Wealth and Gender

Wealth

I found this comment from your post very interesting:

"On the other hand I have met rich Christians who believe that it is actually quite easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle! The "eye of the needle" to them in this case not being a reference to a sewing needle but being a gate into the Holy City of Jerusalem."

I'd love to talk to someone who holds that position. I'm not sure how changing the meaning of "eye of the needle" from an actual sewing needle to the gates of Jerusalem lends any comfort to the rich Christian. Jesus still says "Indeed, 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." (Luke 18.25) In either case, it appears the meaning is that the camel has the advantage over the rich man.

In thinking about, I remembered something from Luke 12:16-21:

And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'

"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."'

"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."

The problem here, to my eye, seems to be not that the man was successful. After all, it is God himself that ultimately provides the success.

Note: yes, the inverse is also true -- God's hand is involved in failures, perhaps as a trial by which he tests someone to strengthen and grows them. The idea of tests and trials is, of course, a challenging topic. Conduct a Bible study of the Book of Job and watch the emotions come up.

The problem was -- again, in my opinion -- that the man, after having achieved success, turned his attention away from God and to himself. In effect, "I've got it made. I'm going to sit back and take it easy. It's all about me now." It doesn't take much imagination to see that the Bible is on to something here ... the whole marketing message of the retirement investment industry is exactly that: "Store up tons of money so you can take it easy later." Unfortunately, it's a bad strategy -- how many people do you know who worked hard to accumulate enough to retire on, only to die weeks or months after retiring? It happens quite frequently. Where does that leave the person who spent their life accumulating wealth? Without life, without wealth, and potentially without salvation.

I circle back to our initial posts -- "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength." That really is one of the primary themes of the Bible: God first, and from that other things will follow.

Now, notice the last sentence of the parable I provided earlier: "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God." (Luke 12:21) If there was a full-stop at "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself," then we might rightly conclude that it's a call to monastacism. But there isn't a full stop: "... but is not rich towards God." So the key is not to avoid wealth, but to consider wealth as a blessing from God and one to be returned in some way to Him.

One final passage, to reinforce the notion that wealth itself is not a bad thing:

"Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." (NIV, 1 Timothy 6:17)

"Put their hope in God" -- that's the message that runs throughout the Bible.

Note: As to your comment about whether scripture was modified by men to encourage tithing and giving so the "priestly class" could enjoy being members of the service class and avoid having to go out and dig ditches. There is no question that men are selfish and greedy, and that many who call themselves followers of God do things contrary to God to extract money from other believers. But the notion of tithing is ancient; going back to Genesis. But more fundamentally, if the very sayings of Jesus in Scripture are fabrications of men, then the entire Christian faith crumbles, and we are not to believe anything it is written Jesus said. Honestly, this is one of those "lines in the sand" moments.

Gender

I'm no expert on this, but it strikes me that God himself has no gender -- in his Spirit form God is neither male nor female. The use of the male gender in referring to God -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- might be culturally influenced. (That is, a product of a patriarchal society.) I prefer to think that there is something timeless and universal about the relationship between a father and his children, distinctly different from a mother and her children. Plus, I am extremely skeptical of those who use the female gender for God -- my suspicion is they're imposing every bit as much an agenda as might have been applied in a patriarchal society centuries ago. This is one of those things that I think can quickly become a distraction. Better, I think, to simply accept the "Father" aspect of God and focus on the more important things. As one preacher I heard once said, "Don't worry about the things you don't understand; worry about the things you do understand." In other words, our sinful nature, Christ's atoning work, and our proper response to the forgiveness given us through Grace.