_"How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the
kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to enter in
through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the
kingdom of God._"--LUKE xviii. 24, 25.
I
The most significant thing in the teaching of Jesus concerning money is
the large place which it fills in the records of our Lord's public
ministry. How large that place is few of us, perhaps, realize. Even
religious writers who take in hand to set forth Christ's teaching in
detail, for the most part, pass over this subject in silence. In
Hastings' great _Dictionary of the Bible_ we find, under "Money," a most
elaborate article, extending to nearly twenty pages, and discussing with
great fullness and learning the coinage of various Biblical periods; but
when we seek to know what the New Testament has to say concerning the
use and perils of wealth, the whole subject is dismissed in some nine
lines.
Very different is the impression which we receive from the Gospels
themselves. It is not possible here to bring together all Christ's words
about money, but we may take the third Gospel (in which the references
to the subject are most numerous) and note Christ's more striking
sayings in the order in which they occur. In the parable of the sower,
in the eighth chapter, the thorns which choke the good seed are the
"cares and riches and pleasures of this life." Chapter twelve contains a
warning against covetousness, enforced by the parable of the rich fool
and its sharp-pointed application, "So is he that layeth up treasure for
himself, and is not rich toward God." The fourteenth chapter sheds a new
light on the law of hospitality: "When thou makest a dinner or a supper,
call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor rich
neighbours ... but when thou makest a feast, bid the poor, the maimed,
the lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blessed." Chapter fifteen tells
how a certain son wasted his substance with riotous living. Chapter
sixteen opens with the parable of the unjust steward; then follow
weighty words touching the right use of "the mammon of unrighteousness."
But the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, when they heard these
things, "scoffed at Him." Christ's answer is the parable of Dives and
Lazarus, with which the chapter closes. Chapter eighteen tells of a rich
young ruler's choice, and of Christ's sorrowful comment thereon: "How
hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God." And
then, lastly, in the nineteenth chapter, we hear Zacchæus, into whose
home and heart Christ had entered, resolving on the threshold of his new
life that henceforth the half of his goods he would give to the poor,
and that where he had wrongfully exacted aught of any man he would
restore four-fold. It is indeed a remarkable fact, the full significance
of which few Christians have yet realized, that, as John Ruskin says,
the subject which we might have expected a Divine Teacher would have
been content to leave to others is the very one He singles out on which
to speak parables for all men's memory.[49]