1 Timothy 6:17–19

Yet nothing here gives fanatical credit to the clothing or habits of poverty. There is no pious avoiding of ordinary food or shelter among the homes of men. Still less is there a hint that a life shut away in a monastery is worth more... But those who are rich in the present age ("this present evil age," as the same apostle stamps it in Gal. 1:4) especially need to be on their guard. They must listen, not to the voice of flattery that is so often close at hand, but to the solemn warning of the Holy Spirit.

His words show first of all the dangers that come with having wealth. Wealth tends to breed high-mindedness. It turns the owner from trusting God to trusting money. The rich man of the world thinks highly of himself. He feels safe from the ordinary troubles and struggles that other people face. The wealthy Christian must not imagine that his money gives him the right to dominate the church of God and lord it over fellow believers.

So the apostle warns first against high-mindedness. Next he warns against building one's hopes on the stability of what so quickly takes wings and flies away. The owner is so often called away from it in the middle of his own ambitious plans. "Uncertainty of riches" indeed: how true and how fitting!

We saw that trust in the living God is the very essence of godliness when we were looking at 1 Tim. 4:10. The expression occurs again in verse 17 here. Rich believers are to be godly. They are to bend their energies not to laying hold of larger things in this world but to laying hold of "eternal life," or "that which is really life." Real life is not found in money and the pleasures it buys but in the knowledge and service of God.

The safeguard against these snares is found in trusting in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. However rich a man may be, he cannot buy the things that God gives. However poor, he can receive and enjoy what God gives.

You could not imagine a sentence that condemns the spirit of asceticism more completely. Strict self-denial looks better than the love of ease and luxury. But both are only forms of selfishness, however opposite they seem. Neither has the character of God, who has not left Himself without witness of His goodness toward men, even among the nations allowed to go their own ways.

We must constantly exercise trust in the Living God, He who gives richly all things to enjoy. If this trust is real, then it will reflect His own character of unselfish giving. They were to do positive good with what they had: let them be rich in good works, not only in possessions.

But God also looks for active good from rich people who are godly, since He Himself never tires of doing good (Acts 14:17). So the call follows: "to do good, to be rich in good works." There is an important shade of difference between the two acts. The first means doing works of kindness or goodness to others. Being "rich in good works" means overflowing with fair, upright works that are beautiful in themselves. The first are good in relation to others; the second are good in themselves. It matters greatly that the two are joined so closely, here and elsewhere. Most people praise the kind that affects man, and forget or belittle what counts for more: what is good in itself before God. Both flow from faith and love, and how acceptable both are!

Even this does not express all the generous outgoing of heart the apostle wants the rich to seek. He adds, as if he could not think of the poor enough, "to be liberal in distributing, ready to communicate." I take it that this goes beyond cases of urgent need. Some calls suit people of large means in particular, as in the many different needs of the Lord's work and witness. There are so many chances to promote His glory — and many of them are not the kind one would want to lay as a burden on the whole church!

The meaning of this scripture lies on the surface, once you understand the term "communicate." Two examples of its use will be enough. In Romans 12:13 it appears in the exhortation, "distributing to the necessity of saints," and in 1 Timothy 6:18 it appears as "willing to communicate." These two examples make Galatians 6:6 easy to read. What the apostle commands there is that the one who is taught in the word should share his "good things" with the teacher. In other words, the taught should enjoy the privilege of supplying the material needs of the teacher.

Trusting in the living God, who is the Giver of all good, will enable the rich man also to become a giver. But God loves a cheerful giver, so the apostle urges the rich man to be "ready to distribute" and "willing to communicate". Acting this way, he will lay up a good store for future blessing, instead of piling up riches for this present age.

Dorcas was in the spirit of this exhortation. She was rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to share what she had; for she had learned "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9); and by that same grace she had become His representative in the world. She was a giver, because God, who had brought her to Himself, was a Giver. She knew she was not her own. She knew that all she had she held only as a steward for Him, to whom she belonged. So she placed both herself and her goods at His disposal.

God has given to the rich this means of laying up treasure in heaven in view of Christ's kingdom. It is wonderful that natural riches can, in this way, provide spiritual riches. The poor can also lay up treasure in heaven, for God has chosen the poor to be rich in faith. What is laid up for the time to come will surely be found with Christ in the day of His glory.

Here Paul tells the rich believers to lay up in store for themselves a good foundation for the time to come by their generous giving to others. It may not seem like good common sense, but it is the surer way of grace in faith. To be consistent with Christ is to treasure up for ourselves. It is all the better when we do it so that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. It is a key truth in Christian practice that our Father sees in secret. It is just as true that we will have reward later with Him who is in heaven.

A rich person may use his wealth in the service of God and in the help of His people. So the man who starts out rich in money may end up rich in good works, and this is wealth of a more lasting kind. Earthly riches are uncertain. The man who stores them up for himself may find his store badly depleted just when he needs it most. The man who uses his riches in the service of God is laying up a good foundation of reward in eternity.

The dishonest manager of Luke 16 is an example of this. Our Lord did not approve his dishonesty, but He did approve his prudence. While he had the opportunity, he used it with an eye to the future. The Christian should do the same. But there is this difference. The manager had dreaded days of unemployment ahead of him. The Christian should keep in view the judgment seat of Christ, where everything we have done will be brought into the light of God.

It is no question at all of the grace by which a person is saved, and that entirely apart from works. It is the teaching of that grace which has saved us, leading us to sacrifice all present advantages in view of what is future and eternal.

When God has saved us, He will keep us, but we have to go through the wilderness, where we have a great deal to learn, including the question of service, and even of rewards, and much more besides. People mix all these things up with the question of acceptance. But as to the crown in front of me, that is not a question of my being saved; it is my encouragement.

Rich believers are to be godly. They are to bend their energies not toward laying hold of bigger things in this world, but toward laying hold of "eternal life," or "that which is really life." The second reading is probably the correct one. Real life is not found in money and the pleasures it buys, but in the knowledge and service of God.

We lay hold on eternal life as we realise in our souls that we do not belong to this sphere. Everything for us is bound up with the place we are going to. So we learn to see the things of this life very differently from the way we once saw them. We realise that the true life is life in fellowship with God. In the Spirit's power we can then use this world without abusing it.

Satan is busy, even among Christians, shutting out the things of God. He does it through things that in themselves may not be evil. We are taken up with them and pressed by them, and we have not learned to link them with God and use them for God. Sadly, the secular part of our lives quietly steals away so much of "what is really life."

"Storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life," is the apostolic instruction about those who are rich in this world. In measure, all may do this, even those who are poor in this world's goods. To lay up treasure in heaven for themselves is the privilege even of the poorest in the church.