The doctrine of money

A. Definition.

1. Our English word “money” is derived from the Latin word moneta which actually means a mint. A moneta in Rome was where they coined the money, manufactured silver coins. So it refers to a stamped coin of gold, silver, or other metal used as a medium of exchange.

2. Therefore money, by the very use of our Latin word, is the medium in which prices are expressed, debts discharged, goods and services paid for, and bank reserves held.

3. The term “money” is synonymous with circulation and a circulating medium and may be regarded as comprising demand deposits in common money or currency — coins, bank notes, paper money issued by a government.

4. The British economist Ralph Hautry states: “Money is one of those concepts which is like a teaspoon or an umbrella but unlike an earthquake or a buttercup.” He means they are definable primarily by the use or purpose which they serve. Therefore money must be defined in terms of its function and related to its value.

5. Money is a medium of exchange whereby goods and services are paid for and debts are discharged. Money is the means of stating the prices of goods and services as well as expressing the debts, the salaries, the wages, the rents, the insurance obligations, and innumerable contracts of this type.

6. Money serves as a reserve for ready purchasing power. Money is the only complete liquid asset. In the ancient world money was used as a store of value. The rise of commercial banking and central banking resulted in a corresponding increase in the importance of money used as reserves for a banking system. Money is unique among economic goods, it is regarded not as wealth but as a device for exchanging and measuring wealth. So money was never regarded historically as wealth in itself but as a device for exchanging and measuring wealth. An increase in the quantity of money in a country does not necessarily constitute an increase in the country’s wealth.

B. The history of money

Different objects have been used as a medium of exchange. Slaves were used that way, gunpowder, and in some primitive societies the jawbones of pigs. The ox of Homeric times was used in that sense. The elephant in Ceylon was considered to be money in that area for many hundreds of years. Wool, barley, wheat, timber have all been used for money. The most widely known monetary standard is gold and silver. Before coins were invented money was measured in terms of rings and ingots as well as bars or shekels. Coin type money was invented by Creasis, King of Lydia.

Three kinds of coinage existed in the time of the New Testament. The imperial coinage was the best. There were the provincial coins which were minted at Antioch and Tyre, and they were based on the Greek standard of drachmas. Then there was the local Jewish money coined in Caesarea and it had wide circulation because the Greek became great loaners of funds.

C. The legitimate functions of money.

1. Monetary transactions are a legitimate function of life all the way from Genesis 29:3 to Jeremiah 32:44 and throughout the scripture. It is legitimate for believers to enter into business and into monetary transactions. To carry on monetary transactions the believer must have money or credit, therefore if he gave it all to the church he couldn’t engage in business and his children would starve and he would be worse than an infidel.

2. Money was used to pay taxes by Jesus Himself — Matthew 22:17-22; Mark 12:13-17; Luke 20:20-26.

3. Money is necessary for the function of an economy, therefore it is not wrong or sinful to possess and use money.

4. However, you should know that as a member of the royal family of God money is a very useful and helpful servant but it is a cruel and harsh master — Jude 11. The word for “deceit” is Jude 11 is the word planh. It connotes three areas of deceit regarding money. When a person gets into monetary reversionism there are three areas of deceit:

a) That money will bring happiness. Many people abandon doctrine and try simply to make money. It is all right to make money so long as you don’t abandon doctrine, but when you abandon doctrine and simply go out for money the first objective is that money means happiness. There is no happiness in money or in any of the details of life apart from doctrine resident in the soul.

b) That money is security. Security for the believer is provided through the grace provision of God in eternity past. It is provided through the principles of living grace and supergrace, not through monetary principles — Matthew 6:24-33.

c) That money can buy anything. That is erroneous. Money cannot buy salvation, category #2 love, security, or even peace of mind, happiness or stability. While Balaam is the illustration of monetary reversionism the emphasis in Jude 11 is on the point of doctrine that money does not provide happiness, security or love.

Consequently money and its use is permissible. It is not carnal for the believer to possess money. The believer with wealth is not required to give all of his money to the church. There are also some illegitimate uses of money — bribery, to buy power, to buy fornication, to corrupt character; these are forbidden to the believer. This does not make money evil, it just confirms the old sin nature’s evil. There is nothing wrong with money, the problem is always the love of money.

D. The dangers of money to the unbeliever.

We anticipated this with the quoting of Mark 8:36,37. Salvation cannot be purchased with money, and a person who has a lot of money thinks he can buy anything. He buys celebrityship, he buys affection or friendship (or thinks he does), he buys people, situations, power. In other words, he is in the field of purchasing things that he could not get any other way. He has to get everything through money and therefore he assumes that he can buy salvation. Money causes the rich man to put his faith in the wrong object, says Mark 10:25. Therefore, Jesus concludes that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. This does not mean that a rich man cannot be saved but it is just very difficult for them to be saved because they have a tendency to depend upon their money for security and they have a tendency to try to buy their way out of every kind of trouble.

Money hinders the unbeliever from seeking salvation, according to Luke 16:19-31, and we must understand always that money has no credit with God. If there is such a thing as credit with God it is only found in the inner residency of Bible doctrine.

Note some of the passages dealing with this subject: Proverbs 11:4 — “Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness imputed delivers from the second death.” In other words, you can’t buy salvation. Proverbs 11:28 — “The one who trusts in his riches will fall, but the believer will flourish [or prosper] like the green leaf.” Money does not mean capacity for life — Proverbs 13:7, “There is one who pretends to be rich, but he has nothing in his soul; there are those who are in poverty but have great wealth [of doctrine resident in the soul].”

E. Believers have succumbed to the various temptations related to money. Solomon had monetary reversionism in Ecclesiastes 5:10-6:2; Balaam in Jude 11; Ananias and Saphira in Acts 5:1-10; 1 Timothy 6:3-17; James 4:13,14; James 5:1-6.

F. Monetary prosperity is part of supergrace blessing under paragraph SG². Under paragraph SG² God has provided as a part of spiritual advancement great supergrace blessing in the field of money. Men like Abraham, David, Solomon, were blessed by monetary prosperity as a part of their supergrace blessings. Often great wealth and business success is a sign of supergrace or spiritual maturity — Proverbs 13:8 (Isaiah 30:18, God is waiting to provide you great wealth); Proverbs 13:13,18; 11:18.