Millions, Billions & Trillions ... Oh My!

I ran across this link a day or so ago: http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

Take a look when you can. It helps put some of the "halabaloo" in Washington in perspective.

In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the parable of the talents. In this parable a wealthy king gives various amounts of money (talents) to several servants to keep for him while he is away. A couple of those servants use the money wisely and return it to the king with interest. The last servant is afraid of the king, and knows him to be rather exacting. He takes the money and hides it, and on the king's return he gives him his money back. The king is furious, and punishes the servant. Why? Because he wasn't even careful enough to put it in a bank where it could grow interest. He didn't steward the money well.

Many people assume that this passage relates to how we (christians) use our skills (talents) to win lost souls to Christ. If you hide your talents, then how will anybody see Christ through you and get saved is the usual moral of the story. Admittedly, there is an element of a good idea there, but ultimately I think it's a poor treatment of the text. You can't put a personal skill in a bank and gain interest in it - and Jesus didn't typically put irrelevant details into His parables.

God is concerned with profit, productivity and stewardship of money (talents were an actual denomination of money). Don't start naming and claiming Mercedes just yet. God could care less if we're rich or poor. He gives to some of us, and not to others - it's His choice. What God is concerned with is our treatment of what He does give us.

God want His people to be productive. That means actually contributing to wealth, not simply consuming it. He wants His people to be generators of profit, not those who are consistently piling up debt. He wants the value of the wealth He gives to work for His Kingdom. A poor man, who is not burdened by debt, and a need to have all the trappings of this life can be profitable and productive. So can a rich man, even more so. Both would be faithful servants.

Where best for this to happen? Obviously, Washington is struggling with the concept so let us see if perhaps somewhere else may be a better place, shall we?

My suggestion is the family. As a biblical defense for that: you know that the word for our financial structure in the United States is "economy." The ancient Greek word "oiko" (or for us eco) meant "house." The Greek word "nomos" or we sometimes use "nomy" mean law. If you smash them together you get a literal "house-law." This word, "house-law" was used to speak mostly of a family (mother, father and children) living in a house together. The primary producing unit of any nation state has historically been the family.

Let me challenge you to seriously look at how you use your money. Consider what our King would say to you when He asks what you've done with His money. Consider what your family produces against what they consume. Consider if you've been stewarding wealth. Once you wrestle with that ... then look at a trillion dollars spent in Washington.