Luke 16:9 and 1 Timothy 6:17 to 19 · Story · Generosity
Gain All You Can, Give All You Can
John Wesley taught the Methodists three rules for money, and he kept them in his own accounts until his sight failed in 1790.
Wesley told his hearers that money kept in the Bank of England was as good as buried in the earth.
I tell you, use worldly wealth to make friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, they will welcome you into eternal dwellings.
- When
- 1703 to 1791 AD
Summary
John Wesley, the eighteenth-century English preacher whose followers were called Methodists, gave them three rules for money in a sermon on Luke 16:9. Gain all you can by honest work, save all you can by cutting every needless cost, and then give all you can. He kept the rules himself and gave away what he did not need.
- Wesley said that no gain was worth a person's health or a neighbour's harm, and that money only laid up was not truly saved.
- He told of an Oxford Methodist who lived on twenty-eight pounds a year while his income rose fourfold and gave away the rest.
- In 1789 he warned that Methodists who kept the first two rules and broke the third would grow rich and lose their faith.
A Sermon on the Unjust Steward
Wesley took his rules from a parable about a steward who used money to make friends.
Wesley's rule for money joins earning, saving and giving in one sentence. It belongs to the value of generosity because it makes giving the end that earning and saving serve. A reader who earns, saves and still wonders how much to give will find Wesley's answer here in his own words.
This study sets out the three rules in Wesley's own words, the record of his own giving and his warnings to the Methodists who grew rich. It ends with the last lines he wrote about his accounts in 1790 and with the question whether his rule asks too much.
Wesley's Sermon 50, The Use of Money, takes as its text the words that follow the parable of the unjust steward. He quoted them in the King James wording, "Make unto yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into the everlasting habitations."
“And I say to you - Be good stewards even of the lowest talents wherewith God hath intrusted you. Mammon means riches or money. It is termed the mammon of unrighteousness, because of the manner wherein it is commonly either procured or employed.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament · on Luke 16:9Evangelical
The Dates of His Rule and His Accounts
The dates run from his birth to his death, with the Notes, a sermon and the last accounts between.
Two of the six dates fall in the summer of 1790.
To scale: 6 of 6 stops dated; a mark that would lie on another stands in a lane under the axis.
- Birth1703 ADFixed by the catalogue record of his Journal at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library
- Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament1755 ADFixed by the store's record of the Notes
- Sermon 116 on why Christianity has done so little2 July 1789 ADFixed by the date and place at the sermon's end, Dublin
- The last entry in his account book16 July 1790 ADFixed by Curnock's note in the Journal, volume 8, page 80
- He gives up keeping accounts1 August 1790 ADFixed by the diary in the Journal, volume 8, page 83
- Death1791 ADFixed by the catalogue record of his Journal
A timeline of six dated events, each row naming the record that fixes its date.
The First Rule: Gain All You Can
Wesley set limits on gain before he urged it, and then he urged diligence and good sense.
The first rule came with limits. Wesley wrote that "we ought not to gain money at the expense of life", and he counted gain at the cost of health as "in effect the same thing". He went on to forbid any gain that hurt a neighbour in body or soul.
Within those limits he asked for work without waste. "Gain all you can by honest industry. Use all possible diligence in your calling," he wrote, and he added that a Christian should use "all the understanding which God has given you" in his business.
The Second Rule: Save All You Can
For Wesley saving meant cutting needless spending.
Wesley's second rule was a rule against waste. "Do not throw the precious talent into the sea," he wrote. He told his hearers to "Expend no part of it merely to gratify the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life."
In the third part of the sermon he wrote, "Nor, indeed, can a man properly be said to save anything, if he only lays it up."
The Danger of Growing Rich
Sermon 116, dated at Dublin, and The Danger of Riches carry two of his warnings on money.
In Sermon 116, dated at Dublin on 2 July 1789, Wesley wrote that "The Methodists grow more and more self-indulgent, because they grow rich." He saw only one remedy. "Do you gain all you can, and save all you can? Then you must, in the nature of things, grow rich. Then if you have any desire to escape the damnation of hell, give all you can."
In The Danger of Riches he spoke of himself. "I gain all I can (namely, by writing) without hurting either my soul or body." He added that he saved all he could and wasted nothing, down to a sheet of paper.
Twenty-Eight Pounds a Year
Wesley told of a young Oxford Methodist who held his spending steady while his income rose.
In his sermon The More Excellent Way, Wesley said that this was "the practice of all the young men at Oxford who were called Methodists". He gave one of them as an example.
"One of them had thirty pounds a year. He lived on twenty-eight and gave away forty shillings." Over the next three years his income rose to sixty, ninety and a hundred and twenty pounds, and his spending stayed the same. In the fourth year he gave the poor ninety-two pounds.
The Third Rule: Give All You Can
Wesley set an order for giving and refused to stop at a tenth.
Wesley gave the giver an order to follow. He was first to provide what he and his household needed. Then, if anything was left over, he was to do good to the household of faith, and after that to all people.
Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be conceited and not to put their hope in the uncertainty of wealth, but in God, who richly provides all things for us to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, and to be generous and ready to share, treasuring up for themselves a firm foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.Paul gives Timothy a charge to pass on to the wealthy members of the church.
He set no fixed share such as a tenth, a third or a half, and he told his hearers to give God all that is His.
“To do good - To make this their daily employ, that they may be rich - May abound in all good works. Ready to distribute - Singly to particular persons.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament · on 1 Timothy 6:18Evangelical
Does the Rule Ask Too Much?
Wesley and Clement of Alexandria answer the question in two ways.
All that is not needed belongs to GodWesley, Sermon 50, The Use of Money
Wesley held that the Christian keeps what he and his household need and gives the rest, since all of it is God's.
The objection is that Scripture lets the giver decide what he gives, as 2 Corinthians 9:7 says, so a rule of all beyond need asks more than the text commands.
Wealth used well for others may be keptClement of Alexandria, Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?, chapter 14
Clement wrote that "Riches, then, which benefit also our neighbours, are not to be thrown away." He held that wealth is an instrument, good in the hands of one who uses it rightly.
The objection is the one Wesley pressed in 1789, that Methodists who kept their riches grew self-indulgent as their wealth grew.
The Last of His Accounts
His diary for 1 August 1790 holds his last word on the rule.
On 1 August 1790 Wesley wrote in his diary, "As my sight fails me much, I do not purpose to keep any more Accounts. It suffices that I gain all I can, I save all I can, and I give all I can, that is, all I have."
The diary line repeats the three rules of Sermon 50 in the first person, and it ends with the meaning Wesley gave the third rule, all he had. He died the next year.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- John Wesley, Sermon 50, The Use of Money, in The Sermons of John Wesley, 1872 edition (Thomas Jackson)
- John Wesley, Sermon 89, The More Excellent Way, 1872 edition.
- John Wesley, Sermon 87, The Danger of Riches, 1872 edition.
- John Wesley, Sermon 116, Causes of the Inefficacy of Christianity, dated Dublin, 2 July 1789, 1872 edition.
- The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, Standard Edition, edited by Nehemiah Curnock, volume 8, pages 80 and 83.
- The Journal of John Wesley, catalogue record, Wesley, John (1703-1791)
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, on Luke 16:9 and 1 Timothy 6:18.
- Clement of Alexandria, Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?, chapter 14, translated by William Wilson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 2 (1885)