Parsimony (Stinginess)

Parsimony in the UPDV is the disposition that grasps and refuses to release — the love of money, the withholding of what is owed, and the closing of compassion against a brother in need. It runs from the tenth commandment's prohibition of coveting to the apostolic warning that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. The same vice surfaces under many names: covetousness, greed, avarice, miserliness, the love of silver, the shutting up of compassion. Stinginess is presented not chiefly as a private failing but as something that robs God, oppresses the neighbor, corrupts office, and finally consumes the one who holds.

The Commandment Against Coveting

The Decalogue places the prohibition at the root of conduct, before any outward act: "You will not covet your fellow man's house, you will not covet your fellow man's wife, nor his male slave, nor his female slave, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your fellow man's" (Ex 20:17). The covetous is set in direct opposition to Yahweh: "the wicked boasts of his soul's desire, And the covetous curses, [yes,] scorns [the Speech of] Yahweh" (Ps 10:3).

The prophets diagnose the sin as a disease of the whole people. Jeremiah indicts an entire generation: "from the least of them even to the greatest of them everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely" (Jer 6:13). Micah names its outward shape: "they covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a [noble] man and his house, even a man and his heritage" (Mic 2:2). Habakkuk pronounces a woe: "Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil!" (Hab 2:9). Even those who appear devout are exposed: "they hear your words, but don't do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their gain" (Eze 33:31).

Withholding from Yahweh

Stinginess takes its sharpest form when it is directed upward. The post-exilic indictment of Haggai turns on a people who have time and means for their own houses but not for Yahweh's: "This people say, It is not the time [for us] to come, the time for Yahweh's house to be built" (Hag 1:2). The prophet exposes the comparison: "Is it a time for you⁺ yourselves to dwell in your⁺ ceiled houses, while this house lies waste?" (Hag 1:4). The withholding produces a bag-with-holes economy in which sown effort yields nothing: "You⁺ have sown much, and bring in little; you⁺ eat, but you⁺ don't have enough; you⁺ drink, but you⁺ are not filled with drink; you⁺ clothe yourselves, but there is none warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages [to put it] into a bag with holes" (Hag 1:6). The judgment is that the very heavens close over the withholders: "You⁺ looked for much, and, look, it came to little; and when you⁺ brought it home, I blew on it. Why? says Yahweh of hosts. Because of my house that lies waste, while you⁺ run every man to his own house. Therefore above you⁺ the heavens withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. And I called for a drought on the land, and on the mountains, and on the grain, and on the new wine, and on the oil, and on that which the ground brings forth, and on man, and on cattle, and on all the labor of the hands" (Hag 1:9-11).

Malachi names the same withholding theft: "Will man rob God? Yet you⁺ rob me. But you⁺ say, In what have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings" (Mal 3:8), with the verdict, "You⁺ are cursed with the curse; for you⁺ rob me, even this whole nation" (Mal 3:9). Earlier reformers had to confront the same posture: under Ahaz the temple itself had been sealed shut — "they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt-offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel" (2 Chr 29:7) — and after the return Nehemiah found that "the portions of the Levites had not been given them; so that the Levites and the singers, who did the work, had fled every one to his field" (Neh 13:10). Isaiah voices the divine complaint over the same kind of stinted worship: "You have bought me no sweet cane with silver, neither have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices; but you have burdened me with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities" (Isa 43:24).

Withholding from the Brother

Parsimony toward the neighbor is treated with the same severity. Proverbs is blunt about the merchant who hoards: "He who withholds grain, the people will curse him; But blessing will be on the head of him who sells it" (Pr 11:26). The same proverb-collection contrasts the perpetually-grasping with the open-handed: "There is one who covets greedily all the day long; But the righteous gives and does not withhold" (Pr 21:26).

The Johannine letters carry this into the church's interior: "whoever has the world's goods, and looks at his brother in need, and shuts up his compassion from him, how does the love of God stay in him?" (1 Jn 3:17). Ezekiel pictures it as the well-fed flock-members who trample what others would eat: "Does it seem a small thing to you⁺ to have fed on the good pasture, but you⁺ must tread down with your⁺ feet the remainder of your⁺ pasture? And to have drank of the clear waters, but you⁺ must foul the remainder with your⁺ feet?" (Eze 34:18). Isaiah's "Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room" (Isa 5:8) catches the same impulse on a larger scale; Habakkuk turns it into a taunting proverb: "Woe to him who increases that which is not his! How long? And that loads himself with pledges!" (Hab 2:6).

The Natural Fruits of Greed

When the disposition is given room, the narrative books show what it produces. Achan sees, covets, and takes: "when I saw among the spoil a goodly Babylonian mantle, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, look, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it" (Jos 7:21). Saul, commanded to devote everything to destruction, "spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and the oxen, and the seconds, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not completely destroy them: but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed completely" (1 Sa 15:9). Ahab covets a vineyard and bargains for it: "Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near to my house; and I will give you for it a better vineyard than it: or, if it seems good to you, I will give you the worth of it in silver" (1 Ki 21:2); Ben-Hadad's larger demand follows the same pattern of seizing what is "pleasant in your eyes" (1 Ki 20:6). Gehazi cannot let Naaman pass: "Look, my master has spared this Naaman the Syrian, in not receiving at his hands that which he brought: as Yahweh lives, I will run after him, and take somewhat of him" (2 Ki 5:20). Laban, on the wages-side, shows the same posture from the employer: "These twenty years I have been in your house; I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock: and you have changed my wages ten times" (Gen 31:41). And inside Jesus' own band the stinginess that protests the ointment is unmasked as theft: "But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, that should deliver him up, says" (Jn 12:4) — "Why wasn't this ointment sold for 300 denarii, and given to the poor?" (Jn 12:5) — "Now this he said, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the bag took away what was put in it" (Jn 12:6).

The Misery of Greed Itself

The wisdom books press past the harm done to others to the harm done to the holder. The greedy never reach a satisfying terminus: "He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; nor he who loves abundance, with increase: this also is vanity" (Ec 5:10). The avaricious estate is precarious from within: "As the partridge that sits on [eggs] which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right; in the midst of his days they will leave him, and at his end he will be a fool" (Jer 17:11). "He who is greedy of gain troubles his own house; But he who hates bribes will live" (Pr 15:27). The greedy way "takes away the soul of its owners" (Pr 1:19); the conspiracy of the wicked promises, "We will find all precious substance; We will fill our houses with spoil" (Pr 1:13), and the result, says Habakkuk, is that "You have devised shame to your house, by cutting off many peoples, and have sinned against your soul" (Hab 2:9-10).

Sirach develops this theme of self-inflicted poverty in the midst of plenty. The miser starves himself by his own hand: "There is one who makes himself rich by afflicting himself; And there is one who hides his wages" (Sir 11:18). What is hoarded does not stay hoarded: "He who withholds from his soul will gather for another; And a stranger will squander his good things" (Sir 14:4). The condition is inwardly punitive: "He who is evil to his soul, to whom will he do good? And he will not meet with his good things" (Sir 14:5); "He who is evil to his soul, none is more evil; And with him is the reward for his evil" (Sir 14:6). The miser's eye spoils every meal: "In the eye of him who stumbles, his portion is little; And he who takes the portion of his fellow man, wastes his own portion" (Sir 14:9); "The eye of him with an evil eye pounces on his bread; And there is turmoil at his table" (Sir 14:10). And the chase itself proves morally costly: "Many have sinned for the sake of gain, And he who seeks to multiply [gains] turns away his eye" (Sir 27:1); "The rich man labors in gathering wealth, And if he rests it is to gather luxuries" (Sir 31:3); "He who runs after gold will not be guiltless, And he who loves gain will go astray by it" (Sir 31:5).

The Avaricious in Office

A particular indictment is reserved for those whose office is corrupted by stinginess. Samuel's sons "didn't walk in his ways, but turned aside after greed for monetary gain, and took bribes, and perverted justice" (1 Sa 8:3). Micah characterizes the leadership of his day in three voices: "The heads of it judge for reward, and its priests teach for wages, and its prophets tell the future for silver: yet they lean on [the Speech of] Yahweh, and say, Is not Yahweh in the midst of us? No evil will come upon us" (Mic 3:11). Isaiah's shepherds are dogs that cannot be filled: "Yes, the dogs are greedy of soul, they can never have enough; and these are shepherds who cannot understand: they have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter" (Isa 56:11). The result on the ground is Amos's portrait of those "who pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek" (Am 2:7), and Tyre's monumental hoard: "Tyre built herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets" (Zech 9:3). Proverbs adds the general principle: "The leader who lacks understanding is also a great oppressor; [But] he who hates covetousness will prolong his days" (Pr 28:16). The defining type is Balaam, the prophet for hire — those "having forsaken the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the [son] of Bosor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing" (2 Pe 2:15).

Apostolic Warnings

Jesus issues the clearest single warning: "Take heed, and keep yourselves from all greed: for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses" (Lu 12:15). The Pharisees who heard him "were lovers of money, heard all these things; and they scoffed at him" (Lu 16:14).

The apostolic letters take the warning into the church. Greed is grouped with sexual sin and named idolatry: "Put to death therefore your⁺ members which are on the earth: whoring, impurity, immoral sexual passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry" (Col 3:5); "But whoring, all impurity, or greed, don't let it even be named among you⁺, as becomes saints" (Eph 5:3). The qualification list for an overseer requires that he be "no brawler, no striker; but gentle, not contentious, no lover of money" (1 Ti 3:3). The decisive verdict is in Paul's last letter to Timothy: "those who are minded to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful desires, such as drown men in ruin and destruction" (1 Ti 6:9); "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows" (1 Ti 6:10). The same letter heads its catalog of last-days vices with "men will be lovers of self, lovers of money" (2 Ti 3:2).

The remedy is held out in the same register. Hebrews binds contentment directly to confidence in the One who keeps: "Be⁺ free from the love of money; content with such things as you⁺ have: for he himself has said, I will never fail you, neither will I ever forsake you" (Heb 13:5). And James pronounces the closing judgment on the hoarder: "Your⁺ gold and your⁺ silver are corroded; and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you⁺, and will eat your⁺ flesh as fire. You⁺ have laid up your⁺ treasure in the last days" (Jas 5:3).