Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless. – Ecclesiastes 5:10

Today's Scripture Reading (January 31, 2026): Ecclesiastes 5

We love money. I think we know that we are not supposed to, but we do anyway. We know that the love of money is wrong, but that Knowledge probably only leads us to try to make excuses for our passion. Excuses like, "I don't love money; I just wish I could give more to the church." From my experience, if you don't tithe when you are poor, a change in financial situation probably won't help. Or maybe it is "I don't love money; I just want to be able to volunteer more time to things that are important, or be able to spend more time with my family." Unfortunately, that too can be little more than a smoke screen, and an excuse that makes our love for money a little more palatable.

Our shared reality is that few of us will ever be rich enough. There will always be more we want that is just beyond our financial reach. And so, we drive to make just a little more.

Having said that, there are things that we need our finances to do. We need to save for our retirement. We are living longer, but unfortunately, our health often doesn't keep pace with our increasing lifespan. I have known many people who had decided they just weren't going to retire, only to find out that not retiring wasn't a choice they could make. Their health declined until they were forced into retirement. One friend, who had worked in manual labor jobs all of his life, was let go from his job as he entered his sixties because his employers found that he couldn't keep up with the younger workers. We pretend that we can do everything in our sixties that we did in our forties, but I think we know that is just not true.

But it is Ecclesiastes that lays out our real problem. If we love money, then we will never have enough. I have told the story of a friend who demonstrated this principle. When I met him, he and his wife made about $40,000 a year, but it wasn't quite enough. He used to promise me that if God gave him just a little more, then he would be able to tithe and still pay his bills. God delivered the needed miracle. Just a few years after our first money conversation, we had another. By this time, household income had more than doubled, but not the conversation. If God would give him just a little more, his books would balance, he would be able to begin the process of getting out of debt, and, of course, since he was talking to me, he would tithe to the church. God delivered again a few years later. Now with a household income in the six-figure range, he still needed just a little more.

Today, the family income for this family has dropped severely because of health issues. But the saddest part of the story is that my friend never found a place of contentment with what he had. He never had enough. Instead, he became an illustration of what the Preacher had written almost 3000 years ago. "Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless" (Ecclesiastes 5:10).

 

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ecclesiastes 6