October 12, 2026

Business by the Book

Proverbs 15:27 He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house…

Company cars are a wonderful thing. Since I was twenty one years old I have enjoyed the use of a company car. As a delivery man I was given a new van, as a service technician the company issued a great big station wagon (it was so long I had to go to the airport to turn it around), as a salesman and manager the appropriate sedan was provided, as a pastor the church has provided for my GMC truck. What a blessing!

There was a time when the company I worked for leased the vehicles it provided to their employees. A great benefit at that time was the ability to buy the car at the end of the lease at a depreciated price. For example, I once had a Plymouth van which we purchased for about $3,600 at the end of the lease. We used that vehicle for years as our family car. It was a tremendous perk; a way the company rewarded those who traveled spending so many nights away from their family.

What does this have to do with today’s verse? Glad you asked. There once was a manager that purchased his company car for $5,000. Later, he bragged to me that he turned around and sold the car to his mother for $8,000. He made $3,000 on his mother! He even boasted about the fact that he lied to her telling her he bought the car for $8,000. I may be way off base, and some may not agree with me, but according to the way I was raised that was pure unvarnished bold faced greed.

Some years later this man told me that he and his mom were not on speaking terms. You see, He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house…  By the way the man in this story was soon fired from a wonderful position, not because he couldn’t do the job but because of character flaws. Those flaws when boiled down to their common denominator were the outgrowth of greed.

Dr. William Howe