Extravagance

Extravagance is the squandering of resources on pleasure, display, and indulgence. The wisdom literature warns the lover of luxury that he ends in poverty; the gospels picture extravagance in the daily sumptuousness of a rich man, and the parables expose the ruin of those who waste what is theirs or another's.

The lover of pleasure ends poor

The proverbs draw a straight line from indulgence to poverty. "He who loves pleasure will be a poor man: He who loves wine and oil will not be rich" (Pr 21:17). The reverse pattern is sketched in the same chapter: "There is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise; But [a] foolish man swallows it up" (Pr 21:20). Wisdom stores; folly devours its own provision.

The rich man's daily luxury

In the gospels, extravagance has a face. "Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day" (Lu 16:19) opens the parable in which such daily indulgence is set against a beggar at the gate.

Wasting what is given

A second strain in the gospels is the waste of what one has been given to keep. The prodigal "wasted his substance with riotous living" (Lu 15:13); the unfaithful steward "was accused to him that he was wasting his goods" (Lu 16:1). What the master in another setting forbids — "Gather up the broken pieces which remain over, that nothing be lost" (Jn 6:12) — is the discipline these figures abandon.

Slack work and squandering

The proverbs also reach extravagance from the side of carelessness rather than indulgence. "The slothful does not roast what he took in hunting" (Pr 12:27) leaves the catch to spoil. "He also who is slack in his work Is brother to him who is a destroyer" (Pr 18:9). And the company one keeps drains the estate: "Whoever loves wisdom rejoices his father; But he who is a shepherd of whores wastes [his] substance" (Pr 29:3).