Money

Kids Korner: Tell my siblings to be good (September 28th)

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Read Luke 16:19-31 with your family.

Some stories are hard to understand, but not this one.

When Jesus told stories he often exaggerated the setting and people to make it entertaining before he showed them the point. In this one Jesus makes the rich man richer than anyone could imagine, and Lazarus with nothing. So when they die (and this is not a story about like after death, this is a story about using money properly), they reverse their places. Suddenly the rich man loses everything, and Lazarus has the best place to be imaginable – with Abraham.

The people who heard this story would know several things.

First, that rich people were supposed to help poor people, so the rich man was wrong in his choices.

Second, that the best place to be in the after life was with Abraham.

And third, because it is interesting, they believed dog saliva healed cuts and made people feel better.

Jesus was telling those listening to his story that they were supposed to help each other so no one was so poor or so rich that they lived in extreme poverty or wealth. There was enough for everyone to share.

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Sunday Reflection – September 21, 2025

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God or Money

Luke 16 Jesus said to his disciples:

A rich man once had a manager to take care of his business. But he was told that his manager was wasting money. 2 So the rich man called him in and said, “What is this I hear about you? Tell me what you have done! You are no longer going to work for me.”

3 The manager said to himself, “What shall I do now that my master is going to fire me? I can’t dig ditches, and I’m ashamed to beg. 4 I know what I’ll do, so that people will welcome me into their homes after I’ve lost my job.”

5 Then one by one he called in the people who were in debt to his master. He asked the first one, “How much do you owe my master?”

6 “A hundred barrels of olive oil,” the man answered.

So the manager said, “Take your bill and sit down and quickly write ‘50.’ ”

7 The manager asked someone else who was in debt to his master, “How much do you owe?”

“A thousand sacks of wheat,” the man replied.

The manager said, “Take your bill and write ‘800.’ ”

8 The master praised his dishonest manager for looking out for himself so well. That’s how it is! The people of this world look out for themselves better than the people who belong to the light.

9  My disciples, I tell you to use wicked wealth to make friends for yourselves. Then when it is gone, you will be welcomed into an eternal home. 10 Anyone who can be trusted in little matters can also be trusted in important matters. But anyone who is dishonest in little matters will be dishonest in important matters. 11 If you cannot be trusted with this wicked wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? 12 And if you cannot be trusted with what belongs to someone else, who will give you something that will be your own? 13  You cannot be the slave of two masters. You will like one more than the other or be more loyal to one than to the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Kids Korner: Chose between God or Money (September 21st)

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Read Luke 16:1-13 with your family.

Sometimes stories we read in the Bible can be really confusing. This is the first clue that something was happening in the days of Jesus and the writers of the Bible that we do not understand in our modern world, so we have to dig deeper to figure out what the story means.

This story was always called The Dishonest Servant in English Bibles, so right away we are supposed to think the servant is bad and the master is good, but that is not what we are told by Jesus in the end. We have to look at it a different way.

These are what the words meant: For Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, the “Children of the Light” were his disciples, his followers, and the “Children of this age” were everyone else. The same word used for squandering or giving away, was used in other places for sowing seeds on the ground. And the word for shrewd is also the word for wise.

So the conclusion we have to come to is that this was not a bad servant and a good master, but rather when the servant was giving money to people helping them build their business, the master did not know about it. Some people got jealous and gossiped to the master that the servant was doing a bad thing (he was not), so the master thought he had no choice but to fire the servant.

In fear of being fired, the servant went to all the people who borrowed money and told them to lower the amount so it would look like he had not given as much money. The master then saw the lower limits and how much good the money had done, and told the servant that he was shrewd/smart. In the end the master did not fire the servant.

Jesus tells us to be smart like this servant, understand the importance of what the world values and use it to make things better, but do not become focused on those things. We can only worship God or money, but not both. Money is to be used wisely, and Jesus understood it was important in society, but God is where we should put our trust and energy.

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Sunday Reflection – November 7, 2021

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Beware of the scribes

Mark 12 38 As he was teaching, he said, “Watch out for the legal experts. They like to walk around in long robes. They want to be greeted with honor in the markets. 39 They long for places of honor in the synagogues and at banquets. 40 They are the ones who cheat widows out of their homes, and to show off they say long prayers. They will be judged most harshly.”

A poor widow’s contribution

41 Jesus sat across from the collection box for the temple treasury and observed how the crowd gave their money. Many rich people were throwing in lots of money. 42 One poor widow came forward and put in two small copper coins worth a penny. 43 Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I assure you that this poor widow has put in more than everyone who’s been putting money in the treasury. 44 All of them are giving out of their spare change. But she from her hopeless poverty has given everything she had, even what she needed to live on.”

Performed by Margaret Whisselle

Kids Korner: Beware of the scribes/the Widow’s Mite (November 7th)

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Read Mark 12:38-44 with your family. This story happens after Jesus is finished teaching in the temple in Jerusalem, and he is just sitting there with his friends.

Why would someone put everything they had in the temple collection box? That is an important question. Maybe they had complete faith that someone at the temple would take care of them now. Maybe they were convinced to do it by people at the temple that were not looking out for her best interests? We will never know the answer to this question.

The church has often told this story admiring the widow for her generosity while looking down at the scribes for giving only their extra money not all they had. However, only once does Jesus tell someone to give away all their money – and that is a wealthy young man who wants to do an action to get into God’s world without changing his attitude or trusting in the new vision (Mark 10:21). Jesus never told anyone to give away all their money when they didn’t have much to begin with. We are always to give from our abundance, and then a little bit more.

Kids Korner: Money makes it hard to follow Jesus (October 10th)

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Read Mark 10:17-31 with your family. Jesus was talking with a young man who had a lot of money and wanted to know what else he had to do to be part of God’s world. Jesus told him he had to give away his wealth – not all his money, just his extra money that he didn’t need. This made the young man sad and he left.

Sometimes people think Christian shouldn’t talk about money, but Jesus did talk about it. He talked a lot about the uneven distribution of money and how we should be helping the poor. Jesus also taught us that if all we think about is money and how to get more money, we won’t be able to understand what the Kingdom of God is all about. We won’t show God’s values that everyone is equal and worth having all their needs taken care of.