What does it mean to be “eager to be rich”?

Our church has been doing a study on money in the adult Sunday school classes through a video series from Crown Ministries.

Today's lesson talked about racking up lots of credit card debt and expecting others to take care of you. (Oh wait … sorry … that was the pamphlet I saw for FROWN Ministries.) But seriously 🙂 today's lesson discussed saving and investing, compound interest … all of that good stuff.

One of the key ideas associated with compound interest is that it's magic. I guess most people that talk about compound interest assume that the people listening think that math is boring, and that's probably true. But the key ingredient to make the magic work is time. Decades worth of time, usually.

The lesson not only drove home that regular investment a good thing, but at the time it also seemed to suggest that wanting to do it any way but slowly and methodically was not a good thing. Enter Proverbs 28:20:

A faithful man will be richly blessed, but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished. (Proverbs 28:20, NIV)

This statement concerned me a little because (a) I do often think about different ways to make money that are faster than compounding interest, and (b) I want to enjoy the fruits before they have to be put through a food processor and spoon-fed to me. I'm reading through MJ DeMarco's The Millionaire Fastlane and he refers to this slow, systematic retirement plan as, well, the “slow lane.” Does the desire to kick things into high gear make me “eager to get rich” as stated in Proverbs 28:20?

It's a matter of balance and honesty

John Gill, an English theologian in the late-17th, early 18th-century, had this to say about the phrase:

… but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent; he that is over anxious, and immoderately desirous of being rich, and pursues every method of obtaining his desires, with all his might and main; that labours night and day for it; though he takes no criminal nor unlawful methods, properly so called, nor does he do anything injurious to others, yet he is not innocent; that too much anxiety in him is criminal; nor is he free from covetousness; and if he uses any unjust and unlawful means to acquire wealth, and resolves to be rich, right or wrong … he shall not be innocent, neither before God nor men ….  (reference)

There are many godly rich men mentioned in the Bible: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, Barnabus, and Job, to name a few. So, it's not ungodly to be rich. Nor is it ungodly to become rich at a young age, if the person's heart is in the right place. Being hell-bent on becoming rich, though, is the problem, and this is the notion that is connected with the word “eager.” It's not the desire to be smart about making money to bring it in faster that's bad. It's both the manner in which it's done, and also whether more important things are sacrificed in the process.

So the takeaway for me is that wanting to get rich on an accelerated schedule isn't necessarily “being eager to get rich,” but it can be, and I have to ask continually for wisdom as to whether I'm following the good path or one of the many bad ones.