Honor the LORD with your substance, and with the firstfruits of all your increase:
All Commentaries on Proverbs 3:9 Go To Proverbs 3
Salvian the Presbyter
AD 429
We receive only the use of those possessions which we hold. We make use of the wealth loaned to us by God. We are, as it were, tenants by the revocable will of the grantor. When departing from this world, whether we like it or not, we leave everything behind on earth. Since we are tenants only of this sort, why do we attempt to take away and alienate from God’s ownership what we cannot take with us? Why do we not use in good faith the little things given us by God? We hold property so long as he has allowed, we hold so long as he has permitted, he who has given us all.What is more right, what is more proper, than when a thing is separated from him who had its use, that its possession revert to him who granted it for usage? Even the very words of God through the tongue of sacred Scripture order this, saying to one and all of us, “Honor the Lord from out of your substance.” And elsewhere he says, “Repay your debt.” How tender and condescending is our Lord God, who invites us to expend the wealth of our earthly substance! He says, “Honor the Lord from out of your substance.” Though all we have received from God is his own property, he calls it ours so that we may be the ones who give it to others. Thus, he calls the proprietorship of possession ours so that there may be a greater reward for work, because, wherever effort spent seems to be on what is one’s own, the worker necessarily has a greater return.
