Update: 4/13/20
Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for what he has done (Proverbs 19:17).Each of you should take care not only for your own needs, but also for the needs of others. You should have the same attitude toward one another as was in Christ Jesus. He existed in the form of God, but he did not consider his equality with God as something to hold on to. Instead, he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, and he was born in the likeness of men. He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death of a cross! Therefore God also highly exalted him. He gave him the name that is above every name. He did this so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend, the knees of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, He did this so that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:4–11).
But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For if you do this, you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:20–21).
These passages indicate that the biblical concept of charity is more complex than the typical Christian understands, and certainly far more complex than a non-Christian believes. Charity has to do with dominion. Of course, everything in the Bible has to do with dominion. But the passage from Philippians is so clear that it is startling that any Christian is unaware of the relationship between service to others and personal success in life, including the exercise of authority. This is an explicitly Trinitarian strategy. The Second Person of the Trinity, equal to God, decided to become a man. The man is Jesus Christ. Before the incarnation, He was the creator of the universe. After the incarnation, He became the Redeemer of the universe. Jesus Christ is the same Person, but in two natures: God and man. This is basic Trinitarian doctrine. There is no other theology like it. It is unique to Christianity. The idea that God the Creator became incarnate in order to save mankind is obviously unique. But equally unique is the assertion that the incarnation established a program of service that leads to Christ’s universal triumph at the end of time. Covenant-breakers and covenant-keepers jointly will confess His divinity.
What Jesus did as God, His followers are to do as redeemed people who are new creatures, no longer covenant-breakers. Jesus has provided the model. This model is simultaneously one of total service and absolute dominion. These seem to be opposites. In Christianity, they are linked by the Person of Jesus Christ: His life, death, resurrection, and ascension in history.
This does not deny that covenant-keepers, as stewards of God, are supposed to strive to get wealthy. Getting rich is the message of the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30) and the parable of the minas (Luke 19:11–27). The two stewards who doubled their investments, according to the parable of the minas, were then elevated to rulership over cities. Wealth accumulation is a program of dominion, both personal and kingdom.
Even more astounding to someone unfamiliar with the Bible, charity is a means of bringing an enemy under the negative sanctions of God. This is basic biblical doctrine. It was taught by Solomon. “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will shovel coals of fire on his head and the Lord will reward you” (Proverbs 25:21–22). [North, Proverbs, ch. 76] Paul cited Solomon (Romans 12:20). [North, Romans, ch. 10] There is continuity in the program of dominion, Old Testament to New Testament. There are two positive sanctions that result from giving charity to one’s enemy. The first is knowing that he will be brought low by God as a result of this charity. The second is that God will provide positive sanctions in your life. These are two highly self-interested motivations in showing charity to an enemy.
There is also the possibility that the testimony of your charity will lead to the conversion of your enemy. Paul did not deny this. The ministry of Jesus did not deny this. But you will search long and hard in the Bible to find a single case of someone who was a professed enemy of a covenant-keeper who became a covenant keeper as a result of the covenant-keeper’s act of charity. This is not the normal pattern.
Charity does silence critics. It is difficult for critics to remain critical in the face of self-sacrifice on the part of covenant-keepers. Paul wrote this: “Therefore first of all, I urge that requests, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may live a peaceful and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable before God our savior. He desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Timothy 2:1–4). There is a positive relationship between charity towards those who do not deserve it and the peace of the church. This is a program of evangelism. This was the basis of Jesus’ recommendation to His listeners, who were captives under Rome, to become subservient to people in power. “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. Instead, whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. If anyone wishes to go to court with you and takes away your coat, let that person also have your cloak. Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to anyone who asks you, and do not turn away from anyone who wishes to borrow from you” (Matthew 5:38–42). [North, Matthew, ch. 9] This is a general pattern of benevolence. Biblical charity is self-interested. It is legitimately self-interested because it builds the kingdom of God in history. God rewards those who are involved in this mighty construction project.
The story known as the rich young ruler is familiar to most Christians. A young man asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life. He claimed that he had followed the laws of God. Jesus told him to sell everything he had and give to the poor. He went away troubled, for he had great possessions (Matthew 19:16–22). [North, Matthew, ch. 38]
Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard it, they were very astonished and said, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Then Peter answered and said to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you, in the new age when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Every one who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children, or land for my name’s sake, will receive one hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first” (Matthew 19:23–30).
Rich people trust in their wealth. This is why they do not enter the kingdom of God. They see their wealth as their means of dominion. The result is that they forfeit eternal dominion. In contrast, Christians who are willing to suffer poverty for the sake of Christ will, in the new heaven and new earth, gain great treasure. They will not only gain treasure; they will gain judicial authority. [North, Matthew, ch. 39:A] Paul wrote: “Do you not know that the believers will judge the world? If then, you will judge the world, are you not able to settle matters of little importance? Do you not know that we will judge the angels? How much more, then, can we judge matters of this life?” (I Corinthians 6:2–3). [North, First Corinthians, ch. 6]
So, there are two roads to wealth beyond the grave. There are two roads to authority beyond the grave. One is the way of wealth accumulation. The other is the way of poverty. One is the way of the self-sacrifice that is required to gain wealth. The other is the way of the self-sacrifice that is required to give away wealth. It is important for the wealthy man that he be ready at any time to give away his wealth. He must not hang onto it. “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone wants to follow me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what does it profit a person if he gains the whole world but forfeits his life? What can a person give in exchange for his life?’” (Matthew 16:24–26). [North, Matthew, ch. 35] The church of Jesus Christ has room for both kinds of dominion-seekers. It is imperative that you understand this. The Bible’s view of self-sacrifice rests on confidence in long-term self-interest. This began with the Second Person of the Trinity in heaven, and it extends into the kingdom of God in history. God set the pattern. We are to follow the pattern.
There is a major exegetical problem with Matthew 19:23–30. It is this: Does it apply throughout history? If it does, then there is no way for Christians to exercise widespread dominion. Money will flow to the top 20% of the society (Pareto’s law), who will own 80% of the wealth. Most of these people will be covenant-breakers. Power follows wealth in every society. This passage, if universal, denies the possibility of Christendom. This means that the fulfilment of the dominion covenant will be achieved apart from widespread faith in God. Mankind in general rather than the church will gain dominion. Thus, the dominion covenant loses its character as an aspect of saving grace, meaning special grace. Covenant-breakers will inherit the lion’s share of dominion in history. This clearly is inconsistent with the ideal of Christendom. We must choose: Christendom vs. the universality of this rule of money vs. salvation. The outcome of this choice will shape a person’s worldview. My conclusion: Jesus’ observation applied to His generation. It may apply to most generations. But it is not universal. [North, Matthew, ch. 39]
Although the context of the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac on the altar is not one of charity, it is certainly one of self-sacrifice. It is the pattern of God the Father. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only natural-born son when God required it. God provided a substitute in the form of a ram, but he wanted to test Abraham’s commitment. It was a good test for Abraham, as well. He learned that he could fully trust God. He held back nothing. This is the pattern of dominion. It was by means of the near-sacrifice of his own son that the promise of Abraham’s own name was fulfilled: father of nations.
Biblical charity is essential for building God’s kingdom on earth, for it reduces our fear of the unknown. We are not to live in fear of the unknown. We are to live in the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10). Intense fear of any aspect of the creation tends to paralyze men, to keep them in bondage to the creation. Fear and paralysis are what the biblical covenant was designed to overcome. Perfect love casts out fear (I John 4:18).
Bad things can and do happen to good people from time to time, while good things happen to the unrighteous (Psalm 73). [North, Psalms, ch. 17] The world sometimes appears to be governed by a system of perverse historical sanctions. Herbert Schlossberg was correct in Idols for Destruction (1983): “The Bible can be interpreted as a string of God’s triumphs disguised as disasters.” Covenant-keepers are not immune from the corporate curse that God has placed on the creation. We are also not immune to the corporate curses He places on the covenant-breaking society in which we live. So, as a way to reduce our fear of the unknown, God commands us to be generous to others in the faith during their time of need.
Biblical charity is a form of social insurance—not state insurance, but social insurance: provided through voluntarism without any threat of civil sanctions. Biblical charity begins with those who labor in the work of building God’s kingdom on earth, who in turn voluntarily support other covenantally faithful people who share in this work. Biblical charity is therefore part of God’s system of corporate covenant sanctions—in this case, positive sanctions, beginning with covenant-keepers and extending to covenant-breakers only after those inside the household of faith have been assisted.
Charity creates dependence. This dependence is to be temporary except in cases of permanent physical or mental helplessness. The biblical goal is dominion by covenant, not by permanent dependence. This is why state charity is so dangerous to biblical dominion and therefore to liberty. It creates a permanent political base of dependents and also a permanent corps of state-funded welfare agents whose income depends on the maintenance of poverty to relieve. For this corps of welfare agents, poverty is where the money is. The positive sanction of charity is not to be provided by the state, which must impose compulsory negative sanctions (taxes) on some people in order to extend positive sanctions (welfare) to others. The state is to promote the general welfare only by punishing criminals and defending the nation from invasion. A biblical positive sanction—the general welfare—is the social result of the state’s exclusively negative sanctions. The state is required by God to defend the legal boundaries that establish private property, not invade these boundaries in an illegitimate messianic quest to bring positive sanctions to the poor. The civil magistrate is figuratively to stand inside the property owner's boundaries to defend him against any threat of invasion by a non-owner. He is not to stand outside the boundaries by the side of the non-owner, threatening to invade. Defenders of the welfare state reject this view of the civil magistrate. Because so many of these defenders are orthodox theologians and church leaders, Christian social theory today is either non-existent (baptized humanism) or undermined by humanism.
Adam Smith was famous for emphasizing the importance of the division of labor in production. The division of labor is basic to all of life, beginning in the family. Different people have different assignments. They have different skills and interests. They develop particular skills to such a degree that they are more productive in a specialized area of production than they could be in any other area. The result is greater efficiency of production: greater output per unit of resource input. This means greater wealth for the producers, and it means greater wealth for the consumers.
The principle of the division of labor is equally applicable to the conditions of wealth and poverty. People learn to cope with the challenges around them. Rich people cope with their specialized challenges. So do poor people. Rich people have greater responsibility than poor people do. That is because there is no escape from the link between wealth and responsibility. A person who has greater wealth has greater opportunities. He therefore has greater responsibility for deciding the proper allocation of his funds. The poor man’s responsibilities are limited. He has to put food on his family’s table. He has to find a way to earn a living. This may not be easy, but it is a problem common to almost all of mankind throughout history.
The man who is skilled at getting rich becomes increasingly skilled. He concentrates on particular ways of getting rich, and he improves his performance over time. As we say, practice makes perfect. Practice does not really make perfect, but it makes for great improvement. Why should we believe that this is not equally true in the area of making money? In my generation, the most successful maker of money is Warren Buffett. He began as a young man as an investor, and he is now perhaps the third richest man in the world. At the age of 88, he still goes to work every day as an investor. I can think of no other rich man in history who has been so successful for such a long period of time.
He knows that he will soon depart from this world. He is an atheist. He intends to give his wealth to another atheist’s charitable foundation: Bill Gates. Gates is probably the second richest man in the world. But, unlike Buffett, he walked away from the realm of moneymaking to run his foundation. He oversees the distribution of this wealth around the world. He is probably the most successful builder of wealth in history who then became a successful donor of wealth. The only man comparable to him in American history was Andrew Carnegie, who made a fortune producing steel. Beginning on January 1, 1901, when he sold his company, he began to give the fortune away on a full-time basis. John D. Rockefeller, Sr. did the same thing. But Carnegie gave a greater portion of his fortune away in his lifetime than Rockefeller did: about 90%. Both men supported humanistic causes. Both men established large bureaucracies staffed with people of similar persuasion. Their foundations did not support the free market that had made both of them wealthy.
In the 1970s, I knew a free-market economist who was an advisor to one of the richest conservative businessmen in the world, Pierre Goodrich. The advisor’s name was Ben Rogge [ROWEguee]. He made this observation about Goodrich and his peers. “Rich people know how to make money. They do not know how to give it away.” He understood the principle of the division of labor. He also said this: “My goal in advising Goodrich is this: to keep him from doing too much harm with his money.” He was successful in this role.
When it comes to giving away great wealth, philanthropists are not uniquely skilled. When poor people give away money to slightly poorer people, they are in a position to evaluate the reasons for the recipients’ poverty. They know whether the person has fallen on hard times irrespective of his own hard work and diligence. They also know when a person is a profligate who deserves to be poor. They use their money in a more productive way. In other words, they are more efficient in giving away their own money. In contrast, an extremely rich man has no contact with people who are really poor. He is in contact mainly with people who are also very rich. They do not have contact with poor people. At best, they have contact with their foundations’ upper-middle-class salaried employees. These employees are recruited out of the same pool of talent: universities. The money that rich men give away is unlikely to raise the living standards of the poorest people. At best, the rich will give money to support medical research that will improve the quality of life of very poor people. Bill Gates’ foundation has invested $2 billion to fight malaria. His wife is an expert in malaria. She taught herself the basics. She has specialized in the philanthropic division of labor. If this research turns out to be highly productive, then extremely poor people in sub-Saharan Africa will be benefitted.
There must be a hierarchy of charitable giving. Extremely wealthy people at the top of the wealth pyramid must hire upper-middle-class people to administer the money. They, in turn, must figure out how to allocate this money so as to improve the lives of poor people, sick people, and other people in need. But most charitable foundations concentrate in areas other than helping the poor. They give great amounts of money to a handful of universities. They support modern art. They support the favorite causes of the founders of the foundations. A low percentage of their donations trickles down to the poor.
The logic of modern economics rests heavily on the concept of marginal utility. This was the great discovery in the first half of the 1870s by Menger, Jevons, and Walras. According to marginal utility theory, other things remaining constant over time, each additional unit of income that someone receives will be allocated to satisfy whatever was at the top of his “not worth buying” list before he received the extra income. This is logical. We do not spend our money on items that are less valuable to us. We spend our money on items that are more valuable to us. The logic of this approach to economics assumes that there is a hierarchy of economic value in everybody’s life. But tastes do change. Conditions change. Other things do not remain constant. So, economic theory is to this extent logical at the expense of being realistic. It is abstract. It is Parmenidean at the expense of Heraclitus. With respect to many discussions of economic thought and practice, the assumption of declining marginal utility has proven to be a productive assumption in explaining the profit-seeking market process. Economists use it all the time. They should use it with fear and trepidation.
If the theory were applicable across the board, as each person’s income rises, he would give a greater share of his income to charity. After all, he has satisfied his basic wants. He is not hungry. He is not cold. If he lives in a hot climate, he is not perspiring. He has air conditioning. Electricity serves him 24 hours a day. He has enough money to pay for any physicians that he needs. Furthermore, he has a comprehensive health insurance policy for himself and his family. Such a person was described well by Solomon: “The wealth of the rich is his fortified city and in his imagination it is like a high wall” (Proverbs 18:11). He trusts his money. Most of the time, his trust is well-placed. He does not suffer the crises that afflict the poor man. He has other crises, but they are not the crises that afflict the vast majority of humanity. [North, Proverbs, ch. 54]
Given marginal utility theory, we might guess that poor people would not give much of their wealth to charity. But, as they grow richer, they would give an increasing percentage of their wealth to charity. But this is not what we find. Poor people in the United States generally give a higher percentage of their wealth to charity than all but the superrich do. Rich people reinvest their money; they do not give it away. This is true around the world. This seems to deny the principle of marginal utility. I believe that it does deny its relevance in this important area of life. I believe that the accumulation of wealth becomes an addiction in some people, usually men. People accumulate wealth, not for the consumption that it will afford them, but for the sake of accumulation itself. It is the motivation of the miser. Rich men define their success in terms of how much wealth they possess. Wives of rich men define themselves in terms of their husbands’ wealth.
This was true in Jesus’ day. This was the problem—a psychological problem—that afflicted the young man who refused to sell his goods and give to the poor as a precondition of following Jesus. It should be clear why this was a requirement. All of the disciples were poor. That young man could not be brought into the circle of the disciples without completely disrupting the program that Jesus was demonstrating to them. His money would have bought everything the disciples needed. His generosity to the disciples and to Jesus would have undermined the evangelism program that subsequently spread across the Roman Empire.
Jesus had no big donors. He did not want big donors. There were some rich people who held banquets for him. He attended these banquets, but He soon departed. He did not choose to mix socially with the rich and famous. The men who joined him had abandoned their wealth. Four fishermen who were successful enough to own their own boats walked away from their joint venture. Levi/Matthew walked away from his wealth as a tax collector. Their wealth would have been a liability in the original circle of disciples.
Therefore, in the area of charity, the logic of marginal utility is an ineffective analytical tool. It also does not explain the motivation of rich people who accumulate wealth. Why do they keep investing in new projects? They do this because their tastes change, their opportunities change, and their vision of dominion changes. They move into circles of greater wealth and influence. Within these circles, the rich man becomes what Americans call “the low man on the totem pole.” They are now entry-level performers. They wish to prove that they are as good and maybe better than those around them, so they must dedicate their lives to an even more frantic accumulation of wealth. All of this benefits consumers. The consumers are the great beneficiaries of the sense of inferiority or lack of achievement that progressively afflicts the rich. The free market is a system for channeling the psychological addiction of the rich into paths for serving consumers. The escalating individual quest for greater wealth benefits consumers, unlike the escalating individual quest for greater power, which almost always afflicts the general public.
The world of commerce and business is the world of profit and loss. Ludwig von Mises described this world in his little book, Bureaucracy (1944). It is the world of profit management. It is the world of open entry, of competition for consumers’ money, in an economy based on monetary profit and loss. It is a world of accounting systems. Success or failure is governed by monetary profit or loss.
1. Bureaucratic Management
In contrast, Mises argued, is bureaucratic management. He had in mind civil government, but his analysis also applies to the nonprofit world of charitable foundations. Here, no one owns the business. No one working for the business has a legal claim on the profits of the business. Because these are not businesses, they are not governed by profit and loss. They are governed by other standards. These standards are affected by the amount of money that comes in to the organizations, but consumers are not in charge. Their decisions to buy or sell in a competitive market are not the basis of profit and loss. In the case of civil government, taxpayers fund the system. In the case of nonprofit organizations, donors fund the system. The problem for economic theory is this: there is no theory of economic success for nonprofit organizations. That is because consumers are not in charge; donors are in charge.
Donors cannot be sure whether the money that the organization they donate to is doing a good job. In the business world, a good job is simple to define: making a profit. But that criterion is not available to a nonprofit organization. First, what are the criteria that govern a nonprofit organization? Second, how does the organization prove to donors that it has met the criterion effectively in the previous fiscal year? There are no theoretical answers to these two questions. Each organization is different. Each organization has different success indicators.
The church is not a profit-seeking organization. Historically, it is the model in Western civilization for an effective nonprofit organization. It has survived the test of time in many cultures around the world, but it has been most successful in the West. It has shaped the West. The West is what it is in part as a result of what the church has been. Donors who are members of churches are recipients of benefits. These benefits are not generally economic, except when someone falls into poverty, and he gets support from the local congregation. This is not the normal pattern of benefits for church members. Church members hear weekly sermons. They get fellowship. But, because the church is not a profit-seeking organization that sells these services, members get these services irrespective of how much money they donate. There is no monetary connection between benefits received and donations made.
Success is less clear in nonprofit organizations. Church members do get some benefits as members. They are consumers of church resources. Donors to nonprofit charities are not consumers of the resources generated by these charities. They are acting as stewards for poor people, sick people, or people afflicted with other burdens. They have some general sense that the charity is acting responsibly on their behalf of the people served, but there are few metrics. There is nothing comparable to a profit and loss report from an accountant. There is nothing comparable to the prices of corporate shares on the stock market.
2. Few Metrics
Donors to nonprofit organizations take a great deal on faith. They have faith that the reports issued by these organizations faithfully reflect the success of these organizations. This takes a great deal of faith. They may use other metrics. One of them would be the amount of money spent on fund-raising in relation to the amount of money spent on the charities’ programs of helping the afflicted. Another might be the salaries paid by the organizations to the senior bureaucrats who run them. But none of these metrics is really proof of the success or failure of the organization. This problem also afflicts the senior managers of the organization. They cannot be sure that their allocation of funds is optimum. There are no criteria for optimum. There is only guesswork.
Donors who actively participate occasionally in the day-to-day operations of a nonprofit organization may get a better sense of the success or failure of the organization. But the largest money donors do not have low-value time to donate. There is a Pareto distribution of donations. The top 20% of donors provide 80% of the donated funds. The top 1% of the donors donate about half of the money. These people do not have low-value time to donate to the organization. They give money in faith.
In the business, there are economies of scale. The larger the organization, the greater the economies of scale. But there are limits here. At some point, accurate information about the operations of the business become muddled. This is because access to information within the organization is not based on a competitive pricing system. So, large organizations can get too large for them to maximize profits. The profit-and-loss system warns senior managers and investors that an organization is losing its competitive edge. There is nothing comparable to this in the realm of nonprofit organizations. So, the larger the organization gets, the less clear its success indicators become. The benefits that it provides to poor people, in comparison to the benefits provided by rival charities, are not measurable in the way that business success is. The less measurable the success indicators are, the greater the amount of faith that must be exercised by donors.
Learning how to make money is training in dominion for a handful of covenant-keepers. It is also training in dominion for a handful of covenant-breakers, but it does them no good in the world beyond the grave. They serve the kingdom of mammon. Mammon promises nothing beyond the grave. The Bible makes it clear that this pathway to dominion is fraught with danger. “Two things I ask of you, do not withhold them from me before I die: Put vanity and lies far away from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches, just give me the food I need. For if I have too much, I might deny you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or if I become poor, I might steal and profane the name of my God” (Proverbs 30:7–9). [North, Proverbs, ch. 85]
For the vast majority of Christians in history, the biblical pathway of dominion has been charity, not wealth accumulation. There are always vastly more poor people than rich people. A strategy of dominion that rested exclusively on the accumulation of wealth would have excluded from influence the vast majority of Christians. Also, because marginal utility theory does not apply well to the accumulation of wealth as a motivation for increasing charitable giving, Christianity would have never achieved cultural dominion in the West if Jesus’ strategy had been based on wealth accumulation. Such a strategy would have been a strategy for the cultural domination of the Christian world by an elite of wealthy people. Christianity opposed such a strategy. James had contempt for the covenant-breaking rich. “Come now, you who are rich, weep and wail because of the miseries coming on you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver have become tarnished and their rust will be a witness against you. It will consume your flesh like fire. You have stored up your treasure for the last days. Look, the pay of the laborers is crying out—the pay that you have withheld from those who harvested your fields, and the cries of the harvesters have gone into the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived in luxury on the earth and indulged yourselves. You have fattened your hearts for a day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed the righteous person. He does not resist you” (James 5:1–6).
The vast majority of people are not extremely rich. It is unlikely that they ever will be. The pyramid of wealth seems constant over time. There are always extremely rich people, but they are a minority, meaning a fraction of a percent, of those people who live in poverty. But in the free market system, the ability of people at the top to get rich has been the basis of the ability of people at the bottom to escape grinding poverty. Escaping grinding poverty is what the Lord’s prayer specifies: daily bread. The Lord’s prayer does not call on God to make his people wealthy. Yet the effect of the free market over the last two centuries has made poor people wealthy on a scale that would not have been believed in 1900, let alone 1800. In the West, and in those regions of the world that trade with the West, grinding poverty has disappeared. Christians go through the ritual of praying for their daily bread, but a lot of them also think that they ought to go on diets. They have gained too much weight. Even this is a misinterpretation of Scripture. In the Bible, fat is a blessing. Being thin is not. Of course, fat then was not based on the modern diet of highly salted food, high fat content, lots of sugar, and the other things that fatten us. We have not proven to be good stewards of our enormous wealth, and it has led to our enormous girth, compared to other cultures. The immigrant from India, Dinesh D’Sousa, grew up in Mumbai. He had a friend who wanted to come to America. He asked his friend why. His friend had a cogent answer: “In America, poor people are fat.”
There is always a hierarchy of wealth. The person who has wealth that he can give away is wealthier than the person to whom he gives it. There is always hierarchy of wealth. A generous man may be poor in his own eyes, but he is in better economic shape than the person who receives his charity. The person who can afford to give away money should be grateful to God that he is in this position. This is a gift of God. If he puts the gift to good use, he will become a wiser person in the allocation of his funds. He may not get rich, but he will not get poor. This is what the Bible recommends for most covenant-keepers.
The Bible requires the tithe. The tithe owed to the local congregation. I have explained this in Chapter 44. Any money that is kept by a Christian in excess of 90% of his net income is theft from God.
This means that charity must begin with the self-discipline that is associated with paying the tithe. This is the original training ground of dominion. The individual ritually admits that he is not the source of his wealth, and that God has mandated his acknowledgment of this hierarchical reality: paying a tithe to the local church. The tithe is a ritual acknowledgment of the biblical principle of stewardship. Ownership is delegated from God. Christians owe a tithe on this delegated income.
Beyond the tithe, there is no explicit commandment with respect to a percentage of a person’s income that should be devoted to charity. If the person wishes to exercise dominion by accumulating wealth, which is a form of capital, that is legitimate. But he must not forget the poor. He started out poor. Paul wrote: “For we have brought nothing into the world. Neither are we able to take out anything. Instead, let us be satisfied with food and clothing. Now those who want to become wealthy fall into temptation, into a trap. They fall into many foolish and harmful passions, and into whatever else makes people sink into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people who desire it have been mislead away from the faith and have pierced themselves with much grief” (I Timothy 6:7–10). The temptation to extend dominion through wealth accumulation is very great. The temptation to extend dominion through charitable giving is not equally great, at least not in the lives of those who have not begun such a program of self-discipline.
The rise of nonprofit foundations and charitable ministries that are not part of the institutional church, often called parachurch ministries, has come as a result of widespread theft. Christians who have not paid their tithes to their local churches have instead donated money to nonprofit ministries. This is morally wrong. All nonprofit Christian ministries should be supported either by local churches or by donations from people who tithe to their local churches. This should be obvious to anyone who has studied the tithe, but it is not. God has first claim on our wealth. That claim is manifested in the mandatory tithe. It is not manifested in donations from Christians who are not tithing. If you have believed Chapter 44, you will not give away money that you owe to your local congregation. Your charitable impulse must come from your post-tithe income.
If you are going to donate time to a charitable ministry, but you cannot afford to donate money above the tithe, this is legitimate. You are not required by God to get a second job which will provide enough income for you to give to various ministries. For poor people, their donation of time to charitable ministries is a great service. It is a public manifestation of charitable giving that is not provided in secret. It is difficult to donate time to a charity without becoming known as a donor. Jesus warned against those who did their charity in full public view. Someone who donates time to a charity in private view has not violated Jesus’ principle of charity given in private. It is an effective form of charity. Poor people know that rich people can easily write a check. They know that the donation of time is a serious donation.
Charity should be a donation out of the donor’s funds. If the donor is not a tither, he is not donating his funds. He is donating God’s funds. God is not impressed by such donations except when they are made in ignorance. From this point on in your life, such donations will not be made in ignorance.
Jesus made it clear that charitable giving is a means of dominion both in history and eternity. It was His strategy as the Second Person of the Trinity. To imagine that any other strategy would work for the Christian church is silly.
It is a great temptation for poor people who have heard the gospel to imagine that God’s path of dominion for them is based primarily on increasing wealth. Jesus never taught this. This is not to say that, for some spiritually gifted people, greater wealth cannot be a program of dominion. But their accumulation of wealth must be based on self-conscious service to consumers, and it must be accompanied by at least the tithe.
It takes time to become a skilled donor. The division of labor principle tells us this. We must specialize early. We must gain the skills associated with effective giving, which is wise giving. The development of Christian wisdom takes experience. This is why people should learn early to tithe. Then they should learn to give additional money away.
There have rarely been Christians who have accumulated great wealth and who have been equally successful in giving away their money. Rich Christians have little experience in giving their money away. They come to this late in life. They are easily deceived by well-educated bureaucrats who feign allegiance to their worldview, but who abandon this worldview shortly after the deaths of the founders. It is far easier for a deceiving staff of highly educated bureaucrats to steal a nonprofit foundation than it is for a similarly dedicated and educated group of bureaucrats to steal a denomination. Theological liberals have done both, but the speed and ease of stealing a foundation is vastly more efficient than stealing a denomination.
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