The Bible has a great deal to say about wealth. Our Lord dealt with the matter forthrightly, as did also Paul and others of the New Testament writers. What they said is on record and is deserving of a more careful study than most Christians give it.

Wealth, of course, may exist in many forms and on a number of levels. A thing may be valuable in itself, or it may be intrinsically worthless but have an arbitrary value attached to it and so become a much sought after treasure among men. It would, for instance, be difficult to conceive of anything less valuable in itself than a cowrie shell, yet by common consent that worthless shell is made to stand for sweet potatoes or pigs, things having actual value for the people who must subsist upon them. And surely no one imagines that a bank note, a money order or a check has any worth apart from that attributed to it by law or custom.

One form of wealth for which little excuse can be found consists of trinkets to which a wholly artificial value has been attached, such as antiques, autographs and first editions. These constitute wealth in the minds of only a relatively few persons, but because most of these are the blas6 rich, surfeited with too much of everything, these quaint playthings often sell for fabulous prices.

Another form of wealth consists of those humble items necessary to human life on earth – grain, oil, vegetables, fruit, wool, water, lumber; and these are not to be despised even by the most heavenly-minded person. They are gifts from God and are to be received with meekness and thanksgiving.

Other finer treasures are those that pertain to our physical constitution, such as health, sight, hearing; treasures of the mind, as freedom, friendship, love, tranquillity; aesthetic treasures, such as music, literature and all things good and beautiful.

Above all these and incomparably greater than any or all of them are those treasures eternal in the heavens of which Christ spoke in His sermon on the mount and which the apostle Peter described as an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away. These become more real to us as we move on into conscious union with God, and the lower forms of wealth lose their value correspondingly.

Our Lord identified the highest form of wealth as "the kingdom of God, and his righteousness." This embraces about all the redeemed man can desire through all eternal years. Yet there was not in the teachings of Christ any trace of that voluntary pauperism that held earthly goods to be evil. This developed later among the Christian monks and anchorites. It arose from a misunderstanding of our Lord's words or was borrowed from Buddhism. Christ frankly recognized the value of meat and drink and clothing. He called them "all these things," assured His followers that the Father knew they needed them, and promised that He would give them as a bonus to those who sought the higher wealth first (Matt. 6:25-33).

Knowing the tendency of the human heart to become unduly attached to earthly goods, Christ warned against it. The "things" which the Father gives are to be understood as provisional merely and must never be considered our real treasure. The heart always returns to its real treasure, and if a man holds corn to be a real form of wealth his heart will be where his corn is. Many a man has his heart locked up in a bank vault, and many a woman has her heart in her jewel box or stored at the furrier's. It is a great moral tragedy when anything as wonderful as the human heart comes to rest on the earth and fails to rise to its own proper place in God and in heaven.

Treasure, incidentally, may be discovered by this fourfold test:

1. It is what we value most.
2. It is what we would hate most to lose.
3. It is what our thoughts turn to most frequently when we are free to think of what we will.
4. It is what affords us the greatest pleasure.

One of the glories of the Christian religion is that faith and love can transmute lower values into higher ones. Earthly possessions can be turned into heavenly treasures.

It is like this: A twenty-dollar bill, useless in itself, can be transmuted into milk and eggs and fruit to feed hungry children. Physical and mental powers, valuable in themselves, can be transmuted into still higher values, such as a home and an education for a growing family. Human speech, a very gift of God to mankind, can become consolation for the bereaved or hope for the disconsolate, and it can rise higher and break into prayer and praise to the Most High God.

As base a thing as money often is, it yet can be transmuted into everlasting treasure. It can be converted into food for the hungry and clothing for the poor; it can keep a missionary actively winning lost men to the light of the gospel and thus transmute itself into heavenly values.

Any temporal possession can be turned into everlasting wealth. Whatever is given to Christ is immediately touched with immortality. Hosanna to God in the highest!

(Excerpts are from Born After Midnight by A. W. Tozer, © 1989 Christian Publications)