“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
i dont know, this seems kind of vague to me. he never defines “rich”. probably he should have put in some minimum income level. he doesn’t separate the truly “rich” who possess assets, from people who are currently rich based on income, but whose income can vary from year to year. Frankly, I have no idea even if “rich” here means rich in terms of money, cattle, knowledge, social capital, o r whatever.
this passage definitely wasn’t run through legal.
he says rich people cannot “enter” heaven, but it’s not clear whether there are other ways to get into heaven other than “entering” into it. maybe you can be transported, maybe you can ride under an angel’s wing throught the walls.
although he states it’s hard to enter heaven for the rich, perhaps rich people are actually better people, more blessed by G-d obviously, since they have all this stuff, so blessed, , so thoroughly blessed, unlike the unblessed unrich, , so it should actually be harder for the rich to get into heaven, because they’re up to the challenge, being betterly blessed. He gives man no cross he cannot bear, including a slightly increased difficulty level of getting into heaven..
nowadays, when we are christian and rich, we just say, man, we are so blessed, and move on to the consumption. i think the above quote isinterpreted as, well, as long as you love G-d, you get to keep your loot, just dont focus ont he loot too much or act too grubby. act like you dont care too much about cash, as that is bad form.
. which seems not unreaosnable an inerpretation for nowadays, since we aall attend the church of consumption and mammon in the USA, but an interpretation not all that super christian in the context of the entire text. you know, the love your neighbor as yourself junk, which kind of implies not hoarding monies and properties and such but instead kinda spreading the wealth and not getting too attached to your own goods. or family even….
maybe the quote should ahve been, love your neighbor as you love your own children, since people generally subconsciously loathe themselves.
so keep it all nice and secure, unless we are superrich, in which case it all gets meaningless and you have to work hard to give it away.
