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Verse:“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” —Matthew 6:19, 20
Everything that is continuously used eventually wears out.
But this process has been accelerated by the modern ideology of always wanting the newest option. During the 1920s, the US stock market experienced rapid expansion, and there was much financial speculation. But stock prices began to decline, and on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday, the stock market crashed, leading to the Great Depression (1929–1939), “the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world.” “By 1933, nearly half of America’s banks had failed, and unemployment was approaching 15 million people.” With factories closing, some creative minds developed new production and marketing strategies.
Bernard London is credited with having coined in 1932 the expression planned obsolescence, a manufacturing and marketing principle that forces people to buy new models of products they already have.
Giles Slade’s insightful book Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America describes how “repetitive consumption” came into existence through innovations in paper production, the development of plastic industries, and “the annual model change” and is being kept alive by a consumer culture willing to replace old products with new ones. Planned obsolescence helped nourish the transient-and-disposable ideology.
The desire to have something “new” can lead people to reject anything of a lasting nature, including marriage, family, and friends.
This ideology goes something like this, “You are important to me as long as I can take advantage of you; when I no longer can, I will replace you with someone else!” In contrast to this ideology, the Bible emphasizes commitment; for example, the sacred duty to honor our parents (Ephesians 6:1–3), loving “the wife of your youth” (Proverbs 5:18), and respecting our children (Ephesians 6:4).
Truly, people are much more important than possessions! This means that, as Christians, we cannot allow the obsession with new things to destroy our old relationships, which are intended to last throughout this life and beyond.