"I hate you...you're making money!!"

  “Money couldn't buy you friends, but you get a better class of enemy.”

                                 Spike Milligan

  She was in a full blown rage and spitting out her venomous words before I really caught was happening. It’s not very often I have someone tell me that “I hate you” to my face. That was accompanied by essentially being told that I was a scab, a slug and a host of other derogatory terms.

  It’s my opinion that this barrage of hate was really directed more toward my wife, after all, she’s the true offender. Unfortunately, this was not the first time nor will it be the last, we face such vitriol. We’ve encountered it so many times, I’m fairly calloused to it. But it really bothered the couple in front of me. They, too, were part of the intended target. The one lady couldn’t stop talking about it and lamented that it’d bother her all day. I attempted to encourage her to just forget it – it just wasn’t worth being bothered about.

  So what was this foul deed that we were doing that attracted so much abhorrence? Were we panhandling? No. Well, then we must have been part of something vile like torturing puppies or even pulling wings off of flies? Of course, not. Then, it must have been some misunderstanding. No, our intentions were very clear. Were we doing something illegal? No. Yet, the act we were engaged in, for many is considered vile, even evil.  We were there to make money! (Gasp!) Could anything be more evil?

  Many of you know Jane has an in-home used book business. To sell used books though, you must first buy used books. That particular morning, we, and several other used book dealers were quietly standing in line, waiting for the library to open and for the book sale to start…and that’s what incensed this lady. Book dealers buy books and then resell them to make a profit. Usually, we buy lots of books, perhaps books she wanted. Because we’re experienced, we tend to move fast and can choose quality books very quickly. We’re typically the first in line…the early book buyer gets the best books. We often arrive and wait around for an hour or more before the sale even opens.

  We’d already been there over an hour before Miss Spewing Hate arrived just before the sale opened. Our very presence so incensed her, that after giving us a piece of her mind, she left.

  Miss Spewing Hate represents a distorted, inconsistent worldview – that it’s somehow evil to make money or a profit. Think of how the media frequently caricatures someone successful in business.

  Shockingly, there are many, even in the Church, who think that making money, or at least making too much money is somehow evil and wrong. Usually, making too much money is making more money than the person who feels that making too much money is evil.

  The Bible never teaches that money or making money is evil. Probably the most misquoted verse in the Bible is 1Timothy 6:10. Money is not the root all evil, loving it is. Greed is wrong. Taking advantage of the poor and disenfranchised because you have the means to do so is wrong.

  But the Bible commends wise money making, industry, profit and stewardship. The Creative Mandate given to our first parents in Genesis 1:28, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” It’s a command to improve what’s already existing, to produce and profit from it. Jesus consistently commended wise investors (Matthew 25:14-30).

  Over the years I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve had book lovers (who only read or buy books) tell me I was essentially some kind of bacteria because I was buying books to resell at a profit. I’ve had libraries tell me that I could only buy so many books. On one occasion I was kicked out of a thrift store because I was buying books to resell them. One woman running a library book sale in the Chicago area told me that she was glad that there were not many people there to buy books that weekend because it made it more pleasant for the other shoppers. Yet, doesn’t the word “sale” seem to suggest that you want to “sell” something and make money? What’s missed is that if people don’t buy these discarded books, they’ll be thrown away, destroyed or sometimes recycled.

  Book buyers are also taxpayers who underwrite the very libraries they buy books at. If you do not sell books being discarded, ultimately either your library will shrink or you’ll have to raise taxes or seek more donations.  It’s also a well-known fact with the advent of email, Ebayers and used book sellers have helped underwrite the Postal Service and kept costs down.

  Please understand there’s nothing righteous about being poor or rich. There’s nothing wrong with making money and being a shrewd business person. God honors such things. It was Christianity that encouraged what is commonly known as the “Protestant Work Ethic” which emphasizes hard work, frugality and diligence as a constant display of a person's new life in Christ. It’s unjust to make the rich pay more taxes and penalize them for being more industrious. It’s morally wrong to take from those who have to give to those who refuse to work and take care of themselves. God’s Word is very hardhearted in our PC world, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (1 Thes. 3:10). Obeying that would take care of many of our current sociological issues.

  As believers, the Bible must be our guide for how our view of money, business and economics. Everything everyone has was given to them by God. They’re to use it wisely and be faithful managers of what He has entrusted to them. That’s a biblical worldview of money. Does your view of money and economics line up with God’s final authority? Have you diligently studied what God’s Word teaches about money and economics?