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Serve God, not money. PLUS: A guy sells the Eiffel Tower, how greed is one of the worst sins, and getting our hearts right.

You need some extra cash. What’s your next move?

Drive for Uber? Donate plasma? Sell your old books to a reseller?

(Obviously, not the one where you have to actually get rid of your books…)

But while you might have brainstormed some ways that will net you a couple hundred dollars, if you are lucky, plenty of people throughout history have dreamed much, much bigger. Have you thought, for instance, to sell the Eiffel Tower to the highest bidder?

Victor Lustig orchestrated a whole series of cons. The Austro-Hungarian born in 1890 sold fake historical documents from the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Marie Curie, and the Wright Brothers, and even convinced a magazine he had a lost story from Mark Twain. He hustled millionaires in cards and pretended to be royalty who just needed a cash advance from a stranger before the banks opened on Monday.

Most famously, though, he sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice. When it wasn’t for sale.

Playing off rumors that the Eiffel Tower, which some Parisians began to see as an eyesore, was going to be sold by the city, he posed as a government official with a fake office, stolen official letterheads, and everything. He contacted businesspeople who might want to buy the scrap metal, convincing them this was clandestine business. Lustig soon landed on André Poisson as a potential buyer, conning him for what would be about 4.5 million dollars today, plus another bribe equivalent to about $200,000 to get things moving faster.

After getting the money, Lustig took off to Austria, and the embarrassed Poisson never reported the con to the police. So, Lustig eventually came back to Paris to sell the tower again—yet this time, police were alerted, and he eventually fled to the United States. In the U.S., he would go on to swindle Al Capone and build a profitable million-dollar counterfeiting ring but was eventually taken down by the Secret Service for circulating fake $100 bills in the economy. He was sent to Alcatraz to spend most of the rest of his days.

I’m not saying any of you would sell the Eiffel Tower to unsuspecting rich people for a cool 4.5 million bucks—but history is filled with examples of slimy things people do to get rich. We like shortcuts, anything that doesn’t require too much hard work, all in hopes of eventually getting to live in luxury.

MLMs promise an easy at-home business model—as long as you can fork over an investment in initial inventory. Cryptocurrency hopes you are so focused on the hype that you ignore the likely high-risk, low-reward outcome. Online gurus promise this “one simple trick” will make you a millionaire by the end of the year. Prosperity gospel preachers say that you can “unlock” wealth from God if you just show your faith by donating a couple hundred to their television ministry.

There’s even a trend going on in China right now where people are buying soil collected near and inside banks, believing that they will find themselves getting rich just from having dirt from a place that stores lots of money!

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

If there’s one thing that unites humans, it’s that we like money and to accumulate stuff. No matter what economic system we are under, we find people are pretty greedy. Even if they aren’t conning people into buying a national monument that isn’t for sale, they are craving money and may let that drive them to do some not-so-great things. Certainly, that pursuit of money is going to force them to ignore other important things in the world.

Greed is a sin that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough in church circles. So that’s exactly what we are going to do today.

Money, Money, Money

It’s hard to know where to start talking about the Bible’s take on greed because it’s all over the place—just filled to the brim with warnings about loving money. In the Ten Commandments, we are told not to steal nor covet (desire) other people’s stuff. The book of Proverbs has tons of content saying how destructive greed is. The Prophets are obsessed with calling out nations and people who focus on economic growth over justice and helping the poor.

And Jesus has very harsh things to say to money lovers, even suggesting multiple times that they are going to have a very tough time getting to Heaven! Paul lumps greedy and covetous people in with adulterers and murderers in some of his lists of people who are not doing what they are supposed to!

It’s undeniable. The Bible wants you to NOT chase after money, NOT covet what you don’t have, and NOT hoard all your stuff when others are in need. This deadly sin is a BIG DEAL in Scripture.

Loving is sharing

Jesus notably explains just how dangerous greed is during the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 6:24, he lays it out: you have to make a choice. It’s not a both/and—it’s an either/or when it comes to God vs. Money.

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

—Matthew 6:24

Here, Jesus picks up on language throughout the Old Testament, which clearly states you can’t worship Yahweh and be into idols. As the premise of this newsletter claims, idol worship was primarily about securing a secondary safety net “just in case” God doesn’t work out. But God is the only safety net we need!

It was actually pointed out to me by a former banker and professor of finance that while most Bibles add a heading right after Matthew 6:24 to start a new section, actually, this verse naturally leads into the next topic. Jesus says that you cannot serve both God and money… and then immediately begins to talk about not being anxious.

Verse 25 begins with a transition word, implicitly linking the former discussion to this new train of thought.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?”

—Matthew 6:25

Jesus understands that we often hoard wealth not because we want to dive into a pile of money like Scrooge McDuck. We just want comfort. Safety. We don’t want to have to worry about getting basic necessities! Most of us aren’t seeking to be millionaires… we just want enough to be taken care of.

Yet God can take care of the birds of the air and flowers of the field… so how much more will God take care of us! Jesus argues that our anxiety about basic needs is not only unhelpful but is a sign that we don’t fully trust God to take care of us! The pagans are worriers. The people of God aren’t.

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

—Matthew 6:28-33

The way to being satisfied is living out righteousness! Seeking a kingdom based on the Almighty Dollar is thus contrary to the kingdom of our Almighty God.

My family went through many financial ups and downs growing up, including long seasons where my dad didn’t have a job and another season where both my parents worked at a Christian bookstore that wasn’t exactly a Fortune 500 company. Yet we were always okay. Random gift cards would appear in our box at church. People would invite us out to a meal. We’d get hand-me-down clothes. Strange happenstances would result in extra money.

God took care of us. That’s God’s specialty when we seek FIRST the Kingdom of God.

But it’s hard to do this.

The guy we call the “Rich Young Ruler” is a title given to the particularly wealthy person who comes to Jesus wanting to know what else to do to inherit the Kingdom since he’s pretty good and hasn’t done the major sins. We see parallel passages in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which also reveal that the next step is to give all your possessions away so that you will be perfect!

Commenting on this man’s dissatisfaction with this recipe for perfection, Jesus says:

“Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

—Matthew 19:23-24

Again, this is about competing allegiances.

Wealth gives you comfort, which can distract from doing the necessary things of righteousness. For instance, in Luke 16, Jesus tells the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, where the poor Lazarus is covered in sores and sits right outside the rich man’s gate—but is apparently completely ignored, or the rich man just isn’t paying attention as he lives in luxury.

Much pursuit of wealth—80-hour work weeks, living the high life—can mean you have little time and space for devotion to God and the things that matter.

We can’t serve both God and money!

Greed, Racism, Violence, and Empire - Malcolm Foley

Where Your Heart Is

Circling back to Matthew 6, a few verses before Jesus talks about not serving two masters and gets on our case about anxieties, Jesus declares in verses 19 to 21:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

—Matthew 6:19-21

In essence, Jesus is saying this: Show me your life, and I will show you what you value.

Our boy Victor Lustig, for instance, clearly was letting a desire for money control his life. He broke laws, lied, damaged people’s reputations and livelihoods, and dealt with shady people. He was storing up treasures on earth—all to end up in Alcatraz prison, dying without all that he collected.

Christians, though, are promised a part in eternity. It’s simple mathematics. Everything on earth is temporary. Even atheists believe that! But Heaven is eternal. It offers us something far, far more valuable. It will actually satisfy the deepest parts of ourselves as we learn, as Paul did, contentment in all things, including suffering (Philippians 4:11-12; 1 Timothy 6:6)!

Life beyond the archives

Chasing money means never being satisfied and content. There’s always more you want. Recently, I chatted with a business owner who was describing a certain business model as something he wasn’t interested in. He said it wasn’t worth it because he’d only make $100,000 a year. He laughed off six figures, while I was thinking, that sounds like a decent income to me! But that’s chump change for others.

But all of that will one day go away.

Jesus turns traditional worldly values upside down. The pagans worry about stuff. They chase money and power. They aren’t satisfied with any amount of money. But for Christians, we aren’t in the business of adding zeroes to our net worth. We have treasure in heaven, far more worthwhile.

All these millionaires and billionaires will die. Meanwhile, while they are concerned with how to live 70 or 80 years on earth, I’m concerned with what my eternity is going to look like—which will make a human lifespan look like a mere atom in comparison to the size of the universe.

Where our treasure is, there our hearts are also. Our hearts should not be concerned with stuff, money, and the comfort that it brings. Our hearts look toward eternity, to the things that truly matter. Our hearts should trust in God to take care of us.

Don’t serve money. Serve God alone.

Life Updates

• Subscribe to the Smashing Idols podcast on your favorite podcast platform.

• I’m thinking about doing a short “Smashing Idols”-themed book!

Seek God’s Kingdom FIRST,

Jake Doberenz

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