Honoring the Lord With Your Wealth (Proverbs 3)

Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. (Proverbs 3:9-10 NIV)

When I was in Middle School, I tried out for the boys basketball team. The coach and school had a great reputation for excellent basketball.

To my surprise, I made the team and although I have always been short, became the starting point guard. Before the season, the coach told us he was committed to making our team the best team possible.

With his past accomplishments, I knew that meant a winning season and the playoffs. In our first game we lost by over twenty points, and it became apparent that we were not the team I thought. In our fourth game we were winless and playing the best Middle School in the city.

Immediately before the tipoff, the coach told us that if we scored first, and they missed we were going to hold the ball as long as possible. There was no shot timer in those days and the other team only scored 14 points in the entire game!!!

We lost 14-8. We had a terrible season, and it became apparent why a short pudgy guy was the point guard ! I misunderstood the coaches promise! He did make us the best team possible, unfortunately that was not enough to win.

One of the common strains of evangelicalism in the United States emphasizes prosperity, the victorious life and God’s desire to materially bless those with faith.

There are extreme members of this group, but a wider swath holds a positivist view of the Christian life, deemphasizing suffering (Romans 5:3), picking up one’s cross (Matthew 16:24) and laying one’s life down for another (John 15:13).

Proverbs 3:9-10 is often cited as God’s promise to materially bless those who give to God. However, we shall see that this piece of wisdom contains a different kind of promise.

The proverb falls in a series of Proverbs from a father to a son (vv.1,11,21) and has two elements that we will examine separately and then draw conclusions.

Honor God

The first element in vs. 9 is the injunction to honor God with our wealth and with the firstfruits of our labor.

The NIV translates “first fruits of all your crops” but could include your first born and seems to indicate a wider range of meaning. We are called to give God the best of all we have produced. 

The Hebrew word translated “honor” has its root “to be heavy.” The father is urging his son to treat God with respect and gravitas by honoring Him with the best from his wealth.

Without attempting to survey the vast span of teaching on giving in the Bible, we can point out a few common themes.

• Offerings in the Old Testament, including the first fruit offerings honored God and supported the Levitical priesthood. (Leviticus 2, Deuteronomy 18:3-5)
• God was honored by the giving of God’s people to the building of the Temple. (I Chronicles 28-29)
• Paul called the churches in Galatia, Corinth, and Macedonia to give materially for the crisis affecting the Jerusalem church. (I Corinthians 16:1-3, 2 Corinthians 8-9).
• Paul calls the Corinthians to give to support his ministry work as a missionary, church planter and pastor. (I Corinthians 9)
• God promises to bless His people when they give to meet the needs of the poor in Israel. (Deuteronomy 15:7-11)
• Monies were given to the Apostle and distributed to those in need (Acts 4:32-37)
• Paul reminds Timothy those who direct the affairs of the churches “deserve their wages” from the church. They are not to be like a muzzled ox treading grain. (I Timothy 5:17-8)

Although this list is not exhaustive, it is these practices that honor God and treat Him with gravity that He deserves.

The father is urging the son to honor God by being generous with his wealth, remembering that it is God who has caused the increase (Deuteronomy 8:17-18).

Four years ago, I spoke at a church and referred to a grandmother whose granddaughter was in my wife’s class. She was raising her granddaughter after having lost her daughter and son-in-law in a car crash.

Her husband, the child’s grandfather, had passed away and she was all alone. She was an example of a faithful, fruitful servant.

After the service, I got a text message from a couple in the church. I had never met them before. The church is seventy-five miles from my town. They did not know the grandmother or child, but they believed that God wanted them to help.

That text led to them providing the entire year’s tuition at the Christian school where my wife taught. They have continued this gracious giving for the last four years, honoring the LORD with their wealth.

The second element in the Proverb concerns God’s response to the person who honors God in this way.

God's Response

The father reminds the son that God will respond by causing the granaries and wine vats to overflow.

In the biblical economy a farmers harvest of grain, spices, vegetables, and fruits were stored in their raw or finished state in pits, silos, and jars. Barn could be translated granaries, but the overall intent is that God will cause an increase in overall productivity.

Similarly, grapes were trampled in a wine press, usually hewn out of rock with the juice flowing into a vat for collection. The picture is of so much wine that multiple collecting vessels will be needed.

Again, God is providing an increase beyond what would be normally expected. Taken together we see a kind of merism of plenty with reference to food and drink. A merism is used to communicate all encompassing.

In English we say from “top to bottom,” “A-Z,” or “front to back.” Here the merism is that God can provided abundantly with a plenteous supply of one’s needs.

Taken together these two elements remind the Son that when we honor God with our material wealth, giving from our best we can count on God to provide plentifully for our needs.

It is not a promise that if we give to God, he will make us wealthy and prosperous. Rather, if we honor God through generous giving, we can count on Him to provide for our needs, and generously.

Matthew Henry put it this way. “He does not say thy bags, but thy barns, not thy wardrobe replenished but thy presses; God shall bless thee with an increase of that which is for use, not for show or ornament; for spending and laying out, not for hoarding and laying up.”

Or another way “who ever can be trusted with little can also be trusted with much” (Luke 16). 

When we use the wealth that God has brought us to honor Him and join Him in His work and not to honor ourselves, then we can be assured that God will meet all of our needs in abundance.