Zacchaeus’ Financial Testimony with Dr. Kelly Rush

Every day, FaithFi is making a profound difference in the lives of thousands of Christians. We help them integrate their faith and financial decisions, all for the glory of God. Our resources, including Bible studies, devotionals, the faith and finance program, articles, videos on faithfi.com, and the FaithFi app are instrumental in this transformative journey. We are so grateful for your faithful love and support of this ministry, and we'd like to invite you to partner with us in this work. Has God provided financial answers for you through this ministry? If so, please consider becoming a monthly FaithFi partner by visiting faithfi.com and clicking give. That's faithfi.com and click give. What financial lessons can we learn from a tax collector who climbed a tree?

Stay tuned and find out. Hi, I'm Rob West. Of course, you know I'm talking about Zacchaeus in Luke 19. That story is filled with important teachings about money, stewardship, and generosity. Dr. Kelly Russ joins us today with some interesting observations about the life of Zacchaeus, and then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, Dr. Kelly Russ is with us again today. She's a finance professor, department chair, and financial planning program coordinator at Mount Vernon Nazarene University in Ohio.

She also sits on the board of Kingdom Advisors, and we know that talking about money in the Bible comes pretty natural to her. We've had her on before, and I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Kelly, welcome back.

I'm delighted to be with you, Rob. Thank you. Kelly, you wrote an article about Zacchaeus for our new publication, Faithful Steward, and I'm really excited to unpack this for our listening audience today.

Start with why that particular story. Well, political, social, even religious divides in the U.S. are just evident everywhere, from yard signs to social media posts. Ask anyone their source of news, and you kind of gain some insight into their personal persuasions by their response. We live in a culture of social divides, and when Jesus walked the earth 2,000 years ago, political, economic, social divides were prevalent then as well. And just as we have loaded labels for our various persuasions today, you know, like a Democrat or Republican, pro-life, pro-choice, those types of labels, well, there's really loaded labels in Scripture that identify the cultural divides that were present in Jesus' day also. Pharisees, Sadducees, zealots.

You know, so in that same manner that we navigate our cultural divides with really intense feelings, the Jews did the same when Jesus walked the earth. The Jews operated with really a skeptical resentment of those who were friendly with Rome, and then the Gospels, perhaps the most resented Jews of all, were the tax-collecting publicans. Now, we are familiar with that term, tax-collector, but publican may be new.

So, explain this. What exactly was a publican? So, a publican served as a financial middleman. Their responsibility was collecting tribute from fellow Jews. And tribute was a harsh, really oppressive tax system that a foreign ruling power demanded of their conquered subjects. And when Jesus walked the earth, the publicans collected this tax for Caesar, revealing their really opportunistic allegiance to the conquering Roman Empire.

The publican's collections of tribute were really many and varied. There was a purchase tax on items bought and sold, kind of like our sales tax. There was bridge money paid when a bridge was crossed. There was road money paid when main roads were used.

Harbor dues when a ship would enter a harbor. Town dues collected when a traveler entered a walled town. It was the task of the publicans to do that actual collection.

And it was the responsibility of the chief publicans to oversee the collections for specific geographical regions. And as publicans collected tribute for Rome, they collected additional tax for themselves and the chief publicans that were above them, making this a really lucrative profession from top to bottom. Today, you know, we call it embezzlement. It's a white-collar crime. Scripture labels it, publicans and sinners. Like that's a loaded label for that group. The Jews knew that the publicans were greedy, lying traitors, and they were aligned with the wrong political party.

They played a very active role in abusive economic system. That's why Zacchaeus, that chief publican, is such an interesting character. He's famous for his short stature, but his stewardship transformation is far more compelling. Chris Oh, it really is. And that provides a really fascinating backdrop to this story. And perhaps as we shine a light on his stewardship transformation, it'll be a brand new idea for our listeners.

Before we take our first break here, Kelly, set this up for us. What's going on here in Luke 19? Kelly Yeah, well, when we meet Zacchaeus in Luke 19, Jesus' earthly ministry was coming quickly to an end. He's just within days of riding into Jerusalem on what would become known as Palm Sunday. Jesus encountered perhaps the best known publican in Scripture. And after the break, maybe we can unpack this verse by verse.

Chris I love it. This is an amazing story. And you're going to see, folks, a stewardship transformation, perhaps that you haven't seen as you've read this story in Scripture many times.

It's powerful, and I'm looking forward to it. Dr. Kelly Rush is here today. She's department chair, finance professor, and financial planning program coordinator at Mount Vernon Nazarene University in Ohio.

We're talking Zacchaeus financial testimony today. I'm Rob West, and we'll be right back. Don't go anywhere. Don't go anywhere. Don't go anywhere. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance. With me today, Dr. Kelly Rush.

She's finance professor, department chair, and financial planning program coordinator at Mount Vernon Nazarene University in Ohio. We're talking about Zacchaeus. You know the story from Luke 19, but today, focusing on his financial testimony. Now, before the break, Kelly set up for us what a publican was, Zacchaeus being the chief publican, really a trader involved in a lucrative profession that involved taking tribute, collecting taxes that were a part of an abusive economic system. And Kelly, I'd love to unpack this verse by verse and have you explain what's going on. Let me start with verse one. It reads, Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Well, there was just about 15 miles to go, and Jesus and the disciples were focused on getting to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. But Jesus did not pass over Jericho.

He walked up Main Street right through the center of town. Yeah, he sure did. Verse two, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was chief among the publicans, and he was rich.

It's fascinating. The Hebrew name Zacchaeus means pure and righteous. It's fabulously ironic because as chief among the publicans, he was anything but pure and righteous. If you combined a corrupt IRS worker with a member of the mafia and put him at the top of a pyramid scheme, you would have Zacchaeus. He was enormously wealthy, but he was far from pure and righteous. Wow, that's quite the picture there.

All right, let's keep going here. Verse three, he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd for he was of little stature. And the fact that Zacchaeus was a wee little man is what he is famous for, but his height was only half the problem.

Yeah. Luke says Zacchaeus could not see because of the crowd. It was the crowd pressing him to the back that blocked Zacchaeus from seeing the Savior. Think of every Christmas parade you've ever attended, short children in the front, tall siblings, parents in the back.

The entire family gets to watch the floats moving down the street. Well, the crowd had the perfect opportunity to push Zacchaeus to the back on purpose so he could not see because they did not want him to see Jesus. The Jewish crowd resented Zacchaeus and pushed him to the back on purpose.

Yeah, but Zacchaeus wouldn't be denied, it seems. Here's verse four, so he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him for he was going to pass that way. Yeah, in a culture where dignity and honor were valued, Zacchaeus had to humble himself in order to make that effort to catch a glimpse of the Savior. There's no honor in a grown man climbing a tree like the paparazzi. He sacrificed his dignity to climb that tree to see Jesus. Yeah, he sure did.

Let's continue. Verse five, when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him and said to him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down for today I must stay at your house. Now, what's going on here?

Isn't that amazing? At the same time Zacchaeus climbed a tree to see Jesus, Jesus was walking up Main Street Jericho looking for this publican. It's a beautiful picture of the gospel because it reminds us that if you're looking for Jesus, good news, he's looking for you too. As Jesus took the initiative to invite Zacchaeus down from the tree, he lifted him up in front of a loathing audience. I wonder if Jesus was thinking, Zacchaeus, my child, right now I'm on my way to Calvary for your financial sins.

By this time next week, your debts will be paid. Oh yeah, that is powerful. Well, as we continue in verse six, it says, so he made haste and came down and received him joyfully. It was a profoundly simple act of obedience. Zacchaeus came down from the tree. What a shame when today people stay up in the tree watching Jesus from afar. You know, sure, the Savior's the Savior's welcome from a distance, but it gets real when it's up close and personal. And the crowd wasn't happy about Jesus sitting down with a publican as we see in the next verse.

Yeah, I can imagine. Verse seven reads, when the crowd saw it, they all complained saying, he's going to be a guest with a man who is a sinner. The crowd muttered about the guy whose financial sins were public knowledge. Zacchaeus was a sinner with the wrong political allegiance. His name met pure and righteous, but his life was the opposite.

The crowd knew it, and they were right. Yeah, because in verse eight, we continue here, then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, look, Lord, here and now I give half of my goods to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold. The Old Testament law gave specific consequences for theft, and that's what the publican's fraud was. He was stealing from fellow Jews. The requirement in Leviticus 6 was to return what was taken plus one-fifth. Zacchaeus, however, offered three times what the law required. He went from embezzlement to embellished giving in one sentence.

Yeah, that is incredible. All right, verse nine, Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house because he also is a son of Abraham. What a difference a day makes. Notice what Jesus did not say, though. Salvation will come, implying that Zacchaeus's salvation was contingent on the actions he would take in the days ahead.

No, salvation has already come to the center. God's salvation does not come in response to a changed life. A changed life comes in response to the free gift of salvation. Zacchaeus's response to the gift of salvation was a complete about-face in financial stewardship. There's a saying that money is a mirror because it reflects who we are on the inside. A changed heart is reflected in the mirror of a changed financial stewardship.

Yeah, and clearly there was significant change going on here. All right, verse 10, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. This could be the summary verse for the entire Gospel of Luke. Zacchaeus, the resented publican, a lost and hated trader, is sought and saved by the Messiah. Jesus called the guy with an ugly past and a messed up bank account down from a tree, forever into fellowship with him.

Kelly, this is powerful. Of course, there's some incredible insights here in this story of Zacchaeus. Help us with some of the lessons that we can draw from this. What I noticed first is who Jesus rebuked. Jesus rebuked the crowd, not Zacchaeus. The crowd was so busy pressing Zacchaeus to the back, they failed to understand the heart of the Messiah. He was on his way to Calvary for tax collectors and sinners.

Well, instead of rebuking him, Jesus restored Zacchaeus. The greedy publican exploited the tax system for his personal gain. He committed fraud.

He embezzled from his fellow Jews. He literally got it all wrong with money. But, wow, I'm grateful we serve a God who restores people who get it all wrong with money. Rich or poor, Jesus is not intimidated by our finances or how we manage them. Regardless of our financial past, Jesus calls us down from the tree. He lifts us up knowing full well every financial decision we've made, the good ones and the bad.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And I'm thinking about some in our listening audience, Kelly, who feel shame about their financial past and try to hide it. What can we learn from Zacchaeus for that?

Oh, true, but not Zacchaeus. His financial testimony is recorded for all eternity. He said, look, Lord, look very specifically at my finances. He doesn't make excuses for his bank account. You know, today people are apt to say the opposite. Please don't look at my finances, Lord. Many prefer that money never come up and when it does, that it only comes up like in vague generalizations. In contrast, the publican's money mess was quite public. It was common knowledge among the crowd. This is powerful, Kelly.

We're about out of time. Sum this up for us. Zacchaeus' financial turnaround was immediate. He said, look, Lord, here and now I give.

I give half my possessions to the poor. And the whole crowd heard him say it. He had to follow through. Maybe all of us need a little more publican in us. Zacchaeus, the chief publican whose past was all wrong with money, received one invitation from Jesus Christ, proclaimed a powerful testimony.

Look, Lord, here and now I give. Wow, that is profound. Kelly, thank you for sharing that.

I'm confident it shined a whole new light on a story everybody is very familiar with. Thanks for stopping by. Thanks, Rob.

That's Kelly Rush, finance professor at Mount Vernon Nazarene University in Ohio. This article is found in our new publication, Faithful Steward. You can check it out and become a FaithFi partner to receive it at faithfi.com. All right, your calls are next. The number 800-525-7000.

We'll be right back. When you hear the phrase rich toward God, what comes to mind? Surely it doesn't mean making God rich. Is it about us becoming rich so we can give?

Or maybe it's an invitation to something much bigger. In the Rich Toward God Study, FaithFi has created a way for you to explore and reflect on a well-known biblical parable about a very rich man with a very big problem. Purchase your copy of The Rich Toward God Study or place a bulk order today at faithfi.com slash shop. Faith in Finance is grateful for support from Soundmind Investing. If you have money in an investment account, you know sometimes the stock market can seem like a rollercoaster.

But it's possible to enjoy both profit and peace of mind as a do-it-yourself investor no matter what's happening in the market. A short video webinar about that is available at soundmindinvesting.org. Financial wisdom for living well. Soundmindinvesting.org.

Great to have you with us today on Faith in Finance. Taking your calls and questions here in our final segment today. 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000 you can call right now.

Christy's in Michigan. Christy, thanks for your call today. Go right ahead. Yeah, I need to build up my credit score.

I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to do that. I have probably about four thousand dollars in credit card debt and I just had a car accident where my car is not it's not drivable so I have to buy a car so and I do have a job. I'm just trying to say like what is the best first thing to do?

Yeah, well I'm so sorry to hear about your car accident. I think the best first thing other than getting that car repaired and hopefully the insurance is going to cover that and get you you know to and from work is to tackle that credit card debt. I wouldn't worry about the credit score. That's going to take care of itself over time as you get this debt paid down and anyone who has at least four thousand dollars in credit card debt, Christy, we recommend our friends at Christian Credit Counselors. That's christiancreditcounselors.org and basically what they're going to do is slide you into a debt management program which is not debt settlement where you stop paying and try to negotiate it down and trash your credit. It's not debt consolidation where you take out a new loan to pay it off and you typically end up paying it back over a longer period of time. Debt management is where you leave it right where it is and Christian Credit Counselors along with the other not-for-profit credit counseling agencies are able to access the lower interest rates that are available through credit counseling. So they'll tell you what the interest rate will be.

Typically that average of 23 percent comes down to somewhere between zero and eight percent. You make one monthly payment to Christian Credit Counselors. They'll send it on to your creditors and the combination of a level payment and the lower interest rate will help you pay it off 80 percent faster and I think that'll get you pointed in the right direction because as those balances come down that's going to help your credit score get boosted. The fact that you'll pay it off quicker means you'll get out from under it and once you do then we can take all that money put it toward getting your emergency savings up to three to six months expenses. We could even start saving for your next car, maybe putting a little away for retirement, those kinds of things but the credit card debt has to come first.

Does that make sense? Yes, because I guess I was looking at it as maybe the credit score had to come first but the credit card debt being paid off will make that credit score go up as I make a monthly payment or one big payment on that. That's right and yeah there's really nothing you can do to get that score up other than just following you know the algorithm. So what determines your score is number one the primary thing is you being an on-time payer. Well going into credit counseling with the debt will help that. A low credit utilization, well paying down your balances is going to boost or is going to lower your credit utilization so that's a good thing. Having a good credit mix and a long history those are going to help. So all of the things you're going to do by just focusing on paying off that debt with our Friends at Christian Credit Counselors is going to help you boost that score over time. It's going to take time, it's not going to happen overnight but the most important thing is we get you out of debt and stop paying all that high interest. So head over to christiancreditcounselors.org, Christy, and they can help you out. We appreciate your call today. You know folks as we think about putting a spending plan in place you know one of the obstacles that a lot of folks face is they say you know what I just don't think I'll keep up with it or it's going to be too restricting and you know when we look at a budget I mean think about this I mean whether you're a multi-million dollar company they operate on a budget or you're somebody that's really struggling just to make ends meet without a plan for your money you're not going to end up at the destination you ultimately want to be at. That money is going to slip through your fingers I guarantee you it's going to find its way to places that were not aligned with your intentions your values your priorities your goals having a budget is really the only way you're going to do that now the key though is once you have that understanding and maybe even take the step to fashion and formulate that budget in a way that balances and hopefully has something left over at the end of the month some margin it's no good unless you have a system that you're going to use to implement it and that system needs to align with kind of how you're wired you know some of us want to be more hands-on and some want to be hands-off some are more detailed you know and others are more high level and so one of the things we did when we built the Faithfi app was we actually built into it three different options for how you can select how you manage your budget one is just the track only where you literally just allow the transactions to come in and you're just seeing where they're where your money's going and hopefully that's given you some incentive to make some corrections along the way the second is plan and track so you create a budget and then you just track against it and you're just again kind of monitoring how things are going the third is the full-blown envelope system where the money is not physically moving but in the app it's moving from your funding account into each of your envelopes your transactions are coming in against that reducing what's available in the envelope so that you have the ability to make decisions and course corrections throughout the month and that's really key what we don't want with a budget is to get to the end of the month and look back and say well how bad did we miss this month all right let's try it again no we need the the information which is power to make the changes along the way the only way we do that is if we have a system that allows us to control the flow of money in and out at any given time so if you'd like to check it out today we'd love to help get you on-boarded and get that plan in place and here's my experience is that when we can get our lifestyle spending under control and we can get that margin not only does that contribute to if you're married a healthier marriage because one of the keys to overcoming conflict and marriage over money is this idea of cushion or margin that's what the studies say so that's the first benefit second is i think it could lead to more giving and generosity if you found yourself unable to give at the level you desire i would submit that among the various barriers spiritual and vision and relational is the financial you know just the lack of a plan is going to stand in the way for you to be able to give to a level you ultimately desire and so what if this is the year you get that plan in place and you start that money date and you you know come together once a week or once a month with your spouse to make course corrections and now we're being more intentional about where your money is ending up so that it truly aligns with your values and your priorities and what if as a result of that you're now able to be more generous in your giving and you've got the money to be able to respond both systematically in terms of maybe you're looking to bump up your systematic giving one percent this year but also spontaneously you know just as the holy spirit and the lord leads maybe you're a church and you hear about a new giving opportunity or there's a missionary passing through town in the past you've not been able to respond to that need well what if this was the year where you could because now you're automatically putting money into an envelope that's available just for discretionary giving incredible opportunity for you today maybe this is the year that you take us up on that if we can help in any way be sure to let us know hey let me say a big thanks to my team today i certainly couldn't do this without him mr devin patrick our producer today handling our phones today sandy dickinson i'm grateful for jim henry and his work to coordinate all of our content and provide me great research thank you as well for being here may the lord bless you and come back and join us tomorrow we'll do it all over again until then may god bless you bye-bye faith and finance is provided by faith by and listeners like you