Musings on wealth and greed

Yesterday I bought a new car, which is really quite exciting. I thought I could actually do life without a car for a longer period of time, and the truth is that I could, but it has actually proved more difficult that I thought it would be to get around on public transport – as soon as I want to go somewhere other than the city and back, or do so later in the evening, it all gets complicated, and I have spent lots of time waiting for buses, killing time when I got to places because I was early and so on. So, in the end I bought a little old runabout sort of car, because I don’t really use a car all that often, no longer bother driving long distances like home to Brisbane, I don’t have a garage and because insurance is so outrageously expensive in Sydney.

Anyway, in the process of looking for a new car I got talking to a few people about money. One of them subsequently bought me a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad (as you can see, they know about making money, yet are also very generous with it) about creating wealth. I have very little interest in anything financial, have never read a book about money in my life and never done anything more creative than put money in a term deposit. So I figured that I should read this book and learn to be more astute with what I am doing with finances etc.

However, at the same time I started reading Still Deadly: Ancient cures for the 7 sins. The first chapter is called Luther on Greed by Brian Rosner and is really very challenging. I won’t even get started on how many sentences in that chapter say the exact opposite of sentences just in the introduction of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Even seemingly harmless sentences like "... the rich teach their children differently. They teach their children at home, around the dinner table" instantly brought to mind the thought that there are much better things to teach your children around the dinner table (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). Then there’s the part where he actually writes that poor dad would say "The love of money is the root of all evil", while rich dad would say "The lack of money is the root of all evil" – and you can guess which he thought was right, and hopefully also guess which God thinks is closer to right (1 Timothy 6:10 - though note it's KINDS of evil).

So, I am going to keep reading the book (for the novelty factor if nothing else! – and maybe blog material ;) - though my interest is waning) but read it carefully and prayerfully (hopefully), remembering that God counted as a fool the man who thought he’d build bigger barns to store up wealth for himself in the future (Luke 12:13-21) – something that might look like prudent investment for security if it was done here and now.

This post is already quite long, so I will save for later some of the thoughts from Luther on Greed and the tips for surviving the deadly sin of greed.