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Are You Stuck In The Eye Of The Needle About Money?

One way to think about Jesus and money is to consider the old joke about three types of people in the world.

1. Some people don't know what Jesus said about money and they have no interest in finding out.

2. People who care so much that they make the words of Jesus about money the standard of their financial lives.

3. The third group are people who know what Jesus said about money and wish they didn't.

Here is an example of the third type of person. I was at a seminar about creating a millionaire mindset. After a break, I was returning to my seat when I saw one of the students talking with the speaker. As I got closer, I heard the student ask: "How can you say it is good to be rich? Jesus said that a rich man can't get into Heaven."

Of all of the words of Jesus about money, the comment about the rich man is probably the most misquoted and misunderstood. If I were to pick the one Bible that creates more guilt about money than any other, it would be this one. This verse creates fear in people who think that they have to choose between salvation and being rich.

By identifying the "Kingdom of Heaven" with "Heaven," the questioner misquoted the story. He had missed the point that Jesus was making. All three biblical versions of the story agree that Jesus was speaking about a rich man and the Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom of God, not about Heaven.

The essential point is that the Kingdom of Heaven is equivalent to Heaven. When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, he was not referring to an afterlife. The phrase Kingdom of Heaven concerns life on Earth.

What is the remedy for someone like the man at the seminar, who was sure that Jesus taught that a rich man cannot get into Heaven? The solution is context. The words of Jesus must be put into the context of the story. And then the story must be put into the context of the economic situation in which Jesus lived. This is the way to liberate people who are sure they know what Jesus said about money but wish they didn't.

Otherwise, you will be like the man at the seminar. He had misunderstood the point of the story because he confused Heaven with the Kingdom of Heaven. He was stuck in an "Eye of the Needle" of his own making.

When Jesus told the story, he was condemning an unjust economic system because it created poverty. He didn't say that the rich cannot get into Heaven and he didn't say that the only way to get into Heaven is to be poor.

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