Thank you, Lord, for this day. May it be used for your glory!
Good morning and welcome back to another Thursday update! This week I wanted to talk briefly about money.
A Living, Breathing Thing
I’m apparently starting a theme with all these philosophical thinking articles. Last week we talked about a city overtaken by the devil, and this week we’re talking about the devil’s counterpart, money.
We learned a really fascinating truth about money the other day in church. If you’ve been in church for some time, read the Bible, or have read other texts that mention it, you have probably heard the term “Mammon” used before. Like in this passage of scripture:
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24 KJV).
You have to actually go back in time to some of the older English translations to find the word “Mammon” still in use. Today we just use the common phrase: “you can’t serve God and money.”
I won’t go too far into it, but the New Testament was originally written in Greek. The word “mammon” however, seems to be an Aramaic word. However, for some reason, it is not translated into Greek.
The only times we see terms not translated is with proper nouns like names.
This means Jesus called “money” by a proper name as if it was a living and breathing thing.
Isn’t that super fascinating?
Later on, medieval theologians started assigning demons to the different 7 deadly sins, and they chose to call the greedy demon, Mammon. Fun fact!
Anyways, I just thought it was interesting that money has such weight in our society. And I believe it’s because it has a little more power than any normal commodity or materialistic thing.
Almost like it’s alive.
After all, can anyone truly say they understand the stock market enough to predict without fail what it’s going to do next? If money wasn’t a living thing, then we ought to be able to. If it was truly just math and numbers, which don’t change and are predictable, then it should be relatively easy.
I know that sounds crazy, and maybe it is.
Either way, it’s not really my point in this post.
Tightening the Budget
My point is actually to give a life update. See, Taylor and I have always created a budget. We believe it is very important to create a budget.
We believe all the money we have in this world is God’s first. God is just giving us money to steward or manage.
If you worked at a hedge fund and your manager gave you a million dollars to invest, wouldn’t you keep track of it?
What if your manager came to you and asked where the money went and you replied, “Uh…I don’t know, but I do know it’s all gone.”
You’d get fired.
I don’t know how hedge funds work, but I assume it’s something like that.
Well, as y’all also know, Taylor and I are in the process of saving for a house! Houses are always expensive, and nowadays they are even more so. We are also buying a house in Asheville, so prices are slightly higher still.
Then Merlin had emergency surgery and got us behind on the downpayment savings…thanks, buddy.
Coming into the new year, we have decided to really bear down on our budget, and it has been strangely fun.
Fun may not be the right word. Let’s see, enlightening. That’s a better word to use.
We want to tighten our budget within reason, but also ensure we can have the downpayment ready in time.
It’s taught us something valuable, though, which is that every dollar really does count. Our budget tool is Dave Ramsey’s, Every Dollar, so that was a pun.
But it’s true!
If we come short on our grocery budget and save $10 or $15 that is huge. That could be 2 trips to Caribou that month, or it could be laundry detergent. When we actually start viewing dollar amounts in terms of what they can buy, then we start to truly see the value in every single dollar.
Not to like an obsessive amount but in an appreciative amount.
We have set some strict guidelines on eating out, how much we go out for coffee, which streaming services to pay for, and we even canceled our gym membership. It’s easier than Chandler Bing made it seem.
In Conclusion
I will say this. I think the medieval theologians were a little off base saying Mammon was a demon. That’s saying that money in itself is pure evil, and I don’t think that’s true.
I still think money is as complicated and unpredictable as a living organism, but I don’t think it’s evil.
It can be used as a tool for God’s kingdom just as much as it can be used for evil. That’s the dichotomy.
I feel like in this experiment we definitely see the battle of greed for wanting more money for a downpayment but also trusting that God will provide for us.
The bottom line is that we trust God and serve Him. We don’t serve mammon. We believe that mammon is a tool and we are learning the best ways to manage and use that tool so we can help build the kingdom of God.
That’s the goal and purpose of creating a budget. At least for us.