The rich and the kingdom of God (1)

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!" (Mark 10:23)

After returning of the rich man who came to Jesus with a question about eternal life Jesus now was teaching to his disciples about the relationship between the goods and the kingdom of God. He taught the difficulty of the rich to enter the kingdom of God

Here how much the size of the goods could be? There are four family members with 24 square meters apartment while three members with 50 square meters apartment. The latter has more goods comparatively. However, the family with 50 square meters apartment has lesser goods compare to the man with a condominium and a golf membership. The family with 24 square meters has more goods compares to the family with rent house in basement or top floor. For we have difficulty to confirm who is ‘the rich’ it is a little dangerous to generalize simply ‘the rich’.

However, if we follow our common sense there would be a certain degree. It would be not beyond the limit that others would blame. Then would it be the middle class of that society? Or is a little under the middle class? Even the same middle class the standard of Korea and Indonesian are totally different.

We have to see the above saying as rather than the matter of much or less of possession but the warning for possession oriented life. Luke’s gospel delivers us the teaching of the Lord following. “You cannot serve both God and Money." (Luke 16:13b) If we connectively think this teaching and the teaching the above, the above teaching clearly points out possession oriented nature. Possess, that is the goods is the product of human being we cannot reach to eternal life, the life of God. It is the same just as possession and existence are different.