Is it sinful to be wealthy?

If we want an answer to the question, “Is it sinful to be wealthy?” then we need to be clear about what we are asking. Here are three questions to help us understand, clarify, and answer the main issue. How do we define wealth? Who is wealthy? Whose is our wealth?

How do we define wealth?

We first need to define wealthy. As 21st-century Americans, we may (read: almost certainly) have a distorted view of wealth. Do we define wealthy by cash in the bank? Do we define wealthy as assets and net worth? Do we define wealthy as amenities and the many modern conveniences we have? Those are three very different definitions. I think we have to acknowledge that the term wealthy is a sliding scale depending on who is talking.

Maybe to understand this better, it would be helpful to look at a definition of poverty. For a long time, I thought of poverty as a lack of money. Maybe you have too. Ruby Payne describes poverty as: “the extent to which an individual does without resources.”¹ She goes on to list categories of those resources: financial, emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, support systems, relationships/role models, and knowledge of hidden rules. Her description may change how we think about poverty because it describes and breaks down various aspects of poverty.

Since we are looking at wealth, it may be helpful to think of it as having resources in those same areas. Just like it is easy to define poverty as not having money, so also it is easy to define wealth as having money and to ignore the many other aspects of wealth.

Who is wealthy?

If we look at the net assets of others living in the United States, many of us would not fit the definition of wealthy. But from a worldwide perspective, according to the 2024 Global Wealth Report from Credit Suisse Research Institute, all it takes to be in the top 1 percent of the world is more than $1 million in net worth (total assets minus debt). To be in the next 12 percent worldwide takes between $100,000 and $1 million in net assets. It takes just $4,214 in net assets to be in the top 50 percent. Is having $4,214 wealthy here in the US? No, but more than half the people in the world would say it is.

This is one of the problems we have with a question about who is wealthy. Usually, we end up defining ourselves as not being wealthy because we look at others who have more. This same trap is easy to fall into in many other areas of life. For example, it’s easier to focus on other people’s sins than our own. It’s easier to focus on how much others have rather than seeing how much we have.

So we have to be careful about trying to label others as wealthy and, instead, focus first on ourselves. If all you have to your name is $4,214 in total assets, it’s probably hard to think of yourself as wealthy in the United States, and yet by a worldwide standard you are.

Whose is our wealth?

But in the end, the third question remains: Whose is our wealth? This can get lost in the conversation. Psalm 24:1 states, “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” Everything we have, first and foremost, is God’s. This means that we do not own our possessions; rather, we are stewards of them.

We live life differently depending on if we view possessions as ours or if we view them as belonging to God.

That changes the conversation. We don’t own our wealth; God has given it to us. That doesn’t seem to be understood well among people, even Christians. Many take the approach of following Solomon’s poor example of using wealth for selfish pleasures. But we do well to pay attention to Solomon’s wise words after he declared how meaningless everything in life was when God is not in the picture. Solomon concluded, “Fear God and keep his commandments” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). That conclusion includes viewing wealth properly.

How would our lives change if we lived fully committed to the truth that our wealth comes from God and that our real wealth is our forgiveness and eternal inheritance? That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t retire or even enjoy vacations, but it does mean that we should live as managers of God’s resources. That’s the main thrust of Jesus’ parable in Luke 12:13-21. God has given us these blessings not so that we can take life easy, but so that we can be a blessing to others. Think about the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). We don’t know if he was extremely wealthy, and yet he used what he had earned and what God had blessed him with to take care of his neighbor in need.

At the end of the parable of the shrewd manager, Jesus said, “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9). So much of life in the United States is pursuing the dream of a big house, a big retirement account, and the accumulation of stuff. That isn’t necessarily wrong . . . but it can easily become wrong if we don’t have the right mindset.

American author and social scientist Dr. Arthur Brooks put it this way, “Woe be unto the man whose dreams come true, because he will find out that he had the wrong dreams.” In eternity, who is going to complain that he or she didn’t get to take another vacation or travel internationally? No one. In eternity, we Christians won’t have regrets.

And yet, we have this short time right now to live as salt and light in this world. Throughout the centuries, one way Christians have attracted others to the faith is by using their wealth differently than the people around them. That’s because they viewed wealth not as theirs, but as God’s; they were simply managing it. Do you order differently when you go out to eat and you pay for it versus when you go out to eat with the company credit card? We live life differently depending on if we view possessions as ours or if we view them as belonging to God, who gives them to us as blessings and wants us to use them for the good of others. Our priority isn’t to store up stuff here, but to live eternally with God in heaven. Focusing on that priority impacts how we view and how we use what we have right now.

So, no, it is not sinful to be wealthy—there were many rich believers in the Bible. But how we view and use the wealth God has given us is important.

Paul writes, “He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:15). This absolutely applies to how we use our wealth. Are we just living for ourselves, or are we living as children of God and managing his resources for his kingdom?

May God bless you as you wrestle with this question and its applications in your life.

¹A Framework for Understanding Poverty, p. 7

Author: Matthew Langebartels
Volume 112, Number 08
Issue: August 2025