"Who wants to be a millionaire?" It's one of those rhetorical questions where the answer is assumed. Kind of like "who wants to eat a tub of ice cream without getting a big gut?" How do you not think about the wonderful possibilities of wealth when you are surrounded by stories of dot-com billionaires, Powerball jackpot winners, ridiculously paid athletes and million-dollar game show prizes?

Who doesn't want to be a millionaire? But then again, who wants to be called greedy? That's the label that you often get if you want to be wealthy. That's why the FOX network threw out all subtlety when it came up with a copycat millionaire game show called Greed. As Fox saw it, wealth is tied up in greed—it's what separates winners and losers.

The Business of Greed

It's surprising how many businessmen think greed is the driving force behind the current economic boom. Remember Gordon Gekko's words in the 1987 movie Wall Street? "Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed cuts through, clarifies and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed will save the USA!"

Today, those words are echoed in a new 20-something book called Greed Is Good: The Capitalist Pig Guide to Investing. In that book, Jonathan Hoenig explains that only greed can set you on the path to financial freedom. Beyond the Hollywood drama and the tongue-in-cheek irreverence of these works is the deeper philosophy that greed—expressed as self-interest—is the driving force behind our free-market economy.

Adam Smith developed this idea a couple hundred years ago. He argued that out of self-interest, people do things as individuals that end up serving the good of everybody. In his book The Wealth of Nations, he said, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

OK, greed drives business, but Christians are clearly commanded to not be greedy. Greed is one of those cardinal sins that can jeopardize a person's eternal destination. Dante believed that greedy people would be sent to one of the worst parts of hell in his epic Inferno.

It's right there in the Bible: "No immoral, impure, or greedy person … has any inheritance in the kingdom of … God" (Eph. 5:5, NIV).

This promise has led many through the centuries to shun wealth altogether just to be safe. Members of monasteries and other sects have sold their earthly possessions and pursued the simplest of lives to avoid even the possibility of greed.

What's so bad about the pursuit of riches? Writing to Timothy, the apostle Paul explained that people who want to get rich "fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction." Then he added the much-quoted kicker, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Tim. 6:9-10).

It was because of the temptations associated with riches that Jesus shared one of his most creative metaphors: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matt. 19:24).

So, there's the rub. Wealth is all around us, but so is greed. Is it possible to have one without the other?

Of course, says Scott Kays, author of Achieving Your Financial Potential. "There are temptations with financial success, but you don't just eliminate the temptations by not seeking wealth," Kays explained. "That's like saying, 'there are sexual temptations in dating, so I'll just never date.' The Christian life is about overcoming temptations."

So how do you overcome the temptations? Understand true wealth, serve others and be willing to give it away.

Understanding Wealth
Wealth, of course, is subjective. Not long ago, a photographer traveled around the world taking pictures of families standing in front of their homes with everything they owned piled up around them. Needless to say, the average American family with its two-story house, two cars, and numerous pieces of furniture and electronic equipment crowding their lawn appeared much wealthier than the African tribal family standing in front of a primitive hut with a few bowls, some instruments, and some pieces of clothing.

While this pictorial essay demonstrates relative wealth, it doesn't quite tell the whole story—true wealth is not simply based on appearances. Despite all their stuff, the typical American family may have had a negative net worth due to credit cards and other debt. The reality is that truly wealthy people are usually not the ones who appear wealthy.

That was the point of Thomas Stanley's best-selling book, The Millionaire Next Door, in which he explained that the average millionaire does not go around acting like a millionaire. Instead, he lives within his means, and he saves or invests most of his income. Stanley has a favorite expression for people who spend a lot of money trying to look rich: "big hat, no cattle." Half-million dollar homes, flashy cars, expensive suits and exotic vacations aren't so much proof of wealth as they are a drain on it, Stanley says.

"The simple secret to building wealth," according to financial writer Todd Temple, "is to continually expand the difference between your income and your expenses." Several years ago, Temple started a new company that ended up creating a six-figure deficit. His struggle to swim out of the red and back into the black gave him a hard-knocks education in finances. Today he is a financial columnist for the college Webzine Boundless (boundless.org), where he encourages students to take bold steps toward getting out of debt and to having at least a small amount left over each month.

"No matter how great or small your income," he said, "there's a delicious peace of mind knowing that there's money left over at the end of the month. When it goes the other way—when you've spent every dollar and have to borrow against your future to pay for the now—there's a sense of defeat and acute misery."

It's more tempting to build wealth by striking it rich, but the monotonous process of tracking incoming and outgoing money builds the kind of character that helps you to keep wealth. This approach was endorsed by King Solomon, one of the wealthiest kings of all time: "Wealth hastily gotten will dwindle, but he who gathers little by little will increase it" (Prov. 13:11, RSV).

Living within your means is not sexy, but it's the most practical first step towards building wealth and is also an important discipline that helps to keep greed at bay.

Serving Others
It's a little simplistic to say greed is the engine of capitalism. Self-interest alone does not lead to wealth. No one ever walked up to a businessman and said, "I hear you're a greedy man, here's a roll of hundreds." Ultimately, businessmen have to provide a service for which people are willing to pay.

To that end, capitalism is driven more by service than greed, by trying to do a great job at meeting someone's needs.

"Altruism—an orientation towards the needs of others," argued George Gilder, "is [capitalism's] moral and commercial compass." Gilder, author of Wealth and Poverty, is credited by many for inspiring hundreds of entrepreneurs to fuel the economic boom we are now enjoying. He explains that if capitalists revel in their riches, "the system tends to fail. It succeeds by inducing the capitalist continually to give his wealth back to the system in the form of new gifts and investments."

Before the entrepreneur gets any payoff, he has to invest in property and resources. He has to hand out paychecks even when he isn't sure how he will get paid. And when the money does start coming in, he doesn't get to go on a spending spree, he usually has to roll it back into new investments to expand the company.

Not surprisingly, those who are willing to make big investments—to take risks on new products and services are people of faith. In his new book, The Millionaire Mind, Thomas Stanley wrote, "People who have strong religious faith have a higher propensity to take financial risk."

For Scott Kays, the incentive to build more wealth requires overcoming the temptation to be greedy. "The person who makes the most money," he said, "is the person who serves the best."

Entrepreneurs aren't the only ones who benefit from being servant-minded. Everyone from the CEO to the janitor profits when they seek to serve through their work. Proverbs 11:25 promises that "He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed" (NIV).

You've probably noticed that the word "service" is everywhere in the world of business—with full-service shops, customer service centers and guarantees of friendly service. A search on the word "service" in the Amazon.com business book section will return more than 20,000 results. But, how committed are businesspeople to actually serving their customers—to genuinely placing customer needs above their own? A search for the root word of service, which is "serve," only generates about 300 results on Amazon.com (mostly from Christian authors).

Jesus told his disciples, "'If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all'" (Mark 9:35). Paul told the Colossians, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men" (Col. 3:23). The biblical standard of service is much more than just a means toward the end of getting money from customers. While financial wealth is often the reward for an attitude of service, the real payoff is the development of spiritual wealth in place of greed.

Giving it Away
Perhaps the greatest challenge for those who are building wealth is maintaining the willingness to give it all away. That was the test the rich young ruler failed in Jesus' day. When asked to sell everything he had and give it to the poor, the man went away sad, unwilling to lose his great wealth.

Jesus wasn't as interested in how much the young ruler had as he was in knowing who was lord over his life. A tight fist is a sign that money has a grip on someone's soul. Generosity is the anecdote to greed—it helps men loosen their grip.

"The rich become a god unto themselves," said Charles Ross, author of God's Plan for Your Financial Success. "They get anxious. You have to be willing to give it away—then it can no longer possess you." Ross explained that God owns everything anyway, and we are only stewards. "As God blesses you with more of His resources, you want to give more money away—to give money back to the kingdom."

The Bible ends up talking more about how to share wealth than it does about how to create it. Proverbs says—"He who gives to the poor will lack nothing" (Prov. 28:27). In Luke, Jesus says: "'Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you'" (Luke 6:38).

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul says: "Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work" (2 Cor. 9:6-8).

That's why John Wesley used to say, "Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can." Wealth does not have to be linked to greed anymore than dating has to be linked to premarital sex.

You can overcome the temptations to be greedy by understanding true wealth—by being grateful for what you have and not finding your value in material things. You can balance self-interest with an attitude of service—a desire to understand and creatively meet the needs of others. And you can break the grip of greed by being generous—by recognizing God as your provider and knowing you can never give away more than He can give you in return.

Reprinted with permission from New Man, September/October 2000. Copyright Strang Communications Co., USA. All rights reserved. www.newmanmagazine.com