Work and Wealth in Scripture

What do you do with your money? What do you think of your boss? Do you like your work? Is it satisfying? Are you satisfied with your answers? Do you know that God, through Scripture, offers us answers? Two of the most fundamental challenges for all humankind are deciding how to live and, if we accumulate riches, deciding how to use them. Did you know that God expects all humankind to work? For the Christian, all work is part of your Christian calling, whether you collect garbage for a living or sit in Washington deciding affairs of state. And what does Scripture have to say about riches? Did you know that Jesus directed more attention to the question of how to deal with wealth than just about any other subject he addressed during his three-year ministry? Join me in this short journey as we explore work and wealth in Scripture and seek answers to the above questions and others. We travel from the first work recorded in the Bible to our own time, when leisure competes with work for our attention and wealth gives us a false sense of security that puts us in danger of replacing God with self. Lawrence Clayton is Professor Emeritus of History, University of Alabama. His latest books include Bartolome de las Casas: A Biography (2012), Bartolome de las Casas and the Conquest of the Americas (2011), and Cleared for Landing: On Living a Christian Life (2008). He has taught in the Tuscaloosa County Jail Ministry on a weekly basis since 2000 and done missionary work, evangelizing, and preaching in Spanish in the Dominican Republic and Honduras since 2010.