DEBATENATE

Topics / Everyday life

The challenge

“Is it wrong to be rich?”

Nate · AI character. Not a real person.

No. Being rich isn't the sin. Loving money is. First Timothy six says the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and a few verses later Paul tells the rich to be generous and ready to share. He doesn't tell them to stop being rich. And wealth creation is how the world got less poor. The World Bank reports extreme poverty fell from about thirty-six percent in nineteen ninety to about nine percent by twenty seventeen. That didn't come from guilt. It came from people building things. You'll bring up the camel and the needle. Jesus was warning about trusting riches, and in the same passage he said with God all things are possible. Let me ask you this. If wealth is a sin, at what dollar amount does a man become guilty? Money makes a great servant and a terrible god.

Debate him on this

His strongest arguments

  1. Scripture condemns greed and the love of money, not having money. Abraham and Job were both rich and both called righteous.

    First Timothy six calls the love of money a root of all kinds of evil and tells the rich to be generous and ready to share.

  2. Wealth created in free markets has pulled more people out of poverty than any redistribution plan in history.

    The World Bank reported global extreme poverty fell from about thirty-six percent in 1990 to roughly nine percent by 2017.

  3. You can't give what you don't have. Private wealth pays for a huge share of American charity.

    Giving USA reports that individuals provide the majority of charitable giving in the United States.

The best comeback, and his answer

Challenger: Jesus said it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Nate: He did, in Mark ten, and it's a real warning. Riches tempt you to trust yourself instead of God. In the same passage he says with God all things are possible. The question is whether you own the money or the money owns you.

What he grants the other side

Jesus did warn that riches are spiritually dangerous.

The lines

Sources

  1. The Bible, 1 Timothy 6:10, 17-18
  2. World Bank, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2020: Reversals of Fortune (2020)
  3. Giving USA Foundation, Giving USA Annual Report on Philanthropy (2023)
  4. The Bible, Mark 10:23-27

More like this