Can a rich Church or man get into heaven?

[Greatest I Am]

Can a rich Church or man get into heaven?

Matthew 19:23
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 19:21
Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

Genesis 13:2
And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.

Matthew 19:24
And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

There seems to be a theme throughout scripture that says that wealth is not a good thing yet the Church amasses wealth for it’s own sake and glorification.

Can a Church that does not practice what it preaches lead us to heaven or is wealth actually a good thing.

What comes to mind is Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail.
In selecting the cup of Christ, the proper cup was the poor man’s cup. In contrast, if asked to select the cup of the Church, he would have selected the riches cup.

One has to wonder if the Church is right or if Jesus was.
Many say they have faith in Jesus but few follow His line of thought when their wealth is in question.

Would God reject our rich Church?
Is our Church imperfect because of it’s wealth?
Will God reject the rich man?

Your thoughts?

Regards
DL

[East of Eden]

The needs are the market. It is one thing to serve it. it is quite another to gain wealth from the needy.

In a free market, wealth is gained from the needy by serving them, or providing for their wants and needs in a voluntary exchange.

[East of Eden]

I should have been more specific. It is not true to the New Testament that God does not care what's in your bank account. See the parable of the widow's mite. It is not what you give that is important, but whether your giving is sacrificial.

OK, I would have to agree with this.

At the UN’s World Summit on Social Development, the described poverty as “…a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information.�

A tragedy, it seems Christian groups do the most to alleviate this. World Vision for example distributes $100,000,000 yearly for such needs in 100 countries, to people regardless of creed.

Wealth is an abundance of valuable material possessions or resources. Jesus taught his followers not to store up for tomorrow and have their treasures in heaven. How is it that a follower of the teachings of Jesus can have an abundance of resources?

By using resources for God's Kingdom, you are storing up treasure in Heaven.

I have no answer to this argument.

If I can further respond to your Christian commune NT example, nowhere does the NT teach such living in common is required. There is one theory that those believers thought the Second Coming was imminent, and so weren't planning for tomorrow.

How can someone who does not love money, accumulate excessive amounts of it when there are quite evidence good purposes it could be put towards?

What is excessive is up to each believer's conscience. I'm still trying to figure out why a non-Christian like yourself would be so consumed by this question. How Buddhists run their lives interests me not at all.

I am saying that Wilberforce was not an authority on the correct application of Jesus' teachings. He was a member of the so-called Clapham Sect of the Church of England (Anglican, Episcopal) whose members were chiefly prominent and wealthy evangelical Anglicans.

The Clapham Sect was about the best example I know of of Jesus' command to be 'salt and light' to the world, and were a vehicle for the positive transformative power of the Gospel in many areas of British society. This would not have happend without Wilberforce's personal wealth. He properly used wealth, and loved people, not the other way around.

From "Amazing Grace", "The culture and people of Britain had begun to follow Wilberforce around the corner, as it were, into a new world; it was as if Britian herself had experienced a "Great Change" [a reference to Wilberforce's own earlier Christian conversion experience], or was doing so in varying stages. The idea, so obvious today and so taken for granted, that the powerful have an obligation to help the powerless was indefatigably working its way through the whole of British society, like leaven through the proverbial lump. The Christian notion's of loving one's neighbor and servant leadership would soon find themselves newly expressed in the concepts of noblesse oblige and, later on, social conscience. These notions were increasingly evident in every sphere and on every scale...........The list of societies created by Wilberforce is almost comically long. There is the Asylum for the Support and Encouragement of the Deaf and Dumb Chridren of the Poor; the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor; the Institution for the Relief of the Poor of the City of London and Parts Adjacent; the Society for the Relief of the Industrious Poor; the British National Endeavor for the Orphans of Soldiers and Sailors; the Naval Asylum for the Support of the Orphans and Children of British Sailors and Marines; the Asylum House of Refuge for the Reception of Orphaned Girls the Settlements of Whose Parents Cannot Be Found; the Institute for the Protection of Young Girls; and finally, the interestingly named Friendly Female Society for the Relief of Poor, Infirm, Aged Widows and Single Women, of Good Character, Who Have Seen Better Days.

...In his seventies, Wilberforce-formerly a very wealthy man-found himself nearly destitute......He had given away vast sums of money throughout his life, and the inumerable people and projects that had benefited from his personal generosity could never be tallied in this world."

[Greatest I Am]

The needs are the market. It is one thing to serve it. it is quite another to gain wealth from the needy.

In a free market, wealth is gained from the needy by serving them, or providing for their wants and needs in a voluntary exchange.

The poor do not give profits voluntarily to the rich. It is more a case of the rich taking advantage of the poor by control of pricing and exploitation of labor by setting wages.

Regards
DL

[McCulloch]

There is one theory that those believers thought the Second Coming was imminent, and so weren't planning for tomorrow.

Were they misled or mistaken?

[East of Eden]

There is one theory that those believers thought the Second Coming was imminent, and so weren't planning for tomorrow.

Were they misled or mistaken?

Possibly not paying attention to Christ's teaching that no man knows the hour of His coming.

[East of Eden]

The needs are the market. It is one thing to serve it. it is quite another to gain wealth from the needy.

In a free market, wealth is gained from the needy by serving them, or providing for their wants and needs in a voluntary exchange.

The poor do not give profits voluntarily to the rich. It is more a case of the rich taking advantage of the poor by control of pricing and exploitation of labor by setting wages.

Regards
DL

Funny how the poor from all over the world flock to the US to be 'taken advantage of' and 'exploited'.

When a poor person buys a Michael Jackson CD, is that not a voluntary transaction?

[MagusYanam]

The exploitation that takes place here is more subtle than that which takes place overseas, though in a global-scale economy the exploitation is exacerbated immensely.

To find the exploitation inherent in a large-scale market economy, you have to look at the parametres, not at the transaction itself. Poor person - minimum-wage worker, say? - buys a Michael Jackson CD. Okay - the CD was manufactured in a Chinese SEZ by a migrant worker making less than a dollar a day for an American record company which makes a deal with Walmart, which buys in bulk. Because Walmart is huge enough to leverage such transactions, it can afford to keep prices down. Because the minimum-wage worker wants to get a Michael Jackson CD and also afford the food and rent, he goes to Walmart rather than to a local business, which soon goes out of business because it can't buy in bulk and has to cover more of the transportation costs. Thus, Walmart (because it trades in all consumer durables) ends up dominating the local economy in all sectors, bleeding the capital outward and keeping the local consumers and workers (including our friend the Michael Jackson fan) dependent, impoverished and voiceless (given its animosity to organised labour).

Voluntary? Only in a very limited sense - yeah, you can choose Michael Jackson or Madonna, Coke or Pepsi, but participants in the large-scale market constrain where workers can shop by keeping wages down, and constrain where and under what conditions workers can offer their services and labour by starving out the competition.

That said, I'm generally in favour of the market - just a more scale-free market modelled on the old American System, which better regulates the flow of capital, invites investment in poorer communities, and leaves space for protection of what such communities actually value (rather than what big multinationals tell them what they should value).

[East of Eden]

The exploitation that takes place here is more subtle than that which takes place overseas, though in a global-scale economy the exploitation is exacerbated immensely.

To find the exploitation inherent in a large-scale market economy, you have to look at the parametres, not at the transaction itself. Poor person - minimum-wage worker, say? - buys a Michael Jackson CD. Okay - the CD was manufactured in a Chinese SEZ by a migrant worker making less than a dollar a day

If a Chinese worker wants to trade his day's labor for a dollar, that's his business.

for an American record company which makes a deal with Walmart, which buys in bulk. Because Walmart is huge enough to leverage such transactions, it can afford to keep prices down. Because the minimum-wage worker wants to get a Michael Jackson CD and also afford the food and rent, he goes to Walmart rather than to a local business, which soon goes out of business because it can't buy in bulk and has to cover more of the transportation costs. Thus, Walmart (because it trades in all consumer durables) ends up dominating the local economy in all sectors, bleeding the capital outward and keeping the local consumers and workers (including our friend the Michael Jackson fan) dependent, impoverished

How are they impoverished when they pay less at Wal-Mart? In a sense WM is a local company, employing local people who again, voluntarily work there.

and voiceless (given its animosity to organised labour).

Understandably so. We can all see what organized labor has done to GM.

Voluntary? Only in a very limited sense - yeah, you can choose Michael Jackson or Madonna, Coke or Pepsi, but participants in the large-scale market constrain where workers can shop by keeping wages down, and constrain where and under what conditions workers can offer their services and labour by starving out the competition.

That said, I'm generally in favour of the market - just a more scale-free market modelled on the old American System, which better regulates the flow of capital, invites investment in poorer communities, and leaves space for protection of what such communities actually value (rather than what big multinationals tell them what they should value).

[MagusYanam]

If a Chinese worker wants to trade his day's labor for a dollar, that's his business.

Let me put it bluntly. If the choice is 'work for a dollar a day or starve with nothing', there is no choice, and any Christian should view it as patently unjust.

How are they impoverished when they pay less at Wal-Mart? In a sense WM is a local company, employing local people who again, voluntarily work there.

No - WM is not a local company in any sense of the word that isn't nonsense. The managerial staff who make the vast majority of the profit out of WM franchises do not live in poor communities nor do they spend money there. And if WM is the only game in town, no, the work can't be seen as voluntary in any sense but an idiotically legalistic one.

Understandably so. We can all see what organized labor has done to GM.

Sorry - that's not what I or the rest of the consumer market that wasn't buying GM's cars saw. GM's problem was that it was manufacturing cars of a design that no one wanted. The fault lies with the designers and with the managerial staff that gave them the green light, not with the unions.

[East of Eden]

Let me put it bluntly. If the choice is 'work for a dollar a day or starve with nothing', there is no choice, and any Christian should view it as patently unjust.

Offering an unemployed person a job so they don't starve is unChristian? I disagree.

No - WM is not a local company in any sense of the word that isn't nonsense. The managerial staff who make the vast majority of the profit out of WM franchises do not live in poor communities nor do they spend money there. And if WM is the only game in town, no, the work can't be seen as voluntary in any sense but an idiotically legalistic one.

The US consumer has decided with their wallet they prefer Wal-Mart's selection and prices to the old-style mom and pop 'local' stores. With you, I prefer the old-style set up but what are you going to do, ban Wal-Mart?

Sorry - that's not what I or the rest of the consumer market that wasn't buying GM's cars saw. GM's problem was that it was manufacturing cars of a design that no one wanted. The fault lies with the designers and with the managerial staff that gave them the green light, not with the unions.

The fault is with the managerial staff that caved in to big labor. Detroit can't compete with Toyota with employee costs 50% higher, $140,000 severence deals, job banks (paying 'workers' for not working), etc. Do you think it's fair that poor Americans buying a US made car indirectly subsidize the UAW $33,000,000 resort in MI?