Senate scandals and the subsequent decision to audit every senator could not have come at a better time as Canadian economy continues to teeter.
Repaying back to the national coffer is just restitution. Yet the ignominy of bad judgements in padding perks would carry the rule-breakers to their graves.
Handling money honourably is an oft-repeated topic in the Bible. The great preacher John Wesley dealt often with money and materialism.
He preached on 1 Timothy 6:9, warning of the dangers of wanting to be rich. He preached on hazards of increasing riches.
When preaching and writing on the Sermon on the Mount, he served up a tremendous amount of practical advice on what are legitimate expenses and what is excessive spending.
In his many letters, he offered considerable advice to people who were already rich.
In one particularly convicting sermon, Wesley asked, “Why has Christianity done so little good?’ and cited Christians’ materialism as a major cause of the “inefficacy of Christianity.”
He was not shy about mentioning the eternal consequences of materialism.
Preaching on the gospel story of the rich man and Lazarus, he reminded his listeners that gathering wealth and not using it properly can send a person to hell.
In this sermon, he made his well-known practical statement, “It is no more sinful to be rich than poor. But it is dangerous beyond expression.”
Wesley believed a rich person could get into heaven ? it was just harder. A “slippery slope,” as he put it.
Perhaps the most well-known sermon of Wesley on money was titled, “The use of money,” based on Luke 16:9.
In this sermon, he spoke of three points about money ? (a) Gain all you can; (b) Save all you can; (c) Give all you can.
Gain all you can: Wesley believed that when it came to making money, Christians had much in common with unbelievers and could “meet them on their own ground.”
We ought to make money. It was argument for industriousness, hard work, and cleverness.
He thought Christians should work hard and long and the result would be gaining all the money they could. To him, there is nothing wrong with making money.
But to Wesley, there are some ways of gaining money which are wrong. For example, we are not to gain money at the expense of life or health.
Christians should not gain money through any occupation which harms our minds.
A real Christian would not “gain all he can” by hurting his neighbour.
A Christian has no business gaining money at the expense of his soul.
Save all you can: By this, Wesley did not mean Christians should tuck away as much as possible into savings accounts.
What he meant was to be careful in spending, being frugal. He warned that Christians tend to spend too much on the sensuous.
He warned about extravagant spending on taste, expensive food, which he felt was an “epicurism” that led to debauchery in other areas.
Rather, Christians should eat plain, simple food. This principle applied to clothing, elaborate homes, extraordinary decoration, and other showy things.
What he was condemning is extravagance and sensuousness. Like Jesus, Wesley called for simplicity and plainness.
Give all you can: This was the motivation of his entire view on money. The trilateral stands on the giving base. We are to gain and save in order to give.
Give how much? Wesley’s answer: give it all. Give to whom? He gave his own list:
First, give to yourself all you need for the basics.
Then, give to your family and employees their fair share.
Give to the “household of faith,” other Christians, which we assume includes the organized work of churches.
Finally, he said that we are to give to all people in need, which includes the poor, the needy, even if they are not believers in God.
To Wesley, money was for giving. We made it, and we saved so we could give it.
In fact, on this third point of his trilateral, he actually switched the wording by the end of his message from “give all you can” to “give all you have.”
And he lived it, too. In the year Wesley earned today’s equivalent of $1.4 million, he lived on two per cent of his income and gave 98 per cent away.
When he died, Wesley left behind only a few miscellaneous coins and a couple of silver spoons. He had given away the rest.
He practised what he preached.
