I beg you earnestly, dear brother, to be diligent about your temporal business. I am very far from wishing to see you leave your work, but what our hand finds to do we are to do it with our might. Limit your expenses at once, if they exceed your income, and arrange your business as a good steward of the Lord.
Disorder in one’s business is dishonoring to the gospel, as being careful to increase our wealth like the world which dries up the soul. The Word has told us that it is the way and the root of every sort of evil (1 Tim. 6:1010For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (1 Timothy 6:10)). The principles are simple: Live simply in order to be able to give of what one has, and to be faithful in one’s own things, making use of them as having been entrusted to us to have in order to use them according to the Lord. The Book of Proverbs teaches us clearly in detail about these things.
J. N. Darby (Letters; 1850)