that Christians are not like the rest of the world in that we live a completely different life with different priorities. So the question really is what are we asking wealth for? Ideally, we can seek wealth to better our own lives and the lives of others. But most people only look at the first part, not the second one.
My own (and I stress my own as not many people may agree) formula is that a Christian should lead a simple lifestyle, however rich or poor he may be. He may use wealth as a tool to further God's kingdom, but I do believe that a Christian who is close to God would have little attachment to material things.