Tozer Devotional

The question of money and its place in the church is calling for a prayerful restudy in the light of the Holy Scriptures. The whole matter should be reappraised and adjusted to conform to the teachings of Christ.

Our Lord simply did not think about money the way His professed followers do today; and more particularly He did not give it the place our religious leaders give it. To them it is necessary; to Him it was not. He had nowhere to lay His head, and we have made poetry out of His poverty while being extremely careful not to share it. We have explained away His clear declaration that it is impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. We have commingled the teaching of Christ with the teachings of Benjamin Franklin and the dollar-sign philosophers which America has produced in such abundance, and Christ's teachings have lost their meaning for us.

Church finances are a good and proper part of church life, but there is an ever-present danger that they will grow too important in the thinking of the church officers and slowly crowd out more vital things. In our local assemblies and other evangelical organizations there are signs that should disturb us greatly, signs of degeneration and decay that can only lead to spiritual death if the infection is not discovered and checked.

To be specific, some of our religious leaders appear to have developed mercantile minds and have come to judge all things by their effect upon the church finances. What a church can or cannot do is decided by the state of the treasury. Its spiritual outgo is determined by its financial income, with no margin for miracle and no recognition of a spiritual ministry unrelated to money. Such evil practice results from an erroneous attitude toward the whole financial question as it relates to religion.