Education
Explore. Learn.Grow in the Word.
Explore Scripture, its story, its people, and what it means for life today.
Bible Studies Everyday Christian Life
Money & Stewardship
Jesus talked about money constantly. What he said, and how Christians handle it.
Jesus talked about money constantly, and almost never reassuringly. This study takes what he said at face value.
What you’ll explore
- 01 Why Jesus returns to money so often
- 02 Treasure, and where the heart follows
- 03 Stewardship rather than ownership
- 04 Debt, honestly
- 05 Contentment as a learned skill
- 06 “The love of money” — the sentence people misquote
- 07 Planning, saving, and holding it loosely
Why Jesus returns to money so often
Read Luke 12:13-21; Matthew 6:24
The rich fool builds bigger barns and dies that night, and the verdict is that he was not rich toward God. Jesus says you cannot serve both God and money — he treats money as a rival claimant, not a neutral tool. That framing is why he keeps coming back to it.
Treasure, and where the heart follows
Read Matthew 6:19-21
Note the direction of causation: where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The heart follows the money, not the other way round. That makes a bank statement a fairly reliable spiritual diagnostic.
Stewardship rather than ownership
Read Psalm 24:1; 1 Chronicles 29:14; Luke 16:10-12
The earth is the Lord’s; David says everything given came from God’s hand first. Jesus calls money "that which is another’s" in the middle of a parable about being trusted with it. The category Scripture uses is manager, not owner.
Debt, honestly
Read Proverbs 22:7; Romans 13:8; Deuteronomy 15:1-2
The borrower is the slave of the lender — a plain observation, not a prohibition. Paul says owe no one anything except love. The law built in periodic release from debt, which suggests Scripture regards permanent indebtedness as a condition worth escaping rather than a sin to be ashamed of.
Contentment as a learned skill
Read Philippians 4:11-13; Hebrews 13:5; 1 Timothy 6:6-8
Paul says he has learned to be content — it did not come naturally and it took circumstances to teach him. He knows both abundance and need. Contentment with godliness is called great gain, which is an economic word used deliberately.
“The love of money” — the sentence people misquote
It is the love of money that is a root of all kinds of evils, not money itself, and Paul says "all kinds of" rather than "all". A few verses later he tells the rich not to be haughty and to be generous — instructions to keep and use wealth well, not to divest. Getting the sentence right matters because both misreadings do damage.
Planning, saving, and holding it loosely
Read Proverbs 6:6-8; Proverbs 21:20; Luke 12:33; James 4:13-15
The ant stores in summer; the wise keep oil in the house. Jesus tells a particular group to sell their possessions and give. James mocks confident business plans made without reference to God — "if the Lord wills" is the correction. Prudence and open hands are held together, not traded off.
Questions to sit with
- What would your bank statement say your treasure is?
- Have you learned contentment, or are you waiting for an amount?
- Is there a debt you have stopped trying to escape?
Every passage in this study
Go deeper
Where this connects
This study sits inside a larger story. Read the passages above in their own books, and follow the thread back through Scripture as a whole.