Making Money the Old Fashioned Way
I just checked my e-mail box. I don’t get as many personal e-mails as I did a few years ago. I suppose text messages and facebook have negated the need for a lot of e-mails. Very few of the messages I receive are of the personal variety. I receive e-mails on two accounts one for my personal use and the other for my church and professional use.
On the church account I noticed that there was a message in the “spam” folder. Spam, in addition to being one of the foulest culinary creations ever put into a can, also refers to mass generated e-mails. It is not unlike the junk mail and flyers one receives in their regular mailbox.
I went to the “spam” folder and the subject line of the e-mail message said, “The FBI has a warrant for your arrest contact us as soon as possible.” I immediately deleted the e-mail. I am fairly certain the FBI. has no warrant for my arrest. I can’t think of any crime I’ve committed at all much less one that merits the involvement of the FBI.
Further, if the FBI wanted to find me it isn’t that hard. The agents can show up at the First United Methodist Church on a Sunday morning. I’m the guy up front wearing a black or white robe and doing a lot of talking.
The e-mail was a scam. Had I read the e-mail I’m sure I would have been instructed to send a sum of money to be deposited in a certain bank account located in another country. In many ways this is a new version of an old trick. I have also received e-mails instructing me to open a bank account with some of my money in order that a fortune from Nigeria can be placed in the account and divided with me. Of course the money from Nigeria will never come but my money would disappear.
The truth is there are a lot folks in our world who look to make their way in the world any way they can whether it is honest or not. Some folks will just pull a gun and rob you, others will break into your home and there are those who will try to pull a scam on you. Sadly in times such as these, with high unemployment and a poor economy in general, some folks feel compelled to make money through chicanery. Sadly, desperate people make great targets for the unethical.
Radio consumer expert Clark Howard is found of telling his listeners, “If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.” Clark Howard is telling the truth. In the end there really is no quick buck or as the cliché reminds us “no such thing as a free lunch.”
Yet, there will be those who will pay to avoid “arrest by the FBI.” There will also be those who will open a bank account and wait for a Nigerian windfall that will never come. Some will fall prey to the scams. Some will fall prey out of fear and desperation but others will do so because of their own greed.
In the end the Bible gives some fairly strong advice about money and finance. Jesus spoke about money more often than he spoke about anything else. Many of the letters of the Apostle Paul concerned an offering he was collecting for the members of the church at Jerusalem. Much of the legal code of the old testament concerns money and commercial transactions.
While the Bible encourages charity and the giving of alms above all the Bible encourages individual work and productivity. Jesus told a story about three men who were given money to invest. The two who were most productive were the ones rewarded.
In II Thessalonians Paul was even blunter when he said that if one didn’t work one shouldn’t eat. In fact, Paul himself maintained his occupation as tentmaker while he conducted his ministry.
In the end God’s people are called to earn their way in the world. During my teen-aged years there was commercial for an investment group named Smith-Barney. The commercial’s featured actor John Houseman who always played a crotchety old man in any movie or television show in which he appeared. I suspect that was because John Houseman wasn’t acting; I imagine he really was a crotchety old man.
Every Smith-Barney commercial concluded with John Houseman saying, “At Smith-Barney we make our money the old-fashioned way we earn it.” I offer today that God’s people are called to do the same. We are to make our way by earning it. I also offer that we are called to be vigilant because they are those who don’t believe that.