what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine
[Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from Bullinger’s Decades and have been lightly adapted.]
Money makes the world go round, right? But money is the root of all evil. Oh, the love of money is the root of all evil, so money itself is fine? Or how about this one? Sell all your possessions and give them to the poor. That’s what Jesus wants us to do, isn’t it? There are almost as many views of money in the church as there are types of crypto-currency. And they’re probably equally as volatile, the views, I mean.
Bullinger opens with a remarkably practical summary of why this command is necessary.
To sustain and nourish our lives and families, we men need earthly riches.
Sometimes it good to sweep away the rhetoric and get back to basics. We need money to live. Therefore, let’s look at what God has to say about money.
Justice requires us to use riches well and to give to every man that which is his.
Again, pretty decent summary. Use money well ourselves, and pay what we owe. The eighth command prohibits theft, so we have to know what lawful possession of goods and money looks like. So where’s the problem?
Truly great troubles are raised up and begun among men of this world in the business of getting, possessing, and spending earthly riches. Therefore it was necessary for God in his law to ordain a state and prescribe an order for earthly goods, for the appropriate health, commodity, and peace of us men.
Bullinger spends more time than most of us would consider necessary arguing against Christian communalism. Not only were there very real elements in his day insisting that Christian communalism was precisely what we see modelled in the early chapters of Acts, they also argued it was necessary for Christian faithfulness today. These were the same sorts of people who refused to swear oaths, considered taking public office immoral, and effectively tried to opt out of civil society. No big deal, we think today. There are certain corners of New York City and London dominated by Orthodox Jews who have effectively formed their own and separate society. Were the ‘Anabaptists’ of the 16th century really that different? Well, unlike the Orthodox Jews today, the Anabaptists were rather evangelistic, and they were actually able to gain civil power in certain city-states. Funny contradiction of theology that.
Not only was their movement able to gain traction, the Anabaptists also created significant headaches for the Reformers by insisting that the Reformers weren’t going nearly far enough in their work of reform in an already very volatile situation. This certainly doesn’t excuse the Reformers for how they treated the Anabaptists, but blood had been shed because of the Anabaptist folly, and the Reformers were desperate to keep the Reformation from being lost either to the Roman Catholics (‘See? We told you it would all go pear-shaped if you left Mother-Church!’) or the Radical Reformers (‘We must reform all of absolutely everything right now now now!!!’).
And back on planet earth, ordinary men and women were going about their daily lives in the various cities and city-states of the towns that had received the Reformation, and that daily life included the use of, you know, money. The sheep needed instruction.
Therefore, whoever means by physical labour or any other kind of business to get a living and things necessary for himself and his family, let him take this godly instruction as a medicine, to strengthen his mind against the venomous force of poisoned greediness and the infecting plague of covetousness. And when he has compounded this medicine with the doctrine of the evangelists and apostles, and his mind is fortified against the plague, let him immediately bend himself to some labour and kind of occupation. But let every one pick out and choose an honest and profitable occupation, not a needless art, or a science that hurts any other man. And finally, let all men flee from idleness as from a plague or contagious disease.
Bullinger’s bluntness is a good reminder to us today. Physically demanding jobs are on the wane in our society, and yet there still seems to be a general fear of manual labor. Hard work is good for the soul. Idleness rots the mind. Good lesson for all of us, but perhaps especially so for young men.
Idle people are the most unhappy of all mortal men, and slothful sleepy-heads are nothing else but an unprofitable lump of unoccupied earth.
Try that with a young man who’s just come to your church the next time you take him to the pub.
The sermon is repeatedly practical. Bullinger looks at all sorts of money and property related questions. Are contracts, commerce, even reasonable interest permitted? Yes, though reasonable interest is opposed to biting interest, what the Old Testament and the medieval church referred to as usury. Gambling is forbidden, as is abusing a pawn or pledge system. Paying taxes is legitimate and even commanded. Bullinger has nothing to do with the idea current among some wings of Christianity today that taxes are state-sponsored theft.
One provocative area Bullinger refuses to shrink from engaging is tithing. Failing to offer to God what we owe him is not only theft, it’s also sacrilege. Now yes, tithes and revenues were due to the church as part of state taxes during this time, as exists in certain parts of Europe where the state church is still state supported. But surely the point still stands in places and times where we’re not legally required to give to the church. After all, tithing is God’s idea not the state’s.
They are church-robbers who do not pay at all or else pay unwillingly what they owe to the church, I mean, their tithes and yearly revenues. It is seen in the scriptures, how terribly the prophets threatened church robbers. Haggai testified that the ground produced sick and small fruit for no other reason than they because did not truly pay what which they ought to have out of duty brought to the temple. In Malachi, God promised to his people to make their ground fruitful if they would liberally pay the stipends and tributes due to the temple.
Especially given that no state power stands behind the church to demand our tithes and offerings, do we give willingly, joyfully, sacrificially, out of thankfulness for how much Christ has given of himself to us?
This is not just a command for those who have much. Bullinger treats the great as well as the small.
Beggars commit sacrilege and abuse the name of Christ, when they make their poverty a cloak to keep themselves idle. The apostle commands Timothy not to cherish such idle hypocrites and wandering vagabonds with the alms and expenses of church goods.
But near the end of the sermon Bullinger gives a brilliant bit of biblical theology. It’s not just about money. It’s not just about work. It’s not just about possessions. Theft and money is all fundamentally about our relationship to God, the Creator, the King, the One who has given to us all we possess.
The greatest sacrilege of all is if a man transfers the glory of God, the Creator, to a creature.
This is why we steal, either from man or from God. We value the creation above the Creator. Rightly knowing and loving the Creator will lead us to rightly relate to our fellow man. So the solution to theft and the abuse of money, is to know the living Creator God.
Next, on the lawful use of private property
