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How many clergy in America today are in a position where they cannot or will not preach the most important parts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, because their very livelihood and their church buildings are entirely dependent on the whims of today's equivalent of "the Rich Young Man", who – if anyone dared put them to the test – would reject the challenge of Jesus to turn their backs on their wealth? This web page shows what Christian preachers would be preaching, if they were being the true spokesmen for Jesus that they claim to be. |
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This is what Jesus himself clearly identified
as his most important teaching : Here is the way Jesus summed up the whole purpose of his life :
All of those who follow him do so because they believe that he had the best answers to mankind's questions about how we should live our lives. What can be more important to mankind, than good answers to these paramount questions? And these are the answers that Jesus gave us: Liberality toward the Needy :  [ Jesus told him that he must begin by obeying the ten commandments. But, then...]
. . . Then Jesus said to his disciples, "It is almost impossible for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. I say it again – it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God! When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?" And Jesus replied, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible." "For the last two centuries it has been common teaching in Sunday School that there is a gate in Jerusalem called the eye of the needle through which a camel could not pass unless it stooped and first had all its baggage first removed. After dark, when the main gates were shut, travellers or merchants would have to use this smaller gate, through which the camel could only enter unencumbered and crawling on its knees! Great sermon material, with the parallels of coming to God on our knees without all our baggage."
Notice, however, that Jesus doesn't say "destroy your wealth". They are mistaken who believe that Jesus viewed possessing things as evil. If he did, it would have be wrong from him to recommend that the rich divest themselves of evil things in order to encumber poor people with those evils. No he wanted the rich to give "goods" to the poor because they had too few of them, while the rich had more too many of them. If we paraphrase Matthew 19:16 – 22 only a little, in order to make it a monologue applying to all of us, instead of a dialogue applying to only one person, the words of Jesus take on a powerful new meaning : "This is the kind of behavior that God requires of those who hope to earn eternal life:" ( First, keep the basic commandments.) But then, "If you wish to be perfect, (which will be almost impossible for a rich person) go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions." In this time of unimagined prosperity in countries like America, in contrast to unimaginable misery in many other parts of the world, how many "Christians" are being taught what Jesus actually taught, as opposed to the pablum passed off as his teaching? Instead of being concerned about taking and passing the test of salvation which Jesus gave to the "Rich Young Man", millions of "Christian Conservatives" much prefer Paul's incredibly easier test of "salvation by faith alone". { Compare and contrast the teaching of Jesus to that of Paul – in their own words – on this most important subject at
http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/salvation }.
How many churches in America take Jesus' teaching seriously when it comes to telling their members – who are rich, by the Bible's standard – that "It is almost impossible for those who are much more prosperous than others to be saved," unless they are willing to share their extra shirts and food (and everything else) with those deprived of even the most basic of necessities of life? and a follower of Christ : " No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. So he said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God." For Jesus, as for many other great prophets of the Bible,
the pursuit of riches and the pursuit of salvation are so
incompatible that choosing one automatically turns one away from the other. And the more riches one possesses the harder
it is to choose salvation, because the sacrifices that must be made are that much greater. Any true follower of
Christ who sees today's "Religious Right" inviting the
wealthy to come into their churches, to bring all their money
in with them, to share it generously – not with the poor, as Jesus taught –
but with the churches and their clergy, knows that there is
something very wrong with this picture. When they
see people claiming to be "men of God" sharing the hopes
and dreams of the Republican Party of reducing or eliminating
services for the poor, so as to lower taxes on the well-to-do,
true Christians (and Jews) recognize that this so-called
"Christian Coalition" is no marriage made in heaven,
but an unholy alliance, designed to advance
not GOD's cause but the G.O.P.'s.
So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!"
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?""You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."
Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?'
Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul,
'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many year; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' RICH LIKE JESUS : It appears that the very "successful" Pentecostal African American preacher, Bishop Jakes, shares the Gospel according to Robertson: Can any Bible-believing Jew or Christian actually imagine that God made this world with all of its abundance so that ambitious people like the Rockerfellers, Vanderbuilts, Gates, Waltons, and the like could end up controlling vast portions of that world for their own benefit alone, and then leave that "private property" to their children, (or even to their pets, if that was their "last will and testament")? The Bible upon which Jews, Christians and Muslims all base their faith portrays a Creator who intended the wealth of the world he created to belong to ALL of those he would put on this earth. Three men in America today have cornered more wealth for themselves than the combined gross domestic products of the world's 41 poorest countries, with their 550 million citizens, How much worse do things have to get for so-called bible-believing people to recognize that this is contrary to the Creator's plans? After riding in the same carriage to the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church in New York, along with another of the richest Christian multi-millionaires of the twentieth century, John D. Rockefeller, these are the "biblical words of wisdom" which Andrew Carnegie addressed to a bible class on that day: "I was born to the blessed heritage of poverty . . . We hear a good deal in these days about poverty – 'Oh, abolish poverty!' But the saddest day that civilization ever saw will be that in which poverty doesn't win its way. The poor, thank God, we will always have with us."
Many so-called "Christian" preachers teach that Jesus ( or God) has no problem with people being rich. But the following is still another powerful illustration Jesus used to show how much God disapproves of this world's wealth being hoarded into huge piles by greedy and/or clever individuals :
"One day Lazarus, a diseased beggar, was laid at the door of a rich man's
house. As he lay there longing for scraps from the rich man's table,
the dogs would come and lick his open sores. Finally the beggar
died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham in the place of the
righteous dead.
What if God cares enough about the whole world to hold us "Christians" in America with infinitely more wealth than millions of people in other parts of world responsible for doing our best to ignore those unlucky enough to have been born on the "other side of the tracks", in the many desperately poor communities of this world ? Is this parable relevant only to rich vs. poor individuals? Or does it relate to rich Christian nations vs. the many extremely poor nations of this world? . . . "And besides, there is a great chasm separating us, and anyone wanting to
come to you from here is stopped at its edge; and no one over there can
cross to us.'
Then the rich man said, 'O Father Abraham, then please send him to
my father's home – for I have five brothers – to warn them about this
place of torment, lest they come here when they die.' But Abraham
said, 'The Scriptures have warned them again and again. Your brothers
can read them any time they want to.' The rich man replied, 'No, Father
Abraham, they won't bother to read them. But if someone is sent to
them from the dead, then they will turn from their sins.' But Abraham
said, 'If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen
even though someone rises from the dead.' Note that despite the remarkable similarity between Jesus' parable about the rich man and Charles Dickens' parable about Scrooge, Dickens is far more
optimistic about the prospects for the repentance and salvation of the
rich than is Jesus. In contrast to Scrooge, whom Dickens
portrays as being moved by the ghostly apparitions to repentance
and redemption, the Gospel holds out no such hope for its wealthy
villains. On the contrary, the Gospel insists : "If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets,
they won't listen even though someone rises from the dead." "John (the Baptist) said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." Jesus, however, didn't have a problem only with the wealth of those whom we Americans call "the super rich", or the super powerful. Does the parable which Jesus told of Lazarus and the Rich Man in { Luke 16:19-31 :} apply only to millionaire individuals? There are literally billions of people in the world today suffering like the "Lararus" of Jesus' parable, and millions of so-called Christians in countries like the United States living every day in unheard of luxury, enjoying much more comfortable lives than the "Rich Man" in the parable could even imagine, let alone afford. Many Christians who live in great comfort in prosperous nations like America may be in for a tremendous shock on judgement day, if Jesus says these familiar words apply to them (as the inhabitants of a very wealthy nation) : Jesus insisted (thru the voice of Abraham) :'The Scriptures have warned them (and us) again and again. Your brothers can read those Scriptures any time they want to.' . . . 'If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen even though someone rises from the dead.' How many so-called Christian preachers do you know who are challenging America's high-living Christians, as this web site is trying to do, to live by those scriptures ? Unless and until they do, don't wonder why the vast majority of people who imagine themselves to be "Christians" do not identify with the down-and-out, such as :
" We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action." Instead of being concerned about such issues, and supporting those who are, many so-called "Christian" preachers promote the idea that God is a kind of golden goose, whose job is to constantly bless us rather than to move us to "bless" others, by sharing our extraordinary wealth in this world with those who don't have enough to live on. Such preachers and leaders have driven to the very top of the NY Times Best Seller List a book promising earthly blessings to those who read the book and pray "The Prayer of Jabez". We think, on the other hand, that there are a lot of problems with the idea that God is in the business of constantly rewarding some people with "blessings", because, by the same token, he must be "cursing" the great multitude of mankind who aren't so blessed. See http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/about/blessings.html. |
Why it's "almost impossible"
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| Here's the way some "compassionate Conservatives" twist the life out of these words of Jesus :
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"Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven. "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
"The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised." Then he said to them all, "if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? Those (preachers and followers) who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels."
For years I imagined that I was "carrying my cross daily" by accepting the little aches, pains and annoyances that plague every human being. But after reading the words of Jesus for the hundredth time or so, I came to realize that I had never actually understood or taught those words faithfully at all.
When, on the other hand, I started telling people that Jesus was serious about it being impossible for the rich man to be saved, suddenly rich and even middle class people didn't think very highly about me any more. They didn't want to hear that Jesus warned that it is impossible to love both God and Mammon. They cringed at the thought that God wouldn't let them enjoy their multitude of shirts (and a multitude of other things) in peace and tranquility. They much preferred the kind of preachers who tell them that their wealth is "a blessing" from a loving god. ( The other side of that coin is that God doesn't love the billions of people who have to spend the entirety of their earthly lives in desperate misery! ) See much more on the important matter of "Blessings from God".
When, like Jesus, I identified with the downtrodden multitudes around the world, instead of with my "successful" fellow Americans, I came to know first hand why Jesus predicted:
"If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they malign those of his household! "So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell."
. . . and why Jesus said : in John, ch. 7, v. 7: "The world . . . hates me because I testify against it that its works are evil."
Although I've never quite been called "Beelzebub" (or "Satan"), ever since I have identified with Jesus' teaching about the obligation of the haves to help the have-nots, I've often been called something just as bad in America today: "socialist", "Marxist" or "communist". (Since writing the above, I have actually been called "Son of Satan".) I've never tried preaching the Gospel in a synagogue, so I've never been cast out of one, but I've literally been cast out of a church building for trying to preach Jesus' true teaching there, and I have been banned from several so-called Christian communities on the internet.
If Jesus of Nazareth preached what his so-called followers do today, then why on earth would people react as { Luke 4: 29 } says they did : "When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff." ( Eventually, of course, they did corner and kill him.)
If the vast majority of paid clergy continue to ignore the challenge of this message, I am going to be forced to conclude that paying the living expenses of a professional clergy has evolved into a means of bribing them to be quiet about the heart and soul of Christ's teaching – which is what the rest of my web site is all about – .
If you have the courage to face the kind of fury that the teaching of Jesus generated in the religious establishment of his day, and which Jesus predicted that his followers would experience in our day, then you are I invited to explore and teaching at greater depth at :
Have you ever wondered what has happened to Christianity since the first generations of those who had known Christ best, when those who believed in Christ's teaching were willing to die horrible deaths rather than deny that teaching? Why have so few felt the need to pay that price since? Historians tell us that one of the crucial turning points in Christian history was "the conversion" of the emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 A.D. before that conversion, those who wanted to follow Christ couldn't work with secular rulers, because such rulers wanted to force them to worship false gods. after that conversion, Christians were made to believe that the ruler was "one of them", and there was no longer any need to choose between the true God and Caesar's false gods.
Instead of being a thorn in the side of the secular authorities, i.e. the voice of conscience, the leaders of the church now gave their blessing to those authorities, without requiring obedience to Christ's teaching as the condition of that blessing. Far from being a counterforce to secular rulers, the church's leaders crowned those secular leaders in their houses of worship, which the authorities now helped them build. They themselves became "princes of the church", and they did everything in their considerable power to make sure that their Christian followers behaved as dutiful subjects of their earthly rulers. There was no longer any need to suffer or die for one's faith at the hands of secular authorities, because those authorities now enjoyed God's blessing, thanks to the "princes of the church".
Later, when there were splits among the churches, those churches that cooperated with the secular authorities – whether at the state or the local level – and gave them God's blessing were themselves blessed with power and wealth by the secular authorities, and those churches which didn't were suppressed or persecuted. Though often seemingly good for the churches as institutions, such cooperation has led to countless moral and spiritual disasters, for individuals, for churches, and for the world as a whole, not just centuries ago but in our times.
Actually one of the greatest ways avoid the teaching of the Gospels is to find some bible passage that can be used to undermine it. This works much like the innoculation idea which uses a carefully controlled germ injected into one's body to immunize that body to the dangerous form of that germ.
Those so-called "Christians" who love Mammon more than God quote the words that Jesus spoke, if we are to believe Matthew 26:11, namely "For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me." to argue that God and/or Jesus are not in favor of ending poverty on earth. Conservatives need not feel guilty about opposing the efforts made by Liberals to radically reduce poverty, because this scripture supposedly reveals God's intention that there always be poverty.
I would like to draw your attention to the preference these people have for Matthew's version of this story over the Mark's version and John's. If we can believe Mark, 14:7, what Jesus actually said was, "For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me." Note how in this version, Jesus makes it clear that he has no intention of diminishing work on behalf of the poor.
In John's version, on the other hand, the protagonists in Matthew, who were ( all?) "the disciples", who in Mark's version were narrowed down to "some who were there" , are narrowed even further in John's version to "Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him)". And John makes it clear that Jesus is dealing with a situation in which he himself was honored by Mary without the poor being deprived of a thing, because Judas was only using "the poor" as a decoy to feather his own nest, so to speak, and had no real intention of helping the poor with that gift.
"Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
As coauthor of the phenomenally popular "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic potboiler novels, Rev. Timothy LaHaye is a millionaire many times over. He and his wife, Beverly now live in an upscale community in Palm Springs, Calif., where gated mansions are tightly patrolled by a private security company. . . As far back as 1981 he told the Los Angeles Times, "What's wrong with making a good living? I don't see that God puts any priority on poverty. I take all I have as a gift from God."
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According to New York University economist Edward Wolf, writing in 1998,
(although these figures change by the hour), "The financial wealth of the top 1% now exceeds the combined net worth of the bottom 95% of Americans.
Bill Gates' wealth alone exceeds the net worth
of the bottom 45%. The personal assets of
Microsoft co-founders Paul Allen and Bill Gates,
plus Berkshire Hathaway's (investment mogul)
Warren Buffet exceed the combined gross domestic
products of the world's 41 poorest countries, with their
550 million citizens."
' 'What should we do then?' the crowd asked. John answered, 'The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.' " – Luke 3:10-11
"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?" – Matthew 6:25
"All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need."
– Acts 2:44-45
"Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, as it is written: 'He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.' "
– 2 Corinthians 8:13-15
"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." – 1 Timothy 6:6-10
"Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter." – James 5:1-5
"Thou shalt not turn away from him that is in want, but thou shalt share all things with thy brother, and shalt not say that they are thine own." – The Didache
"Therefore all things are common; and let not the rich claim more than the rest. To say therefore 'I have more than I need, why not enjoy?' is neither human nor proper."; – St. Clement of Alexandria
"From those things that God gave you, take that which you need, but the rest, which to you are superfluous, are necessary to others. The superfluous goods of the rich are necessary to the poor, and when you possess the superfluous you possess what is not yours."; – St. Augustine
"If one who takes the clothing off another is a thief, why give any other name to one who can clothe the naked and refuses to do so? The bread that you withhold belongs to the poor; the cape that you hide in your chest belongs to the naked; the shoes rotting in your house belong to those who must go unshod."; – St. Basil
"The rich have that which belongs to the poor, even though they may have received it as an inheritance, no matter whence their money comes."; – St. John Chrysostom
"When you give to the poor, you give not of your own, but simply return what is his, for you have usurped that which is common and has been given for the common use of all. The land belongs to all, not to the rich; and yet those who are deprived of its use are many more than those who enjoy it."; – St. Ambrose.
"Christian thinking on wealth and property has "evolved" over the last 1,500 years. It is rather rare, these days, to hear a Christian assert or even defend the idea that "superfluity is theft" – yet that was the consistent and universal teaching of the church during the first four centuries of Christianity. This evolution or sophistication of Christian teaching is, likely, a concession – the gradual, frog-in-a-kettle process of accommodation to this world. Yet despite that, again, I'm willing to entertain the idea that this evolution is also in some ways reasonable and justifiable. But it is hypocrisy and nonsense when contemporary Christians who have sold off and abandoned every vestige of the traditional Christian understanding of wealth turn around and insist that the Christian understanding of sexuality is fixed, immutable and eternal. These people strain at the gnat of same-sex love while swallowing the camel of credit card usury. They are so obsessed with their mistaken belief that they live in the most promiscuous society of all time that they have failed to notice they live in the most affluent, the haughtiest, proudest and least concerned with the poor." by Fred Clark
For a long time, I used to believe that one had to be a liberal to take the bible's teaching against wealth and the wealthy as seriously as I do. But then I discovered one conservative preacher who does as well, namely S. R. Shearer of . To his great credit he has been publishing a lengthy page at his "Antipas Ministries" for years, for which he has been vicously attacked by fellow conservatives, and accused of being a "Marxist". I have republished an abbreviated version of that page of his at my ConservativeChristiancaseagainstgreed.html.
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Instead of grasping the clear message of Jesus that wealth is a great threat to salvation unless it is used to lift the needy out of poverty, so-called "Conservative Christians", (also known as "Republican Christians") have their own version of the Gospels, from which most of the above has been blacked out, and in which "the parable of the talents" is highlighted, along with Jesus words, "
" Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. "For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. If the Republican version of the Gospels is correct then the parable above teaches that no one but successful businessmen are going to heaven, and Jesus recommends in the parable below that his followers lie, steal and cheat their way to financial success. "Then Jesus said to the disciples, 'There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. 'Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?" It's sad that some people are unable to see that when Jesus used an illustration to make a point, his teaching was the point, not the illustration. In the conclusion to the parable above, Jesus makes it clear how little respect he has for the pursuit of material prosperity, or wealth:
" No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. So he said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God." |
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{Luke 4:18}
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted and to announce that the blind shall see, that captives shall be released and the downtrodden shall be freed (i.e. liberated) from their oppressors." |
Contact  Ray@LiberalsLikeChrist.Org There is much more where this came from at 
See why you may already be one of us ! |
"If you want to be perfect, go and sell everything you have
and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure
in heaven; and come, follow me." But when the
young man heard this, he went away sadly, for he was very rich.
But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God." "Yes, every man is a fool
who gets rich on earth but not in heaven. Sell what you
have and give to those in need.
This will fatten your purses in heaven!
And the purses of heaven have no rips or holes in them.
Your treasures there will never disappear; no thief can steal them;
no moth can destroy them. Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be."
Jesus understood the dynamic of preachers being bought off by the wealthy and the powerful very well. To paraphrase some of his own words, "If you join their world, the rich and the prosperous will love you as one of their very own". (or "If you don't rock their boat, they will reward you – so to speak – with a boat of your very own to enjoy".) 
this question: "Teacher, what does a man need to do to live forever in heaven?"
Jesus replied, "What does Moses' law say about it?" "It says," he replied, "that you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. And you must love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself." "Right!" Jesus told him. "Do this and you shall live!"
Then I, the King, shall say to
those at my right, "Come, blessed of my Father, into
the Kingdom prepared for you from the founding of the world.
For I was hungry and you fed me;
I was thirsty and you gave me water;
I was a stranger and you invited me into your homes;
naked and you clothed me; sick and in prison,
and you visited me."
"That is a terrific passage, but if we are to deal with it fairly we
need to understand that today's poor in the United States are the
victims and perpetrators of illegitimacy and abandonment, family
non-formation and malformation, alienation and loneliness and
much else – but they are not suffering thirst, hunger, or nakedness,
except by choice, insanity, or parental abuse.