Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
neither let the mighty man glory in his might,
let not the rich man glory in his riches.
–Jeremiah 9:23 (KJV)–

When I experienced a small level of success with my home-based business in 2020-2023, and was writing Biblical Economics, I felt right proud of myself. But because I didn’t have people to hold me accountable, I became greatly inflated with a sense of arrogance, and was quite sure about my money-making ideas. Poverty alleviation, or learning the methods of it, had been on my heart since about high school. Even before I was born again around the year 2000, I was always bothered by the sight of homeless people. Why are they like that? How can I help them? And so, I came to hold respect for ministries like the Salvation Army and the Catholic counterpart of it, the St. Vincent de Paul Society. The reasons are various, but one of the reasons I didn’t pursue a STEM career was the secular humanism, materialism, and anti-supernatural attitudes associated with it. I knew that STEM could produce $80,000 a year and land me in a fine suburb: I knew this before I went off to college. I could have transferred to the NC State engineering program and really got off to a solid money-making career at the age of 23, with $80k to $100k in mechanical engineering. But I didn’t like math; and as I hinted, there’s several reasons why I chose to walk away from that and pursue theology, even if it meant not serving in a certain lukewarm Pentecostal denomination. There was a Scriptural deficit in my life by the time I entered college; and I had to make up for it. I wanted to make the most of my time there by catching up on the Bible and absolute truth about God and the world; and so I spent a lot of time in the college library, not just for homework, but for personal, spiritual, and theological development. I graduated in 2008 and worked minimum wage jobs for about ten years.

Then my attitude changed and I finally hit something close to the $80k mark in 2022. Not only that, but I had done so from my own bedroom. I was just so excited about it! I had to tell the world! So I started the Biblical Economics Podcast, initially for me, just to keep track of my thinking process, so I would retain what I learned. But in the process of doing this, I BECAME OVERLY SURE OF MYSELF. So sure in fact, that I never took the time to get a business website built; nor did I take the time to learn about paid advertising. My tiny little moment of success had blinded my eyes through pride, kind of like staring into the sun, or going out to look at a bunch of white concrete on a summer day. I couldn’t see clearly, there was too much glare, and I didn’t have the sunglasses of humility on. There was more light than my eyes could take in. I had become so sure, so confident of what I had learned and accomplished, that I couldn’t see this massive blind spot. Then it happened…March 2023. The COVID crisis was over; and people were leaving remote work in droves, as most businesses went back to normal, requiring their employees to go back to the old office model so they could be closely supervised by Big Brother. My reliance on GMass, a cold emailing program, was over as well. Gmail had just created an A.I. program that made cold emailing impossible, as it would shut down your G-Suite account in a matter of days! Goodbye leads, prospects, interviews, and 1099 clients. Goodbye home-based business. I’m going back to work under a boss again in a W-2 job.

Business success is deceitful; as Jesus said it, there’s a deceitfulness to riches (Mark 4:19). They can be here today trumpeting your success with over $10,000 in your savings account, and then through an unexpected marketing conundrum, lead to the equivalent of a stock dropping after a rally. Crash! Kaboom! Business, success, independence, Field of Dreams…OVER AND DEAD. You’re going back to work pal, just like everybody else. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). That’s not to say we can’t learn lessons from going through an experience of financial success and subsequent financial failure. We can! But with Christ, we’ll also have to learn about pride, humility, faith, and the providence of God. “The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice” (Proverbs 12:15). That’s what I should’ve done in 2022. It could have saved me three years of financial suffering. But I was too distracted by the pride of my little success, as Richard Baxter said so long ago: “The foolish heart of man is apt to swell upon the accession of so poor a matter as wealth: and men think they are got above their neighbours, and more honour and obeysance is their due, if they be but richer.”

Why is self-denial in general so little practised at present among the Methodists?…The Methodists grow more and more self-indulgent, because they grow rich…And it is an observation which admits of few exceptions, that nine in ten of these decreased in grace, in the same proportion as they increased in wealth. Indeed, according to the natural tendency of riches, we cannot expect it to be otherwise. But how astonishing a thing is this! How can we understand it? Does it not seem (and yet this cannot be) that Christianity, true scriptural Christianity, has a tendency, in process of time, to undermine and destroy itself? For wherever true Christianity spreads, it must cause diligence and frugality, which, in the natural course of things, must beget riches. And riches naturally beget pride, love of the world, and every temper that is destructive of Christianity. Now, if there be no way to prevent this, Christianity is inconsistent with itself, and, of consequence, cannot stand, cannot continue long among any people; since, wherever it generally prevails, it saps its own foundation. But is there no way to prevent this? To continue Christianity among a people? Allowing that diligence and frugality must produce riches, is there no means to hinder riches from destroying the religion of those that possess them? I can see only one possible way; find out another who can. 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; otherwise I can have no more hope of your salvation, than of that of Judas Iscariot.

–JOHN WESLEY, “CAUSES OF THE INEFFICACY OF CHRISTIANITY” 1.16-18–