When Your Wealth Defines Your Worth — Money, Value, and What God Actually Thinks

16 Mar

YouTube Video of the Church Service

The number in your bank account has absolutely nothing to do with how much you matter.

That might sound obvious. But somewhere between the rich lists, the Instagram flexing, and the quietly held belief that successful people are somehow more blessed by God — most of us have absorbed a very different message. Money has stopped being a tool and started being a verdict. Will Sopwith tackles this head-on in Part 4 of our series on money, and the ground he covers is both uncomfortable and genuinely freeing.

Two Boys, Two Very Different Endings

Will opens with a story of two boys whose lives couldn't look more different — yet both end up pointing to the same truth.

The first was raised in a single-parent household, one of six children, largely abandoned by a father who was a professional conman. His Baptist mother instilled hard work, saving, and generosity. He studied hard, got into bookkeeping, and at 20 went into business partnership. Civil War struck his country, oil arrived, and through relentless application of his mother's lessons — economy, thrift, and reinvestment — he became the wealthiest man in modern history. His name was John D. Rockefeller. What's less well known is how he used his wealth. He gave hundreds of thousands to churches, schools, and missionary projects. He founded two universities and an international public health foundation. He considered his business success a gift from God.

The second boy was born into wealth. Carefree, surrounded by friends, destined for greatness. He joined the army, was captured, fell ill, and came home with his confidence shattered. His old life of comfort started to feel hollow. He began giving money to the poor, which infuriated his wealthy father. At 24 he had a divine encounter, renounced everything publicly — literally stripping off his fine clothes in the town square and handing them back to his astonished father — and from that day on, Francesco of Assisi walked about his hometown wrapped in a simple tunic tied with a flaxen cord, having taken a vow of poverty. He became St. Francis of Assisi.

Two lives that went in opposite directions financially. Both ended up recognising that wealth for its own sake was never the answer.

What Does God Actually Think?

Does the Bible favour the rich or the poor?

Both camps have their proof texts. Some Christians will tell you wealth is an unambiguous sign of God's blessing. Others will argue God is primarily on the side of the poor. Research in America found that 80% of people believe the phrase "God helps those who help themselves" is in the Bible (it isn't. It's from an Aesop fable).

But scripture doesn't actually take either side. Leviticus 19:15 says plainly — do not show favouritism to the poor or the rich, judge on the basis of what is right.

God loves the rich. God loves the poor. God loves those who think they're poor but are actually rich. And God loves those who never even bothered to classify themselves. As Will puts it: "Money is just a thing. It was never meant to define you."

Where your bank balance sits has zero bearing on God's attention, love, or classification of you. That's not a soft platitude — it's the baseline the whole conversation has to start from.

The Monopoly Problem

So if God doesn't sort us by net worth, why does it feel like society does?

Will draws on research by Sendhil Mullainathan which shows that poverty can produce a genuine lack of mental bandwidth. Worrying about food, rent, and keeping the lights on literally reduces cognitive capacity — IQ scores drop, decision-making deteriorates, the capacity to learn, network, and invest shrinks. It's not a character flaw. It's what chronic financial stress does to a human brain.

Imagine playing Monopoly where your opponent gets both dice and starts with £2,000 while you get one die and £10. As your opponent starts accumulating properties, they might genuinely believe they're simply a better player.

And yet many of us do something very similar when we look at our own financial situation. Will reflects honestly on his salary — built on a stable family, a good postcode, an education, additional activities that built his self-confidence, access to healthcare and the rule of law, and a skin tone and accent that weren't disadvantaged at job interviews. "If I were to expand the comparison internationally," he says, "I'm failing to value that I have access to free education, healthcare, law enforcement — that I live under a regime that is not at war with itself."

And of course, God absolutely cares about this inequality.

When Wealth Becomes an Anaesthetic

One of the more unsettling things about wealth comes from Paul Piff at UC Berkeley. Studies show that as people get richer — even in a game of Monopoly where the wealth isn't real — their empathy decreases. Wealthier participants became worse at reading facial expressions, more likely to attribute success to their own skill rather than to luck or circumstance, and less generous even in controlled experiments.

In a separate study, Piff tracked which cars stopped at pedestrian crossings. Cars with higher values were far less likely to stop.

Wealth, Will suggests, can act as an anaesthetic. It numbs you to the pain of others. When you stop experiencing struggle yourself, you tend to stop noticing it in those around you. This may be exactly why Jesus said it's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God — not because riches are evil, but because they tend to insulate you from the very things that keep a heart soft.

Proverbs 22:2 says, "The rich and the poor have this in common. The Lord is the maker of them all." The rich person isn't a god to be envied or worshipped. The poor person isn't a problem to be solved or pitied. Both are creatures, both made by the same maker, both made for relationship with God and each other.

So, net worth doesn't change your worth.

Conversation Street — Your Questions

Does money becoming an identity rather than a tool explain why we're so obsessed with wealth?

Will makes a fascinating observation here. Money originally existed as a relational tool — barter and exchange always happened within relationship. You traded something with someone you knew. The invention of currency made things more efficient, but somewhere in the last hundred years, money stopped being a medium of exchange and started becoming an identity. We idolise the wealthy. We're fascinated by rich lists. We perform wealth even when we can't afford to — cars on credit, appearances kept up at enormous personal financial cost. "It's become this big part of our identity," Will says, "which is just totally messed up."

If wealth can numb our empathy, does that mean the poorest are the most generous?

Matt shares a striking statistic from the previous week's livestream in that Africa, the poorest continent in the world, gives twice as much as Europe as a percentage of GDP. The wealthiest continent is the least generous. The research bears it out at scale.

Does wealth indicate ability or success?

A question from the community asks whether wealth might at least be a rough indicator of someone's capability in their field. Will acknowledges there's a grain of truth in that — a doctor who trained for a decade arguably earns their salary differently to someone who didn't. But he pushes back on using it as a general rule. Wealth today is generated through speculation, inheritance, systemic advantage, and sheer luck as much as through skill or character. It's not a reliable metric.

So What Do We Do With This?

Will closes the talk with three questions worth sitting with:

Where might you have unconsciously absorbed the idea that money equals value — that someone's net worth is equivalent to their actual worth?
Where might self-indulgence have crept into your life while others around you struggle, or self-pity crept in where others succeed?
What would change practically, mentally, and emotionally if you genuinely believed the rich and the poor meet together as equals?

The practical response isn't necessarily to give everything away or to feel permanent guilt about the privileges you hold. 1 Timothy 6:17-19 is the instruction, "don't be arrogant, don't put your hope in wealth — but do be generous and willing to share." It's not about the amount. It's about the posture.

Paul writes in Philippians that he's learned the secret of contentment in all circumstances — whether rich or poor, well-fed or hungry. The secret isn't having enough. It's knowing the one who provides.

A Level Playing Field

Jesus didn't enter wealth. He entered poverty — not just as God becoming man, but as God becoming a poor man. He didn't stay distant from the struggle. He moved towards it. And he invites us to do the same.

Not to fix poverty through our own effort. Not to carry guilt for what we have. But to stay present to the reality of inequality, to let it shape our attitudes and prayers and actions, and to remember that we all meet at the same cross.

The rich need the poor to keep their hearts soft. The poor need the rich — not as patrons, but as family. Both need Jesus.

# When Your Wealth Defines Your Worth — Money, Value, and What God Actually Thinks
## [00:00:00] Welcome to Crowd Church
[00:00:00] Matt Edmundson: Sh
well, hello and welcome to Crowd Church. My name is Matt. Uh, it's great to be with you this evening, the second week from our studio, which I'm very excited about, and I've got a computer in front of me and everything. So it's looking like, well, professional, uh, beside me. To my left, uh, to your right, I guess on the screen, uh, is the beautiful, we'll start with Will.
How are we doing?
[00:00:24] Will Sopwith: Good evening. Very good. Very good.
## [00:00:26] Studio Banter and Heating Woes
[00:00:26] Will Sopwith: Also very excited to, uh, be in the studio, although, as you can say it, it's slightly chilly.
[00:00:30] Matt Edmundson: It is.
[00:00:31] Will Sopwith: So I'm gonna keep my scarf on, but, um, no, lovely. You got, you got a great setup here. Well, it, it is back to the old days actually.
[00:00:37] Matt Edmundson: It is funny, isn't it? We've sort of come full circle.
Yeah.
[00:00:40] Matt Edmundson: Uh, getting into a much nicer studio though.
[00:00:42] Will Sopwith: But love is to be. Yeah.
[00:00:43] Matt Edmundson: Yeah. It's a shame that he's not working. I was saying to, well, we've got, we've had the electrics done, uh, in the studio, you can't see them. But we, when we started to build this room out a couple weeks ago, had a load of electrics done.
But the electrician, God bless him, there's a cable in inside the trunk in for the heating that is not connected to anything. So we need to get them back to come and fix it. So hence the reason we're all wearing coats and scarves and phantom
[00:01:08] Will Sopwith: heating system.
[00:01:09] Matt Edmundson: Even Zoe, we sat there drinking a hot chocolate in a, in a puffer jacket.
But anyway, first of all, problems, right? There's a little bit chilly, um, but very warm.
## [00:01:18] Say Hi in the Comments
[00:01:18] Matt Edmundson: Welcome to you. If you're joining us, do say hi in the comments. Uh, it'd be great to see you in there. Um, and even if you're just writing a comment that you can hear me, that'd be really awesome. Just so we know, we are actually live and working.
Oh, here we go. The comments coming in now. Uh. What was Milky Way? Is that you, Millie, I'm guessing, um, Sonia's in the comments. A rose is in the comments. Good evening everybody. It's great to be with you. Do say hi. Let us know, uh, where you are watching from. Um, and I will try and keep, uh, we can, they can hear us, which is good.
That's always helpful. That's always helpful. Good stuff. Um, I wish I could show you what it's like being in the studio, but unless you're in like a community groups, I, I sent some photos around. Uh, it's really, it's quite tech. Eh?
[00:02:05] Will Sopwith: It it is very techy. Overwhelmingly so. It's a lot of wires. There's a lot of bits of black metal.
[00:02:12] Matt Edmundson: There is.
[00:02:12] Will Sopwith: And, uh, yeah, yeah. No, it is, it's good. You're doing a good job.
[00:02:15] Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Well, we're getting there. It's, it's only gonna improve. Uh oh. Yes. Milka is actually Millie from Wednesday nights.
[00:02:23] Will Sopwith: Hello, Millie?
[00:02:24] Matt Edmundson: Yes. And hello Ross. Nice to see you. Yeah, absolutely. Great to be with you guys.
## [00:02:28] How Tonight Works
[00:02:28] Matt Edmundson: Um, so Will, you are chatting to us tonight, aren't you?
[00:02:30] Will Sopwith: I am, yeah. Yeah. I'm,
[00:02:32] Matt Edmundson: you're gonna do the talk, which we're gonna get into in just a brief second. Uh, but before we do, let me just tell you the rules of engagement. If this is your first time with us, uh, just say hi in the comments. Uh, it'd be great to hear from you. We have something called Conversation Street.
So Will's gonna do the talk. Um, and we're talking about money we're carrying on our conversation about money. Mm-hmm. Part three, part four,
[00:02:52] Will Sopwith: part,
[00:02:53] Matt Edmundson: hmm. It's part something. I think it's part four, uh, of the Money series. So Will's gonna be talking about that. Um, but we'd love to hear your questions. So any questions that come up, um, just write them in the comments.
'cause after we've done the talk, he and I are gonna chat, um, about his talk and we're gonna try and answer some of your questions. Uh, at the end of that, we're gonna go into something called Live Lounge, which is where we will jump onto Google meets. I'll put the link in the comments. Um, but we're gonna jump onto Google Meet, so come join us in Google meets afterwards.
It's just like being on a Zoom call, really. But great to meet you normally. It's fair to say there would be somebody to my right. Um, Jan is unfortunately not able to join us tonight. Jan. Hope you're feeling better.
## [00:03:39] Mothering Sunday Explained
[00:03:39] Matt Edmundson: Um, but yes, so it's, it's the two of us, and I suppose it, we should probably start by saying, happy Mother's Day.
[00:03:45] Will Sopwith: Yeah. Happy Mother's Day, Matt.
[00:03:47] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:03:49] Will Sopwith: You've, uh, you, yeah. You play a blinder. I, I'm being so impressed over the years. Well done. Yes. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers. Um, those who are physical mothers, spiritual mothers, um, aspiring to mothers. Um, yeah. Happy Mother's Day.
[00:04:06] Matt Edmundson: Excellent. Uh, and yes, I appre Alicia's in the comment she's watching, uh, from Georgia in the States.
It has to be said. I came a cropper, Alicia, um, when I lived in the States, so I'm going back. Mm. 90. When did I, 1991. Right. So I'm going back a few years when I lived in the States. And what I didn't realize was, um, and this caused me a lot of grief with my own mum, uh, is American Mother's Day. Yeah. And English Mother's Day, or in fact different dates.
[00:04:36] Will Sopwith: Well, international. 'cause we've got a Brazilian staying with us at the moment. And I was like, uh, do, do you have Mother's Day? And she said, yeah, it's in May. He goes, yeah, like the rest of the world. But my dad is very hot on this. Okay. Because it's not Mother's Day in the uk it's mothering Sunday.
[00:04:48] Matt Edmundson: Ah. Is there a
[00:04:49] Will Sopwith: difference?
And it's actually part of the church calendar where everyone gets a day off work.
[00:04:54] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:04:54] Will Sopwith: And they return to their mother church. So they go back to their own, ah, village or town. Oh, is that what it is? And of course, they get a chance to see their family. Right. But it's actually kind of returning to your home church effectively from wherever you are.
Right. Working around the country. So, um, but the rest of the world have now just got, yeah. Mother's Day in, in May. So yeah. My, my brother in Canada also get. Quite confused to remind him.
[00:05:18] Matt Edmundson: Yes. Good. 'cause I got into trouble with my own mom. I'm not gonna lie, I got into a lot of trouble. Um, so if you're confused about us saying Happy Mother's Day, it's just 'cause we're British and we're weird.
Um, that's just the way it is. But anyway, we
[00:05:30] Will Sopwith: might have had it first though.
[00:05:31] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:05:33] Will Sopwith: Anyway's. Not go there.
[00:05:35] Matt Edmundson: Does it matter? I don't know. Um, but anyway, happy Mother's Day, if you're a mum. Uh, whether, uh, you know, to birth kids, adopted kids, whether it's spiritually, whether it's just to the kids down the road, happy Mother and Sunday.
Um, you're all legends. Moms are legends. Fact, full stop. Uh, so, uh, and I'm just impressed someone from Georgia. Um, it's a peach state. Did you know
[00:06:00] Will Sopwith: Indeed? Yeah. Um,
[00:06:02] Matt Edmundson: there's
[00:06:02] Will Sopwith: a lot of films filmed in Georgia. That's the only reason I know. 'cause it always says at the bottom, it's got a little, little, little picture of a peach in Georgia.
[00:06:08] Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, a says you're looking very bright and shiny.
[00:06:14] Will Sopwith: The lighting is something else in here. It is. It has to be. Maybe I should turn it down, down talking.
[00:06:18] Matt Edmundson: Turn the lighting down. Hang on,
[00:06:20] Will Sopwith: because it, okay. Yeah. Too much shine. Not, not good at this time on the Sunday evening.
I mean, it's, it's the glasses as well, but I, I need those. Okay.
[00:06:29] Matt Edmundson: So I've turned it down. Aids. Let me know if that's any better. Thanks to shiny
[00:06:33] Will Sopwith: for you man.
[00:06:35] Matt Edmundson: Elise, he says, thanks for clearing that up, Matt. Crew in the comments. Please feel free to take the Mick out of Edmo, everyone. Um,
[00:06:42] Will Sopwith: nice, nice to have you in the comments, Matt.
[00:06:44] Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. For a while. And he says, what did your mother think of you chopping your fingers off? Well, true Matt, Crew style. Um. Mum Wasn't that impressed Actually, no,
[00:06:56] Will Sopwith: it was a long time ago. This, this wasn't this week. Yeah, it wasn't this watch.
[00:07:02] Matt Edmundson: It was a long time ago.
## [00:07:03] Handing Over to Will
[00:07:03] Matt Edmundson: Anyway, let's get into it. So, great that you're all here. Do keep writing in the comments, do keep writing questions in there, uh, like I say as we go through. But for now, um, will, I'm gonna hand over to you. I'm gonna jump on the scriptures in the comments 'cause we're a minimal crew tonight being mothering Sunday.
Um, so everyone's with their mums apart from us. Um, so I will jump on the scriptures and over to you, my friend.
[00:07:26] Will Sopwith: Okay, thank you very much.
## [00:07:28] Two Boys Two Beginnings
[00:07:28] Will Sopwith: So, um, yeah, talking tonight, uh, the title is The Ultimate Depreciation and the Impact That Money Can Have on Us. And I wanna start by telling you a story of two boys.
The first was raised in a single parent family, one of six siblings abandoned by that, by their dad, more or less. Who, uh, who spent much of his time on the road, he was a professional conman with a string of mistresses. Life was hard. The children helping maintain the house through endless chores, earning money where possible by selling potatoes or rearing turkeys.
His devout Baptist mother install instilled values of hard work, saving and generosity into her six children. Things weren't all bleak. He got a place at the first free secondary school opening in the district and studied hard. He also got a job in a grocery business and went on to get a bookkeeping qualification, and at the age of 20, he had an opportunity to go into partnership with the grocery company that he'd already been working long hours for.
The second boy was born into a wealthy family. The only sign of a successful textiles trader. His dad was a, what you'd call a pillar of the community, respected by the town. And this boy's life was carefree. His every need catered for. He didn't really need to do much of anything at all, certainly not work.
And he lived a bit of a playboy lifestyle, surrounded by friends hanging out in the city center, messing about playing sports. He probably had a private tutor but didn't show much interest in industry. But he did have heroic aspirations of making a name for himself on the battlefield. He was marked for greatness in the community, given his breeding and his parentage.
And at the age of 19, he had his chance. In the end, whatever he did, he had the assurance of more inheritance than he knew what to do with.
## [00:09:38] What God Thinks About Wealth
[00:09:38] Will Sopwith: Wealth. Some have it, some don't. Some earn it, some squander it. Some never even get the chance. What does God think of financial riches or the lack of them? Does the Bible distinguish between rich and poor?
Are riches a sign of God's blessing and poverty, a sign of his curse? Is there such a thing as the undeserving poor or the deserving rich? Those who by their own actions end up in one of the two boxes. And where would you put yourself on that spectrum? Where are your eyes immediately drawn at that question to those that materially have more than you?
Or to those that have less wealth and especially financial worth has gained, I would say, a disproportionate status in our modern Western society. It touches everything. It touches politics, education, healthcare, sport warfare, very topical relationships, the environment. There's a fascination with a league table of financial worth.
It's an annual publication, even as a rich list, an obsession with who's dropped out of the top 10 or who's risen up the rankings. Wealthy lifestyles are entertainment, and some magazines are entirely based on the premise that readers will pay to get an insight into a wealthy star's lifestyle.
Everything is costed in monetary terms, and as Oscar Wilde equipped, people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. And this is why we've spent the past three weeks at Crowd exploring it. The inequality of wealth, the growth of its importance and status and its impact on our wholeness are worth exploring from God's perspective.
And tonight we're panning out from our individual response to briefly look from a more society-wide perspective on the whole question of wealth and poverty. Now, I think it's true to say that Christianity and its breadth of practice lays claim boast to the rich and the poor. There's a wide range of opinion you'd come across walking into any particular church worldwide, probably.
So you may hear Christians espousing that material wealth is an unambiguous sign of God's blessing. It can be, and its pursuit is therefore somehow godly. It almost always isn't. You might even hear churches or Christian leaders boasting of how much money they have or how much their church is worth or how much they've raised.
Astonishingly one bit of research, and this was done in America, showed 80% of people believed that the phrase God helps those that help themselves is a verse in the Bible. If you're interested. This actually comes from an esop fable, ancient Greek. Um, but it also has echoes in the Quran and Islamic faith.
It's not in the Bible. On the other hand, you'll come across a passionate belief that God is primarily on the side of the poor. Jesus was homeless after all and apparently owned nothing. There are plenty of proverbs and parables that seem to judge the, the foolish rich, the hardhearted rich, even the the ruthless rich.
The prophets talk about looking after the widow and orphan, the poorest of the poor as true worship.
So tonight we clear it up once and for all. God really loves the poor. Oh, and God really loves the rich. And God loves those who think they are poor, but are actually rich. And God loves those who are poor, but aspire to be rich. And God loves those that are never even bothered to classify themselves. God loves Leviticus 1915 says, do not show favoritism to the poor or the rich judge on the basis of what is right.
You see, money is just a thing. It was never meant to define you. It certainly is not how God classifies you in deciding how much attention you deserve. God's love for you is entirely unrelated to your worldly wealth, your career, your status, how much you stand to inherit or to pass on, how much you owe.
Entirely unrelated. As with so many things in scripture, it's not the thing itself that matters, it's what you do with it and how you view it. So forgive me if that is blatantly obvious to you, but it seemed worthwhile clearing up, and hopefully we can agree on that baseline that God loves no matter what we are worth.
So as we look into this topic a little bit more from a biblical perspective. Although wealth and poverty are not significant in God's great offer to us of life and grace, they are important. And there's lots of ways to cut this. And I really do recommend that you check out the other talks in this series on the Crowd, uh, website or on u, on YouTube.
But tonight, I want to look particularly from a point of inequality and God's justice.
## [00:15:27] Bible Context Land and Inequality
[00:15:27] Will Sopwith: To do this, it's important to remember a bit of context in the time of the Bible. Wealth is largely associated with land In the first colonization of Palestine, after God's people were rescued from slavery, each family was apportioned land to farm, to build on, to maintain, to nurture.
In theory, all were equal. They had an equal allocation. So there weren't many ways you could get wealthy. The first was by working hard on your land with the skills you had to increase your herds and your crops to a point where you went beyond self-sufficiency. By which I mean you've fed your household, you've paid your tithe, you've completed your sacrifice expectations, you stored enough seed for next year's crops, and you still had something left over, um, either to exchange for other things or to sell.
A second way you could get wealthy is by renting out a part of your land for others to farm. If you had more than you needed taking a rent of produce or money in exchange for their use of your land, the level of rent, of course, was for you to set and clearly open to abuse. If you chose thirdly, you could gain additional land by conquest or treachery, and there's a warning in the Bible not to move the boundary stones.
You could just make it up and claim some of your neighbor's land, for example. But finally, you could take advantage of a family down on their luck. So this might be where there are no children to work the land where a husband had died and you could buy their land maybe at a knockdown price, offering loans at high rates of interest or effectively enslaving your fellow Israelites.
So you see, wealth could often be gained not by your hard work, but either by the fortune of the resource you had, more land than you needed, or the misfortune of your neighbors. And it's this wealth that the Bible has some harsh words for. If you exploit a situation to get all you can usually at the expense of another, this is not okay with God.
In fact, Proverbs 1431 says, whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their maker, who is God? If you luxuriate in your fortune, living in self-congratulation and building bigger bonds to store all your stuff, God calls you a fool, warning that you, your wealth could be snatched from you at any moment.
So that's all very well.
## [00:18:12] Modern Systems and Privilege
[00:18:12] Will Sopwith: But before we excuse ourselves from the equation as not being landowners, as not being oppressive, being those that work hard for the money we have that earn every comfort we enjoy. Think a little deeper. Oppressing the pore has many faces. Who makes your cheap clothes? Who grows your cheap chocolate?
Who mines the precious minerals that drive your smartphone? Do you know? Imagine playing monopoly where you get to play with 1D and 10 pounds in the bank and your opponent uses both dice and starts with 2000 pounds. And as your opponent starts raking in the properties and the cash, they might claim that they are simply a better player.
I'm sure you wouldn't hesitate to point out that their progress comes from their unfair advantage. This is, unfortunately, the world we live in. It is not a level playing field. For instance, I might claim my 80 k salary is my right. It's stemming as it does from working hard at school, choosing to do a postgraduate degree, being a diligent employee and its job I got and exploring promotion opportunities.
But this misses the point that I grew up in a stable family and shout out for mom and dad on this Mother's Day that encouraged me to learn. Supported my learning to read, funded additional activities that built my self-confidence. It ignores that I lived in a prosperous postcode where crime was not a weekly problem, where daily life was without threat, where electricity was not rationed, where food was never scarce.
It brushes over the fact that my language, my accent, even my skin tone were deemed acceptable to the employers I saw at work with. And if I were to expand the comparison internationally, I'm failing to value that I have access to free education, healthcare law, enforce enforcement, that I live under a regime that is not either at war with itself or so corrupt that most of what my parents earned had to go on bribes or taxes.
But it's not just about money. As research by Sendal Mohan, who shows that poverty can actually result in a lack of mental bandwidth. Again, not a level playing field. When you are worried about food rent, keeping the lights on your cognitive capacity literally drops. IQ scores, decrease decision making, deteriorates, let alone capacity to learn, take risks, build networks, invest.
Poverty is exhausting in a way that's hard to understand from the outside. God absolutely cares about this inequality.
So if you are tempted to lay absolute claim. To what you have. It's yours. Yours alone, earned. It's your right. And even beyond that, you judge others' relative level of wealth as either unfair advantage if you're looking to the rich or a direct result of their character flaws or inadequacy perhaps at the poor.
Then pause. Think about the advantages you have.
Think about the inequality of the system you live in.
Be thankful and maybe ask God to give you his perspective.
I am privileged. Does God love me? Yes. Does God begrudge me the money I have? I don't think so. So what does a just God expect of me in a world of inequality?
In Paul's letter to one Timothy, not one Timothy to Timothy, but one Timothy chapter six, verse 1719. It says, command those who are rich in this present world, not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
Don't get too tied up with what you do or you don't have. Acknowledge that God is a source of all your good things.
## [00:23:00] Wealth Numbs the Heart
[00:23:00] Will Sopwith: The gospel writers recount a couple of stories about people overly focused on their wealth. First, Jesus points out a rich man who is in the temple virtue signaling the amount of money he is giving, and Jesus says he's already received his reward.
If people's admiration is what he's after, he'll get that, but nothing more. Jesus also tells a parable of a rich man who has a beggar Lazarus daily sat at his gate, longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Both die. Lazarus is in heaven, and the rich man is in hell begging Abraham to relieve his torment by sending Lazarus down with some water to moisten his lips.
Abraham says, in your lifetime you received your good things while Lazarus received bad, but now he is comforted. Now, I don't think God is talking about karma here, like a rebalancing of your worth on the basis of what you have in life. Why is Lazarus sat at the gate, longing for scraps, presumably because the rich man never gave him anything.
Perhaps he never, never even considered Lazarus's need. Why will the rich man in the temple not receive any more recognition from God than the admiration of his fellow temple goers? Presumably because he actually values that above worship of God. Where your treasure is, there is your heart. You see, material wealth can actually numb us to others' plight and also to what is most valuable.
When we obsess over measuring ourselves against those with more or those with less, we begin to miss what's most important. Excuse me, back to our game of monopoly. Some fascinating studies by a guy called Paul Piff at uc, Berkeley show that as people get richer, even in, in a game of monopoly, their empathy decreases.
Wealthier participants in an experimental game became worse at reading facial expressions. They were more likely to attribute success to their own skill rather than luck or circumstance. They became less generous even in controlled experiments when the wealth was an illusion. Another study he did was to track over a day the cars that stopped at a crossing for a pedestrian to cross, and he found that all those with more expensive cars were far less likely to stop for a pedestrian than those with cheaper cars.
Wealth can act as an anesthetic. It numbs you to the pain of others. When you don't experience struggle, you tend to stop noticing it in others. Maybe this is why Jesus said it's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Maybe this is why the Bible warns us repeatedly about the dangers of pursuing material security above, following Gods dependence on stuff, including money battles the imprint of God on our hearts love, kindness, compassion, wealth tends to make you independent from others, but also from God.
So in response, the Bible directly challenges any security we put in our possessions. It suggests we are more equal than we might think. Back to that Timothy passage in verse seven of chapter six. It says, for we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it, or as Ecclesiastes puts it, we were born naked and we die naked.
Jesus challenges us in Matthew 16, verse 26. What good will it be for someone if they gain the whole world but forfeit or lose their soul? Proverbs 22, verse two says, the rich and the poor have this in common. The Lord is the maker of them all, or literally, the rich and the poor meet together. The rich person is not a God.
To be envied or even somehow worshiped. The poor person is not a problem to be solved or pitied. They're both creatures, both made by the same maker, both bearing the same image, both made for relationship with God and each other. If you feel superior to the poor, you have forgotten your maker. If you feel inferior to the rich, you have forgotten your maker.
The ground is level at Christ's cross net worth doesn't change your worth.
So the first response to our unequal world is don't be arrogant. Don't put your hope in wealth. But that scripture in one Timothy six goes on, uh, an important follow on.
## [00:28:27] Generosity and Two Examples
[00:28:27] Will Sopwith: So it starts off command those that are rich among you, not to put their hope in wealth,
but to be to, to, to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. So don't put your hope in wealth, but do be generous and willing to share. Going back to the two boys, I started with the hard graph, bookkeeper had become partner in the grocery business. Civil War struck in his country and supplying the army with rations skyrocketed the profits.
This allowed our young man to invest in the newly arrived oil boom, refining crude to sell as kerosene, but unlike his competitors, he applied his mother's lessons of economy and thrift and experimented with the byproducts of refining lubricating oil, petroleum jelly, and tar, which he could also then sell, and he rapidly became the most profitable refiner just as oil use became widespread spread.
What perhaps is less known is that the lifestyle of his wife and five children remained relatively unex extravagant. They had a lovely house, but they didn't splash their cash around. He considered his expertise and success in business to be a God given gift. He led a weekly Bible study. He regularly taught at Sunday school and gave hundreds of thousands to various church projects, schools, missionary projects.
He and his wife supported women's suffrage, the abolition of slavery and schools for ethnic minorities. He also founded two universities and a foundation funding international public health and medical training. He was in the end, the wealthiest man in modern history and quite possibly the most generous.
His name of course was John d Rockefeller, the same Rockefeller that Pete quoted a couple of weeks back. How much money is enough? Just a little bit more aquip that recognizes that if wealth is a hunger we choose to feed, it will never quite be satisfied. The second boy joined the army as a knight, a nobleman on a noble cause, but Ward did not go well.
He was captured and he fell ill. His father Gar gathered the necessary ransom to free him, but his self-confidence was shattered. He was depressed and his old life of friends and parties now seemed rather empty. He became disillusioned with wealth and infuriated his dad by starting to give money away to the poor in his city.
At the age of 24, he had what could be called a divine encounter and felt a call to rebuild God's church, which he took to mean physical repair. And as he began to rebuild a ruin, chapel nearby, his separation from his family increased. But a few followers began to be drawn to the simple lifestyle of this rich kid.
Turned Jesus freak. It all came to a head. One day in the city square, the father publicly demanding repayment of all the money the young man had squandered on the poor. At which point the son renounced all his wealth and inheritance publicly stripping off his fine clothes to give back to his astonished father, the bishop of the city rushed to cover the man with his cloak.
And from that point on, the young man, Francesco went about his hometown of Assisi wrapped in a simple flux and tunic tied with a cord taking a vow of poverty. He became, of course, St. Francis of Assisi and the head of a whole movement of young men and women renouncing material comfort to serve God in contemplation and peace.
And he founded the Franciscan Franciscan order. Its members to this day, living in poverty, emphasizing simplicity, environmental care, serving the margin, the marginalized. Rockefeller and St. Francis aren't necessarily models for our lives, but two examples of attitudes to money that might challenge us.
Two lives that went actually in opposite directions, but both in the end, recognizing that wealth for its own sake was not the answer. They're also very different examples of how God can use lives submitted to him regardless of material status. We don't have to renounce all worldly goods to work with Jesus, and we don't need to gain massive wealth to be of any practical use.
So in summary, God doesn't have a problem with you having money. He does have a problem with the self-sufficiency and hardheartedness it can bring. And God expects you to recognize the blessings you have and to be generous to those with less. However rich you feel you are or aren't.
## [00:33:52] Jesus Poverty and Our Response
[00:33:52] Will Sopwith: Jesus entered poverty, not just God becoming man, but God becoming a poor man.
He didn't stay distant from the struggle. He moved towards it and he invites us to do the same. Not to fix poverty through our own effort or to fix the curse of riches for that matter, but to be present to the issues. Let them shape us, shape our attitudes, our prayers, our actions to remember that we all meet together before the same maker.
The rich need the poor to keep their hearts soft for one thing, to remember their dependence on God and the poor need, the rich, not as patrons, but as family. Both need Jesus. I. So in response, just a couple of questions before we get to Conversation Street. Questions to ponder,
where might you have unconsciously absorbed the idea that money equals value, that someone's net worth is equivalent to their actual worth?
Second question, where might self-indulgence have crept into your life while others around you struggle or self-pity crept in where others succeed?
And finally, what would change practically mentally and emotionally if you genuinely believe the rich and the poor meet together as equals?
And with that. I will pass back to you, Matt.
## [00:35:45] Conversation Street Begins
[00:35:45] Matt Edmundson: Ah, cool man. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the stories. I didn't know that about Francis Vassi. Yeah. Um, I, I did know that about Rock. I'm going That's, I'm sure he is talking about rock. Yeah, he is talking about Rockefeller
[00:35:59] Will Sopwith: oil kind of gives it away. Oil comes up like
[00:36:02] Matt Edmundson: Yeah, we, we know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but no, I, I love that. It's, um, it's quite an interesting one, isn't it, when you get given these topics, I mean, I say that 'cause I give out the topics, um, but it's when, when we are talking about God's heart for the rich and poor, um, I loved how you, how you talked about that at the start by saying his heart is for the rich and his heart is for the poor.
Let's get talk over. But no, I loved it. I loved it. Um, kinda, I, I've put the questions, um, that you said at the end there in the comments, um, you know, where might have you unconsciously absorbed the idea that money equals value? 'cause that's quite a prevalent thing, isn't it, in society? Don't you find
[00:36:43] Will Sopwith: it?
It's crazy. I mean, there was a whole lot more actually that I, it kind of got me into looking at, at the, the history of money a little bit and the whole idea of, you know, the whole idea of land, for example. But, you know, in, in, in all of our cultures, um, money really started as, as kind of bartering an exchange.
Yeah, you had something, you might have a skill, you might have a bit of land, you might be good at growing beans or whatever, and you traded it for something you didn't have. And. That trade and that barter was always in relationship.
[00:37:18] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:37:18] Will Sopwith: So you would come to somebody and you would exchange something with them and there was a kind of relationship.
[00:37:24] Matt Edmundson: Mm.
## [00:37:24] Money as Identity
[00:37:24] Will Sopwith: And then money got invented 'cause it was a lot more efficient because Yeah, I've got beans, but you haven't got any salt and salts what I need. So Oh, if you give me money then I can go somewhere else and Yeah. Yeah. So money all comes, but it's now got in the last kind of a hundred years to this weird point where money's kind of got of a life of its own.
It's not just a, like a system of exchange, it's now this kind of identity.
[00:37:46] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:37:46] Will Sopwith: That we worship, that we really look, we idolize the rich, we're fascinated with the rich. Um, and, and somehow it's become not just a thing that we use, it's become this. Big part of our identity, which is just totally messed up.
[00:38:05] Matt Edmundson: Yeah,
[00:38:06] Will Sopwith: yeah. But, but it's that kind of divorce from any kind of relationship with others. It becomes our kind of hard cash that has no relationship to others. That I think is part of that, how that's got so messed up.
[00:38:17] Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah.
## [00:38:18] Keeping Up Appearances
[00:38:18] Matt Edmundson: I, it is funny, isn't it? Like you say, and there's, alongside that is then the appearance of wealth.
So this whole idea of yeah, I need to keep up with the Joneses, therefore, as a result, right?
[00:38:27] Will Sopwith: Yeah. But because it's becomes this whole identity thing. Yeah. You get this ridiculous situation. Yeah. And there, there's, um, there's a proverb actually I was reading the other day, which says, um, something like Better, better to.
I can't, I'm, I'm gonna completely misquote it, but, but it was basically saying better, better to just have, not very much than be pretending, you know? Yeah. Completely bankrupt yourself to pretend to be rich. But, but that's what we would do. I, I was having a discussion in, in, with one of my kids recently about, um, you know, that that appearance of cars, I think is a big one.
Yeah. Cars on credit.
[00:38:57] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:38:58] Will Sopwith: And like, and my son used to do that the whole time. It's like, how come they're driving a Ferrari and he's only 23? Yeah. And you are 40 something and you are driving this kind of Citron.
[00:39:08] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:39:08] Will Sopwith: And it's like, I very much doubt he's got that on his own money. But it, but it is this sort of, um, yeah.
Yeah. That, that becomes a whole social thing of like, I must demonstrate that somehow I'm wealthy. Yeah. Even if it's absolutely bankrupting you in debt.
[00:39:24] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:39:24] Will Sopwith: It is still a really important value. Yeah.
[00:39:26] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:39:26] Will Sopwith: Um, yeah,
[00:39:28] Matt Edmundson: it's, and you're right.
## [00:39:29] Debt Free Business Mindset
[00:39:29] Matt Edmundson: I mean it's, it's, being in business is really interesting when you talk about capital and return on capital and, you know, do you, um, if I get from you invoice terms of 30 days, it increases my cash flow.
But if I can increase that 60 days and get more cash flow, which means I can invest in the, and you start bankrolling the business, I've run my company for the last 20 years by going, right. I order from you. I don't want it, I don't want credit terms, I'm gonna pay you. Now, here's the money now, therefore any stock that I have on my shelves I own.
Right. And so there's no debt.
[00:40:05] Will Sopwith: Mm-hmm.
[00:40:05] Matt Edmundson: And I, and I get why that's not necessarily a sound business decision, right?
[00:40:11] Will Sopwith: Mm-hmm.
[00:40:13] Matt Edmundson: And I'm not saying I'm not doing this because I'm making some business decisions. I'm doing this because when it goes wrong and inevitably it's going to mm-hmm. Because it's just, just the nature of life.
It's nature. But something's gonna happen. I don't owe anybody anything.
[00:40:27] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
Do
[00:40:27] Matt Edmundson: you know what I mean? Yeah. And it's, it's a really, so I don't have to borrow money over here to keep the cash flow to go and pay. I could, I could go and lease an Aston Martin
[00:40:37] Will Sopwith: mm-hmm.
[00:40:37] Matt Edmundson: Drive around an Aston I would love at, as if anyone's listening and thinks I want to bless Matt with an Aston Martin.
You feel the freedom. Um, but it's a, it's an interesting one, isn't it? Because it's like, I could do that because society tells me that's a really good thing to do.
[00:40:55] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
[00:40:56] Matt Edmundson: And I'll get a lot of kudos.
[00:40:57] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
[00:40:57] Matt Edmundson: You know, you see all the business guys, um, on the web with their standing in front of their, you know, their posh cars or whatever, or sitting on their, it's part of their
[00:41:05] Will Sopwith: brand.
It's
[00:41:05] Matt Edmundson: part of their, so they all become part of their brand. So we aspire for this thing. And then we read books like, um, what's that famous book by Tim Ferriss, the Four Hour Work Week?
[00:41:16] Will Sopwith: Mm-hmm.
[00:41:17] Matt Edmundson: Right. So you, you, you then have a generation of people going, I ne I only need to work four hours a week and I can have whatever I want.
[00:41:23] Will Sopwith: Mm-hmm.
[00:41:24] Matt Edmundson: And it, it, it fascinates me. It absolutely fascinates me and, and it fascinates me 'cause I got caught up in it.
[00:41:33] Will Sopwith: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:41:34] Matt Edmundson: So, um. And I've got caught up in it quite a few times over the years.
## [00:41:39] Scripture and Wealth Myths
[00:41:39] Matt Edmundson: But Elise's put in the comments I've heard people I love and respect espouse a belief that money and value are correlated.
And often it seems to come from their specific interpretation of certain scriptures. Usually from Proverbs,
[00:41:56] Will Sopwith: there's a lot in Proverbs about, about wealth, but there's an awful lot that judges wealth. Mm-hmm. So, you know, you can pick and choose your proverbs Yeah. To say, oh yeah, um, God blesses the rich, or whatever.
But I would say there's far more that, that challenges that. And, and I mean, and this is the problem, you know, the, the Bible is a rich and diverse book and the church is a rich and diverse community and you can pick all sorts out of it. And you need, you so need to look at the whole of it, which is why we do these Crowd tours.
Yeah. To try and do, look at the kind of the wholeness of scripture. And I think it's very hard to read. Through ho all of scripture and make that conclusion that actually God just wants to Yeah. That, that, that somehow your riches are kind of boosting you up in Yeah. In the kingdom of God. And, and, and that's okay with God.
Um,
[00:42:48] Matt Edmundson: well, the belief that somehow your bank balance is directly proportionate to the blessing of God in your life.
[00:42:54] Will Sopwith: I mean, it's just, it's such a dangerous, and, and you know, like with loads of things, there's a little germ of truth in it because God does talk about blessing and, but, and often, you know, when he's talking about the blessing his people, he is talking about land and he says, yeah, I'll, you know, I'll, I'll give you water and I'll give you sunshine and you will be bountiful in your crops and all the rest.
It is a sign of God's blessing. But it's such a short little step then to kind of make it the thing.
[00:43:20] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:43:21] Will Sopwith: And, and that's when it becomes really dangerous just on your car thing. I, I have to confess, I, I feel burdened to confess that when I was trying to set up a business with a couple of other guys, we used to drive around in this tiny little ego, um, this like little box of a car.
And there was one particular client, was
[00:43:37] Matt Edmundson: that, that Toyota?
[00:43:38] Will Sopwith: Uh, yeah, yeah. There was one particular client we were going to see and, and we did park around the corner. It's like, we cannot rock up in their car park in this 'cause they will just not take us seriously in terms of distance. So we did actually Yeah.
Park around the corner and walk to the office. It's, um, it's a kind of tough thing to challenge and particularly when you're in business and particularly when, when you're working in that world.
Yeah.
[00:44:00] Matt Edmundson: Because, no, you're right. It's, I remember going to see, um, clients, uh, who, if I mentioned their name, you'll know them.
Right. They are very, very wealthy clients. And I remember we were gonna go do some projects at their house and I remember thinking, Hmm. I went to, um, a couple of car showrooms and said, I need you to understand I'm going to this person's house. Uh, I have this naff little car outside. If you lend me a car, I'll drive it to to their house and they'll see it in the driveway.
I'm not saying anything's gonna come of it, but I will put it in their driveway.
[00:44:35] Will Sopwith: Mm-hmm.
[00:44:36] Matt Edmundson: And they were like, awesome. And
[00:44:38] Will Sopwith: say,
[00:44:40] Matt Edmundson: I would test drive these cars
[00:44:42] Will Sopwith: and put them in the,
[00:44:43] Matt Edmundson: uh, in, in the driveway. But it is, it is. And again, it's fascinating because you do have, uh, scripture where you, it talks about Solomon, who was one of the wealthiest guys ever lived.
Mm-hmm. Right. And God was clearly giving him
[00:44:56] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
[00:44:56] Matt Edmundson: Extraordinary wealth. You have Abraham extraordinary wealth, even job before things went a bit, pong had a lot of wealth, right?
[00:45:04] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
## [00:45:05] Contentment Over Cash
[00:45:05] Matt Edmundson: Um, and then you have the Apostle Paul who writes two thirds of the New Testament, and he makes comments like, I know what it is to be rich.
I know what it is to be poor, but in everything I've learned the secret to be content. Yeah. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Yeah. Which is the context of that very famous verse. It's like, in other words, how I live in Christ is not based on my bank balance, whether I'm ritual poor.
'cause I appreciate that actually in both I can be contending God. And I think that's the secret, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Is the contentment aspect.
[00:45:38] Will Sopwith: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. And I, and I think, I mean, you know, you talk about Christ, I mean, Jesus is not, is not advertising. Yeah. God's blessings on me 'cause I'm living this wealthy lifestyle.
That was a, a direct slap in the face for that whole thinking. Yeah. Jesus came with nothing. He, he came as a servant. He, he. Earned nothing. I mean, you know, he, he was a skilled tradesman, but he gave it up Mm. To, to wander about with these fishermen in a kind of backwater of Israel. He, he wasn't even part of the kind of the religious or academic kind of, you know, he didn't go to university.
He was like, and, and that was, I think was God's direct challenge to the whole kind of artifice of wealth that had grown up and, and, you know, within the Jewish time, uh, uh, there, but even more so for us, it's just like, it just needs puncturing, but it's difficult. It really is challenging 'cause we live in that world where there is that keeping up with the Joneses.
[00:46:36] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:46:37] Will Sopwith: Um, and it's, it's quite challenging stuff to, to, to challenge it. I, um, I used to have a friend who, uh, really lovely kind of godly family. He was, I don't know how many businesses he owned, but they, they were really wealthy. And I, I've stayed with him for Easter once and I think it was the first time I'd really spent time in a family that kind of had it all.
And, uh, they'd just got this, this really new ni lovely, lovely kind of new thick pile cream carpet, like all across this beautiful kind of open plan lounge and someone else who was staying there just like, I think it was the second week they had it in just spilled coffee.
[00:47:15] Matt Edmundson: Oh. All over it.
[00:47:18] Will Sopwith: And this dad was just like, just stuff.
[00:47:20] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:47:20] Will Sopwith: It just, I mean, you know, you could argue it's like Yeah. He had the money not to care about it. Yeah. But his attitude has stayed with me for all these years of, like, he, it just was not significant. It was far more concerned about the person who spilled the coffee and just kind of welcoming and, and all this stuff was kind of, uh, peripheral.
And, and you meet people like that and you think Yeah. You, you are really genuine and authentic. Yeah. And God really has blessed you with wealth. But if you look under that, I am absolutely certain that a lot of those people are giving, giving away so much.
[00:47:52] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:47:52] Will Sopwith: Um, but it's, it's, yeah. We need to keep examining our hearts in check that we're not getting caught up in that whole ridiculousness.
[00:48:02] Matt Edmundson: I would agree.
## [00:48:02] Talents and Responsibility
[00:48:02] Matt Edmundson: And I think the whole thing isn't it, is if you, whatever your wealth level is, um, you read the Parable of the Talents, which is a story where Jesus, um, talks about a, a a a, a wealthy landowner who goes away and he gives a worker 10 talents and he gives another one, five, and he gives another one, one as in, and he, and he likens this guy to God.
So there's unequal distribution. 'cause I mean, part of, I suppose, socialist Christianity that we have to be a little bit aware of is this belief that everyone will be equal.
[00:48:31] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
[00:48:31] Matt Edmundson: And I, I get, in theory, it's, it's nice, but we see in scripture that's the reality of life is there's, there's not this equality, right?
[00:48:38] Will Sopwith: Mm-hmm.
[00:48:39] Matt Edmundson: But what we see is when the guy comes back, you know, the landowner comes back and he is like, what have you done with my talents? The guy that had 10. Had to produce the 10.
[00:48:48] Will Sopwith: Mm-hmm.
[00:48:48] Matt Edmundson: The guy that had five, he had to produce the five and the guy with one had to produce the one. Or was it five and two?
I think you do, yeah. Whatever the numbers are. But you see what I mean? It's like, if you have more, I think more is expected of you. Yeah.
[00:49:01] Will Sopwith: I think
[00:49:01] Matt Edmundson: that's
[00:49:01] Will Sopwith: true.
[00:49:02] Matt Edmundson: And so I, I don't think it, there's, it's a case of God doesn't give more to certain people. I think he does, but I think God expects more of them. And I think the other thing that I've noticed is, um, in my Christian walk is it's easy to judge someone who is perceived to be wealthy than you.
[00:49:24] Will Sopwith: Mm-hmm.
[00:49:24] Matt Edmundson: Right? Mm-hmm. So you look at someone who does drive around Aston Martin, that's a bit ostentatious. Do you know what I mean? And you, and you kind of, and you, it's easy to judge, um, people with wealth. But then the reality of life is when you look at my life, compared to 99% of the population of the planet.
I'm the equivalent. Yeah. Right. So they can look at me in the same way.
[00:49:47] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
[00:49:47] Matt Edmundson: And we always look in front of us in terms of who's got more and judge, rather than looking behind us and judging ourselves.
[00:49:54] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
[00:49:55] Matt Edmundson: To do,
[00:49:55] Will Sopwith: I think, I think that's true. Um, and, and I kind of challenge you in the talk on that. It's like, where are your eyes drawn?
'cause I would, I would, yeah. I think the majority of us are drawn to those that Mm. That we are envying, uh, and want more. Um, yeah.
## [00:50:10] Wealth and Empathy Gap
[00:50:10] Will Sopwith: I mean one of the things I was really fascinated with this, in this talk, and, and, and this is partly down to the notes that, that you provided for it was this kind of empathy gap of wealth.
[00:50:19] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:50:20] Will Sopwith: And again, I was shacked to one of my kids and they were like, Hey, surely if you got more, you'd, you'd be more generous. It's like, and that is the kind of, that's one of the, the twisted bits about it. Yeah. But actually as you get more, and this is scientific research has been done as you get more, well that
[00:50:37] Matt Edmundson: monopoly experiment you were talking about was crazy.
[00:50:40] Will Sopwith: Yeah. I mean,
[00:50:41] Matt Edmundson: it's just what
[00:50:42] Will Sopwith: I mean, you know, the world isn't even real and you're starting to kind of lose that empathy.
[00:50:47] Matt Edmundson: You Yeah, I'm smarter than you.
[00:50:49] Will Sopwith: And that, that's a, that's a massive trap. And, and I think that just shows how little God has to do with that, that that is pretty twisted. If, if he is, if that imprint of God, of God's compassion on us is being eroded by the wealth we are pursuing.
Well, I mean that for me is a real big sign that wealth is not necessarily God's plan for us and doesn't show our blessing.
[00:51:11] Matt Edmundson: Maybe we'll withdraw. Um, but it's like I said last week on the, when we're talking about generosity, the wealthiest continent in the world is the poorest continent. Yeah. Africa by far is twice as generous when you look at it as a percentage of, um, actual income.
GDP
[00:51:27] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
[00:51:28] Matt Edmundson: Africa gives twice as much as Europe. It's just crazy, isn't it? So you can see it on a, on a massive scale.
[00:51:33] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
[00:51:34] Matt Edmundson: Um, and it amazes me.
[00:51:37] Will Sopwith: Yeah,
[00:51:37] Matt Edmundson: it does. And I find it all deeply challenging.
[00:51:39] Will Sopwith: Yeah. It is really
[00:51:40] Matt Edmundson: challenging because I can, I can, I can look at somebody and go, well, you need to give more. And then I have to look at myself and go, God, what are you saying here?
What is my attitude to wealth? What is my attitude to money? Because, you know, I, I, I'm part of Crowd, but I also run my own company. And it's this really interesting juxtaposition of, you know, the whole idea of a company is to make profits. And that's why company exists, right? Mm-hmm. We want to make profit.
Um, and then at the same time, I just, you, you have this tension in Christianity. Not that profit or wealth is a bad thing, but the profit you generate needs to be fair and right. But what does that mean? Because there's no simple definition and it's all based on your inter protection. You see what I mean?
Yeah. And there's, there's some really interesting tensions around it.
[00:52:28] Will Sopwith: Yeah. Yeah. And it, we really have to keep close to God on it. But I think as well, I mean, it's, it's very easy to go on a guilt trip.
[00:52:36] Matt Edmundson: Mm-hmm.
[00:52:37] Will Sopwith: Particularly when you look internationally and go, yeah, I should give everything away. And, and, and that's, that's not necessarily the first response.
It may be the response and some people have been challenged to, to do that. But I think something that was really challenged in my heart was that sort of, that envy of, of the rich actually. And, and, and the kind of, yeah. Um, just getting caught up in that whole thing of like, oh, if I, if I just had a bit more of, oh, if I had that, or if, if I wasn't having to pay for this and, and I could use the money for that, then I could go on those holidays and I could go skiing and I could, whatever it is.
Um, and. And that again, that's, that's, that's corrosive. Yeah. That is corrosive in our hearts. Yeah. And it's corrosive in our relationships with others.
[00:53:20] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:53:20] Will Sopwith: And ultimately it's corrosive in our relationship to God and it's, it's stuff that we really need to
[00:53:25] Matt Edmundson: Yeah, I'd agree.
[00:53:26] Will Sopwith: Be very aware of,
[00:53:27] Matt Edmundson: yeah. That envy.
I mean, it's just, it's not helpful. Is it the covetousness?
[00:53:31] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
[00:53:32] Matt Edmundson: Um, you know, whatever language you want to use to describe
[00:53:34] Will Sopwith: it. And I think, you know, it is helpful to recognize that, yeah, it might be a bit more comfortable. But actually, and another start, I came across actually, that the, the, the levels of poor mental health amongst the rich are far higher than amongst the poor.
Mm. Which again, is a kind of a, a bit of a parad does. How does that work? You don't really expect that to be, but, um, but that is actually, again, that studies, studies have shown that.
[00:53:55] Matt Edmundson: Mm-hmm.
[00:53:56] Will Sopwith: It's the wealthier you get, the more likely you are to have, to have very poor mental health and anxiety and depression.
And again, you like, well, that's crazy. But it's, it's the grip that it can get.
[00:54:07] Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Absolutely. I'm thoroughly enjoying this conversation. Have
[00:54:12] Will Sopwith: you got any more, any more comments?
## [00:54:14] Comparison and Social Media
[00:54:14] Matt Edmundson: So, uh, Rachel says, my kids went to a school where people were rich compared to us, and this started their thoughts. Then you have social media, which hyped it all up to Yeah.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. I think kids with social media is just, yeah, that's one of the things you have to be careful of. It's that whole comparison thing.
[00:54:36] Will Sopwith: Yeah. It's a selective portrayal. Yeah. Of, um, I, so I, I went to a school, 'cause my, my dad taught at such a school and, uh, I remember once being invited round to a friend's house and their lawn was so big they had a tractor to mow it, like one of those little kind of sit on tractor mowers.
And I, I'd just never see anything so. Unbelievable in my life. I was like, I am not part of this Crowd.
[00:55:00] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:55:01] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
[00:55:02] Matt Edmundson: This is not who I am. Uh, Alicia says, dealing with major depressive episodes, sometimes I lean into those self pitying beliefs. I think it's a particularly diabolical trick of the other guy.
Mm-hmm. I assume she means the enemy, uh, to bog people down with comparison thinking.
[00:55:21] Will Sopwith: Mm-hmm. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. 'cause that, that will, that will block off relationship with others. That whole kind of deception and again, ultimately block us up from God. And, and it's, yeah. I mean, it's, I get it and, and I understand it and, and we kind of find different things to try to make sense of it.
Um, there's a wonderful psalm and I'm, I'm gonna forget which, which one it is 20. Four, no, I don't know, 42. Um, and, and it's, it's this sense of me really grappling with these things. And it's like, I'm, I'm really struggling. It's like, why, why do the unrighteous keep, um, keep succeeding? Why am I the one that's trying to do things right and stuck in this hole?
And it's got this wonderful phrase at the end. It's like, then I came into your presence, God and I understood. And there's a sense of like, we've gotta take all the kind of that turmoil of the inequality that actually we live in, which, which is exhausting wherever you sit in it. Um, but particularly when you're at the bottom.
Um, and just bring it into God's presence. And you literally just come at, bring it before God and say, God, just, just remind me, remind me again what's important.
[00:56:40] Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
[00:56:40] Will Sopwith: Remind me of what you say. Remind me of what I am in your eyes. Um, and, and dig into some of those scriptures because. It's a toxic environment.
It is. It really is.
[00:56:53] Matt Edmundson: Massively. So again, uh, wealth is neither a guaranteed sign of God's blessing, nor is a lack of it a guaranteed sign of God's curse. Um, yeah. I think it's how you deal with it. That actually is a sign of your heart before God. Yeah. And what you do with the wealth that he has given you, my experience is the more generous you can be with that wealth, the more generous God tends to be with you.
It's like he can trust you
[00:57:23] Will Sopwith: with it. Yeah. I was gonna say, it's absolutely it. It's like Yeah. Show, show yourself trustworthy with God. Yeah. And, and he will. He will give you stuff 'cause he, he wants then to share it out.
[00:57:35] Matt Edmundson: Yeah, absolutely.
## [00:57:37] Is Wealth a Value Metric
[00:57:37] Matt Edmundson: Uh, Mely says, my partner will say, I think wealth can be a good indicator of someone's ability in their line of work, assuming they have acquired it from work, especially in business.
[00:57:49] Will Sopwith: Big, big assumptions. So one of the crazy things about this whole history of money thing is that now wealth is entirely unrelated. So when, you know, you've got people bidding on stocks of companies that they have no relationship with, they, they don't even know what the company does, but they're just in the kind of those, I, I'm, I'm not a stock trader, but kind of in the speculation on the value of a company going up and down and, you know.
I imagine that might be a family company that someone's grown up over a hundred years and it's become wealthy and you've got some kid across the world, knows nothing about your story, knows nothing about your product, who's just speculating on the value of it and earning money. And it's like, I, I don't, you know, there's some intelligent people and, and they've kind of chosen that line of work, but I cannot say that that is, they're any better than anyone else.
So it's kind of speculative.
[00:58:44] Matt Edmundson: Oh, I don't think they're saying that it's a value thing, but I, I, I get the point which says, um, like if you become a medical doctor and you spend those years studying
[00:58:55] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
[00:58:55] Matt Edmundson: Then is it right that your salary is more than somebody? Who didn't do that amount of study.
[00:59:04] Will Sopwith: Yeah.
[00:59:05] Matt Edmundson: Who does a laboring job, for example.
Yeah.
[00:59:09] Will Sopwith: Yeah. Uh, and, and, and for some I would agree, it, it's fairly, it's fairly clear cut, although you do start getting into what society values and not Yeah. There's what, I can't remember what country is where the teachers get paid the same as the medics, which I think is brilliant. Mm. It's just like, they just value, it's not England really.
It's not England, it's definitely not England.
[00:59:26] Matt Edmundson: How much I do know,
[00:59:27] Will Sopwith: um,
[00:59:27] Matt Edmundson: it is not England.
[00:59:29] Will Sopwith: But actually using that as a kind of a general thing. Now, the way people can generate wealth from
[00:59:37] Matt Edmundson: Mm,
[00:59:38] Will Sopwith: I mean from extortion actually, I mean from all sorts of things. It's not a useful metric. Um, most I'd
[00:59:45] Matt Edmundson: say. And I, I know a lot of very, very able people who have chosen to.
To actually lay all that aside. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And, and yeah. So I, I get the point, but I think there are other, like you said, there are other metrics to, to think about here. Um, right.
## [01:00:03] Closing and Next Week
[01:00:03] Matt Edmundson: Well, I'm aware of time. Um, so what we are gonna do is we are gonna close the lifestyle. I love that, by the way.
It was good. Thanks for the comments. Thanks for the chats. Um, in the comments. We're gonna close the live stream down in just a few seconds time. So, um, let me put in the comments, the live lounge. So do come join us on Live Lounge. Uh, it'd be great to meet you on there. Uh, go Crowd Church slash meet, um, time.
Oh, there we go. I just will put YouTube on his phone. I could hear my voice, uh, coming from his phone coming into land. It's like, back to the future, has somehow occurred in my, in my studio. Um. But yes, thank you so much for joining us. Do come join, like I said, join us in Live Lounge. It will be great to have you there.
Um, if not, join us next week. Dave Conley is wrapping up this series on Money. He's gonna be talking about legacy. Mm-hmm. Uh, which I'm really looking forward to. Um, especially 'cause Dave obviously is, uh, he's a grandfather. Um, he's at sort of the next life stage from uh, where we are. And so I'm really curious to hear what he has to say.
Good. That'll be some wisdom, I have no doubt. Um, so yeah, do come join us next week with Dave Cony. I think I'm gonna be here. Um, I'm not sure who else is here actually. I should probably shift the road as long, as long as Dave's here. That'd be the main thing really. Um, but yeah, uh, that's it from me. Will anything from you in closing, buddy?
[01:01:29] Will Sopwith: No, no, that was a good discussion and thanks. Yeah, as Matt said, thanks for the questions. Um,
[01:01:34] Matt Edmundson: uh, yeah, Ross says, thanks guys. Really interesting, Alicia. Thanks for the fantastic talk. And she's either put the Prayer emoji or the high five emoji, depending on how you interpret.
[01:01:43] Will Sopwith: I take them both. Thanks Lisa.
[01:01:47] Matt Edmundson: Uh, Matt Crew says goodnight.
Goodnight guys. God bless you. Have a phenomenal week. Come join us in Live Lounge. If you get a chance. It'll only be like five or 10 minutes in there. Um, but we'll see you in there. Otherwise, we'll see you next week. That's it from me. That's it from Will. Thank you so much for joining us. God bless you. Bye for now.