But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.ââ”1 Timothy 6:7-10 (Emphasis added)

Four years after it began, we still find ourselves mired in some level of the Financial Meltdown. We’re all sitting around waiting for politicians, economists and industry leaders to fix what’s broken in the economy, but have you noticed that doesn’t seem to be working? Maybe it’s time for us to get busy. And since we have the handbookââ”the Bibleâ”perhaps as Christians we need to take the lead.

Part of the reason that our leaders have been unable to fix the economy is purely because of the enormity of the problem. As much as we want to pin the blame for the mess on politicians, in truth the causes are so deeply rooted in our culture that fixing them defies easy solutions.

So where do we start?

It starts with money

I believe that we need to change our views and opinions of money, and align them with what we read in the Bible. Most of us are unaware that the traditional role of money has changed completely in just the past few decades.

In its essence, money is a medium of exchange. It’s used to facilitate trade between people and businesses and because it carries a standard value, it’s more efficient than barter. So far, so good.

But here’s the problem⦠In today’s economy, money is no longer just a medium of exchangeâ”it’s become an asset unto itself. We still use it to trade, but it’s become something much more. Success is now defined as earning, acquiring, preserving and growing as much money as possible. The end game is no longer to produce as much food, fish, minerals, shoes or widgets as possible, but to earn as much money as possible!

That’s a game changer, and it has a lot to do with the mess we’re in. Money manipulation has become more important than building a better mousetrap!

Money as wealthâ

What is it you think about when you see or hear the word wealth� From Biblical times up until about the end of the 19th Century this might have invoked visions of vast acres of rich farmland, a forest full of timber waiting to be cut, large catches of fish, coal mines or perhaps a thriving family business.

Do you notice something about each of these? They all refer to something tangible, something that’s being produced. Wealth was measured by what you added to the economy and community.

How do we see wealth today? Stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit, money markets, cash. Notice something about these? None of them are tangibleâ”they’re all paper. Stocks represent a share of ownership; they’re the way we own- and trade ownership in- the means of production, but are not means of production in themselves. All the rest are debt securities, which is to say that they represent a promise to pay, but nothing tangible.

The one possible wealth exception we have today, the one that actually represents something tangible, is real estate. But in the modern world there’s a caveat even with this. So much real estate has been purchased with debt (mortgagesâ) that’s often so large that the owner has little or no equity. Many property owners today are even in negative equity situations, owing more on their mortgages than their property is worth.

Wealth today is measured not in units of production as in days of old, but by the accumulation of pieces of paper.

Detaching money from the real economy

Here’s where we get to the root of the problem. Back when people grew, built, fixed or produced things for a living, there was a clear connection between being productive and earning a living. With the rise of money as a commodity in itselfâ”as the end game everyone now chasesâ”we’re now detached from actual production. Think about how many people work in money-related businesses, as compared to farming, manufacturing or the skilled trades.

The financial meltdown that started in 2007 has been commonly called the Financial Meltdownâ, but have you noticed that no one refers to it as the Economic Meltdownâ? That’s because the failure of what we loosely call the economy❠has been driven almost exclusively by financial factors. Could that possibly have something to do with the fact that in today’s world moneyâ”and all things closely related to itâ”have come to dominate all things economic?

When the ultimate economic goal becomes the creation of ever larger amounts of money, should we be surprised by the explosion of debt, the disappearance of real jobs, and the many Ponzi schemes that have flourished in recent years?

Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies will have their fill of poverty. A faithful person will be richly blessed, but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished.ââ”Proverbs 28:19-20

How should Christians react to the financial meltdown?

I believe the time has come for Christians to realign our goals and set our sights on what is lasting. How do we do that? By changing our attitudes toward wealth and what it truly is.

Work. In the financial thinking of today, when we go out to look for a better job❠what we really mean is a better paying job, don’t we? That’s a pure play on money.

But perhaps if instead we sought work that we find fulfilling at a deeper level, money would become less important. Shouldn’t we be seeking our life’s callingâ”the work we’re meant to doâ”rather than just a higher paycheck? Maybe we should be asking ourselves, where can I be most productive?❠That needs to come back into the equation before work can be anything more than another component of the paper chase.

Investing. When we turn our money over to othersâ”mutual funds, investment managers, financial plannersâ”we’re asking them to get us a good return. Do we ever concern ourselves with what it is the money is invested in? We should.

We even seem content to have the money invested in exotic vehicles that we know little about, as if complication and complexity increase our chance at making a killing (they don’t). We need to invest only in what we do understand. How about investing in ourselves, investing in our own business, in the stock of companies that are either producing something tangible or providing a necessary service, in people (charity), or in our churches? Think of it as investing locally, in ventures we’re already familiar with.

Debt. If we could pick one cause to the financial meltdown that stands above all the rest, it’s debt! Culturally, we’ve come to believe that debt is benign, and once we reached that point the end result was inevitable. That needs to change. We don’t need to be borrowing to pay for entertainment, travel and consumer goods. And for those where we do need to borrow, we need to do so more conservatively.

We may need to borrow to buy houses and cars, but when we do we should 1) only buy well within our means, 2) make the largest down payment possible and, 3) take the shortest term we can afford. Paying off a loan (as opposed to rolling into a consolidation loan at a later date) should be a priority, otherwise we lock ourselves on a debt treadmill.

Family, community and church. It’s sad that we no longer think of these as wealthâ, but that’s exactly what they are. It’s equally disturbing that these very institutions that are so critical to basic life have degenerated in the great money chase of the past 50 years.

Family, community and church are the very foundations of civilized life and if we can’t invest our time, effort and money in them, then the quest to earn and amass more money will condemn us to chase that which we will never find.

What do you think that we as Christians should be doing to move the economy in a positive direction? Should we be doing anything at all? Scripture calls us to come out and be differentâ”does this also apply to economic and financial matters?