Taking a look at Proverbs 11:24-26, with an emphasis on 11:25, let’s consider this for a few moments. The wisdom here is that stockpiling without sharing leads to poverty. Notice that each of these verses reflects the destruction of wealth through hoarding:
Proverbs 11:24 and 26 speak of the one who withholds.
The contrast here is between those who hoard up and those who share. The sharing does not even have to be completely sacrificial: 11:26 definitely shows the idea of selling what you have stockpiled, not giving it away. The idea is certainly divorced from high-profit speculation and is instead based in an economy where a little increase year-over-year through hard work was to be valued more than an instant profit.
If we take this and compare it to our modern American Economy, what do we find? Oftentimes, we find that our system is divorced from the Biblical idea of wisdom. We want the profit right now. Certainly, the idea of slow accumulation and patient distribution is not generally acceptable to most financial wizards. Low-margin, consistent growth is considered a bad thing.
Yet this runs counter to the wisdom of Scripture, which suggests that a self-focused economic view is empty. These are things we need to consider as we organize ourselves as God’s people. It may be legal, and should be, to be self-centered in life.
But the people of God are not concerned with that which is legal more than with that which is right, are we?
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