A second question comes in from Rick Siegel, who serves as the Vice President of Advancement

and the Distinguished Lecturer of Commerce and Vocation at Bethlehem College and Seminary.

He asks this, Pastor John, is it sinful to be a high net worth individual defined as assets

minus liabilities being greater than one million US dollars?

Here's the scenario.

God blesses a Christian's personal industry with fruitfulness in the form of a large

annual income.

The biblical wartime lifestyle, as I may be admittedly misunderstanding it, would have

this person use a portion of that income to meet modestly constructed needs, including

the setting aside of similarly modest, rain day reserves, and then give the rest to

ministry, especially for the care of the poor.

This person would not accumulate assets in such a model and therefore would neither be

nor ever become a high net worth individual only by God's grace a highly paid one during

certain seasons.

On the other hand, what about a Christian investor, the person who doesn't immediately

give to Christian charity all of the difference between a modest lifestyle and a large annual

income but who keeps it, and with great attentiveness accumulates assets that may produce future

income and future charity beyond the immediate fruit of his annual labor.

What's the difference between desiring to be a rich for Timothy 6.9 and skillfully, faithfully

managing one's wealth in this manner?

So let's get the powerful warning against the desire to be rich out on the table and

then clarify a few things about wartime lifestyle because there's where the rub is.

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