What does the Bible say about teaching kids about money?
Updated 2026-07-31 · Sources: 4
The straight answer
The Bible does not give a pocket-money schedule, but it is unusually specific about how
children learn anything: parents talk about it at home, on the road, when they lie down and
when they rise. Not a lecture but a running commentary on ordinary life. Money is one of the
easiest subjects to teach that way, because it comes up several times a day.
Two more threads matter. One generation is told to tell the next what God has done, so the
family is the default classroom rather than a backup one. And Proverbs says to train a
child in the way he should go: a formation project, not a single conversation.
The practical shape follows from that. Let children handle real money early, in amounts
small enough that a mistake costs a few coins instead of a paycheck. Let them earn some of
it, so work and money are visibly connected. Split it as it arrives (give, save, spend)
because the order is what actually gets learned. Let them buy something disappointing and
do not rescue them from it. And say your own numbers out loud where it is appropriate, since
children copy what they see you do with money, not what you say about it.
The passages
Printed in full from the public-domain World English Bible, resolved from a local copy of
that text before this page was built. Read them before you take our summary on trust, and
see how we read Scripture on money for the ten rules
every page here follows.
6These words, which I command you today, shall be on your heart; 7and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. 9You shall write them on the door posts of your house, and on your gates.
4We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh, his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done. 5For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a teaching in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; 6that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born; who should arise and tell their children, 7that they might set their hope in God, and not forget God’s deeds, but keep his commandments,
6Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways, and be wise; 7which having no chief, overseer, or ruler, 8provides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. 9How long will you sleep, sluggard? When will you arise out of your sleep? 10A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: 11so your poverty will come as a robber, and your scarcity as an armed man.
Behold, this is the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you; for I seek not your possessions, but you. For the children ought not to save up for the parents, but the parents for the children.