Greed is Good - A Biblical Word Study on Pleonexia (Greed)

In the 1987 film Wall Street, Gordon Gekko proclaims the teaching that greed is good.

In the last seven deals that I've been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you.
I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them!
The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good.
Greed is right.
Greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind.
And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

Thank you very much. 

Is greed good? Or is it something that destroys the very trust that society must have in order to thrive? Gordon Gekko seems to disagree with the Bible.

The Greek word used for greed in the Bible is "pleonexia." It means a "greedy desire to have more, covetousness." Also, the word "pleonektes" means "one eager to have more, especially what belongs to others."

"For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting (pleonexia), wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness" (Mark 7:21-22 ESV).

"And he said to them, 'Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness (pleonexia), for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions'” (Luke 12:15 ESV).

"And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness (pleonexia), malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them" (Romans 1:28-32 ESV).

"I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy (pleonektes) and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed (pleonektes), or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you” 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 (ESV).

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy (pleonektes), nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV).

"So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance for the gift you have promised, so that it may be ready as a willing gift, not as an exaction (pleonexia)" (2 Cor 9:5 ESV).

"But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness (pleonexia) must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (pleonektes) ( that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light" (Eph 5:3-8 ESV).

"Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness (pleonexia), which is idolatry" (Colossians 3:5 ESV).

"For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed (pleonexia)— God is witness" (1 Thessalonians 2:5 ESV).

"But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed (pleonexia) they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep."

"For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority" (2 Peter 2:1-10 ESV)

These are not the fun verses of Scripture. They are not what we go to when we want that uplifting, encouraging mornings with the Bible. Lots of wrath and judgment.

Greed is a dismantler of relationships and society. If we cannot trust that our neighbor will not exploit us in our ignorance of a product or industry...if we cannot trust our employer to pay us a fair wage for our labor...or if we cannot trust our merchandise that we consume to not have been manufactured by a company slavishly employing strangers (immigrants and foreigners), then the very fabric of trust has been dismantled. No longer can we work together for the good of all; we must watch out for ourselves vigilantly. We have moved from a world of cooperation to a dog eat dog world.

When cynicism wins, we say that a dog eat dog world is all we can expect. Everyone is just looking out for themselves, so should we. Then greed becomes a necessary evil. However, Scripture does not allow greed to be an inevitable core of our social systems. It states that the greedy will face judgment. Paul even goes so far as to write that brothers and sisters in Jesus should not allow the greedy to be among them.

Now if greed means a "desire to have more, covetousness" and eagerness "to have more, especially what belongs to others," I do not know what how we could describe the richest 1%--or an even larger percent--as anything but greedy.

A recent article, How Unequal We Are: The Top 5 Facts You Should Know About The Wealthiest One Percent Of Americans, listed five alarming facts.

1. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Owns 40 Percent Of The Nation’s Wealth.
2. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Take Home 24 Percent Of National Income.
3. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Own Half Of The Country’s Stocks, Bonds, And Mutual Funds.
4. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Have Only 5 Percent Of The Nation’s Personal Debt.
5. The Top 1 Percent Are Taking In More Of The Nation’s Income Than At Any Other Time Since The 1920s.

In our desire to be polite, we don't call sin, sin, except in the case of those few pet sins that we feel are appropriate to bash and attack. We are quick to stand up for the life of the unborn, the sanctity of marriage, yet we aren't willing to stand up against a sin nearly as devastating to society as the former and much more devastating than the latter.

Greed is not something to be celebrated. And a just society would not have allowed it to reach the extremes that it has here in America.

Brothers and sisters in Jesus, do not fall prey to the siren call of society trying to teach us that greed is good. Greed is a great evil. Always remember that. Greed needs to stop.

When We Steal and The New Life of Helping Others

There is a great collection of stupid criminal stories at a legal forms site.

Investigating a purse snatching, detectives picked up  a man who fit the thief's description and drove him back to the scene. He  was told to exit the car and face the victim for an I.D. The suspect carefully eyed the victim, and blurted, "Yeah, that's the woman I robbed."

When we steal, what do we steal for?  Yes, I didn’t slip.  I meant “When we steal.”

Typically, we narrowly define the term "stealing" into one that we can legalistically adhere to.  We know that stealing is going into a store, taking a good, and leaving without paying for it.  We know it is breaking into someone’s house, stealing their computer, and not paying for it.  None of us struggle with stealing when we define it so narrowly.  But unfortunately, we live in and participate in a culture that has become very creative with stealing and has brought to a whole, new global level.  We're not like that dumb thief handed over his I.D.  We, as a group of people, send our military into nations so that we can buy oil cheaper.  We pilfer a poor nation’s natural resources, albeit in collaboration with their corrupt leadership, and use it to prosper and have more material goods.  We consume goods that were manufactured by people who were not paid a fair wag; people who live under a dictatorship that we support because they provide us with inexpensive goods.  It's almost like we don't think it is stealing if enough of us do it.  We are all thieves, living in a culture of thieves.  We’re the thieves of the world!

Paul wrote, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Ephesians 4:28).  This is delivered in the midst of the old self, new self analogy.  Paul states that the old self is the life of a thief.  The new self is a life of working hard so that we can share with anyone in need.

If we're honest with ourselves, deep down we think that we steal for a good reason.  You see, we have an idol to worship, and that idol is ourselves.  Our self’s temple, also known as a house, is a necessary idolic accessory in America.  And we will do nearly anything for our idol and its temple.  We save for homes, spend so much money on homes, work days off of from our job on our homes, and we don’t think a second thought about our indulgence in our homes.  It’s normal.  It’s the great American temple for our great self idol.  We tell ourselves that it is okay to invest our time and money in our home while those around us are in need.  We might even deceive ourselves even more and say that we are indulging in our home for others.

We spend so much time dreaming, acquiring money, and expending energy maintaining our dream house.  But I want to propose an alternative to overindulgence in our personal temples.  What if we spent the excess money we spend on our houses on furthering God’s kingdom?  What if we chose to live simpler and less extravagantly, maybe even live together, to save our resources to bring about God’s will in our community and around the world.  Are we willing to make changes in our lives in order to bring about the kingdom of God here on earth? 

The 1928 issue of The Rotarian shared a fascinating story.  William James was a professor of psychology and philosophy at the university of Harvard in the late part of the 1800s and the first decade of the 1900s.  He proposed, that “if a group of Eskimos were brought from the far north to New York harbor, they wouldn’t, in all probability, notice the many startling things that would be altogether new to them.  The students - especially the freshmen - failed to be convinced.  Years late the experiment was tried, and the Eskimos were oblivious of the magnificent bridges and towering skyscrapers.  Their attention was caught by, and their eyes riveted upon, a little boat, somewhat similar to the ones that they use during part of the year.”

The Eskimos were not interested in the amazing New York cityscape because they had no framework from which to compare it to.  We are similar to those Eskimos, but instead of being Eskimos in New York we are Christians in the Kingdom of God.  We fail to see what God really wants us to take notice of because it is difficult to look outside of our American cultural lenses that we have been raised with.  We fail to see the radical life he has called us to.  We justify our extravagant use of our money because we are more generous than those around us, but God doesn't want us to compare ourselves to the fellow imperfect people around us.  He wants us to compare ourselves to Jesus and His perfection.  We shouldn't pat ourselves on our back because we live slightly different and a little more loving than the people around us when God has actually called us to live completely different than the world. 

We are part of  a long line of people who have come before us that have made the same mistake.  The Jews, God's chosen people, committed it when they returned from exile in Babylon in 538 B.C.  You would think after spending nearly fifty years in exile, they would have figured out to put God first, but they returned from exile and immediately went back to their old ways of putting themselves above God.  It wasn't until 516, after Haggai rebuked them, that they eventually restored the temple.

Here's what Haggai said,

"Thus says the LORD of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD." Then the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, "Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? Now, therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

 "Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors" (Haggai 1:2-11).

I think we would do well to heed that warning.  Let's learn to see the world the way God wants us to see the world, and learn to use our resource to love the people in need around us.  That's the new life we are called to.