What did Jesus say about the rich?

At a Glance

What I said: A great deal about money. Woe to you who are rich! For you have received your consolation (Luke 6:24). You can’t serve both God and Mammon (Matthew 6:24). It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into God’s Kingdom (Mark 10:25).

What the rest of the Bible says: Both things. Some proverbs say God’s blessing brings wealth (Proverbs 10:22). The prophets thundered at the rich who lay on ivory beds and are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph (Amos 6:4–6).

When today’s view appeared: The idea that wealth is a reward for faith runs through parts of the Old Testament, and I argued with it. The modern prosperity gospel, that God wants every believer rich, grew up in American revival preaching in the 1900s.

The short answer: I never said money was evil. I said it was dangerous, that it competes with God for your heart, and that it belongs to the poor before it belongs to you.

A rich young man ran up to me and knelt.

He asked what he must do to have eternal life. I listed the commandments, and he said he had kept them all since he was a boy. Mark remembers what I felt: Jesus looking at him loved him. And then I told him the one thing he lacked. Go, sell whatever you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me (Mark 10:21).

But his face fell at that saying, and he went away sorrowful, for he was one who had great possessions (Mark 10:22).

I loved him, and I let him go. I did not run after him with a smaller offer.

Then I turned to my friends: How difficult it is for those who have riches to enter into God’s Kingdom! … It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into God’s Kingdom (Mark 10:23, 25).

The disciples were amazed at his words (Mark 10:24). In my world, as in yours, most people assumed the rich were the ones God had blessed. I turned that upside down.

What I said

I said a great deal about money, much more than about most of the things churches fight over today.

Woe to you who are rich! For you have received your consolation. Woe to you, you who are full now, for you will be hungry (Luke 6:24–25).

Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal … for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:19, 21).

No one can serve two masters … You can’t serve both God and Mammon (Matthew 6:24). Mammon was the Aramaic word for wealth. I spoke of it as a master, a rival god.

I told a story about a farmer whose land produced so much that he had no room for it. I will pull down my barns, build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. He told his soul to take its ease. But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you’ (Luke 12:18, 20). He had not stolen anything. He had simply kept it all.

And I told the story of the rich man clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day, and the beggar Lazarus at his gate (Luke 16:19–20). The rich man was not cruel. He just never noticed.

When the religious teachers heard this, Luke says, The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they scoffed at him (Luke 16:14).

The rich man who came down from the tree

I did not hate the rich. I ate at their tables. And one of them changed.

Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector in Jericho, and rich, in a trade known for taking more than was owed. He climbed a tree to see me, and I invited myself to his house. The crowd grumbled. And he stood up and said, Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. If I have wrongfully exacted anything of anyone, I restore four times as much. I said, Today, salvation has come to this house (Luke 19:8–9).

Notice what salvation looked like for a rich man. It looked like giving the money away.

What the rest of your Bible says

Your Bible argues with itself about wealth, and I grew up on the argument.

One voice says riches are a sign of blessing: The LORD’s blessing brings wealth (Proverbs 10:22). It is he who gives you power to get wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18). Abraham, Job and Solomon were rich, and their riches are counted as gifts.

The other voice belongs to the prophets. Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room (Isaiah 5:8). Amos named the rich of his day who lie on beds of ivory … who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the best oils; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph (Amos 6:4–6).

My mother sang the second voice before I was born: He has filled the hungry with good things. He has sent the rich away empty (Luke 1:53).

And my brother James, after I was gone, wrote it plainest of all: Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you … the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out (James 5:1, 4).

What my followers did with it

The first church in Jerusalem took me literally. All who believed were together, and had all things in common. They sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all, according as anyone had need (Acts 2:44–45).

For centuries the greatest teachers of my church kept saying it. Basil of Caesarea, preaching on the rich fool, told his congregation that the bread they kept belonged to the hungry, and the coat in their closet to the naked.¹ John Chrysostom preached that not to share your wealth with the poor was to rob them.² Francis of Assisi, the son of a rich cloth merchant, gave everything away and founded an order of beggars.³

Even the practical Methodist preacher John Wesley, in the 1700s, put it this way: gain all you can, save all you can, and give all you can. He warned that Christians who did the first two without the third were in danger of losing their souls.⁴

But the church also grew rich, and in many ages its leaders lived like princes. That history is told in the books.

What is new

What is new is the claim that God wants every believer rich, and that giving to a ministry is the way to get there.

It grew out of American revival preaching in the 1900s, and spread through radio and television.⁵ In a 2006 poll for Time magazine, 17 percent of American Christians said they considered themselves part of such a movement, and 61 percent agreed that God wants people to be financially prosperous. Nearly a third agreed that if you give your money to God, God will bless you with more money.⁶

I told a rich man to give his money to the poor and follow me. I did not tell him it would come back doubled.

What You’ll Hear Back

“It’s the love of money that’s the root of evil, not money.”

That line is from a letter in Paul’s name, not from me: the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10). It is true as far as it goes. But I went further. I did not tell the rich young man to love his money less. I told him to sell it. I said it was hard for those who have riches to enter the kingdom, not only for those who love them. Riches have a way of becoming love before you notice.

“The camel and the needle was a gate in Jerusalem.”

You may have heard that there was a small gate called the Needle’s Eye, and a camel could squeeze through it if it knelt and was unloaded. There is no evidence such a gate existed in my time. The story first appears many centuries later.⁷ I meant what my friends heard: something impossible. That is why they asked, Then who can be saved? And I answered, With men it is impossible, but not with God (Mark 10:26–27).

“God blessed Abraham and Solomon with riches.”

Your Bible does say so. It also tells you what Solomon’s riches cost his people: forced labor and heavy taxes, until the kingdom split in two (1 Kings 12:4). I knew those stories. When I chose whom to call blessed, I chose the poor.

“The rich create jobs and pay most of the taxes. They aren’t the problem.”

Many rich people work hard, give generously, and employ others fairly. I did not curse anyone for having a good harvest. I warned the man who built bigger barns and kept it all. The question I would ask any rich person is the question I asked Zacchaeus’s neighbors to watch him answer: what will you do with it now?

Check It Yourself

Look up: Mark 10:17–31.

You will find: the rich man I loved, what I told him, and why my friends were amazed.

Then read Luke 12:13–21 and Luke 19:1–10, and compare the two rich men.

The Short Version

• I warned about wealth again and again: woe to you who are rich, you can’t serve God and Mammon.
• I loved the rich young man, told him to sell everything and give to the poor, and let him walk away.
• The rich man I praised was Zacchaeus, who gave half to the poor and repaid fourfold.
• Your Bible has both voices: wealth as blessing, and the prophets against the rich. I sided with the prophets.
• The prosperity gospel, that God wants every believer rich, is new, from the 1900s. It is not mine.