There is much to appreciate about Financial Peace University. Dave Ramsey and his organization have helped over 10 million people budget, escape consumer debt, build emergency savings, plan for the future, and become more generous. Many churches have seen families walk into a class overwhelmed by money and walk out months later with hope and a plan. We can all be thankful for these benefits.
But in our churches, we need to ask what kind of change we are trying to produce. If our goal is to help people become more financially responsible, classes like Financial Peace University can be an excellent tool. However, if our goal is to make disciples, financial improvement is not enough. A person can learn to budget, eliminate debt, save diligently, and give generously without ever knowing Christ. In fact, it is entirely possible that in the process, we have helped create a much more sophisticated and well-funded sinner.
The problem is not in teaching financial principles. The problem comes when we fail to address the desires of the heart that created all the problems in the first place. It’s not really about their money. It’s about discipleship.
We Want More Than Behavioral Modification
Alcoholics Anonymous provides a helpful comparison. Few would deny that many people have benefited from this program. Men and women whose lives were once destroyed by alcohol have become sober, repaired relationships, returned to work, and regained stability. Some have remained sober for decades.
But imagine that same person is still angry. They still lie, steal, make selfish decisions and treat their family terribly.
Something real has changed, but the person was not fundamentally made new. They successfully overcame one destructive area of life without dealing with the underlying condition of the heart. The sinful behavior that manifested itself in alcoholism has found a new way to express itself. We need to recognize this same tendency when dealing with money. Without transformation of the heart, good money habits are simply behavioral modifications that won’t lead to lasting fruit in the whole life of the individual.
Money Reveals What We Worship
Money is often presented as a neutral tool, but we know that mankind is not. Therefore, money loses all neutrality when placed into the hands of a sinful person. Those without Christ are destined to live a consumer’s life chasing after the passions and desires of the flesh (Ephesians 2:3). Without the hope of eternity, it’s actually quite rational.
Now, consider the person that enters a financial course with a large amount of credit card debt. His life has been characterized by impulsive spending. He and his wife consistently argue over money. He always drives a car that he can’t afford and has nothing saved despite his above-average income. His financial life is a mess.
In desperation, he decides to learn how to make better decisions. He starts living below his means. He sacrifices the luxuries he once enjoyed to aggressively pay off his credit cards. He quickly builds an emergency fund and starts investing monthly what once went to pay down his debts. A few years later, his financial life looks completely different.
These results are great, but what do they actually say about his heart? Where money was once an idol because of what it could buy, it may have become an idol because of the security and power it now provides. Life in slavery to debt has now led to a life of hoarding.
Where he once worshipped money out of materialism, he now worships money as his provider. Idolatry hasn’t been removed. It has simply become more respectable.
Only now, this man’s idolatry is harder to identify because his outward behavior is consistent with biblical wisdom. Those who hoard wealth are often celebrated as being good stewards, while inside they are still spiritually dead.
When we understand the sinful tendencies of the heart, we can begin to address the root of the problem. Since sin entered the world, man has sought a way to corrupt God’s blessings for sinful pleasure. Money is no exception. We will use it to get whatever our heart desires (Mark 7:21–23). This is why addressing financial issues is a valuable tool for exposing and confronting our sins.
When scripture addresses money, it’s rarely to tell us how to make better financial decisions. It is more frequently pointing us to what is more valuable. It provides instruction on how to be more faithful. While money may be the topic, the deeper issue is “Who am I seeking to glorify?” That is the real question financial discipleship needs to ask.
“Respectable” Idolatry
Saving is good. Scripture teaches us not to consume everything we receive so that we can provide for the future needs of our family. But saving requires a delicate balance between human responsibility and trust in God’s sovereignty. There’s a reason why we are instructed to save like the ant (Prov. 6:6–8), but to trust like the bird who doesn’t save at all (Matt. 6:26).
Unfortunately, if we fail to keep our focus on God, the temptation to trust in ourselves will increase along with our account balances.
Human sinfulness craves certainty and control. Money offers a convincing false promise that if we can accumulate enough, we can protect ourselves from whatever may come. Wealth may eliminate some problems and fears, but it often replaces them with different fears and bigger problems. The wealth of a rich man permits him no sleep (Eccl. 5:12) because everything we build in this world remains under constant threat of loss.
Hoarding is a form of idolatry because it replaces our trust in the Lord with reliance on our investments. When we ask ourselves if we are willing to give up or lose possessions for the sake of Christ (Luke 14:33), our answer may reveal that we love those possessions too much.
That is what makes honest heart inspection so important. Idolatry characterized by spending more than I make and taking on debt to buy the things I want is relatively easy to recognize. But trusting in the money I accumulate and finding my security in being debt free can look a lot like biblical faithfulness. This is why Christian discipleship must ask more than whether a behavior can be supported by a biblical principle.
The Rich Fool Looked Successful
Jesus gives us a clear example in the Parable of the Rich Fool. The man accumulates enough wealth to last for many years. His plan is simple: build bigger barns, store everything, and then “relax, eat, drink, [and] be merry” (Luke 12:19). But God responds, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you . . .” (Luke 12:20).
If we stopped the story at the description of the rich fool’s prosperity, most people today would consider him successful. He worked hard, accumulated wealth, planned ahead, and was all set for an early retirement. Yet Jesus says his life was foolish because he laid up treasure for himself and was not rich toward God (Luke 12:21).
The issue was not his wealth, but his heart. He saw his resources primarily as a means to personal comfort rather than an opportunity for stewardship.
A financial program could have helped him build bigger barns at an earlier age, but the deeper problem was what those barns meant to him.
Giving Is a Heart Issue
The heart also matters when it comes to generosity. Since giving is an act that moves money out of our control to a purpose beyond ourselves, it is a great exercise in trust and faith. Giving out of faith is the difference between Christian giving and worldly giving. It’s through faith in something greater that we gladly give up our money.
“God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7) because cheerful giving is an act of worship. When we joyfully give money away for God’s purposes, we are demonstrating our trust in his sovereignty, our thankfulness for the gift of Christ, and our hope that God’s kingdom is more valuable.
As we learn from the example of the poor widow (Mark 12:41–44), generosity is not a discipline to be learned once we have wealth. We learn how to be faithful with little so we can be faithful with much (Luke 16:10). If God chooses to bless us with more, we can seek contentment by maintaining our current lifestyle (spending) and only saving for our future needs, so that we can excel even more in the grace of giving (2 Cor. 8:7) rather than seeking wealth that will never satisfy (Eccl. 5:10).
Our great struggle with money is that we constantly have to choose between using it for building our kingdom on earth or for investing in his heavenly Kingdom. As Jesus says, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt. 6:21).
The Ongoing Battle for the Heart
Paul tells Timothy that those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and warns that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Tim. 6:9–10). Hebrews commands believers, “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have,” and then immediately grounds that contentment in God’s promise: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5).
Money reveals the deepest corners of the Christian heart. Financial stewardship is hard, but that’s the beauty of it. There will always be tension between our hearts and money because that’s where the battle is taking place.
In the same way that we will struggle with sin until the day we are called home, we will always struggle in deciding how we use money. When we recognize how it exposes what we desire, we can gladly examine ourselves and wage war on our sinfulness. The discomfort we feel is a constant reminder of our need to deny the flesh and depend on God (Luke 9:23).
We should desire to honestly pray “Give me neither poverty nor riches” (Prov. 30:7–9) because we love something else more than money and realize that having too much or too little can both be stumbling blocks to our faith.
We Need Christ
The dead cannot change their own condition. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us . . . made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:4–5).
We are a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). Our hope is no longer ultimately in the things of this world but in eternity with Christ. The defining attribute of the Christian life is that we no longer live for ourselves but for Christ who lives in us (Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 5:15). Through sanctification, God continually conforms us into the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29), causing us to increasingly desire what is eternal rather than what is temporary and fleeting (2 Cor. 4:18).
We were dead in our trespasses (Eph. 2:1), but God sent His Son to pay the ransom for our salvation (Mark 10:45). Jesus gave us the ultimate debt freedom when he paid our debt to sin that we could not afford (Col 2:13–14).
The gospel does not merely give us a new financial strategy. God gives His people new hearts (Ezek. 36:26). He changes what we love, what we trust, what we worship, and that transformation changes how we live.
The gospel addresses the angry alcoholic after he becomes sober. It addresses the dishonest employee after he stops stealing. And it addresses the materialist after he becomes debt-free.
Remember, It’s Not About the Money
The church’s calling is not simply to help its members balance budgets, get out of debt, and grow wealth. Tools like Financial Peace University and other financial courses like it are useful, but if we stop there, we run the risk of developing more sophisticated and well-funded sinners.
Continue to help individuals clean up their budgets. Develop plans to get them out of the bondage of debt. Coach newly married couples on what it looks like to become one in their financial decision making. Encourage wise planning, responsible investing, contentment and sacrificial giving. All of these things are beneficial and should be encouraged, but remember Jesus’ message to the Pharisees:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean” (Matt. 23:25–26).
Help them to inspect the deepest corners of their hearts. Ask hard questions about what they love, what they fear, what makes them angry, and where they find comfort. Ask them how their testimony is displayed to the watching world in the way they make financial decisions. Let’s make disciples that live out Christ in every aspect of life so that others may be saved.
