dividing the inheritance

165:4.1As the apos­tles bap­tized be­liev­ers, the Mas­ter talked with those who tar­ried. And a cer­tain young man said to him: “Mas­ter, my fa­ther died leav­ing much prop­erty to me and my brother, but my brother re­fuses to give me that which is my own. Will you, then, bid my brother di­vide this in­her­i­tance with me?” Je­sus was mildly in­dig­nant that this ma­te­rial-minded youth should bring up for dis­cus­sion such a ques­tion of busi­ness; but he pro­ceeded to use the oc­ca­sion for the im­par­ta­tion of fur­ther in­struc­tion. Said Je­sus: “Man, who made me a di­vider over you? Where did you get the idea that I give at­ten­tion to the ma­te­rial af­fairs of this world?” And then, turn­ing to all who were about him, he said: “Take heed and keep your­selves free from cov­etous­ness; a man’s life con­sists not in the abun­dance of the things which he may pos­sess. Hap­pi­ness comes not from the power of wealth, and joy springs not from riches. Wealth, in it­self, is not a curse, but the love of riches many times leads to such de­vo­tion to the things of this world that the soul be­comes blinded to the beau­ti­ful at­trac­tions of the spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties of the king­dom of God on earth and to the joys of eter­nal life in heaven.

165:4.2“Let me tell you a story of a cer­tain rich man whose ground brought forth plen­ti­fully; and when he had be­come very rich, he be­gan to rea­son with him­self, say­ing: ‘What shall I do with all my riches? I now have so much that I have no place to store my wealth.’ And when he had med­i­tated on his prob­lem, he said: ‘This I will do; I will pull down my barns and build greater ones, and thus will I have abun­dant room in which to store my fruits and my goods. Then can I say to my soul, soul, you have much wealth laid up for many years; take now your ease; eat, drink, and be merry, for you are rich and in­creased in goods.’

165:4.3“But this rich man was also fool­ish. In pro­vid­ing for the ma­te­rial re­quire­ments of his mind and body, he had failed to lay up trea­sures in heaven for the sat­is­fac­tion of the spirit and for the sal­va­tion of the soul. And even then he was not to en­joy the plea­sure of con­sum­ing his hoarded wealth, for that very night was his soul re­quired of him. That night there came the brig­ands who broke into his house to kill him, and af­ter they had plun­dered his barns, they burned that which re­mained. And for the prop­erty which es­caped the rob­bers his heirs fell to fight­ing among them­selves. This man laid up trea­sures for him­self on earth, but he was not rich to­ward God.”

165:4.4Je­sus thus dealt with the young man and his in­her­i­tance be­cause he knew that his trou­ble was cov­etous­ness. Even if this had not been the case, the Mas­ter would not have in­ter­fered, for he never med­dled with the tem­po­ral af­fairs of even his apos­tles, much less his dis­ci­ples.

165:4.5When Je­sus had fin­ished his story, an­other man rose up and asked him: “Mas­ter, I know that your apos­tles have sold all their earthly pos­ses­sions to fol­low you, and that they have all things in com­mon as do the Es­senes, but would you have all of us who are your dis­ci­ples do like­wise? Is it a sin to pos­sess hon­est wealth?” And Je­sus replied to this ques­tion: “My friend, it is not a sin to have hon­or­able wealth; but it is a sin if you con­vert the wealth of ma­te­rial pos­ses­sions into trea­sures which may ab­sorb your in­ter­ests and di­vert your af­fec­tions from de­vo­tion to the spir­i­tual pur­suits of the king­dom. There is no sin in hav­ing hon­est pos­ses­sions on earth pro­vided your trea­sure is in heaven, for where your trea­sure is there will your heart be also. There is a great dif­fer­ence be­tween wealth which leads to cov­etous­ness and self­ish­ness and that which is held and dis­pensed in the spirit of stew­ard­ship by those who have an abun­dance of this world’s goods, and who so boun­ti­fully con­tribute to the sup­port of those who de­vote all their en­er­gies to the work of the king­dom. Many of you who are here and with­out money are fed and lodged in yon­der tented city be­cause lib­eral men and women of means have given funds to your host, David Zeb­e­dee, for such pur­poses.

165:4.6“But never for­get that, af­ter all, wealth is un­en­dur­ing. The love of riches all too of­ten ob­scures and even de­stroys the spir­i­tual vi­sion. Fail not to rec­og­nize the dan­ger of wealth’s be­com­ing, not your ser­vant, but your mas­ter.”

165:4.7Je­sus did not teach nor coun­te­nance im­prov­i­dence, idle­ness, in­dif­fer­ence to pro­vid­ing the phys­i­cal ne­ces­si­ties for one’s fam­ily, or de­pen­dence upon alms. But he did teach that the ma­te­rial and tem­po­ral must be sub­or­di­nated to the wel­fare of the soul and the prog­ress of the spir­i­tual na­ture in the king­dom of heaven.

165:4.8Then, as the peo­ple went down by the river to wit­ness the bap­tiz­ing, the first man came pri­vately to Je­sus about his in­her­i­tance inas­much as he thought Je­sus had dealt harshly with him; and when the Mas­ter had again heard him, he replied: “My son, why do you miss the op­por­tu­nity to feed upon the bread of life on a day like this in or­der to in­dulge your cov­etous dis­po­si­tion? Do you not know that the Jew­ish laws of in­her­i­tance will be justly ad­min­is­tered if you will go with your com­plaint to the court of the syn­a­gogue? Can you not see that my work has to do with mak­ing sure that you know about your heav­enly in­her­i­tance? Have you not read the Scrip­ture: ‘There is he who waxes rich by his wari­ness and much pinch­ing, and this is the por­tion of his re­ward: Whereas he says, I have found rest and now shall be able to eat con­tin­u­ally of my goods, yet he knows not what time shall bring upon him, and also that he must leave all these things to oth­ers when he dies.’ Have you not read the com­mand­ment: ‘You shall not covet.’ And again, ‘They have eaten and filled them­selves and waxed fat, and then did they turn to other gods.’ Have you read in the Psalms that ‘the Lord ab­hors the cov­etous,’ and that ‘the lit­tle a righ­teous man has is bet­ter than the riches of many wicked.’ ‘If riches in­crease, set not your heart upon them.’ Have you read where Jeremiah said, ‘Let not the rich man glory in his riches’; and Eze­kiel spoke truth when he said, ‘With their mouths they make a show of love, but their hearts are set upon their own self­ish gain.’”

165:4.9Je­sus sent the young man away, say­ing to him, “My son, what shall it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul?”

165:4.10To an­other stand­ing near by who asked Je­sus how the wealthy would stand in the day of judg­ment, he replied: “I have come to judge nei­ther the rich nor the poor, but the lives men live will sit in judg­ment on all. What­ever else may con­cern the wealthy in the judg­ment, at least three ques­tions must be an­swered by all who ac­quire great wealth, and these ques­tions are:

165:4.11“1. How much wealth did you ac­cu­mu­late?

165:4.12“2. How did you get this wealth?

165:4.13“3. How did you use your wealth?”

165:4.14Then Je­sus went into his tent to rest for a while be­fore the evening meal. When the apos­tles had fin­ished with the bap­tiz­ing, they came also and would have talked with him about wealth on earth and trea­sure in heaven, but he was asleep.