As a double benefit (or whammy, depending on your attitude) I have also included some notes that I used on this same topic for a youth group presentation. There's actually a Powerpoint that goes with the youth group talk, but since there is no function to add it here, and I don't know that it's worth hosting it on some hosting site for a month, I'll just mention it here. You can always bug me for it if you're keen. And once again, these are posted mainly for the benefit of someone who asked, but are here for everyone to enjoy. So enjoy!
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Materialism (April 1st)
The material world isn’t evil - It is OK for Christians to enjoy stuff in the material world
But living for material things is short sighted and wrong - At its worst, it is idolatry and pantheism
Money is the quintessential material good – it can buy you anything material, and nothing immaterial
God gives us some material blessing, so what should we do with it? - Good stewardship
Doesn’t mean being anal about everything – God will challenge you on things as you go
1 Tim 6:17-19 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. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
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Today I want to talk about something that is vital to our daily lives. It’s there when you wake up. It’s with you when you’re at work. It’s all around us. It’s here right now. It’s inescapable. It’s all over you. It’s inside you. You’re sitting on it. You eat it. You probably make a living out of it. What is it?
To put it most simply, it’s stuff. Some people call it “matter”, or the “material world”. Christians might even call it “creation”. You know what I mean, ‘that stuff we interact with every day, that we live in, on, around or with’, that’s the stuff I’m talking about.
Why do I want to talk about stuff? Well, it seems like a pretty important thing to talk about, fundamental as it is to our every day lives. And because it is so much a part of our lives, we need to have a right attitude about it, because our attitude towards stuff will then feed into how we treat stuff and what we expect of stuff. That is, it will affect how we live our daily lives.
Because stuff is all around us, everyone has an attitude towards it. And how people think about the world they live in is important to know, especially if we’re wanting to impact those people with the gospel. So I want to look at the three big overarching beliefs that people have when it comes to stuff. They are: Stuff is Neutral, Stuff is Evil, Stuff Doesn’t Exist.
So let’s start from the end. Stuff Doesn’t Exist. The basic idea of this belief is that stuff, all that stuff that you interact with in various ways in your everyday life, isn’t really stuff. It isn’t really anything at all! It doesn’t exist. It isn’t real. Now you might say to me, “You’re kidding, Ben. No one believes that. I mean, I’m sitting right here on a chair made of stuff, what sort of boffin is going to tell me that it doesn’t really exist?” The answer is, all sorts of people!
Hindus, for example, believe that all the stuff you see, and touch and feel and taste, is all an illusion. They believe that this reality that we live in, which they call maya, is like when you walk into a dark room, and you see a piece of rope, but you think it’s a snake. When you look at it in the dark, you see a snake, and you think it’s really real. But when you turn the light on, you realise it’s just a piece of rope, and you feel like a bit of an idiot. Hindus think that the whole world is like that snake – you’re looking at something, but you can’t really see what it is. What you think it is is just an illusion. It’s actually something else, some actual spiritual reality that is beyond physical stuff.
Buddhists are very similar. Some Buddhists believe the same thing about maya. Others actually believe that the stuff around us really doesn’t exist at all. Instead of it being an illusion that tricks your senses, they believe that we’re actually living in something like a dream. So instead of seeing a rope in a dark room and thinking it’s a snake, the chair you’re sitting on just plain doesn’t exist at all! It doesn’t exist any more than something you dream comes true when you wake up.
Apparently Christian Science teaches that the world is an “error”, and that reality is in fact entirely spiritual. Christian Science acknowledges that we all seem to be experiencing a material existence, but holds that this experience ultimately gives way to a true spiritual understanding of God.
And then you’ve got Solipsists, or Skeptics. They’re a bunch of philosophers with too much time on their hands that believe in what’s called philosophical skepticism. They basically believe that you can't prove that anything really exists outside your brain, so there. You can see why they’re called skeptics!
Hopefully you see what I mean when I say that what you think about stuff affects how you live. If you didn’t really believe that any of this stuff was actually real, how would that affect your attitude towards it? You might think that they would just go around smashing it, or treating it with no respect, because after all, it isn’t real! Well, philosophical skeptics might. But most hindus and Buddhists and Christian Scientists don’t. How do you think they spend most of their time? There are usually two reactions. One is that they spend their lives trying to ignore the stuff around them, trying to look past it and find the real truth that is behind the fake stuff that doesn’t really exist. So they end up ignoring the real world looking for enlightenment. The other reaction says well, since it doesn’t matter anyway, let's revel in it, and they live as greedily and as richly as they possibly can, because after all, it doesn’t matter! What ends up happening is that they can live in a big rich mansion overlooking pitiful poor slums and not care at all, or even feel guilty. After all, those people aren't really poor – they just have an illusion of poverty! Which also means you don't need to help them – you're probably helping them recognise the illusion this way.
Does that sound Christian? Do you think that all the stuff around is not really there? Do you think we should just ignore it, in the hope of seeking a higher truth? The Bible doesn’t seem to think so. It says, in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1, that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. Does that sound like it’s an illusion? Or does that sound like God actually made something? When God created man and woman, he really did make them. He made bodies for them that really exist. Jesus came in a real body, he was really walking around, he was really persecuted physically, and he was physically killed. And that physical death was important – by his wounds we are healed.
So as Christians, we can strike one of our three options out. The world really does exist. Stuff really exists. Our bodies really exist. God really created them, they aren't an illusion.
What's next? Next we have the idea that stuff is actually bad. Evil. That chair you're sitting on is evil! Well, perhaps it is. Not everyone who believes this option thinks that all things are evil by their very nature – they might only believe that some stuff is created evil, and other stuff is created good. Most usually, though, the division is made between created stuff (which is what we are talking about today) and spiritual stuff. So most people who believe that stuff is evil will tell you that it's only this material stuff – money, cars, chairs, our human bodies – that is evil, but that spiritual stuff – our souls, and angels, and spiritual stuff – is good. Material stuff, bad. Spiritual stuff, good. Philosophically, that's called dualism. Dual mean 'two', so it's a belief basically in two creations: the evil matter one, and the good spiritual one. Gnosticism, the religious movement that came out of early Christian heresies, believes this. One Gnostic actually believed that the God of the Old Testament was different from the God in the New Testament! He said that the old God of Israel who created the world was evil, and so he killed people, and judged them and was all nasty. But the God of the New Testament, Jesus, is the Good God, who created heaven and salvation and gives us souls and the Holy Spirit and all that good stuff.
Some Zoroastrians have a very similar view of the world – that there was a creator God who created all the good stuff, but that evil stuff was also there at the beginning, and even some Muslim beliefs hold that Allah created evil things like Djinni, or demons.
How do people who believe this act? How does this attitude affect their actions? What do you think? Well, for one, you'd expect them to reject anything that they thought was evil, wouldn't you? So no material possessions – no car, no house, perhaps the barest clothes, certainly no collecting of wealth! That's all evil. That's what you'd expect, anyway. And some people who believe this are like that – even in Paul's time, there were people like this, and we read about them in 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 3: “They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.”
Interestingly, though, they don't all act like that! Peter, when describing these heretics in 2 Peter, says this in chapter 2 verse 1: “They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up.” and then later in verse 13: “Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, revelling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood!” So even though they say that they believe that material stuff is evil and that you should have nothing to do with it, they in fact hoard it for themselves, and are adulterous and greedy! Probably they think that, if only their souls are holy and their material bodies are evil, then they may as well use their bodies for evil purposes anyway, because only their souls will go to heaven.
Finally, some people who believe this just become totally fatalistic. Since they believe that their god created both good and evil, then that god must be capricious – which means whimsical or erratic, like you'll never know what they're going to do next. A lot of Muslims believe that Allah is like that – he might do good things, he might do evil things, because he's powerful and erratic. And they just say “Allah wills it” and accept it as part of Allah's nature.
Does any of that sound Christian? At first it sounds a little attractive – after all, we have seen how temptations of riches and sex and power corrupt people, and turn them away from God. It's almost plausible! But do you believe that God created evil stuff, or that perhaps God created some stuff, which was good, and someone else created the Evil stuff? Or perhaps God created all the good stuff, and the evil stuff was just hanging around? I think John put it well when he said in John chapter 1 verse 3: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” God made everything. There's no evil thing that created evil stuff. There's no pre-existent evil stuff that existed before God created the good stuff.
So if stuff exists, but isn't evil, what's our final option, that stuff is neutral? By neutral I mean that it has no moral value. Stuff isn't right, stuff isn't wrong, it's just stuff. So a chair is neither good nor evil, nor is a tree, or a mountain, or a fountain pen. Spiders aren't evil, snakes aren't evil. Puppy dogs and cute kittens aren't good. At least stuff actually exists. But it holds no moral value one way or the other. Philosophically, this view is called neutral monism. It's the idea that only one thing really exists (matter) and that everything is made out of the same thing, when you get right down to it. Because everything is made out of the same stuff, it can't be good or evil. Rather, it's only really good or evil depending on how you use it. Eastern religions tend to call it something like a 'balance', like yin-yang in taoism. Sure, things can be different, they say, but everything balances out. You might think something is good or evil, but really it will all balance out, so it's ok. Scientifically, we'd call it, well, science. Science states that all stuff is just neutral and can be studied as such, and it's only people that put moral values onto things, and that's pretty fake.
And, probably because of science, this view tends to be the one that permeates our society, and all Western societies. So guns don't kill people, people kill people. Food isn't good, it's just a thing. If you eat too much of it, it will be evil, and if you use it as part of a balanced diet, it will be good. A car isn't good or evil – if you fill it with explosives and attack Americans with it, it's evil, and if you drive sick people to hospital with it, it's good. So really, it's not stuff that is good or bad, but it is people who make it good or evil, either by saying it's good or evil, or using it in a good or evil way.
How does this attitude, that stuff is neutral, neither good or evil, affect people's lives? If you want to know, look around. If stuff is neutral, then it means that we as humans make it good or evil. But we suck at that. How does it generally work? If we like it, it must be good. If we don't like it, it must be evil. So sunsets, puppies, good food, clean air, money – all these things are good. They make us feel good, so we value those and try to protect them and make lots of them. But spiders, disease, war, homework and pain, they are all evil. We try and get rid of those. If stuff has no value other than what humans put on it, then we give it an arbitrary value. It's this belief, when taken to its logical conclusion, that tells us it's ok to kill unborn children, or old people, or disabled people, and then farm their organs out so that we can be healthy. Peter Singer, an Australian philosopher, reckons that children up to 4 weeks old aren't real people, so it would be ok to kill them off. Why? Because he decided that you're only really a human if you've got consciousness, and apparently his measuring of consciousness means that newborn babies aren't human.
Is this what Christians believe? Do we believe that God made the world, and left us to decide whether the things in it are good or evil? Maybe some of us do. Like I said, certainly a lot of people in western countries like Australia would believe that. But is that how the Bible puts it? Let's read some and see.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good. And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And God saw that it was good. And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night. And God saw that it was good. And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." And God saw that it was good. And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
God created a good world. And not just good in that it’s nice, or pretty or pleasing or a happy fun place to live. Sometimes, it’s all those things. In Genesis 1, God describes his creation as “good” six times, and “very good” once. By good, he means “pleasing”. So God is pleased with his creation. It’s good because God is good. And when we say that God is good, we don’t mean he’s nice, or pretty or happy and fun. We mean he’s correct. Just. Loving. Righteous. In the right. We don't define God by what is good. We define good by what God is! Nothing God does is ever wrong, or evil. And that includes creation. God is good, and all his works are just. And so his creation is good. It’s not just neutral, it’s not just what we make of it. God made something of it first. He made it good. So stuff, no matter what it is, is not by its nature evil. By its nature, it is good and given by God.
Now obviously, this belief is not without its difficulties. I mean can we really believe this? Is everything, all the stuff around us, really morally good? Are nuclear warheads morally good? Spiders? Cancer? Hard for us to call these things good, isn't it? It really makes us look at what we mean when we say “good”. Like I said, we don't define God by what is good, we define good by what God is. Let me put it another way. Stuff is good, just so far as it conforms to the will of God. God's goodness comes first, it is primary. All other goodness comes from God.
So, we’ve seen how these other beliefs shape people’s attitudes and their actions. What about this one? If stuff is actually morally good, then how should we be living our lives according to stuff?
Well, firstly, we have to realise that it’s good! Paul says in Romans 14:14 “I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself”. Nothing! No food, no act, no piece of stuff is by its nature unclean, that is, profane, unholy, against God. 1 Timothy 4:4 says “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.”
In fact, let’s keep reading 1 Timothy, because Paul seems to have a lot to say on this subject, and I think he sums up a Christian attitude to material stuff very succinctly. Paul is talking about money, and when you’re talking about stuff, money is about the best example to use – because money is basically liquid stuff. You can buy just about any stuff with money. So what does Paul say?
1 Timothy 6:17-19 “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. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.”
First thing Paul says, is that we shouldn’t be arrogant, or put our hope in wealth. Being arrogant means presuming that you’re more important than you are. Easy to do if you’ve got a bit of money. But hope in a great wealth of stuff is really no hope at all. At the least, it’s short sighted, because while stuff might be good, it isn’t eternal. Apparently, we can’t take our material wealth with us when we die, and for all the things you can buy with money, salvation isn’t one of them. If you take such a vain hope to its logical conclusion, you get idolatry! You end up putting all your trust in money to save you, putting money before God, and that is idolatry. And this isn’t just something that non-Christians can suffer from. 1 Timothy isn’t written to non-Christians, it’s written to Timothy, so that he can give these instructions to the church! So we have to take heed, and not put our hope in wealth. But that’s our own sinful nature that causes this problem of idolatry. The wealth itself is not evil.
Paul says instead that God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment! Sometimes you can get to thinking that Christianity is a subsistence, hand-to-mouth religion, where God gives us just enough to get by, as if he’s some miser who has to count his coins every day, and that anything he gives us beyond absolute necessity we should give away. But that’s not true at all. God gives us stuff, and we are allowed to enjoy it! Now sure, we’ve got to be responsible. We’ve got to stick within the boundaries, make sure that it conforms to the will of God. But that doesn’t mean that having fun is against the rules. God is not a big dour school principal, and Christians aren’t killjoys. We are actually allowed to enjoy the things God has given us.
Paul continues, though. He says that we should “do good, be rich in good deeds, and be generous and willing to share.” There is nothing wrong with enjoying the good things that God has given you. But that’s not the whole Christian story when it comes to stuff. If that’s all we did, how would we be different from all the other people, who hoard wealth for themselves and revel in it? How would we be different from the rich Hindus who build their mansions overlooking the slums, and have no conscience about it? We are given things to enjoy, but we are also called to do good, to count our wealth not in material possessions that God has given us for enjoyment, but in the good deeds we can do for God. Paul said we should be rich in good deeds. The wealth that God has given us to enjoy, we should share, and be generous with, so that other people can enjoy it too.
So when God gives us wealth, what are we to do with it? We are to use it to do good, be rich in good deeds, and be generous and share it. To some people, that might sound irresponsible. They might say “What about stewardship? What about being wise stewards of what God has given us to look after?” Well, stewardship is important. But I think we get mixed up with what we might think is wisdom – good investment strategies, insurances, and stuff like that – and godly wisdom, which says quite simply “The most worthwhile investment is one that will pay eternal dividends”. Nothing wrong with insurance. Nothing wrong with investments. But will these things serve God's purposes? God doesn't need us to invest prudently to improve his equity. He already owns everything! And since we won't be taking this material wealth with us, what should we be doing with it? Paul says that if we share it, and are generous with it, and do good deeds, that is how we will lay up treasure for ourselves as a firm foundation for the coming age. Because life, real, true life, doesn't end when we leave this planet. This is just the beginning. The coming age is heaven, and I guarantee you that we'll spend a whole lot more time there than we will here.
So don't presume that the stuff you've got is going to get you anywhere. Stuff doesn't even have the ability to make you really truly happy, let alone to save you from your sin and put you back into relationship with God! Only God can do that. So put your hope in him. It's the same God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. So let's enjoy it! And let's also do good, lets invest in good deeds, and let's be generous and let's share. Good stewardship, that is, looking after God's stuff with his godly wisdom instead of our earthly wisdom, that's the best way to invest our stuff. That's going to have an eternal payoff. And not only that, but it will help us to keep on track. It will help us to live the real good life. The life that starts now, and goes into eternity forever.
Let's pray:
Our heavenly Father, we thank you for the world that you made through your Word and Spirit and authority. We thank you that you have made a world that really exist, that you don't trick us with illusions. We thank you that you have not made an evil world which we have to deny or fight against. We thank you that you did not make a neutral world, and leave it to us to shape it. Father, you made a good world, a righteous world, just as you are righteous. And with those things of this world, the good stuff you have given us, the good money and wealth you have provided to us, help us to have a godly and righteous attitude towards them. Help us to use them in a way that conforms to your good and righteous will. Thank you that we can enjoy them. Thank you that we can share them. Help us to use them also to do good deeds, and to be generous. Thank you that through this transitory, material stuff, we can build relationships and help others, and so build up a treasure in heaven. Help us to treat your world as your good world. Separate us from those other, wrong beliefs about stuff, and help us to answer those who have these wrong beliefs. We ask it by the authority of Jesus, for whom and through whom all stuff was created, AMEN
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Stuff: The Good, The Bad, Or The Unexistent?
Tonight we are going to look at stuff, and how we as Christians should think about stuff. First of all, though, what is stuff? When we talk about stuff in church, the first thing we often think about is clouds and winds, trees and plants, mountains, rocks, snow, beaches, oceans – basically everything in the world. And when we're talking about all the stuff in the world, we have a Christian-y word for it. What's that word?
Creation. We talk about God creating everything in the world, and the world itself. But something that I think we don't often think about when we're talking about creation is all the other stuff in the world. God created wind, but who created wind turbines? God created trees and plants, but who created houses and apartments? God created snow, but who created snow machines? And God created the sea, but who created the yachts to sail on it? I mean, if we're going to talk about stuff, surely all this stuff is included, right? Do technological devices get included in God's creation? What do you think?
I think God's creation does include all the stuff that is man-made, as we call it. This is important, too, because we are surrounded by stuff in our lives, aren't we? You got here by the use of stuff. Your rooms are cluttered with stuff, perhaps some of you literally. In fact, you're sitting on stuff right now, you're wearing stuff, and later we'll eat stuff. With this in mind, there are two questions I want us to look at tonight about stuff, and how God wants us to think about stuff, and live with stuff he's given us. The first is, very broadly, what should our attitude be to stuff? That is, how do we think about the stuff that God has made? This is an important question, because how we think about things impacts on how we act towards them, doesn't it? So we need to think about stuff, and what we believe about stuff, and see how that impacts how we live with stuff and treat stuff.
So, there are three attitudes that most of the world between them have towards stuff. They are that stuff is neutral, that stuff is evil, or that stuff does not even exist.
Now, I know you're probably scratching your heads a bit and thinking, “Who would believe that stuff doesn't exist?” So let's look at that one first. There are people in the world who believe that the material world, that is the world of stuff, is an illusion. That is, that it's a trick. It doesn't really exist at all. But they do. Hindus and Buddhists both believe that the physical world is an illusion, that they call maya. They think that all physical things are a trick which distracts us from the true reality, which is spiritual enlightenment. So tell me, if nothing in the whole world actually exists, how would that impact how you live your life?
Basically, there are two ways that this view affects your life. On the one hand, you can be like Buddha, and devote your life to ignoring the physical world and its distractions, and try and seek enlightenment so that you can reach nirvana, or a oneness with the spiritual reality, and leave the illusion of the physical world behind. The other reaction says well, since it doesn’t matter anyway, let's revel in it, and they live as greedily and as richly as they possibly can, because after all, it doesn’t matter! What ends up happening is that they can live in a big rich mansion overlooking pitiful poor slums and not care at all, or even feel guilty. After all, those people aren't really poor – they just have an illusion of poverty! Which also means you don't need to help them – you're probably helping them recognise the illusion this way.
What's next? Next we have the idea that stuff is actually bad. Evil. That chair you're sitting on is evil! Well, perhaps it is. Not everyone who believes this option thinks that all things are evil by their very nature – they might only believe that some stuff is created evil, and other stuff is created good. Most usually, though, the division is made between created stuff (which is what we are talking about today) and spiritual stuff. So most people who believe that stuff is evil will tell you that it's only this material stuff – money, cars, chairs, our human bodies – that is evil, but that spiritual stuff – our souls, and angels, and spiritual stuff – is good. Material stuff, bad. Spiritual stuff, good. Philosophically, that's called dualism. Dual mean 'two', so it's a belief basically in two creations: the evil matter one, and the good spiritual one. Gnosticism, the religious movement that came out of early Christian heresies, believes this. One Gnostic actually believed that the God of the Old Testament was different from the God in the New Testament! He said that the old God of Israel who created the world was evil, and so he killed people, and judged them and was all nasty. But the God of the New Testament, Jesus, is the Good God, who created heaven and salvation and gives us souls and the Holy Spirit and all that good stuff. Some Muslim beliefs hold that Allah created evil things like Djinni, or demons, specifically to be evil.
If this is what you believed, how do you think it would impact your life and how you lived? The three big things it usually does are one of these. Firstly, you might turn your back on all material goods, and shun them, because they are evil. So no material possessions – no car, no house, perhaps the barest clothes, certainly no collecting of wealth! That's all evil. That's what you'd expect, anyway. And some people who believe this are like that. The second one is a little trickier. They believe that because the material part of them is the evil part, and the spiritual part is the good part, that they can do whatever they want with their physical bodies, because they are evil and temporary, whereas their spirit is eternal and good. So even though they say that they believe that material stuff is evil and that you should have nothing to do with it, they in fact hoard it for themselves, and are adulterous and greedy! Finally, some people who believe this just become totally fatalistic. Since they believe that their god created both good and evil, then that god must be capricious – which means whimsical or erratic, like you'll never know what they're going to do next. A lot of Muslims believe that Allah is like that – he might do good things, he might do evil things, because he's powerful and erratic. And they just say “Allah wills it” and accept it as part of Allah's nature.
Finally, we come to the idea that stuff is neutral. That is, that it has no moral value. So it exists, but it's not evil. It's not good either. It's the idea that only one thing really exists (matter) and that everything is made out of the same thing, when you get right down to it. Because everything is made out of the same stuff, it can't be good or evil. Rather, it's only really good or evil depending on how you use it. Eastern religions tend to call it something like a 'balance', like yin-yang in taoism. Sure, things can be different, they say, but everything balances out. You might think something is good or evil, but really it will all balance out, so it's ok. Scientifically, we'd call it, well, science. Science states that all stuff is just neutral and can be studied as such, and it's only people that put moral values onto things, and that's pretty fake.
How does this idea that stuff is just neutral, neither good or bad, affect how you live your life? Well, if there's no such thing as good or bad, except for what we put into our stuff when we use it, then you'd expect people to try and use their stuff to do good, and not to do bad, right? But when humans are deciding what's good and what's evil, what happens? We end up saying, “Good is what I like, and evil is what I don't like.” When we can say what's good and what's evil, good and evil become worthless. Think about the conclusion of this. If we are all created, if we are stuff, then are we good, or bad? We're neither, we're nothing. So can I just kill someone if I think it's for a good cause? They're just atoms, after all.
So what do Christians believe? Is stuff really just an illusion trying to distract us from the spiritual reality? Why not? (Gen 1:1). Is stuff evil, and trying to corrupt our pure souls, so that we should shun it and not touch it? Is stuff neutral, so that it doesn't matter what it is, we can only define good or evil by how we use stuff?
Well, let me read to you a bit from the Bible. No doubt you've probably heard it before.
God created a good world. And not just good in that it’s nice, or pretty or pleasing or a happy fun place to live. Sometimes, it’s all those things. In Genesis 1, God describes his creation as “good” six times, and “very good” once. By good, he means “pleasing”. So God is pleased with his creation. It’s good because God is good. And when we say that God is good, we don’t mean he’s nice, or pretty or happy and fun. We mean he’s correct. Just. Loving. Righteous. In the right. We don't define God by what is good. We define good by what God is! Nothing God does is ever wrong, or evil. And that includes creation. God is good, and all his works are just. And so his creation is good. It’s not just neutral, it’s not just what we make of it. God made something of it first. He made it good. So stuff, no matter what it is, is not by its nature evil. By its nature, it is good and given by God.
How does this belief shape our actions towards our stuff? Well, the book of 1 Timothy actually has a fair bit to say about this. So I want to to look at these, and have a think about them, and discuss what you think God is saying here about how our lives should be shaped by the fact that he has made a good creation.
Now, before we move on to what we're doing tonight, I want to talk about what we'll be doing on our last night in two weeks' time. Because we are looking at stuff, and how Christians should think and act with physical possessions, I am looking at us having an eBay night on our last night of term. What does that mean? It means that over the next two weeks, you should all be looking around at all the stuff you yourselves own, and pick something that you know you can live without. Bring it, and we will take photos of it and write up a sales pitch for it, and then we will sell everything on eBay, and donate the money to those in need.
