Money and Power – Proverbs 22:7

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Georgia), currently up for re-election in a run-off, has a net worth of $500 million, and is the wealthiest member of Congress.  For 2018, the median net worth of members of Congress was $511,000. [Wikipedia]  Joe Biden has an estimated net worth of $9 million. Donald Trump’s net worth is now around $2.5 billion. [ibtimes] We give power to wealthy people.

The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender. (Proverbs 22:7, ESV)

Much has been made lately of how we often help people in ways that hurt them.  Just the fact that we are helping the poor often means to us that we ourselves don’t need any help.  We think of the poor as needing rescue whereas we are just fine because we have financial means, as if what the proverb says above is not just descriptive but prescriptive.  We don’t see other ways in which we ourselves are impoverished.

This proverb is not prescriptive.  It is not telling us the way things should be but the way things often are.  The rich feel they have the right to rule and are able to secure positions of leadership simply because they have the money.  And of course, the borrower is at the mercy of the lender to demand or not demand the payment back of what was borrowed.

So on the one hand it would seem this proverb is suggesting that you should do anything you can to become rich and not need to borrow money.  Get on the other side of things in holding power.  But on the other hand it is a social commentary that suggests that things could be done differently by the rich.

The rich financially can help the financially poor, but recognize at the same time that they have poverty of various kinds (relational, spiritual) that those they are helping may be rich in.  When Paul wrote the Corinthians about joining other Gentile churches Paul founded to help the Jerusalem church during a financial crisis, he wrote:

[13] For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness [14] your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. (2 Corinthians 8:13–14, ESV)

The Jerusalem church had an abundance in spiritual wealth that they had shared and could still share with the Gentile churches.  The poor have something to share with us, as well.