Minimum Wage More Precious than Wisdom?

Most people offer their employers one hour of work in order to receive $7.25 at the end of that hour. Think about all of the things one can accomplish with $7.25! People do this week in and week out. So then if we are willing to offer our employers one hour in order to gain $7.25 we must also ask if we equally willing to give God one hour so that he may give us “wisdom and instruction” that he says “is better than gain from silver”? What will the wisdom he offers do for us? The book of Proverbs is replete with God’s promises of what his word will do for us. Here’s just one passage among many.

6For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; 7he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, 8guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints. 9Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;
10for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; 11 discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you, 12delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech Proverbs 2:6-12

At this point we may be “amening” yet I’ve found that this supposed knowledge on our end seldom spills out into action. We are shamefully inconsistent. We must forget about how much we say we value God’s word because the contrary is reflected in the actual time we spend reading it. We aren’t in church as often as we should be especially on Sunday morning and if we are we get upset that the sermon exceeds the 27-minute mark. So why do we kick and scream about getting up on Sunday morning and grudgingly go to church out of a sense of “duty”? Because we do not actually see the value in the word of God we say we do. It is mere lip service on our part. The simple test is this. Do you think most people would attend church if the church had an endless amount of money and rewarded attendees with a full tank of gas for their vehicle and a $100 bill on top of that for being in service for one and a half hours? I think most people would be in church weekly if that were the case. Why? Because they see not only the value of money, but they experience the benefits of it in that it fills up their gas tank and allows them to drive their vehicle. There are typically four Sundays in a month so that would also add up to $400 a month. That’s a free car payment each month. People would be in attendance because they believe and have no doubts about the value of money. In fact some pastors have actually used this knowledge to boost attendance. Yet God says that we ought to seek his wisdom in the same way we seek and work for money (Proverbs 2:4) because the “the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold” (Proverbs 3:14). Do we really believe that?

I certainly hope you haven’t misunderstood me. I am speaking specifically about how much we say we value God’s word in contrast to our value of money. Money is certainly not evil. Money can be a blessing from God. So I am not going to respond to you if you make a comment in defense of a church using certain gimmicks to get people in the door. That’s not the point of my post, but my point is that we must eventually examine what we say we believe and what we actually do. That’s all I’m saying. I say we are inconsistent.