The Tortoise and the Hare Economics Text: Proverbs 13:11
Introduction: Two Ways to Wealth
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical. It is God's inspired instruction manual for living skillfully in His world. And because we live in a material world that God Himself made and called good, it is no surprise that the Scriptures have a great deal to say about economics, money, and the way we go about obtaining our daily bread. Our secular age thinks of economics as a morally neutral science, a game of numbers and market forces. But the Bible knows better. The Bible teaches us that economics is always a subset of theology. Your view of money reveals your view of God. How you get your wealth, how you use it, and what you think it is for, are all intensely spiritual matters.
This proverb sets before us two paths, two economic philosophies, two ways of life. One is the way of the vapor, the shortcut, the get rich quick scheme. The other is the way of the ant, the slow, methodical, faithful plod. One path promises a jackpot at the end of the rainbow, and the other promises calluses on your hands. Our culture, steeped as it is in lottery tickets, meme stocks, and the worship of overnight success, consistently chooses the first path. It is the path of folly, and it leads to ruin. The Christian is called to walk the second path, the path of diligent labor, because it is the path that honors the God who worked for six days and then rested. It is the path that accords with reality.
We must understand that this is not just good advice. This is a description of how the world is wired to work. God is the one who set up the universe in this way. He ordained that the shortcut is the long way around to poverty, and the long way is the most direct route to lasting increase. To despise this wisdom is to pick a fight with the created order. And when you pick a fight with the created order, the created order always wins.
The Text
Wealth obtained from empty effort dwindles,
But the one who gathers with his hand abounds.
(Proverbs 13:11 LSB)
The Way of Vapor (v. 11a)
The first half of the proverb describes the way of folly.
"Wealth obtained from empty effort dwindles," (Proverbs 13:11a)
The King James Version says, "Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished." The Hebrew word for "vanity" or "empty effort" is hebel. This is the same word that echoes throughout the book of Ecclesiastes. It means vapor, smoke, a puff of air, something fleeting and insubstantial. So, we are talking about wealth that appears as if out of thin air. It is the lottery win, the lucky break at the casino, the inheritance that falls into the lap of a man who never learned how to earn a dime. It is the money that comes from a scheme, a bubble, a financial sleight of hand.
Why does this kind of wealth dwindle? Because the character necessary to obtain and manage wealth was never formed. God's ordinary method of blessing is process. He uses the process of diligent, hands on labor to shape us into the kind of people who can handle the blessing of wealth. The man who gathers by labor learns patience, foresight, discipline, and the true value of a dollar because he has paid for it with his life, in ten thousand small increments. The man who gets his wealth by hebel has learned none of these things. He has no ballast. He is like a man who is given the keys to a powerful vehicle without ever having learned to drive. A crash is not only likely; it is virtually certain.
This is why Scripture warns elsewhere, "An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed" (Proverbs 20:21). Easy come, easy go. The money that comes without character will depart without warning. It dwindles. It is diminished. It leaks through the fingers because the man holding it has no understanding of how it came in, and therefore no wisdom for how it ought to go out. He overestimates what he can do in a year and has never been forced to think about the next twenty. This is the folly of the get rich quick artist. He is chasing smoke, and smoke cannot be held.
The Way of the Hand (v. 11b)
The second half of the proverb gives us the contrasting path of wisdom.
"But the one who gathers with his hand abounds." (Proverbs 13:11b LSB)
Here is the divine alternative. Notice the glorious simplicity of it. "The one who gathers with his hand." This is not glamorous. It is not exciting. It is the farmer in his field, the carpenter in his shop, the mother in her home. It is work. It is labor. It is the steady, incremental, day by day, little by little gathering that marks the wise man.
The phrase is literally "he that gathers upon his hand." This paints a picture of someone adding to a pile that is already in his palm. It is the opposite of the windfall. It is accumulation, not sudden acquisition. This is the principle of compound interest applied to every area of life. The diligent man saves a little, invests a little, and over time, the pile in his hand grows. This is God's ordained method for building lasting wealth, whether we are talking about finances, knowledge, or godly character.
This way of working is an act of faith. It is faith in the promises of God, who says that the diligent will be made fat (Prov. 13:4). It is faith in the created order, which God has designed to reward patient cultivation. The man who works this way is not trying to game the system. He is honoring the system that God Himself built. He is not trying to hit the jackpot; he is trying to be faithful with the task in front of him today. And the result, the proverb says, is that he "abounds." He shall increase. He will have more than enough.
This is because true wealth is more than just a number in a bank account. True wealth is productivity. It is the skill, the character, the wisdom, and the reputation that are built through years of faithful labor. The man who gathers with his hand is not just gathering money; he is gathering the virtues that make a man, a family, and a civilization fruitful and resilient. He is building a house on the rock, one stone at a time.
Conclusion: The Gospel of Work
This proverb is a beautiful illustration of the way God works in both creation and redemption. Our modern world despises the small and the slow. We want revolutionary change, and we want it yesterday. But God is a God of seeds and leaven. He delights in taking small, seemingly insignificant acts of faithfulness and causing them to abound into something glorious.
The man who tries to obtain wealth by vanity is like the man who tries to obtain righteousness by his own spectacular efforts. He is trying to build a tower to Heaven, and the result is confusion and scattering. He is chasing a vapor, and his hands will remain empty.
But the man who gathers with his hand is a picture of the Christian life. We are called to a long obedience in the same direction. We are called to the daily, unglamorous work of prayer, of repentance, of mortifying sin, of loving our neighbor, of reading the Word. These are the small, faithful acts of "gathering with the hand." There are no shortcuts to sanctification. There are no get holy quick schemes. But the one who faithfully gathers these things, day by day, trusting in the God of the harvest, will find that his soul abounds. He will be made fat.
The ultimate fulfillment of this is in the work of Christ. He did not come in a flash of unapproachable glory to fix everything in an instant. He was gathered in the womb of a virgin. He gathered with His hands in a carpenter's shop for years. He gathered disciples one by one. His work on the cross seemed to dwindle to nothing, a cursed man on a tree. But through that slow, faithful, bloody work, He gathered a people for Himself, and is now causing His kingdom to abound, to increase, until it fills the whole earth. He is the one who gathered with His hand, and He is the reason we can now work with our hands, not as slaves to vanity, but as sons who are building a lasting inheritance in a kingdom that cannot be shaken.