How many times do we hear the call for the rich to pay their “fair share” of the taxes, or to do more for the poor?
Maybe we can say that the bad rep the rich have today started in the Bible?
If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.
Yeshua said it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it will be for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God (Matthew 19:24), implying (unfairly, I believe) that just because someone is rich they can’t be saved.
And he isn’t the only one: in James 5:1-3, he says…
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on 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.
So, nu? Was every rich man in the ancient Middle East a lousy person?
And what about Matthew 6:24:
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
And let’s not forget one of the most misquoted verses from the Bible, which is 1 Timothy 6:10–
For the love of money is a root of all the evils; because of this craving, some people have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves to the heart with many pains.
It certainly seems that the word of God doesn’t like rich people, and many Christian religions take this to the next level, actually making you take a vow of poverty to become a priest.
Do you know this story…
Thomas Aquinas was with Pope Innocent II (or maybe it was Innocent III) who was counting a large pile of church money. The Pope said, “You see, the Church is no longer in that age in which she said, ‘Silver and gold have I none'”.
Thomas Aquinas replied, “True, holy father; but neither can she any longer say to the lame, ‘Rise up and walk.'”
Now what about Abraham? He was very rich and yet God chose him from all the people on the earth to be the one he would talk to and promise to make a great nation from.
And what about Job? He was the wealthiest man throughout the region he lived in, yet he was so righteous that God challenged Satan to make Job do something wrong, which he didn’t despite the terrible tsouris that Satan unleashed upon him.
And King David and Shlomo (Solomon) weren’t begging in the streets for bread, yet both of them were mightily blessed by God!
Riches are not the issue; the issue is how we feel about them.
I have never been shy to say how I see the entire New Covenant as something less than scripture, but still important and necessary to study. It has a lot for us to know about the formation of the movement of Jews accepting Yeshua, and to see the writings that led to its becoming an anti-Jewish religion.
(Oh, but that is opening a can of worms that I do not want to divert us into a tangential discussion right now, so let’s just keep going with this message.)
It seems to me that what is said by Yeshua and James and Peter (who wrote the letters to Timmy) was somewhat unfair in that they all seem to say being rich is bad. It feels like the adage that goes “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”, except this is more like being rich automatically makes you a lover of money.
There is nothing wrong with the desire for more money, especially if that desire is to better your life, provide for your family, and as long as you are willing to use that increase to increase your tithe to God’s kingdom, which can be in many different ways than just through a collection plate.
(Again, tithing is a topic that can take us off track and is best left for another discussion.)
So, the desire for more money is not, in and of itself, sinful or wrong: what is important is why you want more money. And if you are praying to God to help provide the means or you to get more money, I suggest you plan to use a portion of that increased income to give back to God, in whichever way you can.
To share something personal, and not to brag or appear holier than anyone else, many years ago when I came in to a small inheritance, I used it to help buy more prayer books for the messianic synagogue I was attending at that time. I anonymously (so my left hand didn’t know what my right hand was doing) offered matching dollar for dollar to what people donated for the books, up to a certain amount. It wasn’t a ton of money, but it was enough that we got a lot more prayer books, which I did as one form of my tithing.
And yes, that synagogue existed almost exclusively on tithing, which was expected to be 10% but whatever we got, we appreciated.
Now, the rest of that story is I believe I was rewarded for doing that because the inheritance also allowed me to attend a school to get my IT certifications, which led to a job that eventually led to a job that paid me nearly twice the amount of the most I had been earning for the prior 8 years, allowing us to move here to Florida and making it possible for me to retire as soon as I hit 62.
So, long story short (I know… too late!) I suggest that you do not misjudge people who are rich just because they are rich, or demand that they give up some of that money in ways that you think they should. It’s their money and no one has the right to tell them what to do with it.
I believe very strongly that the people who demand that the rich give up more of what they have would be hard-pressed to give it up if they were rich.
Love of money is one thing, but demanding that someone with more than you give it up because you covet what they have is just as bad.
Thank you for being here and please comment and share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.
That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
PS: For the record, according to the Economic Policy Institute, the average
middle-class family pays about 10% of their income to federal taxes, while the Internal Revenue Service reports that the top 1% of federal taxpayers pay 26.3% of their income in taxes.