Knox on Money

On his "Knox On" podcast, Pastor Wilson Knox tells his listeners that today's episode is all about money, and he weaves together stories that show how everything we have really belongs to God.

His first story, "The Tale of the Coin," takes place in Bible times and follows two tax-collecting partners, Matthew and Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus proudly shows off a rare gold stater coin in perfect condition that he found behind a planter in the temple courtyard, probably scattered there weeks earlier when a man stormed in and flipped over the money changers' tables. Matthew urges him to return it to the temple, but Zacchaeus insists nobody is even looking for it. Then Matthew drops a surprise: he is quitting the tax business for good. He has paid back everyone he ever overcharged, signed his share of the firm over to Zacchaeus, and taken a new job helping people instead of squeezing money out of them, one that doesn't pay much "but it has great benefits. You might even say eternal ones." Zacchaeus thinks he's crazy and keeps the coin.

Knox then begins his second story, "Daily Bread," about a young married couple, Marlowe, a struggling writer, and Stephanie, a nursing student. At a church Bible study, they hear about Roger and Esther, medical missionaries in Mozambique caring for malnourished children. The missionaries asked only for prayer, but Stephanie is moved to tears and insists that she and Marlowe give money, even though they are nearly broke themselves. She reminds Marlowe that the only physical thing Jesus taught us to ask for in the Lord's Prayer is our daily bread, and that God has always provided theirs. Marlowe reluctantly writes a check for twenty-five dollars, but Stephanie takes one look at it and tears it up, saying, "It's not enough." She can't explain why; she just knows they must give fifty dollars, almost everything in their bank account, and Marlowe finally agrees, placing it in God's hands.

Back in the coin story, time has passed, and Zacchaeus has grown so greedy and dishonest that an enormous, angry man is chasing him through the streets. Zacchaeus pays a soldier forty drachma to hide him inside a water vat, which turns out not to be quite empty. The trick works, but when the soaked Zacchaeus climbs out and flees, his money bag spills, and the soldier keeps the coins as his fee. The precious stater is lost again. Later, a boy named Arias, chasing a ball behind the vat during a game of catch with his father, discovers the gleaming coin. His father suggests investing it with the bankers, but Arias declares it his lucky coin and carries it everywhere for a month, until, during a game of catch by the river, it tumbles into the shallows and a big fish swims up and swallows it right before his eyes.

Partway through the show, John Avery Whittaker arrives as a surprise studio guest with his own story, called "Restitution." Years ago in a small town, a gang of kids led by a ruffian named Larry planned to rob Mrs. Hagen's general store as a gang initiation, everyone rushing in wearing masks made from the funny papers and grabbing something. One boy, Waylan, kept asking why they had to steal, but went along with it. Whit pauses his story there, and Knox, oddly, seems to recognize it.

The "Daily Bread" story picks up in Mozambique, where Roger despairs over a broken-down truck he needs to deliver medicine to the village. The part costs fifty-six dollars, and after paying their expenses, he and Esther have only six dollars left. At that very moment, Esther brings in the mail, and the top letter contains the fifty-dollar check from a young couple who felt moved to give, exactly what they need. That same week, Marlowe learns a publisher has bought his book series with a five-thousand-dollar advance, and Stephanie realizes it is exactly one hundred times what they gave. Knox tells his listeners this really happened, though it's not always the way God works.

The tale of the coin reaches its ending in Capernaum, where Zacchaeus demands to know whether Simon Peter's master pays the temple tax. Inside the house, Jesus asks Peter whether kings collect taxes from their own children or from others, and then, so as not to cause offense, sends Peter to the lake with a strange task: cast in a line, and the first fish he catches will have a coin in its mouth. Sure enough, Peter pulls out a fish carrying a stater, enough to pay the temple tax for himself and his master. When Zacchaeus arrives to collect, Matthew tells him to look closely: it is the very same coin he once refused to return. Astonished that it could travel all that way in the mouth of a fish, Zacchaeus hears the answer that with God all things are possible, and Matthew reminds him, "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it." This time, Zacchaeus promises the coin will stay in the temple, and he asks to meet Matthew's master. Told that Jesus will pass through Jericho, where the crowds are so large that a small man might have to climb a tree to see him, Zacchaeus sighs, "I know. It's because I'm little." Knox notes that the true version can be found in Matthew 17.

Whit then finishes "Restitution": later, a lone masked youth dashed into Mrs. Hagen's store, dropped a bag on the counter, and ran. Inside were money, an unopened pack of gum, and a note apologizing and repaying everything that had been stolen. Whit reveals he was the young customer standing in the store that day, and that he received a letter just that morning from Mrs. Hagen's grandson. Before she died, Mrs. Hagen confessed that the robberies had left her in such despair she was ready to close the store, until the mysterious restitution restored her faith and kept her going through her bleakest days. The grandson wants to thank whoever was responsible, and Whit says he's pretty sure he knows exactly who that was. Pastor Knox quietly admits that he was the boy: he still feels guilty about taking that gum, and though he didn't want to turn in his friends, he knew he had to make things right with Mrs. Hagen. On behalf of Mrs. Hagen and her grandson, Whit thanks him.

Knox closes the show by tying all three stories together: the money in each one belonged to God from the beginning and returned to God in the end. Our job, he says, is to trust in Him rather than in money, because God honors and uses that trust in ways we can't even imagine.