Category: Business Series

These are the articles that talk about wealth and careers. The Bible talks about money more than it talks about heaven and hell, so we at Spartan Christianity talk about it too.

Success: Why Success is Not Evil

KEY: Weak religious men assume that wealth confers villainy and that poverty confers righteousness.

 “The LORD was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the LORD blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the LORD was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field.” 

Genesis 39:2-5

Weak men in the Church hate success. In fact, they point to success as a sign of worldliness and materialism. At the same time they point to their own lack of success as some kind of perverted virtue. 

KEY: Weak religious men assume that wealth confers villainy and that poverty confers righteousness. Success is not Evil

However, lack of success is easily traced to our lack of work ethic or, quite simply, to the fact that what we do is not valued by society. A person’s paycheck represents nothing more than the value of their skillset in the marketplace. 

Success doesn’t care about your natural gifts, it only cares about work. Not merely work in the workplace, but work done researching the best jobs, researching the highest value skills to develop, and spending time improving your value to society. Most weak men aren’t successful because they studied something stupid in college, wasted time walking to girls and playing beer pong, and didn’t work on developing marketable skills while they were there. It is as simple as that. 

Are there cases where someone does everything right and works hard and still comes up short in the marketplace? Sure, but those are the rarest cases.  

Most religious betas will clock in 25 hours a week or more at their television set, but scoff at the man who spends 60 hours at his job, accusing him of being “worldly”. Irony, anyone? 

Success isn’t evil. In fact, if we do our work “As to the Lord and not as unto men” (Eph. 6:7), then we absolutely should be successful in whatever we do because our work ethic will be unparalleled. 

Examine the lives and character of Job, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. These men were extremely wealthy, and yet they did not place their wealth above God. Their wealth was irrelevant to them because they knew Righteousness was most important. 

Unlike what you hear in the Church, You can be righteous and be successful at the same time. 

Be a man, be a success. If you can’t be a success, be the hardest worker in the room and that will be a success of its own.

Mantra

Success doesn’t care about righteousness. 

success. Success is not evil

Application

If you are being a beta and criticizing the successful merely because they have success, stop it now. Be a man for once in your life, look in the mirror at who is responsible for the way your life turned out. Sit on your bed and look back on your life and examine all the actions you took and the choices you made that landed you where you currently are. You will see that your lack of success is 100% your fault, and it is 100% your responsibility to change that fact. Look at all the time you wasted in college studying English and watching television. It’s not a matter of “evil success just passing you by”, it’s a matter of you being stupid and failing to manage time properly.

Today that changes. Start researching how you can improve your value to your company or start developing marketable skills on the side and change your life. Don’t waste it watching television. 

Research what the fastest growing fields are and become a master of one of them.

Technology is growing at an exponential rate, becoming proficient in any form of tech would increase your value to society. Healthcare is a field that will never reach a point where it is not needed, but most men do not have the work ethic for healthcare of any form. 

It is up to you to discover what is valuable in the marketplace and then build your skillset to maximize your personal value.

Conduct yourselves like Men.

Wealth

Wealth is not evil. The attitudes of men are evil.

“As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life”.

1 Timothy 6:17-19

“You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day”.

Deuteronomy 8:18

There is nothing at all wrong with having wealth. Job was wealthy (Job 1 – Job’s character and wealth). So was Abraham (Gen 13:2). Highly righteous men in the Bible had great wealth. The difference between them and the rest of the world is that the righteous did not and do not place their wealth above God. 

Weak men in the Church demonize wealth. They conflate wealth and worldliness. They also conflate poverty with virtue. You cannot correlate these things. 

There are plenty of evil, greedy poor people.
Also, there are plenty of righteous generous wealthy people.


There is nothing wrong with accumulating wealth. Wealth in the hands of the righteous is better than wealth in the hands of the wicked. 

Some weak men in the Church will conflate wealth and evil in an effort to justify their lack of work ethic. This is a great evil. Men of God should have an unparalleled work ethic in all things, as they should be doing their work “as to the Lord, rather than to man”(Colossians 3:23/Ephesians 6:7). This does not guarantee wealth, but it does ensure that you will be satisfied with your work day. Extreme wealth is not necessary in life, though it is not wrong if you achieve it.

Not having wealth in life does not magically make you righteous.

I have heard such statements from the pulpit many times, “I’m not focused on the things of this world”. “I’m not materialistic, so I’m not wealthy”. The problem with these statements, again, is that they assume that not having wealth means that one is righteous. This is not the case. The same people in the Church might also make the absurd statement: I would rather have virtue/righteousness/holiness than wealth”. Not only are those people lying in an effort to look good, but they just so happen to not be righteous either.

The people who say “I would rather have righteousness than wealth” are the same ones who say “I would rather have brains than brawn”. The only people saying they would rather have brains than brawn are fat people with neither brains nor brawn. Every time you hear that statement it is made by some obese diabetic who is trying to devalue the physical success of a fit man. 

In an attempt to make themselves feel better, unfit people demonize the fitness of others.
In an attempt to make themselves feel better and more righteous, poor people demonize the wealth of the successful.

This is extremely inappropriate and intellectually dishonest.

This statement is my speculation, so take it with a grain of salt: God would not assign wealth to those who could not handle it well. If God knew that you were the type of individual to be corrupted by wealth, or to assume that you earned everything yourself with no help from God (Daniel 4:30), then it would be in His best interest to not give you great wealth simply out of love for you (remembering that love is an action, not an emotion). 

So perhaps you are not wealthy not because you don’t work hard, but because you do not have the temperament to handle wealth righteously. It could be that if you were given wealth, you would place it above God and fall from grace. 

Mantra

Wealth is not evil.

Wealth. Money

Application

First: The key to managing wealth is to build the character today that can handle the pressure of wealth later.

Start viewing yourself as the overseer of your possessions, rather than the owner. This isn’t just some pseudo-spiritual nonsense that people in the church who have no money try to make you believe. If you take a managerial view of your finances, that level of emotional and mental detachment allows clarity of the mind that leads to better business decisions. 

Think of the general who elevates his perspective high above the battlefield. This general is not influenced by his emotions in the same way as a man on the front line of the battle. You must have this same level of emotional detachment when it comes to wealth. 

When we aren’t emotionally attached to our possessions, we do better when managing them. 

Second: work as if you were trying to build a fortune, but don’t be disappointed if you don’t.

Make as much money as you can, but be wise in what you do with it. Invest in things that better you or that better others, instead of cheap pleasures. When you invest in people or your own character, the return on that investment is greater satisfaction than anything you would buy for enjoyment. That’s not to say don’t enjoy things, you need to enjoy things (Ecclesiastes 2:24). Invest in books that will cause you to improve yourself, in workshops or seminars,  hobbies and skills and in family. Spend time and money on things that are positive for the mind.

Do not invest in cheap toys or prostitutes. Do not buy things to keep up with your neighbors. Trying to “out-lifestyle” others is a surefire way to financial failure in 95% of cases. 

Weak men in the Church are in the habit of glorifying a boring and sorrowful life. Enjoy your life, but be wise. Be a man.

Conduct Yourselves like Men.

Page 2 of 2
1 2