Money — Threat Or Menace November 3, 2015
I was surprised when a homeless man offered me an “opportunity” to “invest” in his gambling system. He said it worked equally well on gambling or investing. That second sentence I believed, but I‘d have said “equally poorly”. This was an unexpected opportunity to point someone away from money and toward God, but unfortunately my response was more self-based than Biblical.
First, I pointed out that his system relied on the Gambler’s Fallacy, whereas I had a PhD Professor of Statistics Uncle listed in Who’s Who who was particularly infuriated by the fallacy. That didn’t persuade my acquaintance, who informed me that his system was based on statistics. I pointed out that that would be Nobel Prize winning if true. When I asked him to demonstrate, he proceeded to call my coin tosses so inaccurately that he would have lost $1600. The demonstration had no effect on his thinking.
Secondly, I pointed out that the effort to get fast and easy money gambling depended on taking it away from other people, who could often afford to lose money as little as he could. I was unpersuasive using guilt to motivate him to do right. Remember the sermon that just made the point that that kind of manipulation is wrong and ungodly?
Lastly, having exhausted other options, I resorted to scripture and asked him to read the following verse, “Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.” (Proverbs 13:11 ESV). I then asked him if I was allowed as a follower of Christ to invest in his system. He quietly said “no” but said that he personally had to do what he had to do to achieve his financial goals. God revealed an idolatrous loves to him, but God uses scripture and the Holy Spirit, not my prideful or manipulative arguments.
Think about Jesus reaching out to both the Rich Young Ruler, admired and respected by society and Zacchaeus, the rich, despised traitor to his own people. For such nice, enthusiastic, idolaters, we need to gently and firmly show them what they really worship, call them to put their faith in Jesus, and recognize all targets of greed, worship, and pride as rubbish. For messed-up, disreputable, hard-to-like people like Zaccheaeus, we need to welcome them and call them to joyfully embrace Jesus as the true treasure of life. When you run into our idolatrous fellow men, start and stay with God’s love and plan, not man’s wisdom as I did.