A Good Name Prov. 22:1 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

If you had the choice of making more money and blemishing your name to do it or making less money and maintaining a good name what would you do?  Consider the CEO scandals, political scandals, lobbyist scandals that are all the result of a desire for more money and all resulted in loss of name and favor.  Scrooge is the character who earned a bad reputation because he was more concerned with his money than with his name.

In the Bible it is easy to find the application of this proverb.  It all boils down to what is important to God – how much money you make is not as important to him as a good name and loving favor – you cannot avoid criticism if you are working for the Lord and you should never compromise the truth just to make yourself look good – but when it comes to money and your name forget the gold and silver and protect that name – many a preacher today has fallen into disfavor because what he wanted out of the ministry was money and he did something wrong to get it, thus destroying his name – you are better dying penniless like Paul and Jesus and ending up right than dying like Ahab because you swindled somebody for a buck.

These guys let money get to them and they ruined their names:

• Judas is a bad name – Jn 12:3-6 – sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver
• Ananias and Sapphira are bad names – Acts 5
• Nabal is a bad name – 1 Sam 25:4-12
• Ahab and Jezebel are bad names – 1 Ki 21 (swindled and killed Naboth)
• Satan is a bad name – Eze 28:3-8

These folks didn’t let money get to them:

• Jesus is a good name – 2 Cor 8:9
• Barnabas is a good name – Acts 4:34-37
• Paul is a good name – Acts 20:33-35
• Anna is a good name – Lk 2:36-38
• Ruth is a good name – Ruth 2:2-3, 11-16; 4:15

Remember that the love of money is the root of all evil.