In the most reductive terms (this is not to imply that being reductive is of necessity bad any more than a sketch is less valuable/correct than a realistic, colored painting) materialism is the belief that the world is comprised solely of material, tangible, quantifiable components;

OR, from Google, because the internet knows everything (Just kidding! But in this case the internet is fairly enlightening):

MATERIALISM (noun) A tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values.  The doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications.

Within the materialistic worldview any kind of spirituality is at best a delusion or perhaps only the misfiring of an under-evolved brain. The church has too long attempted to inoculate its constituents to the work of materialism by attacking the most obvious flaws of the system with truisms like:  “Don’t live for things”; “Don’t let money rule your life”; or “Be heavenly minded.”  (All good ideas based in Scripture, so please don’t read this as a dismissal of the value of these truths.)  However, these fail to address the complexity of the dangers of materialism.  They only address the most obvious danger. The more alarming danger of/from materialism comes when the church, either individual or corporate, lives as if responding to the material world like the unsaved were normal. When we as a church act like the unsaved world’s normal (which in our current cultural climate is almost completely materialistic) is normal, we are in trouble.

INDIVIDUAL MATERIALISM–

When it becomes normal for church members to live like everyone else–in comparative ease, pursuing activities for personal gain/enjoyment, assuming having a career/home/healthy family/money/anything is to be expected–we have become Practical Materialists because, frankly, this kind of lifestyle is found nowhere in the Bible.

Consider Hebrews 11:

• Noah spent one hundred years, give or take, building a boat. He gave up, literally, the entire world he knew.
• Abraham left his family and his home to wander around a land he had never seen. (Now Abraham was wealthy, but this tended to be as much a problem as a blessing. Consider Genesis 13:3-7, for instance.)
• Sarah believed against all human odds that God could provide her with a son.
• Joseph made slavery into a lucrative career by obeying even when obedience seemed to mean career-suicide. (Not that Joseph was thinking of a career, but that’s sort of the point.)
• Moses exchanged life in a sophisticated, urban, cultured palace to lead a bunch of whiny, rebellious people around the wilderness.

The point of all this is that these people chose to live in the realization that the material world around them was insignificant in comparison to the Spiritual world to which they were called.  And you don’t have to take my word for it:

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:13-16)

And if you don’t favor OT examples (shame on you) consider:

• Paul at God’s call left his cultured, religious world to join the group he had made it his lifework to persecute.
• Aquila and Priscilla followed Paul to minister to him even when it meant facing persecution and discomfort.
• Peter left his cultural “home” as a Jew within the Jewish nation to preach peace to the Gentiles–a move with ramifications beyond the ken of us Gentiles.
• Barnabas, Silas, Philip (one of my personal favorites), all the women who housed the church in their homes even when the church was facing persecution, etc.

I don’t know what living above/beyond/without consideration for the material immediacies of life means for you. I’ve read about it and felt like a worm in comparison:  Hudson Taylor, George Mueller (and his wife, who is seldom mentioned, but I bet she was incredible), Mary Slessor, etc.  I’ve seen it on occasion and it’s breathtaking.  A missionary who took a trip to Albania and stayed because God called him there. Friends who sold their beautiful home so that they would be free to follow God’s call more easily.  But it’s so rare, which is heartbreaking.

To conclude this part let me just put out a general reminder to myself most of all:

Normal people, people who live giving too much value to material concerns, don’t tend to fare well in Scripture: Jonah, Ananias and Sapphira, Lot, Samson, Cain, etc.

More to come, but, as always, thanks for listening.