Using Virtue to Justify Poverty

By equating poorness with righteousness, people can use justify their poverty by turning it into a virtue.

“A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.”

Proverbs 13:22

“The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.”

Proverbs 22:7

“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

“I’m only poor because I’m not greedy or materialistic”. “I choose to focus on God rather than on material wealth”. These are statements that are made by poor Christians attempting to justify their poverty by turning it into a virtue. This is one of the most disgusting things you see in the church today. Anti-wealth ideology rapidly propels young men away from the church, because weak religious individuals make it seem that there is no way to be successful financially and be a Christian, because allegedly all “good” Christians are financially broke people filled with emotionalism. 

Look up the most popular verses about money or wealth. The first results are never the Proverbs that teach you principles for how to properly manage your money, instead it is always the verses telling us about the evil of the world or the “bad things” money can do to a Christian. Undoubtedly those articles were written by people with no money. Any time men try to discourage behavior by saying “bad things will happen to you if you do this”, rest assured that they have no logic or reasoning behind what they are saying and can only resort to fear mongering and other assorted scare tactics. 

Let’s take a look at a few of the common myths propagated by not so well-meaning Christians:

Myth #1: “I’m a good person because I have no money. Obviously I’m not focused on the material things of this world and that is why I have no money”.

Myth Rebuttal #1: Your poverty does not magically make you virtuous. Religious people who say, “I would rather be spiritual than have wealth” are the same people who say “I would rather have brains than brawn”. The only people who make such statements have neither.

Great faith and great wealth are not mutually exclusive. 

Being poor does not automatically make you a good Christian. Ever heard of Abraham? He was very wealthy (Genesis 13:2). Ever heard of Job? He was tremendously wealthy, and was made twice as wealthy after his trials (Job 1 & 42). In fact, his character is even more impressive because of the way he acted with his wealth. Because it’s one thing to have good character and be broke, it is another thing entirely to have good character while being the richest man in the land. The same principles applies to pride: it is easy to be humble when you are a loser, it is much more difficult to be humble when you are a champion.

Abraham and Job were two of the most righteous men to walk the face of the earth, and they had enough earthly possessions to last multiple lifetimes. This idea in the church that being poor is something that is good and reflects good human qualities is not only stupid, it is immoral because it is a bald-faced, anti-Biblical lie.  

Myth #2: “I don’t have money because I’m simply not a greedy person”.

Myth Rebuttal #2: Being poor doesn’t mean that you are not greedy for material wealth. There are plenty of poor people who are greedy for money and plenty of rich who are also greedy for money. Simply possessing money does not confer greediness. Just because a man is poor does not exempt him from the sin of greed. It’s not the amount of money in the bank that makes someone greedy, it is their view and attitude towards money. 

Furthermore, of all the people in the world to have money, shouldn’t the Christian be the one to possess it? Wouldn’t money be better used in the hands of the righteous than in the hands of the worldly? If so, why are Christians so adamant about remaining in poverty, and justifying it by calling it “virtuous”?

Myth #3: “I don’t have money because I followed my passion. You know, I was just called by the spirit to go into youth ministry, so I did. And that is the reason I am poor, because I focus on spiritual matters in my work”.

Myth Rebuttal #3: The reason you think you don’t have money and the real reason you don’t have money are very different. You have no money because you know nothing about money and refuse to work hard or do valuable work, not because you are righteous.

Sure, you may have “followed your passion” to do what you want in life, but look where that got you. Poorness is a result of the poor decisions in the critical period of youth when you decide what skills you need to develop to build a career. You listened to what your parents had to say (who themselves had no money, a reflection of their lack of knowledge about the subject of money) about going to school and getting good grades so you could be a good little cog in the wheel of business. Like a good boy you did what they said so you could earn a paycheck, rather than build a company and be the one cutting the paychecks. You studied English, history, psychology or some other useless subject in college and landed a job making barely over minimum wage and wonder where you went wrong. 

Bad decisions, not virtue, create poverty. Or maybe you fall into the camp that believes that God directly gives money to people. In which case, why hasn’t He chosen to give money to you? Perhaps because He knew you could not handle it, that you could not be faithful to Him with that much money. Such a truth would deliver a fatal blow to the idea that poverty is for the virtuous.

Myth #4: “Well Jesus had no money”.

Myth Rebuttal #4: True, but he also did nothing that you are doing. His mission and purpose were clear from the beginning of the earth, while you had to give $30,000 to a college so you could “find yourself”. Jesus wasn’t sitting around texting on a thousand dollar iphone or sleeping in on the weekends. He wasn’t sitting around gossiping with His friends or complaining about the state of the world or who the current emperor of Rome was.

If you are going to compare yourself to Jesus, you have to do so in every avenue of life. Jesus was a carpenter, are you? Jesus never did anything wrong, how about you? He worked constantly and left little time for leisure, what about you? You might say, “Those things are irrelevant to the modern Christian life”; the fact that Jesus had no money is not relevant to your life either, so don’t use it as an excuse for poverty.

Mantra

Poorness is not virtuous.

Application

Build wealth. Become financially literate. If your parents were poor or middle class their whole lives, they know nothing about money. If they knew anything about money they would not have remained as poor or middle class individuals. This is why you have to learn about money now and change your family tree. Invest money in assets that put money in your pocket instead of investing in liabilities that take money out of your pocket. It truly is that simple. 

You must dump the idea that poorness is synonymous with virtue, and that wealth is synonymous with greed. This is not what the Bible teaches and it is the propaganda of radical conservatives who have never made a lot of money or radical liberals who earn a handful of dollars an hour as a social worker. 

Christians should be the ones possessing the wealth of the earth, not the evil. There is nothing wrong with working hard to earn a lot of money. Nor is There anything wrong with working very little and making your money work for you. There is nothing wrong with wealth, it is all about your attitude towards your wealth. Make money. Reject radical conservative and liberal propaganda. Become wealthy. Be a Man.

Conduct Yourselves Like Men.