Living by FaithSample

Guarding Against Greed

Gordon Gekko, the ruthless corporate raider in the 1987 movie ‘Wall Street,’ portrayed greed as a virtue. According to Gekko, “greed..is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.” In a nutshell, Gekko equated greed as the impetus of progress and development. This thinking encapsulates the thinking of the natural man who believes that he must accumulate for himself as much as he can in this world and this is advancement.

This is why nations become colonial powers and subjugate other people. The Chaldeans were one such colonial power who in their greed for material prosperity destroyed nations, ransacked cities, and carried away their treasures and people as spoils of war. Their economy prospered due to their sinful and insatiable appetite for more. 

The human heart craves to find meaning and pleasure in this world through material things. In today’s consumer driven world, we face enormous temptations to seek these things which will one day pass away. Advertisements flash across our screens striving to capture our imagination, saying that if we only have more, then we will be happy. The Bible warns that he who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this is vanity (Ecclesiastes 5:10). God will judge greed for it is a severe sin. Greed reveals our misplaced love of worldly material things, not God who gives Himself to us. Only true contentment in Jesus can help us fight greed. This is why Jesus says, “take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions (Luke 12:15).”