On This Day: The Prosperity of the Poor in Spirit

  

And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:23-26)  

   What really stood out to me today was a bit of insight into what the Jewish-minded people in this situation were thinking. This was immediately after the rich young man went away sorrowful because he was not willing to give up his great wealth to follow Jesus.

   However, this wasn’t merely about a man with wealth struggling to submit everything to Jesus. This was about Jewish people who understood wealth as a sign of God’s blessing under the Mosaic covenant finding that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah but wasn’t affirming the rich young man as blessed. Instead, Jesus required him to sell his possessions, give to the poor, and follow him.

   The Jewish-minded disciples were also struggling with what Jesus was teaching because they also thought that material wealth was a blessing under the covenant Israel had made with God. But Jesus was saying it not only didn’t count for anything, but it was somehow in the way of this young man’s quest for eternal life.

   What became clear to me in this is that I have seen plenty of churches that are still living with the idea that those who are better off in the church must be blessed. Churches want the well-to-dos on their boards because of all the financial decisions involved in paying salaries, maintaining buildings, and running programs. But even in the first century, James warned about people giving preference to a rich man over a poor man sitting beside them in a church gathering. That thinking that wealth has anything to do with status has no place in the church at all.

   Instead, we must always look at “blessed are the poor in spirit” as the first evidence of God’s blessing on our lives. If that leads us to “blessed are those who mourn”, and “blessed are the meek”, and “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”, and those are the people we consider most blessed in the church, perhaps we will help the wealthy to join the fellowship that gives evidence of God’s highest blessings on the lowest of people. 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

#JesusChrist #God #Bible #homechurch #riches #therichyoungruler #thepoorinspirit #thebeatitudes # Matthew19:23-26