The Moneylender and His Wife

Phil Ryken on this famous 1517 Renaissance painting by Quentin Massys:

The Moneylender and His Wife confronts us with the choice that everyone must make between God and money. The moneylender is sitting at home, with a measuring scale and a pile of money in front of him on the table, carefully assessing the value of a single coin. Yet our eye is also drawn to the woman sitting next to him, the moneylender’s wife. She is leafing through a Bible or a book of spiritual exercises, which presumably was bought by her wealthy husband. She is having her devotions, except she is distracted by all the money being counted. As she turns the page, her gaze is captivated by the coin in her husband’s hand.

Moneylender 

Massys saw how easily money can pull our souls away from the worship of God.

All of us feel this tension. We know that God demands our highest allegiance. We believe that nothing is more precious than the message of his gospel — the forgiveness of our sins and the free gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. Yet we are easily distracted. Sometimes we would rather thumb through a mail-order catalog (or Pinterest) than listen to what God has said in his Word.

(There is) a striking detail in The Moneylender and His Wife. Remember that in this masterpiece both husband and wife turn away from God to focus on their money. On the table between them, Massys cleverly painted a small round mirror—-

striking detail

—which reflects a little scene that is taking place just outside the frame of the painting. If we look at the image in the mirror closely, we see the dark lines of a window frame intersecting to make the form of a cross. We also see a small figure reaching out for the frame, as if to hold on to the cross. His face is familiar to art historians: it is Massys himself.

The artist is reminding us not to look for money to give us any satisfaction in life. Instead we invited to reach out for the cross where Jesus gave his life for all our greedy sins, to hold on to Jesus and to find our full satisfaction in him.