Money: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life

Tim Keller

Religion & Spirituality, Religion, Religion & Spirituality:christianity, Christianity, Spirituality

4.8 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Bible says probably 20 times more things about money than it does about sex, maybe more than that. So if you’re trying to know the Bible, you’re gonna know a little bit of something about money. We all have our own filters. We all have mental maps, assumptions about God and the universe and human nature and what’s important in life. It’s what we call a worldview. So what is the Christian worldview when it comes to wealth creation? The real question is whether wealth creation is good or bad or halfway in the middle? And we’ll see that the Bible is more nuanced on that answer. In the Christian worldview, wealth creation 1) is not bad, 2) is not good, and 3) is not something in the middle. This talk was given by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 27, 2004. Series: Center for Faith and Work. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Gospel and Life.
0:06.1	Are you struggling to find meaning and purpose in your work?
0:09.3	We spend much of our lives at our jobs, but our work can often be the area where we feel the most frustration and futility in our lives.
0:17.3	Today on the podcast, Tim Keller helps us understand how the gospel frees us to have hope and joy in our vocations.
0:28.6	My son also said, he works for Bear Stearns. He's out here out here somewhere and he said why is all these people
0:37.5	coming to hear you what do you know about money and the uh it's a you know but i studied i studied
0:43.9	for tonight uh but you know it's it's may surprise us i suppose that the bible uh you know i i i i that
0:52.4	my job is to not to know money it's to to know what's in the Bible and Christian texts.
0:57.6	And the, the Bible says probably 20 times more things about money than it does about sex, maybe more than that.
1:05.5	So it was hard for me not to know a little bit of something about money just by trying to get at it in the
1:11.3	Bible. I want to talk to you about filters for a second. Everybody comes at a life feeling like,
1:23.6	well, I'm just going through life in a kind of common sense, objective way, but actually you've got mental maps.
1:30.4	You've got mental maps.
1:31.6	You've got assumptions about God and the universe and human nature and right and wrong and what's important in life and the relationship between individuals and community.
1:41.1	You've got all kinds of assumptions working.
1:43.6	It's what we call a worldview.
1:46.4	So you're not walking through life making common sense decisions. You're not being objective.
1:51.0	You've got a world view. You've got a bunch of deep faith assumptions about things. And that's
1:57.1	how you're reading things. That's how you're looking at things. Now, from now on I'll talk
2:00.0	about money, but let me just give you one illustration of this. It has nothing to do with money. Like yesterday in the newspaper, I just read in New York Times, it said, it was a guy that said, what I don't like about religion is everybody thinks they've got the right God. Every religion thinks I've got the right God. They're all equally right. I don't like religion.
2:25.3	Now, that problem is, the only way that all religions can be equally right is if, A, there is no God.
2:30.5	And therefore, all religions are subjectively helpful, but none of them are objectively true.
	...

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