Posted on 04/05/2014 1:42:45 PM PDT by crazylibertarian
Exactly. IMHO, this is a very important aspect of God's plan for us. Free will. IMHO, God wants our voluntary love, because that is real love. God could make us do anything, but doesn't force us to believe or to love, because forced love is not real love. For the same reason, charity from one’s heart is immensely more desirable than forced redistribution.
I think my original posting didn’t go through the way I anticipated. This was what was supposed to accompany my question.
A member of a group sent this to me in response to a previous posting:
Weird to suggest scripture on your side. Jesus made fun of people who accumulate wealth. Nothing in bible suggests Jesus would oppose inheritance or income tax. So many people pretend to be bible scholars without reading the bible. Bible explains unequivocally that all the early Christians lived as communists. So raise he’ll about the need for no income or inheritance taxes if you want. You might be right. But you are a liar if you claim Jesus is on your side. New pope seems to understand Jesus unlike so many other church leaders.
Roderick T. Beaman (AKA crazylibertarian):
Over the years, many socialists, progressives, liberals, etc. have used this argument as some kind of divine insight into the thoughts of Jesus. I call it sophistry at its basest.
First of all, Jesus never mocked anyone; the wealthy, poor, sinners, the holy, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, doctors, lawyers & Indian chiefs, etc. He warned against devotion to wealth as did Paul who never said, “Money is the root of all evil,” but rather, “The love of money is the root of all evil,” a much different idea. I don’t completely agree with either statement but that is another discussion.
For Jesus’ part, he never took a position against wealth or the wealthy. In fact, among his disciples were Mary Magdalene whom many today consider not a prostitute but a wealthy woman and Matthew, a tax collector, also wealthy and many others .
There’s the story from Mark 10, 17 & Matthew 19, 16: where He told the wealthy young man to sell all he had and give it the poor and then follow him but the man didn’t. Jesus said it would be very hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The reader should ponder, who would have a tougher choice to face in giving up all he has, a poor man or a rich man? I suggest this is what He meant.
Like many of Jesus’ messages and illustrative episodes, there is a lot of room for interpretation but it must be done in the context of His entire message & life among which is The Anointing at Bethany, where the woman poured expensive perfumed oil on His head. The apostles grumbled that it could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Jesus admonishes them and allows her to continue.
Everyone should remember that Jesus and his earthly father, Joseph, were both carpenters, craftsmen. There is no way that they produced all of their needs for life in Nazareth so there is no doubt that they engaged in trade, most likely using the normal historically most common medium - money. Jesus never once spoke against trade! Any kind of free trade is a direct antithesis of socialism and progressivism. You can not have both.
Finally, any assertion ‘that all the early Christians lived as communists’ is demonstrably false. Many of them did elect to live in communes, especially the evangelists, perhaps from necessity, but there can be no doubt whatsoever, that many just absorbed Jesus’ message in living their lives as Jesus’ wished. He even told the tax collector to take nothing more than a fair share. What does that tell you other than that he accepted that people should go on living their lives but guided by His principles?
In fact, you can go through the entire Old Testament and find that scripture never rejected simultaneous wealth and holiness. Just read The Book of Job. The story of Lazarus is an example of someone who didn’t learn the truth about wealth.
No! God provides in abundance, running over, beyond all worldly expectations.
Anything Jesus took from others was freely given. He never asked that government or any other entity forcibly take from others to give to him.
Yes, and he is from the line of King David...he was not from a poor family and background, as some have taught.
Do you think everybody, who is a descendent of David, was born with a silver spoon in their mouth?
Being from a well to do family does not mean that he did not have to work hard? But he was the most blessed person that ever walked on earth and he had the most powers of any. Why should it not be that way? He also had to endure incredible torture and the sins of the world.
One of the problems is that Yeshua taught and expected many things, and rules, for the apostles and those who would take up the role of educators and evangelists on His behalf - sell all your goods and follow me, and take nothing with you but depend on the people along the way; etc., which was not any form of any prescription for the broader society.
Another is that Paul - and others - had certain expectations of Christian congregations as to how they should share with the least AMONG THEM, and with the “poor” in the greater society, not as a commandment of secular law - under penalty of secular punishment - but as a moral way to dispense Christian charity.
“Jesus said it would be very hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The reader should ponder, who would have a tougher choice to face in giving up all he has, a poor man or a rich man? I suggest this is what He meant.”
He meant that at more. For Yeshua the problem of great wealth was not the earning or even the keeping of great wealth, but that like all forms of power it has the power to corrupt, and the power to tempt a man into satisfying human vices and desires in ways that a person can think they are “getting away with”, because their wealth might be buying them secular & temporal dispensation from any negative recourse from them, leaving the “rich man” in a difficult spiritual situation in the sight of G-d. A “poor man” does not have many of the temptations that come with great wealth or the misbegotten belief he can purchase his way out the consequences of his vices. Great wealth is great power and earthly power in all forms is a great temptation for wrongdoing and even evil. Would that people only realized the same truth applies to government as it does to “wealth”.
The, there is the statement that "If a man will not work, he should not eat". Kind of not-socialist-at-all attitude from the apostles.
” Joseph was a well-to-do businessman, clearly”
No. Compare the following 2 passages of Scripture:
Luke 2 22 And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) 24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”
Leviticus 12 6 “And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering, 7 and he shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement for her. Then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female. 8 AND IF SHE CANNOT AFFORD A LAMB, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons,[a] one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering.
The offerings Joseph and Mary brought indicate that they were not well off.
I would not hang a great deal of interpretation on that passage. Surely given the circumstances of Jesus birth they would have made the most worthy sacrifice possible.
“Afford” is not the best translation; compare KJV.
Besides, all sorts of possibilities abound. Remember that the Romans taxed all sorts of wealth at a heavy rate (25%) and the pharisees even more on top of that.
Surely you’re not implying travel to/from Jerusalem was subsidized?
Government wishes it could be that efficient in the services it "provides".
What about it?
They sold something they owned and gave part of it to the church. Up top this point they were doing fine, even laudable.
Where they fell was that they wanted credit for giving all when they only gave part.
To get that credit they lied.
Peter lays that out for them in verse four.
It did not matter what they gave or what they did not. The lie was all.
I prefer the term free market to capitalism which is a communist pejorative.
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