How Politics and Money can Destroy Godly Wisdom

Posted by Ryan Thompson on

We want godly wisdom, but worldly ideas bombard us constantly. Politics and money increasingly fight for our time and attention, and can seem like ideas that fit with Godly wisdom. They can be good ideas that benefit many, but in the end, they take us away from what God wants for us.

Politics

Political turmoil can occupy our thoughts and replace Godly wisdom. This turmoil begins to shape our minds to see the world separated by two groups of political people, rather than as believers and those who need to believe. We start thinking that the way to fix the world is to just get our people in office, and that if the other side takes over, the world is ruined. We are prone to forget that God is in control of everything, and anything that happens is part of his plan.

Our mind becomes occupied with worldly issues, and we forget most of what God calls us to do in our day. We forget to pray for our neighbors, family, and friends. Our joy gets caught up in the daily news story. We replace time in the Word with time consuming political content.

In these increasingly partisan and violent times, remember we are Christians first. Our main goal is not to get our political views pushed on the country, even if they are serious. We are primarily ambassadors of Christ. This is not our home. We want people to glorify God. The best way to do that is to grow in personal wisdom though time in the Word and prayer daily, and to focus on the people God placed in our lives.

Money

We can easily fall prey to the worldly rhetoric about money. Many thousands of people are preaching a false gospel of money and stuff, even if they don’t mention Christ. Sometimes it seems like wisdom, that it fits right in with our Christian life. But it always leads us away from God.

It can start with a little ad online that catches our interest. Many of them focus on things we desire, like traveling or having more time for family. They take us through well-formed arguments meant to funnel us into buying their product or returning for more, but even if we don’t, the words can change our mindset.

This is the core of the false gospel they preach: you will be happier if you just do this. This could be a complex process or a simple technique. It usually focuses on a goal like traveling, but usually is about how you can make more money.

The confusing part of these messages is that these things are not inherently bad. Spending more time with family is a great thing. But they use these ideas that seem to fit with godly wisdom and spin arguments that lead to idolatry. It usually goes like this: you want to spend more time with family, you need an easier way to make money to free up your time, you don’t want to think about money, here’s an easy way to make money so you have more time. They tell you it’s not about money but that’s the whole point! And that’s why they are doing this!

Even when your goal is to give more money away, a focus on making more money is contrary to the gospel of Christ. We can tell it replaces God when our passion for Him fades, our time with him decreases, and prayer becomes a boring routine. We can use this test to find false messages we believe: “I will be happier if I….”

True wisdom begins with God, as Proverbs 1:7 says. We can’t look to politics, money, people with messages that seem good, or anything other than God to give us meaning, joy, and wisdom. Jesus focused mainly on those closest to him. He did not worry about the politics of the day or making more money as much as making disciples. Go and make disciples!

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