WHAT THE BIBLE & OUR FAITH DOCTRINE SAY ABOUT

GIVING, RECEIVING,

TITHING & MORE

How can we become financially blessed? How do we know if what we're doing financially is acceptable to our LORD? What does Holy Scripture say about Tithing, Debt, Wealth and Possessions? Scriptural & Faith Doctrine guidance to these and many other questions may be answered in the printer friendly document offered in the sidebar.

Categories include Contentment, Co-Signing/Surety, Debt, Giving, Lending, Love of Money, Obedience to the LORD, Provisions/Inheritance, Receiving, Stewardship, Taxes, Tithing, Waste, and Wealth & Possessions.

Catechism of the Catholic Church references are also included below and in the printer friendly PDF document offered in the sidebar. If there are unlisted Scriptures that you'd like added, please send any modifications to [email protected]. We'll revise the document and re-post it. Thanks very much!

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

(CCC) REFERENCES

MONEY

"He who loves money never has enough money," 2536

idolatry and the divinizing of, 2113, 2172, 2424

prohibition of loans at interest, 2449

simony, 2121

2536: The tenth commandment forbids greed and the desire to amass earthly goods without limit. It forbids avarice arising from a passion for riches and their attendant power. It also forbids the desire to commit injustice by harming our neighbor in his temporal goods:

When the Law says, "You shall not covet," these words mean that we should banish our desires for whatever does not belong to us. Our thirst for another's goods is immense, infinite, never quenched. Thus it is written: "He who loves money never has money enough." 321

2113: Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, "You cannot serve God and mammon."44 Many martyrs died for not adoring "the Beast"45 refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God.46

2172: God's action is the model for human action. If God "rested and was refreshed" on the seventh day, man too ought to "rest" and should let others, especially the poor, "be refreshed."96 The sabbath brings everyday work to a halt and provides a respite. It is a day of protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money.97

2424: A theory that makes profit the exclusive norm and ultimate end of economic activity is morally unacceptable. The disordered desire for money cannot but produce perverse effects. It is one of the causes of the many conflicts which disturb the social order.204

A system that "subordinates the basic rights of individuals and of groups to the collective organization of production" is contrary to human dignity. 205 Every practice that reduces persons to nothing more than a means of profit enslaves man, leads to idolizing money, and contributes to the spread of atheism. "You cannot serve God and mammon."206

2449: Beginning with the Old Testament, all kinds of juridical measures (the jubilee year of forgiveness of debts, prohibition of loans at interest and the keeping of collateral, the obligation to tithe, the daily payment of the day-laborer, the right to glean vines and fields) answer the exhortation of Deuteronomy: "For the poor will never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, 'You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor in the land.'"249 Jesus makes these words his own: "The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me."250 In so doing he does not soften the vehemence of former oracles against "buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals . . .," but invites us to recognize his own presence in the poor who are his brethren: 251

When her mother reproached her for caring for the poor and the sick at home, St. Rose of Lima said to her: "When we serve the poor and the sick, we serve Jesus. We must not fail to help our neighbors, because in them we serve Jesus. 252

2121 Simony is defined as the buying or selling of spiritual things.53 To Simon the magician, who wanted to buy the spiritual power he saw at work in the apostles, St. Peter responded: "Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God's gift with money!"54 Peter thus held to the words of Jesus: "You received without pay, give without pay."55 It is impossible to appropriate to oneself spiritual goods and behave toward them as their owner or master, for they have their source in God. One can receive them only from him, without payment.

References:

321     Roman Catechism, III,37; cf. Sir 5:8.

44     Mt 6:24.

45     Cf. Rev 13-14.

46     Cf. Gal 5:20; Eph 5:5.

96     Ex 31:17; cf. 23:12.

97     Cf. Neh 13:15-22; 2 Chr 36:21.

204     Cf. GS 63 § 3; LE 7; 20; CA 35.

205     GS 65 § 2.

206     Mt 6:24; Lk 16:13.

249     Deut 15:11.

250     Jn 12:8.

251     Am 8:6; cf. Mt 25:40.

252     P. Hansen, Vita mirabilis (Louvain, 1668).

53     Cf. Acts 8:9-24.

54     Acts 8:20.

55     Mt 10:8; cf. already Isa 55:1.