Daniel Wilmoth

Dave Ramsey has made a lot of money by talking about money. He peddles financial advice based on the Bible. He started with a radio show, then expanded into newspapers, live events, and popular books. He even sold an “Act Your Wage!” board game with the tagline “First player out of debt wins!”

Eliminating debt is Ramsey’s passion. He counsels listeners to avoid all debt, to pay cash for their houses and perform “plastic surgery” by cutting up their credit cards. The box for the “Act Your Wage!” game features Ramsey holding a credit card between scissor blades. He likes quoting a verse from Proverbs,

The rich rule over the poor,
and the borrower is slave to the lender. (Proverbs 22:7 NIV)

Ramsey helps listeners escape the burden of debt. However, debt is not always a burden, and those who have escaped debt may still have unhealthy relationships with money. To make good financial decisions, we should look beyond simple rules like avoiding debt and examine our attitudes. Proverbs teaches that our attitudes shape our lives.

As water reflects the face,
so one’s life reflects the heart. (Proverbs 27:19 NIV)

When we borrow, we gain something in the present but lose something in the future. Because we pay interest on loans, when we borrow to consume, we gain less in the present than the we lose in the future, so we impoverish ourselves. Valuing the present too much relative to the future is a common disorder of our desires. Proverbs warns repeatedly about the future price of present comfort, often addressing the sluggard who sleeps today and starves tomorrow.

A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want like an armed man. (Proverbs 6:10 – 11 ESV)

However, borrowing can enrich rather than impoverish if we borrow to invest rather than consume. Investing in things like tools or education can improve the return on our labor. We enrich ourselves by borrowing to invest when our investment returns more than we pay to borrow. Following the simple rule of avoiding debt may cost us profitable opportunities.

If we put our desires in order, we can use debt to our benefit rather than our harm. Putting our desires in order may mean shifting our focus away from our present comfort. Another passage from Proverbs that Ramsey likes to quote deals with escaping responsibility for the debt of others and concludes,

Give your eyes no sleep
and your eyelids no slumber;
save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
like a bird from the hand of the fowler. (Proverbs 6:4 – 5 ESV)

Ramsey talks about focusing with “gazelle intensity” on escaping debt.  Focusing intensely on debt can counter our bias toward the present.  However, our attitudes toward money can be disordered in other ways, with even graver consequences.  Just as we can value the present too much relative to the future, we can value money too much relative to everything else.  Paul warns against the love of money, calling it “a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Timothy 6:10 ESV).

Getting our attitudes toward money in order is hard, but the rewards are huge. Our financial decisions are often complex. Many of the most difficult decisions, like buying a house or going to college, involve both consumption and investment. Simple rules may not guide us through such complex decisions as reliably as healthy attitudes. If our lives reflect our hearts, we can put our lives in order by putting our hearts in order.

Prepare your work outside;
get everything ready for yourself in the field,
and after that build your house.

Proverbs 24:27 ESV

In his 1987 movie Wall Street, Oliver Stone tells the story of Gordon Gekko, a stock speculator who will do anything to win. He lies to partners, spies on competitors, and trades on inside information. Gekko defends his greed in a speech inspired by a real speculator of the era, Ivan Boesky.

…Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works…. Greed, in all of its forms…has marked the upward surge of mankind….

The claim that greed “has marked the upward surge of mankind” finds some support in the work of the pioneering economist Adam Smith. Recent centuries have seen a blossoming of technology. Smith describes how these advances depend on the specialization that markets create.

The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour…. As it is the power of exchanging that gives occasion to the division of labour, so the extent of this division must always be limited by the extent of that power, or, in other words, by the extent of the market.¹

The role of markets in advancing technology provides some support for claims about the benefits of greed because we generally trade for profit. Smith writes,

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.²

However, thriving markets require more than a desire for profit; thriving markets require trust. When we trade with the public, we face risks like theft and fraud. While we may not rely on the benevolence of the baker for our bread, charity is not the only alternative to trade. Another alternative is predation, and greed undermines trust by encouraging predation. Continue reading “The benevolence of the baker”

Dishonest money dwindles away,
but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.

Proverbs 13:11 NIV

The Bible describes a covenant between God and the people of Israel. After Moses leads Israel out of captivity, the people agree to obey God, and God promises to bless the people. It is from this covenant, or testament, that the name of the first part of the Bible, the Old Testament, derives.

Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord…said, “This is what you are to…tell the people of Israel: ‘…if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession….’”

So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the Lord had commanded him to speak. The people all responded together, “We will do everything the Lord has said.” (Exodus 19:3 – 8 NIV)

In return for keeping the Mosaic Law, Israel is promised prosperity, victory in battle, and honor among the nations. In return for breaking the Mosaic Law, Israel is promised severe punishment.

The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed…because of the evil you have done in forsaking him…. The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron…. Because you did not serve the Lord your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. (Deuteronomy 28:20 – 48 NIV)

The Mosaic Law imposes hundreds of restrictions. The most famous commandments prohibit behavior that obviously harms others, like theft and murder. However, the Mosaic Law also includes instructions for diet, hygiene, economic organization, and even a requirement for rest.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work…. (Exodus 20:8-10 ESV)

The Mosaic Covenant seems to impose a heavy burden in exchange for a blessing from God. However, compliance with the Mosaic Law is not just a burden. All of the Mosaic Law, not just the requirement to keep a Sabbath, is also about rest. At the core of the Mosaic Law is the reformation of our desires. Our instinctual desires are boundless, and only by reforming our desires can we escape perpetual labor in their service. Continue reading “Burden and rest”

When there is no desire,
all things are at peace.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching 37

In the book of Exodus, God commands Moses to lead the nation of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. They flee into the desert, where they camp near Mount Sinai. God descends on the trembling mountain in fire, covering it in billowing smoke. God summons Moses, and on Mount Sinai God gives him the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments include basic instructions for handling other people. Murder, adultery, theft, and false witness are prohibited. The social theorist René Girard points out that the final commandment differs from those that precede it in addressing not our actions but our desires.

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Exodus 20:17 NIV)

Girard argues that the tenth commandment addresses an aspect of our desire that generates the behaviors prohibited in the commandments that precede it. We want what we see our neighbors having or even what we see our neighbors wanting. Such “mimetic” desire creates competition and conflict.

If the Decalogue devotes its final commandment to prohibiting desire for whatever belongs to the neighbor, it is because it lucidly recognizes in that desire the key to the violence prohibited in the four commandments that precede it. If we ceased to desire the goods of our neighbor, we would never commit murder or adultery or theft or false witness. If we respected the tenth commandment, the four commandments that precede it would be superfluous.¹

Girard errs in claiming that the wrongs addressed in the Ten Commandments are always caused by mimetic desire. Mimetic desire can cause us to harm others, but not all harmful desire is mimetic. When Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment, he explains that all of the commandments, including the one against coveting, depend on two more general commandments about attitude.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:37 – 40 ESV)

However, mimetic desire does shape our attitudes. In designating two commandments addressing attitude as the greatest commandments, Jesus prioritizes nurturing proper attitudes. The Bible describes several spiritual disciplines through which attitudes can be reformed, including prayer, ritual, and meditation. If our desires can reflect what we see in others as Girard describes, then we can also improve our attitudes by choosing who we see. Socializing can also be a spiritual discipline.

Continue reading “Meeting together”

Someone who associates regularly with certain people, for conversation, or for parties, or simply for the sake of sociability, is bound either to come to resemble them or else to convert them….  Since the risk is thus so great, we should be cautious in entering into such relations…, remembering that it is impossible to rub up against someone covered with soot without getting sooty oneself.

Epictetus, Discourses

In the gospel of Mark, Jesus visits the temple in Jerusalem with his disciples. In an open area of the temple are receptacles for donations. He sees rich people put in large amounts. He also sees a poor widow donate two lepta, the smallest coins in circulation. He tells his disciples,

Truly…this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on. (Mark 12:43 – 44 NIV)

We find such charity by the poor praised in the Bible. For example, Paul writes,

And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches.  In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.  For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. (2 Corinthians 8:1 – 3 NIV)

Charity by the poor is confusing. We expect the poor to receive rather than to give charity. Why should those who need money give away what little they have? Surely whatever can be accomplished with their meager donations can be accomplished with less sacrifice by others. Continue reading “Charity by the poor”

Never say about anything, “I’ve lost it,” but rather, “I’ve given it back.”

Epictetus, Handbook