Bible Verses About Money

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

I was not one of those readers who immediately noticed the many Bible verses about money when I first reread the entire Bible. 

That was a long time ago, and my attention was focused on other questions: the creation stories in Genesis, the historical Jesus, the differences among the Gospels, and the broader historical development of early Christianity. 

Yet even if money isn’t always the first theme modern readers notice, it’s difficult to miss once one begins looking for it.

Questions of wealth, poverty, debt, generosity, inheritance, taxation, exploitation, prosperity, and greed appear across many biblical books. They aren’t marginal concerns. They belong to the social and moral world in which biblical authors imagined what it meant to live rightly before God and among other human beings.

Still, this doesn’t mean that the Bible offers one simple “teaching about money” that can be reduced to a slogan. 

Some passages warn sharply against wealth; others treat prosperity as a possible sign of God’s blessings; still others focus less on money itself than on what money reveals about human character, social justice, and dependence on God. 

For that reason, the most responsible way to approach this topic is to read selected passages in context to see how they treat wealth and prosperity.

In what follows, we will look at several important biblical texts about money, ask what they meant in their original settings, and then consider how early Christians (and, briefly, Islam) also reflected on the moral and religious significance of wealth.

What Does the Bible Say About Money? Old Testament

In his book An Introduction to the Bible, John Rogerson notes:

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This observation is a useful reminder that the Bible didn’t fall from the sky as an abstract collection of timeless religious statements. Its books emerged from particular social worlds, shaped by institutions, scribal practices, economic realities, political pressures, and theological debates. This matters especially when we ask what the Bible says about money.

Behind every bible verse about money stands a much larger context: agrarian economies, systems of debt, royal taxation, temple offerings, marriage expectations, patronage networks, poverty, land ownership, and the stress that accompanies the daily struggle for survival.

The same is true of the New Testament, containing writings that emerged in the world of Roman imperial power, urban communities, household structures, social inequality, and early Christian debates about how believers should live in light of God’s kingdom. 

To speak about money in the Bible, then, isn’t simply to ask whether wealth is “good” or “bad.” It’s to ask how ancient authors understood justice, dependence on God, communal obligation, generosity, greed, and social responsibility.

It would be impossible, and not especially helpful, to list every passage that mentions money, finances, wealth, poverty, or possessions. 

Instead, this section will examine four representative texts: two from the Hebrew Bible and two from the New Testament. 

The goal isn’t to extract isolated prooftexts, but to read each passage in its own literary and historical setting. Only then can we see both what these texts originally meant and how easily they can be misunderstood when removed from context. So, let’s begin with the Old Testament examples!

Bible Verses About Money: Deuteronomy 15:7-11

In his Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy, Daniel I. Block explains:

His summary captures something essential about Deuteronomy: this book doesn’t treat Israel’s life as divided into “religious” and “ordinary” spheres. Its laws about worship, memory, land, food, family, justice, and social responsibility are all framed by Israel’s covenantal relationship with Yahweh.

It’s therefore no surprise that a book with such profound theological significance also has much to say about wealth, prosperity, poverty, debt, and money. 

One of the clearest examples appears in Deuteronomy 15:7–11, where Israelites are commanded not to be “hard-hearted or tight-fisted” toward a poor member of the community, but to “open your hand” and lend whatever is needed.

This is one of the most important Bible verses about money, but it’s not a general statement about private generosity in the modern sense. 

It belongs to a wider legal and theological context: the remission of debts every seventh year, the protection of vulnerable members of Israelite society, and the conviction that Israel’s economic life should reflect the character of the God who delivered them.

Anthony Phillips, in his Commentary, explains that Deuteronomy 15 concerns the cancellation of debts owed by fellow Israelites in the seventh year. 

The kind of loan imagined here involved a pledge. In some cases, that pledge could even be a person whose labor was used by the creditor as compensation if the debt couldn’t be repaid.

The law doesn’t merely cancel a financial obligation. Rather, it protects the debtor from the stress of a spiral in which poverty leads to dependency and dependency can lead to servitude. 

Phillips also notes that even when the seventh year was near, and repayment was unlikely, the Israelite was still commanded to lend to the needy person. In practical terms, such a loan could become almost a gift.

This helps us understand the passage in its original socio-cultural and religious milieu. Deuteronomy 15 isn’t offering an abstract economic theory, nor is it positioning money as being evil or saying that poverty will always exist, so nothing can be done.

In fact, the chapter contains a striking tension. On the one hand, it imagines an ideal obedient community in which “there will never be any poor among you.” On the other hand, it acknowledges more realistically that “the poor will always be with you in the land.” 

Phillips rightly observes that these two statements make different points: the first expresses the ideal of covenantal blessing; the second grounds the ongoing obligation to care for the needy. The point is not resignation, but responsibility. The existence of poverty becomes precisely the reason why Israel must remain open-handed.

This is also where the passage can be easily misunderstood. If Deuteronomy 15:11 is quoted in isolation, it can sound as though poverty is inevitable and, therefore, socially unchangeable. 

But in context, the verse does the opposite: it turns the persistence of poverty into a command for concrete action. Wealth, in this passage, isn’t condemned simply because it’s wealth. Instead, it’s morally tested by how it responds to need.

The lender must not calculate generosity only according to personal advantage, especially when the year of remission is approaching.

In Deuteronomy’s world, money belongs inside a covenantal vision of communal life, where prosperity is inseparable from justice, mercy, and responsibility toward the poor. 

As we move from Israel’s law codes into its wisdom traditions, however, the focus shifts slightly: from the social obligation to help the poor to the deeper question of whether wealth itself can become a false source of security.

Bible Verses About Money: Proverbs 10:4

In his book Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, John J. Collins notes:

That observation is important for understanding why Proverbs sounds so different from Deuteronomy. 

In Deuteronomy, money appears within a covenantal legal framework: debt remission, communal responsibility, and Israel’s obligation to care for its poor. In Proverbs, by contrast, money and wealth are often discussed through short, memorable sayings about ordinary life, character, prudence, discipline, and folly.

One such saying appears in Proverbs 10:4: “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich” (NRSV).

At first glance, this may seem like one of the most straightforward bible verses about money: laziness leads to poverty, while diligence leads to wealth. But that simple reading is precisely where we need to be careful. 

It should be noted that wisdom sayings usually express general patterns of life rather than absolute laws that explain every individual case. The point isn’t that every poor person is lazy, or that every wealthy person must therefore be wise and virtuous. 

Rather, the proverb teaches that disciplined, responsible conduct tends toward stability, while negligence and dishonesty tend toward ruin.

Michael V. Fox, in his Commentary on Proverbs, makes this point especially well. He notes that the Hebrew term often translated “slack” or “deceitful” can carry both moral and practical connotations.

In Proverbs’ moral imagination, laziness and deceit are closely related because the lazy person seeks the fruits of labor without the labor itself. 

At the same time, Fox stresses that Proverbs 10:4 states a principle, not an absolute rule. The sages knew that dishonest people could become rich, at least temporarily, and that diligent people might still fail to prosper. 

The Book of Proverbs contains more than one perspective on wealth and poverty, and these perspectives aren’t always reducible to a single formula.

This matters because Proverbs 10:4 has often been easy to misuse. Removed from its literary context, it can become a weapon against the poor, as though problems experienced due to poverty were always the result of personal failure. 

But Proverbs itself doesn’t support such a flat conclusion. Elsewhere, the book warns against arrogance, exploitation, unjust gain, and indifference toward the poor. 

Its larger concern is to form wise character. Diligence is praised because it reflects prudence, discipline, and responsibility; wealth is valued only insofar as it’s connected to wisdom and righteousness rather than greed or injustice.

So, Proverbs gives us a different angle on money from Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy emphasizes social obligation toward the vulnerable; Proverbs emphasizes the moral habits that shape a person’s life. 

Together, they already show that the Bible’s treatment of wealth isn’t one-dimensional. Money can be connected to blessing, labor, and prudence, but it can also expose greed, injustice, and misplaced trust. 

We now turn to the New Testament, where some of the best-known bible verses about money appear in the teachings of Jesus and in the moral instruction of the early Christian communities.

What Does the Bible Say About Money? New Testament

The first example we have chosen from the New Testament appears in our earliest Gospel, traditionally attributed to Mark. Like the other canonical Gospels, the work itself is anonymous, and most scholars date it around 70 C.E., in the shadow of the Jewish War and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. 

In Mark 10:17–31, Jesus encounters a wealthy man who approaches him with an urgent religious question: “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

At first glance, this may seem like one of the clearest Bible verses about money: Jesus tells the man to sell what he owns, give the money to the poor, and follow him. But, as usual, the meaning of the passage becomes more complex once we read it carefully in its literary, social, and historical context.

The man is often called “the rich, young ruler,” but that familiar title actually blends together details from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In Mark, he is simply a man with many possessions.

His question about “inheriting eternal life” isn’t merely a request for general ethical advice. It belongs to a Jewish apocalyptic framework in which the righteous hope to share in the life of the age to come.

Jesus first directs him to the commandments, especially those concerning relations with other people: murder, adultery, theft, false witness, fraud, and honoring parents. In other words, his initial response is to direct the man toward the Hebrew Bible. As William L. Lane notes:

But the inclusion of “Do not defraud” carries an additional level of importance! As Joel Marcus notes in his Commentary, this wording may point toward economic exploitation, including the kind of injustice associated with wealthy landowners and the withholding or misuse of what belongs to others.

This detail matters because Jesus’ command isn’t simply, “Be less attached to your possessions.” It’s: “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor; then come, follow me.”

Socially, if the man’s wealth consists of large estates, as Mark’s wording may imply, then Jesus’ instruction also addresses the economic world that made such wealth possible. Joel Marcus rightly points out that Jesus’ command is aimed at both “correcting a spiritual distortion” and “filling the physical void in the bellies” of the poor.

This is where the passage is often misunderstood. Some readers soften it so much that Jesus appears to be saying only that people shouldn’t be inwardly attached to wealth. Others universalize it so strongly that they conclude every follower of Jesus must literally sell everything to be saved. 

Mark’s text resists both simplifications. Marcus rightly observes that, within Mark itself, not every follower of Jesus is imagined to have given away all possessions; otherwise, there would be no one to support the apostles on their mission.

Yet the passage is still deeply radical. Jesus doesn’t tell the man to become more generous in a vague sense. He identifies wealth as the concrete obstacle that stands between this man and discipleship.

The man’s reaction reveals the force of the story. He begins by running to Jesus and kneeling before him, but he leaves grieving because he has many possessions.

Mark thus presents wealth not simply as a neutral resource, nor even merely as a temptation to greed, but as a power capable of preventing a sincere, religiously observant person from responding to Jesus’ call. 

The following verses make the point even sharper: “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”

We now turn from this dramatic encounter in the Gospel tradition to a later New Testament text that reflects a more settled form of early Christian moral instruction about money, greed, and the dangers of desiring to be rich.

Bible Verses About Money: 1 Timothy 6:10

The final New Testament example comes from 1 Timothy, one of the so-called Pastoral Epistles, together with 2 Timothy and Titus. 

These letters present themselves as written by Paul to his younger co-workers. However, most critical scholars do not think they were actually written by the apostle himself. Their vocabulary, church structure, theological emphases, and social setting appear to reflect a later phase of early Christianity. 

For readers interested in the broader phenomenon of writings falsely attributed to apostles and other authoritative figures in early Christianity, Bart D. Ehrman’s Forgery and Counterforgery remains one of the most important modern studies of the topic. 

What matters for our purposes is that 1 Timothy gives us a window into a Christian community trying to regulate teaching, leadership, social status, and the proper use of wealth.

The famous verse appears in 1 Timothy 6:10: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (NRSV). 

This is one of the most frequently quoted (and misquoted!) Bible verses about money. The text doesn’t say that “money is the root of all evil.” Nor does it even say that the love of money is the root of every evil, as though greed explained every form of human wrongdoing. 

The point is more precise: the love of money is one destructive root from which many kinds of evil can grow. In other words, the passage is not attacking coins, property, or material resources in themselves. 

It’s warning against a distorted desire: the craving to become rich and the willingness to use even religion as a means of financial gain.

Luke T. Johnson, in his Commentary, explains that the passage contrasts two different meanings of “gain.” Some people, according to 1 Timothy, imagine that “godliness” can be used as a source of profit. 

Against this, the author insists that “godliness with contentment” is the real gain. Johnson rightly highlights the importance of the ancient moral concept of autarkeia, often translated as “self-sufficiency,” “contentment,” or “detachment.” 

The idea isn’t hatred of the material world, but freedom from domination by possessions. To put it bluntly, human beings bring nothing into the world and take nothing out of it; therefore, food and basic covering should be enough for a life not enslaved to acquisitiveness.

This makes 1 Timothy quite different in tone from Mark 10. In Mark, Jesus confronts a wealthy man with a radical command: sell what you own, give to the poor, and follow me. In 1 Timothy, the concern is less dramatic but still serious. 

The author imagines a more settled Christian community in which some believers possess wealth and can do positive things with it. Some families can support widows, but some leaders may be tempted to profit from their religious position. 

The problem isn’t prosperity as such, but the moral and theological disorder that occurs when the desire for prosperity becomes central. Those who “want to be rich,” the author warns, fall into temptation, harmful desires, and spiritual ruin.

So, 1 Timothy shouldn’t be used to claim that money itself is evil. But neither should it be softened into a harmless warning about moderation. 

The text sees greed as spiritually dangerous because it misplaces trust, corrupts religious life, and turns human existence away from dependence on God. 

Wealth may be used responsibly by those who practice financial stewardship, but the desire to make wealth the measure of success (even religious success) is, for this author, a profound distortion.

Having examined several biblical passages in their original contexts, we can now turn to early Christianity more broadly and ask how one of its most important figures interpreted wealth, prosperity, and the Bible’s teachings about money.

Bible Verses About Money: Views from St. Augustine

To ask what early Christians thought about money and wealth is a little like asking what Americans today think about any major social issue: it depends whom one asks. 

There was no single early Christian “position” on wealth, poverty, prosperity, and greed, and the picture is made even more complicated by the nature of our evidence. 

Most surviving Christian texts were written by educated men, usually members of the social and intellectual elite. For the majority of ordinary Christians (the poor, laborers, enslaved persons, women, and those who could not read or write), we often have only indirect access. 

Still, the writings that do survive show that money was a major moral and theological problem for Christian thinkers. Among the most influential of these thinkers was Augustine, bishop of Hippo, whose interpretation of wealth shaped much of later Western Christianity.

Augustine didn’t think money or material possessions were evil in themselves. Justo L. González, in his book Faith and Wealth, notes that Augustine’s view was shaped by his broader theological conviction that creation is good, while evil consists in the corruption or misuse of what is good. 

Wealth, then, isn’t the problem in itself; the problem is avarice, the disordered love of wealth. Gold and silver do not make their owner good or bad simply by being possessed. 

In the hands of the wicked, wealth can oppress the needy, bribe judges, and corrupt justice; in the hands of the righteous, it can feed the poor, clothe the naked, and liberate the oppressed. The decisive issue isn’t the existence of wealth but the moral and spiritual condition of the person who uses it. Those characteristics influence their management of the wealth.

The key to Augustine’s view is his famous distinction between things that are to be “used” and things that are to be “enjoyed.” 

For Augustine, only God is to be enjoyed in the fullest sense: loved and sought as the final source of happiness. Created things, including money, property, and material goods, are to be used rightly in the pursuit of God. 

Sin occurs when this order is reversed. Namely, when people enjoy wealth as an ultimate good and use God as a means to obtain it. 

This gave Augustine a powerful way to interpret Bible verses about money: their purpose wasn’t to condemn the material world, but to teach Christians how to order their loves properly. Money becomes dangerous when it ceases to be an instrument of love, mercy, and justice, and becomes instead an object of devotion.

That theological framework also led Augustine to a demanding view of generosity. The rich, he argued, should distinguish between what is necessary and what is superfluous. Food, clothing, and shelter are necessary; much beyond that may be excess. 

But what is superfluous to the rich may be necessary to the poor. For that reason, Augustine could speak as though withholding excess wealth from the needy wasn’t merely a lack of charity, but something close to fraud. 

Giving to the poor was the proper use of possessions. At the same time, Augustine was pastorally realistic and didn’t require every Christian to sell everything. He praised monastic renunciation and common property as a higher form of life, but for ordinary Christians, he often urged regular almsgiving, including setting aside a tenth for the poor.

There is, however, a tension in Augustine’s thought. On the one hand, he offered a profound critique of greed and insisted that the wealthy were morally obligated to use their possessions for God and neighbor. 

On the other hand, his theology could sometimes make poverty appear less like a social injustice to be challenged and more like part of God’s providential order, a condition through which the rich were tested and given opportunities for mercy. That tension is important.

Augustine helped Christian readers think deeply about money, attachment, and the proper use of wealth, but he didn’t offer a modern social analysis of economic inequality. His thought shows both the power and the limits of early Christian reflections on wealth.

Conclusion

In the end, the most important point is that Bible verses about money cannot be responsibly understood as isolated slogans.

Deuteronomy places money within a covenantal vision of communal responsibility, where prosperity is inseparable from care for the poor. Proverbs praises diligence but does not reduce poverty to laziness or wealth to virtue.

Mark presents wealth as a real obstacle to discipleship, especially when it creates false security or rests on social exploitation. 1 Timothy warns not against money itself, but against the love of money and the desire to turn even religion into a path toward profit.

Augustine, in turn, shows how early Christian thinkers continued to wrestle with these themes, insisting that wealth must be used rather than enjoyed as an ultimate good. Across these texts and traditions, money is never merely financial. It reveals what people trust, what they love, how they treat the vulnerable, and whether prosperity serves justice or becomes an idol.