For seven weeks Adebayo left the house at a quarter past six every morning, exactly as he had done for eleven years. He wore a pressed shirt and a tie. He kissed his wife at the door, carried his laptop bag to the car and joined the long crawl along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway toward the city. The only difference was that he no longer had an office to go to.
The bank had merged with a larger one in the spring. Adebayo had been a senior credit analyst, respected, well paid, the man his extended family called when they needed advice or a loan. Then one Friday afternoon he was called into a meeting room with two people from human resources and handed an envelope. By five o’clock his access card had stopped working.
He did not tell anyone. Not his wife, not his mother in Abeokuta, not the men’s fellowship where he led the Bible study on Thursday evenings. Each morning he drove to a café in a shopping mall in Ikeja, bought one cup of coffee to justify the table, and sat with his laptop open, sending out applications and staring at the screen. At lunchtime he walked around the car park. At half past five he drove home and answered his wife’s questions about his day with vague sentences about meetings.
His severance pay was dwindling, but the money was the smaller problem. What frightened him was the question he kept hearing in his own head: If I am not the man with the good job, who am I? He had been a provider, an adviser, a man who was looked up to. Without the salary, he felt as though he had been erased.
It was his wife’s friend who saw him in the café at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday. By that evening the secret was out. His wife was hurt more by the hiding than by the job loss. That weekend, still raw, Adebayo drove to his mother’s house in Abeokuta and wandered into the small workshop behind it, where his late father had worked as a carpenter for forty years.
The tools were still on the wall. His father had painted the outline of each one on a wooden board, and every saw, plane and chisel hung inside its own shape. Adebayo remembered him wiping them down every evening and hanging them up before he went in to eat. He remembered something else, a thing his father used to say when an apprentice grew too proud of a new set of tools: “The tool works for the hand. When the hand starts working for the tool, something has gone wrong.”
He stood there for a long time. Money had been his tool. Somewhere along the way he had started working for it.
What money is for
PunchlineLet us begin with something Christians sometimes forget. Money is useful, and its usefulness is good.
Money buys bread and pays rent. It covers school fees, hospital bills and transport to work. It allows a carpenter to buy timber and a trader to restock her stall. It can feed an orphan and keep a struggling student in school. “A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things,” says the Preacher (Ecclesiastes 10:19), with a wry observation about how much of ordinary life runs on it.
Scripture does not despise wealth or treat poverty as a mark of holiness. When Israel was about to enter the land, Moses warned them about the danger of forgetting God in prosperity. But in the same breath he told them where their prosperity came from: “But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers” (Deuteronomy 8:18).
The ability to work, to plan, to trade and to build is a gift from God. So is the increase that follows. God is not against His people prospering, and we should say so boldly. He takes pleasure in providing for His children, and He gives ability to their hands. A believer can work hard, pray for increase, expect God’s blessing on honest labour and thank Him when it comes, without any embarrassment.
Notice, though, the warning wrapped around the promise. The danger is that a man will say in his heart, “My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17). Prosperity can make us forget the Giver. And there is a second error, its mirror image, that runs through a great deal of Nigerian church life: the assumption that the size of a man’s bank balance tells you how much God approves of him. Wealth is never the measure of God’s favour. Some of the most faithful people in Scripture were poor. Some of the wealthiest were wicked. If God’s love could be read off a bank statement, the cross would have been unnecessary.
So we hold two truths together. Money is a good tool, and God gives His people the ability to earn it. But a tool can only do the work of a tool. The trouble begins when we ask it to do something else.
Two places to keep treasure
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks directly to the question of where money belongs in a disciple’s life:
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Jesus begins with a simple observation about the fragility of earthly wealth. In the ancient world, wealth was often kept in the form of fine clothing, stored grain and precious metals. Moths ate the cloth. Rust, or more literally corrosion, ate away at metal and spoilt stored goods. Houses were built of mud brick, and a thief could literally dig through the wall to get at what was hidden inside.
We have our own versions of moth and rust. Anyone who saved in naira through the last decade has watched the value of those savings shrink while the figure on the statement stayed the same. Prices of rice, fuel and transport have climbed until a salary that once felt comfortable barely stretches to the end of the month. Banks have failed. Investment platforms have vanished overnight. Thieves no longer need to dig through walls; they send a text message with a link. Earthly treasure is real, and it is useful, but it is never safe.
Then Jesus says something that goes straight to the heart: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Most of us assume the direction runs the other way. We imagine that we first care about something, and then we spend money on it. Jesus says that the opposite is also true. Where you put your treasure, your heart will follow. Money is a kind of compass needle for the affections. Invest heavily in a thing, and you will find yourself caring about it, worrying about it and thinking about it at night. Lay up treasure in heaven, by giving, serving and investing in what God values, and your heart will be drawn heavenward with it.
NuggetIf you want to know where your heart is heading, look at where your money is going. If you want to redirect your heart, begin by redirecting your treasure.
The eye and the master
Jesus moves on to a picture that can seem puzzling at first. “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”
The word translated single is the Greek haplous. It means simple, undivided, and in other contexts it carries the sense of generous or sincere. Its opposite, the “evil eye,” was a well-known Hebrew expression for stinginess and envy. Proverbs uses it in exactly that way: “He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him” (Proverbs 28:22). In the context of a passage about treasure, Jesus is saying that the way you look at money shapes the whole of your inner life. A generous, undivided eye fills the person with light. A grasping, envious eye darkens everything.
This is why the passage ends where it does. “No man can serve two masters... Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
Mammon is an Aramaic word for wealth or property. Jesus personifies it here, setting it alongside God as a rival lord. And the verb is a strong one. To serve in this verse means to serve as a slave serves, with undivided obligation. A slave in the ancient world could not belong fully to two owners, because each would have total claim on his time, his labour and his loyalty. Jesus is not saying that we cannot use money and serve God. He is saying that money cannot be our master and God our master at the same time.
Here is the heart of it. Money is a tool in the hand of a servant of God. It becomes a master when we begin to arrange our lives around it: when it decides our choices, governs our moods, defines our worth and commands our first loyalty. Adebayo’s father was right. When the hand starts working for the tool, something has gone wrong.
Money is a good servant in the hand of a child of God. It becomes a cruel master the moment we ask it to tell us who we are.
When money carries the weight of identity
Adebayo’s story is common, and not only among bankers. In many Nigerian communities, money is bound up with honour. The successful son is introduced at family meetings with a list of his achievements. The man with the big car is called “Chief” whether he holds a title or not. At weddings and parties, the people who spray the most money on the dance floor are noticed and celebrated. The one who cannot contribute to the family levy feels his shame keenly, and others may make sure he feels it.
None of this is new. The psalmist watched the same thing in his day:
Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased; For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him. Though while he lived he blessed his soul: and men will praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself. He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light. Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.
“Though while he lived he blessed his soul: and men will praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself.” The world has always praised the prosperous. People notice you when you do well for yourself. But the psalmist sees the end of the story. “For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.” The house, the title, the reputation built on wealth: none of it goes into the grave. And the last verse is sobering. A man who has honour but no understanding, who has wealth but does not know God, “is like the beasts that perish.”
When money becomes the foundation of identity, two things happen. When there is plenty, we become proud, because we think our worth has gone up. When there is little, we are crushed, because we think our worth has gone down. Either way, we are living as though the bank statement were a report card on our value as people.
The gospel gives us a completely different foundation. Before you earned a single naira, God loved you. Christ died for you when you had nothing to offer Him. If you belong to Him, you have been adopted as His child, and your standing in His family rests on His grace, not on your salary. “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). The richest thing about you is what Christ has made you.
This truth does not make job loss painless. Adebayo still had to grieve, still had to find work, still had a family to provide for. But it changes what the loss means. Losing a salary is a serious practical problem. It is not the loss of yourself.
Godliness with contentment
Paul writes to Timothy about the same danger, with a sentence that has become one of the most quoted in Scripture:
But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
Paul has just been dealing with false teachers who supposed “that gain is godliness” (1 Timothy 6:5), people who treated religion as a route to profit. He answers them by turning their word around. Yes, there is gain in godliness. “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” The true profit of the Christian life is a soul at peace with God and satisfied with His provision.
Then Paul gives us a sober baseline. “And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.” Food and covering. That is the basic work money is meant to do. It provides for the ordinary needs of life. Paul does not say that believers must never have more than food and clothing. He says that when these needs are met, contentment is possible. The heart does not have to wait for the next promotion before it can rest.
Then comes the warning. “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare.” The phrase they that will be rich describes people who have set their wills on wealth, who have decided that getting rich is the goal. Their desire becomes a trap. It leads into “many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.” And the famous line follows: “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Paul does not say money is the root of all evil. He says the love of it is. Money in the hand is a tool. Money in the heart is a root, and roots produce fruit.
We will look more closely at what Paul meant by the love of money in another teaching. For now, notice how this passage keeps money in its proper place. It meets ordinary needs. It is received with thanksgiving. And it is never allowed to become the thing we “will,” the thing the whole life is reaching for.
The desires that direct our spending
If money is a tool, we have to ask who is holding it. Every spending decision is directed by some desire. Sometimes the desire is simple and good: the children need shoes, the car needs a new tyre, we want to celebrate a friend’s wedding. But sometimes the desire is less obvious, and we need to look underneath the purchase to see what is really going on.
Why did I buy the expensive phone when the old one still worked? Perhaps I needed it for my work. Or perhaps I wanted to be seen with it. Why do I feel pressure to sew a new aso ebi for every family event, even when I am behind on rent? Perhaps because I love my family. Or perhaps because I am afraid of what they will say if I turn up in last year’s lace. Why do I keep checking the bank app at night? Perhaps I am being careful. Or perhaps money has become the place where my anxiety lives.
God spoke to the returned exiles in Jerusalem through the prophet Haggai at a time when the economy was hard and the people had grown preoccupied with their own houses while the temple lay in ruins:
Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.
“He that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.” Every Nigerian who has watched a month’s salary disappear by the twentieth knows that feeling. Haggai’s immediate point was specific: the people had put their own comfort ahead of God’s house, and God was withholding blessing to get their attention. We should be careful not to turn every hard economy into a judgement on individual believers. Inflation and devaluation fall on the faithful and the unfaithful alike. But the prophet’s repeated command still speaks to us: “Consider your ways.” Stop and look. Where is the money actually going? What desires are steering it?
The pursuit of more deserves particular attention, because it rarely announces itself. Very few believers say aloud, “I have decided to love money.” What happens instead is that “enough” keeps moving. When I earned fifty thousand naira a month, I thought two hundred thousand would be enough. When I reached two hundred thousand, I needed five hundred. The bigger house, the better school, the newer car. Some of those steps may be wise and right. But if no figure ever brings rest, the desire is no longer being directed by need. It has become a master.
Before a significant purchase, ask yourself honestly what it is for, whom it will serve, and whether you would still want it if no one else ever saw it. The answers will tell you who is holding the tool.
From taking to giving
Paul gives one of the most beautiful pictures of money under Christ’s lordship in a single verse to the Ephesians. It comes in a list of practical instructions about the new life, and it is addressed, of all people, to a thief:
Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
PunchlineLook at the transformation it describes. The thief’s relationship to money was simple: he took what belonged to others. Now three things change.
First, “let him labour.” The former thief becomes a worker. Paul has a high view of ordinary work. “Working with his hands the thing which is good” describes honest labour, the work of a craftsman, a farmer, a trader. In Paul’s world, manual work was often looked down on by the educated classes. Paul himself made tents to support his ministry (Acts 18:3), and he tells believers to “work with your own hands” (1 Thessalonians 4:11). There is dignity in earning an honest living. The carpenter in his workshop, the market woman at her stall and the cleaner who mops the bank floors at dawn are all doing something good in God’s sight.
Second, the work itself must be “the thing which is good.” Not every way of making money is honourable. Fraud, bribery, exploitation and deception are excluded. A believer cannot justify a dishonest income by giving part of it to church. The source matters as much as the use.
Third, and most striking, the purpose of the labour changes: “that he may have to give to him that needeth.” The man who once took from others now works so that he can give to others. He has moved from extraction to generosity. Money in his hand has become a tool for love.
This verse gives us the proper place of money in a sentence. Earn it honestly through good work. Use it to meet real needs, your own and your household’s. And hold it with an open hand, so that it can reach “him that needeth.” This is not a rule that forbids enjoyment or saving. Paul elsewhere says that God “giveth us richly all things to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17). But it sets the direction. A believer’s money flows outward.
A word is needed here for those who cannot find work. Nigeria’s unemployment rates are painful, and many able, willing people cannot secure a job however hard they try. Ephesians 4:28 is not a stick to beat them with. It is a picture of what work is for, and a call to the whole church to create, share and open up opportunities for honest labour.
Keeping money under Christ’s lordship
How does this become practical in the life of an ordinary believer? Here are some habits that have helped many people put money back on the wall, in its outline, where it belongs.
Begin with worship. Before you look at your budget, thank God for His provision, whether the month is full or lean. Gratitude loosens the grip of money on the heart.
Give first, and give freely. Many believers see the tithe as a joyful starting point for grace-giving, a tenth returned to God in thanksgiving. Others give proportionately without a fixed percentage. Whatever your conviction, settle it before God and give gladly. And refuse to be manipulated. If anyone tells you that a particular “seed” will guarantee a particular financial miracle, or pressures you to give money you need for food and rent, you are not dealing with the generosity Paul describes. God does not need to be bribed.
Tell yourself the truth about where money goes. Write it down for a month. Every naira, every POS transfer, every quick purchase. Many people are surprised by what they find. Consider your ways.
Deal honestly with family obligations. In our culture, the demands of the extended family, sometimes called black tax, can be heavy. Caring for parents and helping siblings is godly. But money given out of fear of being called stingy, or out of a need to be seen as the big man of the family, is money serving identity rather than love. Give what you can, with your spouse’s agreement where you are married, and be honest about what you cannot.
Refuse the shortcuts. Ponzi schemes, “double your money” platforms and get-rich-quick offers prey on exactly the desire Paul warned against. They promise that money can arrive without labour, and they rely on the restless pursuit of more. “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase” (Proverbs 13:11).
And keep your identity where God has placed it. When you prosper, give thanks and stay humble. When you lack, ask for help, keep working and refuse to believe that your worth has dropped. You are a child of God either way.
Adebayo drove back to Lagos that Sunday evening with one of his father’s chisels in the glove compartment. He told me later that he could not quite explain why he had taken it. Perhaps he simply wanted a reminder.
On Monday morning he did not put on a tie. He sat at the dining table with his wife and told her everything: the meeting room, the envelope, the café, the shame. She cried, and then she was angry, and then she held his hand. They went through the family’s finances together for the first time in years. They cut what could be cut. He went to the men’s fellowship on Thursday and told them too. One of the men had a friend whose firm needed someone to assess loan applications for small businesses. The salary was less than half of what he had earned at the bank.
He took it. It was more than a year before the family’s finances felt steady again. But something had changed in him. The new work was humbler, and he found that he liked it. He was helping tailors, welders and caterers in Ikeja borrow sensibly and grow their businesses. He began to give again, quietly, to a widow in his church whose son needed school fees. He noticed that he no longer checked his bank balance to find out how he was feeling.
The chisel now sits on his desk at work. When colleagues ask about it, he tells them about his father’s board, with every tool hanging in its own painted outline. “Money is a good tool,” he says. “I just had to learn to put it back on the wall.”
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What do you think your spending over the last month says about where your heart is heading, in the light of Matthew 6:21?
- In what ways have you allowed money, or the lack of it, to define your sense of worth?
- Which desires most often direct your spending: need, love, fear, image, or the pursuit of more?
- How does Ephesians 4:28 change the way you think about the purpose of your work?
- Is there a figure you have told yourself would be “enough”? What would contentment look like for you right now?
This Week
This week, write down every amount you spend, however small, including transfers, POS payments and money given to family. At the end of each day, look over the list and pray Haggai’s words: “Consider your ways.” Do not condemn yourself. Simply ask the Lord to show you which desires are directing your money. On the last day of the week, choose one purchase you will stop and one gift you will give to someone in need, and do both before the month ends.
A Prayer
Father, thank You for every provision You have given me, and for the ability to work and earn. I confess that I have sometimes asked money to tell me who I am, and allowed it to direct my heart. Forgive me for serving mammon when You alone are my Master. Give me a single eye, an honest hand and an open heart. Teach me to be content with what You provide, to work at what is good, and to give to those in need. Let my treasure be in heaven, and my heart with it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.