Note to Readers...

Dear Friends,

Although the contents of this blog have been preserved below, new postings to this blog ended on January 3, 2011. But please checkout my new blog: "Embracing Jesus."

April

Friday, August 27, 2010

Wealth stands in the way of following Jesus

Jesus teaches that wealth stands in the way of following him.

Matthew 19:23-26 23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?" 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible." 27 Then Peter said in reply, "Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" 28 Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

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Jesus' message is a bit different than the message we get in some of the Old Testament where God blesses people who honor God (Abraham, David, Daniel, etc) with land, wealth, success, big families, or power.  To be fair, there are plenty of stories in the Old Testament where the wealthy are corrupt and unacceptable to God because they prey on the poor and use their wealth selfishly.  But we tend to like the "wealth is a blessing" stories over the "wealth is a path to hell" stories.  We want to believe that if we live right, then we will be blessed with wealth.  And this justifies how our society is set up - it makes consumerism kin to righteousness - it enables us to look down on the poor with disgust instead of compassion.  And it is so much easier to follow a god who signs this "follow me and get wealthy" contract than one that tells us to "go and sell everything in order to follow him".

But Jesus is the second kind of god.  He says that wealthy people are less likely to be part of his community than others.  After all, why should a rich person want to follow Jesus?  Jesus wants to give them a new life that starts without their possessions - when the old life seemed pretty good just the way it is.  Where's the motivation? 

Do we ignore Jesus' teaching that wealth hinders one's desire and ability to follow Jesus?  Being the most wealthy people on earth, what does God want from us?  Do we protect our wealth and culture? Or do we give it up to follow him?

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