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Luke 12:13-21
One of MANY links to one of MANY translations of the Bible. I don’t care which you read, just read the Bible first: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2012%3A13-21&version=NLT
Frankly, this is a pretty easy passage to interpret. As they say, He who dies with the most toys, still dies. The context is pretty great. You can visualize this can’t you? Jesus is urging people to examine their hearts and root out any hint of concern for the praise of people. He is begging them to fearlessly pursue a life of God honouring humility out of gratitude for his intense, intimate care for us. He even warns people that loving and serving God can lead to persecution.
And then this dude in the crowd goes, “OK, but my brother won’t give me his money. Can you tell him he’s being a jerk.”
Instead of shaking his head and rolling his eyes, Jesus basically replies that he isn’t in family law. And can we just agree that Jesus is the absolute king of the segue??
He carries on, “But now that you mention it, since we were talking about people’s hearts and underlying motivations, the accumulation of wealth is a dangerous one. Jesus warns all of his hearers to protect themselves from greed. A person’s life is not measured by possessions, and when they become the source of our security and pleasure, we are in danger of losing what actually matters. Again Jesus urges his listeners to orient themselves toward God even in their attitude toward material possessions. At the end of our lives, there will be no benefit to having stuff piled up. Literally, a second after your last breath it will have absolutely no significance whether you died penniless all alone, or in a palace surrounded by the best medical minds in the world. But if we have spent our time and effort on this planet working to know and become more like Jesus, we have invested in incorruptible wealth that death can’t take from us.
