Posted on 02/24/2008 11:26:54 PM PST by unspun
Just prior to this 'RULER' coming to Jesus, Jesus had called his disciples unto Him..Luke 18:16 "Suffer little children to come unto ME, and forbid them NOT: for of such is the kingdom of God.
Luke 16:17 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein."
verse 18 And a certain *RULER* (not just an everyday, run of the mill questioner) asked Him, saying "Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?'
verse 19 And Jesus said unto him, "Why callest thou ME good? none is good, save one, that is, GOD.
Matthew 19:17 And He said unto him, "Why callest thou ME good? there is none good but One, that is, GOD: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."
Luke 18:20 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother."
Notice that Christ did NOT quote the first five to this guy, and that is what he was meaning when He told this 'rich' man verse 22 "Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow ME."
See this man's riches was his 'god' and what he spent all his time focusing upon. He did not have time to follow the first five commandments.
Every person that I have ever known that died left all their worldly possessions right here on earth. This was an analogy for the 'eye of a needle' was a gate that only allowed people in and unloaded camels to crawl through at night. So if your camel is loaded with ill gotten gains it is NOT going in with you. Nothing about class envy about it.Oh? Then why did he tell the man to give all his possessions to the poor earlier? The gate "idea" is a common, unfounded, heresy.
No revisionism at all. That’s the way that I was taught it. That’s the way that all of the great theologians in history (St. Augustine, St. Aquinas) that I am aware of interpret it.
The sell your possessions part was stated because Jesus knew that the man was really attached to them, not because there is anything wrong with possessions. It’s a story about commitment, not about possessions specifically.
In any case, there are a few immediate contradictions in your interpretation:
1) If possessions are bad, why give them to the poor? Won’t that harm the poor in the process?
2) If the last shall be first and the first last, then doesn’t that mean the first shall be first and the last shall be last?
The real interpretation is this. Possessions need to be consecrated in the service of God. If you have a farm, then give the harvest to the poor, but you should keep the land, tools, seed corn, and enough to eat yourself and maintain the tools, since providing for next year is paramount. The difficulty is that when a rich person is administering the wealth, the temptation is always there to indulge oneself instead of being a good steward, since the owner is by definition the final temporal authority over the property. Avoiding this is extremely hard, and that’s what Jesus was concerned about.
In addition, at the time of the Gospels, the main concern was spreading the word. Jesus needed footsoldiers to go out and get the word out. Encumbering oneself with a lot of stuff is detrimental to that task. Today, however, there are plenty of sources for getting the immediate word, but most people are still going to have to work jobs to keep everyone fed and clothed. Giving away all possessions in this environment is unnecessary unless you are going to be a full time preacher, who today would still need a website, church building, place to keep religious reference materials etc.
Finally, there is also the question of which poor are you going to give it to? Is anyone who is poor okay, or are some poor more deserving than others? I would assume that a microloan to a struggling person who wants to work would be a far more effective use of my money than a drunk who has no intention of getting off the bottle. If there is a prioritization of resources, who decides? The poor certainly shouldn’t nor should the goverment. The rich person has to use their own best judgement informed by God and the Gospels.
My best reading of the Gospels and the Bible is this:
1) Unless you are going to be spreading the Gospels professionally, don’t be quick to give away your stuff. Most people are not and are not expected to.
2) Keep your personal expenses way down. Buying things to impress people or indulge yourself are right out.
3) The first poor people that you can help immediately are yourself and your family. Taking care of the elderly also means preparing for yourself in your old age.
4) Investment in production, R&D, business expansion, etc. are completely legit. This is how you make more for everyone. It also creates jobs and gives the poor more practical opportunity.
5) Given the above, at least 10% of income should be given to the church or other appropriate charity every year. There are needs that need to be taken care of today. We can’t put it all towards the future and this is a good guideline.
6) Those that produce get to decide! They can be criticized, they can be strongly reminded of their divine obligations, people can consider them jerks, but the person who made it decides what to do with it.
This means that the society works out to:
1) A laizze-faire capitalist society in most respects.
2) A strong goverment focused solely on rooting out force and fraud, funded through levied fines and/or taxes levied based on how hard it is to defend each individual against force and fraud. The rich would probably end up paying more, since the goverment probably has to do more work to defend their stuff, but it’s clearly based on fee for service.
3) A vibrant healthy church, which is well funded through voluntary donations and provides the professionals with experience in distributing charity.
4) A clear vision of the wealthy deserving their wealth through their administration and production, while the poor are seen as untapped potential who can develop into self-supporting individuals, given a little assistance. (The old and terminally ill actually have quite a lot to give to the larger society in spiritual fruits. You probably know this through experience, we’re just covering their expenses.)
No revisionism at all. That’s the way that I was taught it. That’s the way that all of the great theologians in history (St. Augustine, St. Aquinas) that I am aware of interpret it.Then you need to learn some aramaic here
Good article. That’s the correct interpretation. If you get to the last paragraph of it, you’ll see it is what I have been saying all along.
Good article. That’s the correct interpretation. If you get to the last paragraph of it, you’ll see it is what I have been saying all along.Having engaged in enough sophistry I'll come right and say what I think. Too many Americans, conservatives especially, don't worship god. They may think they do, but really they worship Mammon.
The amusing revisionist gymnastics that go on with the camel passage are just one example of that.
You know, of course, that the Eye of the Needle was a gate going into Jerusalem where they often had to unpack the camels so they could get through it.
I tend to believe that the 10 Commandments are social laws that need to be followed if a society is to be peaceful and cohesive so it will survive. Yeshua spoke more about psychological laws for the peace and cohesiveness of one’s heart and mind and the survival of the individual soul.
Ultimately, governments and political parties are the vanities of man.
You know, of course, that the Eye of the Needle was a gate going into Jerusalem where they often had to unpack the camels so they could get through it.No it wasn't. A quick google or the link I provided earlier in the thread will disprove that misunderstanding.
Well, I tend to believe my now elderly pastor who taught us this when I was in Confirmation.
Google is controlled by Lefties.
Well, I tend to believe my now elderly pastor who taught us this when I was in Confirmation.Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh....Google is controlled by Lefties.
Ketsu, there’s no gymnastics. It’s the correct interpretation, even according to the articles that you cited in your defense. It is the correct interpretation according to 2,000 years of Christian scholarship. It is the correct interpretation according to the Catecism of the Catholic Church.
The ONLY reason that this passage is ever interpreted the way you are interpreting it, is because a bunch of socialists want to get their own Mammon worshipping mitts on property that does not belong to them and they had no part in producing. They are doing this because they are filled with arrogance and envy.
I will grant that there are so-called ‘Christians’ that worship Mammon and do not follow the principles that I detailed above, but as long as they are not stealing, it doesn’t matter nearly as much as the clear violations of Commandments 7 and 9 that are so prominent in our society.
There’s no revisionism here Ketsu. There’s only an argument you can’t seem to support. Please read the article that you linked to. It states the case much better than I can.
No, Ketsu’s right about it not being the gate going into Jerusalem. Otherwise, I agree with the rest of your post.
I’m fully aware of the conclusions of the article. The revisionism I’m pointing out the is the idea of the “gate” which is used to mitigate the message.
I never believed in the gate interpretation to begin with.
I never believed in the gate interpretation to begin with.Whoops, my apologies. Just went back and realized I got you confused with another poster.
No prob.
Thank you for your wise post. And "there is the rub" as to why we have to have laws and government in the first place.
He doesn’t need to vote. He rules everything as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
You are referring to the final (10th) plague of Egypt in Exodus 11,12.
I see no mention of "henchmen", but rather God Himself ("I"/"The Lord") as the agent of death. All who were covered by the sacrificial blood of the Lamb were spared. But the hard-heartedness of men still refuse the passover gift.
God's Point (since you didn't explain it): God is perfectly within His rights to kill us all for we deserve death (wages of sin). Thank God, He provided a way out, as He did then.
The story that I read had angels doing to wet work.
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