Commentary: Tangible Money is on Life Support!

#1628c
Martin G. Collins
Given 04-Dec-21; 10 minutes

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People today, especially the younger generations, are being programmed to view money in an entirely different way than in the past. The idea of tangible money is on life support—it is breathing its last breath.

The concept of the value of money has made a paradigm shift into the digital world. Blockchain technology has been a major tool in making this happen. Blockchain has been around since the 1980s. Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin has been around since 2009. The virtual worlds and virtual currencies found in video games have been around since the 1990s with the arrival of fast processors available for home use.

Even trendy, non-replaceable tokens called non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are not that new anymore. An NFT is a crypto token that contains a unique work of art or other collectible secured to the buyer by its place on a blockchain. (That does not mean a lot to most of us, though if you are a Gen Zer or Millennial you probably know what that means.) Some works of art in NFT form have sold for tens of millions of dollars.

Still, it does seem that every day brings a new development that stretches conventional notions of money and property even further. For example, you can purchase a plot of “digital land” in the Metaverse using digital currency as a medium of exchange. The Metaverse Group, a subsidiary of Tokens.com, bought the 116 parcel estate in the heart of the Fashion Street District of Decentral-land for 618,000 mana, the cryptocurrency used in the digital world.

On the one hand, this seems fine. Mana may be a digital currency, but there’s probably a way to convert it into U.S. dollars if you try hard enough on diverse exchanges. The “land” may be virtual, but that doesn’t mean it has no value. With more consumers visiting virtual reality sites such as the Metaverse, there’s ample opportunity for vendors to set up stores, advertise their offerings, and make real sales in digital space.

So, at some level this digital-money-for-digital-land deal can make sense. But it begs a much larger question: Do we even know what money is anymore?

The Millennial and Gen Z adopters of crypto-currencies have been using digital currencies found in video games since they were 5-years old. Bitcoin doesn’t seem exotic to them; it seems normal.

We like to think that money consists of things like U.S. dollars (or maybe euros or yen, depending on your country). But even the Federal Reserve has multiple definitions of “money,” including M0 (base money), M1 (base money plus checking accounts at banks), and so on, through M2, M3 and beyond.

Some people’s definition of money includes physical gold, which some disparage as a “shiny rock” (but really, it’s a metal). The fact is we’re all living in an electronic world and are immersed in harmful electronic and digital signals without being aware of it most of the time, unless you are very sensitive to it. The electronic environment itself, independent of content, alters the way our brains process information. Human thinking is changing from an ordered, sequential world of cause and effect to a confused world increasingly dominated by the non-natural, artificial intelligence. It is changing our whole worldview, our whole mindset to how we view our environment around us.

Christians are not immune to such a change in the perception of the world and money. This change in the world’s attitude toward money has already been affecting the way some people are beginning to donate to churches.

What if the church receives gifts of virtual currency with a high value? Virtual currencies have experienced major swings in value. Some virtual currencies have generally increased dramatically in value since their inception, but some have not. For example, Bitcoin sold for $266.15 per unit on January 11, 2015. On January 7, 2021, it sold for $41,986.37 per unit. In the fall of 2021, it was selling for more than $50,000 per unit. This is confusion! Imagine someone donating a cryptocurrency to a church and it fluctuating that much. It is just confusion.

Deuteronomy 28:28-29 The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you.

Whether virtual currency values will continue to increase dramatically or drop like a rock is anyone’s guess, which makes it a tremendous gamble. Since the church cannot accept money received from gambling, it begs the question: “Is it gambling to buy cryptocurrencies?”

The addiction of gambling comes from the lure of effortless profit and the way of "get," motivated by covetousness, which causes discontentment. Gambling violates God's legitimate ways of accumulating wealth, but instead emphasizes the entitlement mentality and the get-rich-uick attitude.

Proverbs 13:11 (NIV) Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow.

That is the proper way to accumulate money—little by little through hard work. Even minimal amounts of risk-taking in whatever form carry with them the essential question of motive. Gambling, by definition, is "the act or practice of betting; the act of playing a game and consciously risking money or other stakes on its outcome." As a game, it involves little or no effort—rather, chance and luck become the controlling factors. Today, calling gambling “gaming” has cleverly removed much of the societal stigma that once rightly plagued gambling. The lure of effortless, fast profit is just another manifestation of greed.

I am not saying that buying cryptocurrencies is wrong in and of itself. But the basic problem behind taking a risk in buying cryptocurrencies is whether your motive is greed or the covetous idea of acquiring something for little or no effort for material gain at the expense of someone else. The attitude is what is important. The attitude of greed and covetousness is sin—there is no way around that.

I Timothy 6:6-10 Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Satan’s world is motivated by getting more money to solve one’s problems and competing against others with the desire to win at all costs instead of cooperating for the benefit of others. It is driven by self-centeredness instead of love toward God and love toward others.

Whether considered physically or spiritually, the unmistakable lesson is that character gain necessitates personal effort. In contrast, greedy risk-taking teaches us to rely on blind luck to acquire wealth and encourages the entitlement mentality. Investing should never be done for the sake of greed or covetousness. Far worse, the selfish motive of get, the attitude of gain at someone else’s expense, blocks the spiritual character growth needed to be in God’s Kingdom.

Godliness with contentment is great gain.

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