Seeking Success without Sacrificing Your Faith

On the question of pursuing wealth as a Christian man.

A Common Internal Conflict

This is one thing I personally struggled with for a long time when I started to come back into the Christian faith after being lost for some years. I had been told that Christians ought to be poor or completely disregard the pursuit of wealth and abundance, and this had created a conflict inside of me: one side of me was driven towards all kinds of success, including financially, and the other side wanted to stay true to my faith and not go looking for things that would lead me away from it.

I’ve given this dilemma a lot of thought, and while I don’t consider my answer to be the definitive one, I have since found a way to reconcile my faith with the worldly pursuit of wealth. This is still something that I know many Christians, specifically young, motivated, driven men struggle with, so I felt it was relevant to write this article and share my findings and perspective with you.

There is a widespread myth that many Christians still believe: that Christianity requires or favors poverty instead of wealth, and that it is morally preferable to lack material wealth than it is to have it. I’ve spoken to many who think that, under Christianity, it is morally wrong to pursue wealth —we’ll get to that—, and what I’ve seen is that those who hold this belief are usually, genuinely, trying to do and be good. But while their intentions might be good, the philosophy of poverty as the only true Christian choice is still deeply flawed.

Because of this false belief in favor of poverty and self effacement, many —usually young men— feel a deep conflict in their souls, as they think their natural drive and desire for success is a sin they must shut down, lest they let themselves become wealthy and thus betray the teachings of The Lord.

The Problems Of This False Doctrine

The problem with this is a dangerous belief is that if men of faith retreat from the playing fields of the world, believing it to be a moral imperative to abandon the pursuit of growth in the world, most positions of power end up falling into the hands of satanists and evil men. When the vast majority of Christian men, who are the only ones that could outcompete non-christian men, believe they are called to be poor, wealth will naturally go to the hands of the immoral and twisted, as we often see to be the case today.

This leads to another point, which is the fact that choosing poverty can be —with the exception of very specific cases where a vocation for poverty is truly an act of service, not cowardice— a selfish decision, even when it’s motivated by an honest desire to do good under Christ. Before I elaborate on the former claim, let’s take a look at Scripture, and see the most common passages that proponents of the Poverty Gospel use to justify their view of Christianity, and we’ll comment on each one: 

Matthew 19:21: Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”