(Continued from Camels and needles, the Kingdom and peoples, part 1.)

Other verses truly are about how the love of possessions can lead to sin (1 Timothy 6:10). To learn that lesson, we can refer to those passages. But Mark 10 is not about that.

Did the disciples think like a lot of us do: that of course, the money of the rich gets in the way of true goodness and spiritual concerns? If they did, why were they “exceedingly astonished”? Instead they would have nodded their heads, like we often do. Yes, that ugly Donald Trump, living it up, buying whole island chains during coffee breaks — he’ll never get into Heaven.

Rather, to Christ’s disciples, the “rich” was not our perception of a greedy uber-capitalist Bernie Madoff. To them, rich people were religious scholars, people who cared for the Earth, community pillars, recyclers, good people who gave to charity and helped the poor. Their wealth enabled them to be more spiritual than thou. Without the pressures of a 50-hour-a-week job, they had more time to be spiritual and donate to all the worthy causes.

Jesus took direct aim. In effect, He said that it would be easier for a literal camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for anyone uber-“good” to enter the Kingdom of God.

Further in

How about this? It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a (select one: dedicated public schoolteacher, loving mother, soup-kitchen volunteer, 50-year missionary veteran, Mother Teresa, the Pope, Billy Graham, Bono) to enter the kingdom of God.

If such good people can’t get into God’s kingdom, no one can. Not by himself. Not by virtue of goodness or wealth or spirituality or care for the Earth or giving money to the poor and needy.

“With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”

So it turns out any of those people could get into the kingdom of Heaven. A Pharisee could get there. A rich person could get there. Billy Graham could get there. A schoolteacher, a charity worker, Mother Teresa and Bono could get there, too. But not because of their good deeds.

Only if God makes it possible can a rich or “spiritual” person be saved. If you’re relying on good works, love for your neighbor, following the “golden rule” or charity work, you won’t get in.

Like many people, I heard this teaching of Christianity through all my life: salvation is only from Jesus, good works won’t save you, and so on. But it took someone debunking the wrong idea of this passage for me to see that this truth was here too.

Jesus was consistent. He did not spout off a Book-of-Proverbs-style statement to confuse us. He said He was the only way to enter the Kingdom, and He stayed on message, always.

Isn’t this meaning almost exactly opposite to how the verse is read today?

New strains of “Christians” (real and otherwise) pushing for “social justice” may hear the needle’s-eye-gate myth, debunk it, and claim real Christians should see wealth as inherently evil. But to borrow another metaphor only Christ could create, they’ve caught a gnat-sized error in their strainer — but swallowed a camel.

If you trust in your riches and charity work instead of Christ, you’ll die. Trust in some notion of virtuous poverty and caring for the needy? You’ll also die. All people’s own “righteousness” amount to filthy rags in His sight (Isaiah 64:6), and without the right faith, any good deed mutates into sin (Romans 14:23, Hebrews 11:6). Only Christ through His fulfillment of the Law (the real one) and suffering and death as an atoning sacrifice for sins (1 John 4:10), not human works or “righteousness,” can save.

Was there ever a “needle’s eye gate” in first-century Jerusalem?

Every once in a while you hear this anecdote tossed about in reference to Jesus’ famous metaphor in Matthew 19¹. It goes like this: in Jerusalem of Jesus’ day, there was a very small, very tight passage through which it was really hard to get a camel. So that is what Jesus was talking about.

The better commentaries and study-Bible notes² bust that myth: there was no such gate. The only sources for that idea are commentaries long after the first century. To say Jesus meant it was only pretty hard for the rich to get into the Kingdom, not impossible, rejects the true meaning.

But there is an even greater error Christians believe based on that verse.

Have you heard of it? Nowadays, with all the “social gospel,” Christianity-is-about-helping-your-neighbor-and-feeding-the-poor notions around, it’s even more prevalent.

Ye have heard that it was said …

The Bible says rich people’s money may keep them from the Kingdom.

AKA: Jesus opposes wealth.

Figure A:

Many fundamentalists seek to explain away the obvious hostility to wealth in the saying attributed to Jesus [. . .] Unfortunately for the fundamentalists, the concensus [sic] of New Testament scholars is that Matthew’s passage barring rich people from heaven means exactly what it says. It remains to be seen how many of them are willing to give up all their wealth in accordance with the ideals they claim to profess.³

What’s the truth in this?

Everyone knows about the “prosperity preachers,” who talk and act as if all the blessings for believers in the Bible refer to material wealth if you’re only do this-and-such faith maneuver. It would be grave error to think that just because the “poverty is more Biblical” idea is wrong, the opposite extreme is the more-Biblical view. …

What’s the lie in this?

Jesus is not making some statement about the Virtuous Poor, or about how only too many possessions get in the way of true faith. If He did, we would see it here. But read the whole passage — you don’t.

Absolutely we find encouragements in other Scriptures to give to others. That should be the God-given attitude of every Christian, out of gratitude for what God has given us. Barnabas, an encouragement-gifted apostle, started a land-donation “program” of sorts in the very early Church (Acts 5; also note that Ananias and Saffira were not condemned and struck dead for keeping profits but for lying to the Holy Spirit). Paul encouraged not giving under compulsion, but from a heart that was cheerful (2 Corinthians 9). Nothing in the Bible supports forced redistribution of wealth by the church ⁴.

What’s the Word?

Jesus had talked to a rich man who was convinced he had kept all Ten Commandments. Jesus quizzed him about whether the man would be willing to give up all his wealth as well. But that was the young man’s idol. He simply left, sorrowful (v. 22).

(Continued in Camels and needles, the Kingdom and peoples, part 2.)