wealth

• divinely watered souls are independent of material environment

34:6.8It is the pres­ence of the di­vine Spirit, the wa­ter of life, that pre­vents the con­sum­ing thirst of mor­tal dis­con­tent and that in­de­scrib­able hunger of the un­spir­i­tu­al­ized hu­man mind. Spirit-mo­ti­vated be­ings “never thirst, for this spir­i­tual wa­ter shall be in them a well of sat­is­fac­tion spring­ing up into life ev­er­last­ing.” Such di­vinely wa­tered souls are all but in­de­pen­dent of ma­te­rial en­vi­ron­ment as re­gards the joys of liv­ing and the sat­is­fac­tions of earthly ex­is­tence. They are spir­i­tu­ally il­lu­mi­nated and re­freshed, morally strength­ened and en­dowed.

• acquiring › results from labor, knowledge, and organization

69:2.2Be­fore the dawn of early fru­gal­ity and prim­i­tive in­dus­try the lot of the av­er­age tribe was one of des­ti­tu­tion and real suf­fer­ing. Early man had to com­pete with the whole an­i­mal world for his food. Com­pe­ti­tion-grav­ity ever pulls man down to­ward the beast level; pov­erty is his nat­u­ral and tyran­ni­cal es­tate. Wealth is not a nat­u­ral gift; it re­sults from la­bor, knowl­edge, and or­ga­ni­za­tion.

• historically › early badge of social distinction

69:5.12As civ­i­liza­tion de­vel­oped, men ac­quired new in­cen­tives for sav­ing; new wants were rapidly added to the orig­i­nal food hunger. Pov­erty be­came so ab­horred that only the rich were sup­posed to go di­rect to heaven when they died. Prop­erty be­came so highly val­ued that to give a pre­ten­tious feast would wipe a dis­honor from one’s name.

69:5.13Ac­cu­mu­la­tions of wealth early be­came the badge of so­cial dis­tinc­tion. In­di­vid­u­als in cer­tain tribes would ac­cu­mu­late prop­erty for years just to cre­ate an im­pres­sion by burn­ing it up on some hol­i­day or by freely dis­tribut­ing it to fel­low tribes­men. This made them great men. Even mod­ern peo­ples revel in the lav­ish dis­tri­bu­tion of Christ­mas gifts, while rich men en­dow great in­sti­tu­tions of phi­lan­thropy and learn­ing. Man’s tech­nique varies, but his dis­po­si­tion re­mains quite un­changed.

• historically › many primitive rich men distributed w. from fear of assassination
• historically › slaves commonly sacrificed to show disdain for w.

69:5.14But it is only fair to re­cord that many an an­cient rich man dis­tributed much of his for­tune be­cause of the fear of be­ing killed by those who cov­eted his trea­sures. Wealthy men com­monly sac­ri­ficed scores of slaves to show dis­dain for wealth.

• historically › belief only the rich survived death with dignity

69:9.42. Re­li­gious ten­den­cies. Prim­i­tive man also wanted to save up prop­erty as a nu­cleus for start­ing life in the next ex­is­tence. This mo­tive ex­plains why it was so long the cus­tom to bury a man’s per­sonal be­long­ings with him. The an­cients be­lieved that only the rich sur­vived death with any im­me­di­ate plea­sure and dig­nity. The teach­ers of re­vealed re­li­gion, more es­pe­cially the Chris­tian teach­ers, were the first to pro­claim that the poor could have sal­va­tion on equal terms with the rich.

• historically › kings often confiscated goods of wealthy men

69:9.64. The urge for se­cu­rity and power. Com­mu­nism was fi­nally de­stroyed by the de­cep­tive prac­tices of pro­gres­sive and suc­cess­ful in­di­vid­u­als who re­sorted to di­verse sub­terfuges in an ef­fort to es­cape en­slave­ment to the shift­less idlers of their tribes. But at first all hoard­ing was se­cret; prim­i­tive in­se­cu­rity pre­vented the out­ward ac­cu­mu­la­tion of cap­i­tal. And even at a later time it was most dan­ger­ous to amass too much wealth; the king would be sure to trump up some charge for con­fis­cat­ing a rich man’s prop­erty, and when a wealthy man died, the fu­neral was held up un­til the fam­ily do­nated a large sum to pub­lic wel­fare or to the king, an in­her­i­tance tax.

• persons possessing wealth › in continental nation

72:5.10Two hun­dred years ago the profit mo­tive was wholly dom­i­nant in in­dus­try, but to­day it is be­ing rapidly dis­placed by other and higher driv­ing forces. Com­pe­ti­tion is keen on this con­ti­nent, but much of it has been trans­ferred from in­dus­try to play, skill, sci­en­tific achieve­ment, and in­tel­lec­tual at­tain­ment. It is most ac­tive in so­cial ser­vice and gov­ern­men­tal loy­alty. Among this peo­ple pub­lic ser­vice is rapidly be­com­ing the chief goal of am­bi­tion. The rich­est man on the con­ti­nent works six hours a day in the of­fice of his ma­chine shop and then has­tens over to the lo­cal branch of the school of states­man­ship, where he seeks to qual­ify for pub­lic ser­vice.

• historically › disgust for unearned w. in continental nation

72:5.12These peo­ple are also be­gin­ning to fos­ter a new form of so­cial dis­gust—dis­gust for both idle­ness and un­earned wealth. Slowly but cer­tainly they are con­quer­ing their ma­chines. Once they, too, strug­gled for po­lit­i­cal lib­erty and sub­se­quently for eco­nomic free­dom. Now are they en­ter­ing upon the en­joy­ment of both while in ad­di­tion they are be­gin­ning to ap­pre­ci­ate their well-earned leisure, which can be de­voted to in­creased self-re­al­iza­tion.

• historically › prosperity believed provocative of envy of evil spirits

87:5.4Hu­man pros­per­ity was sup­posed to be es­pe­cially provoca­tive of the envy of evil spir­its, and their method of re­tal­i­a­tion was to strike back through a hu­man agency and by the tech­nique of the evil eye. That phase of the cult which had to do with spirit avoid­ance was much con­cerned with the machi­na­tions of the evil eye. The fear of it be­came al­most world-wide. Pretty women were veiled to pro­tect them from the evil eye; sub­se­quently many women who de­sired to be con­sid­ered beau­ti­ful adopted this prac­tice. Be­cause of this fear of bad spir­its, chil­dren were sel­dom al­lowed out af­ter dark, and the early prayers al­ways in­cluded the pe­ti­tion, “de­liver us from the evil eye.”

• historically › ancients bargained with gods to obtain prosperity

89:8.6But the idea of mak­ing a covenant with the gods did fi­nally ar­rive. Evo­lu­tion­ary man even­tu­ally ac­quired such moral dig­nity that he dared to bar­gain with his gods. And so the busi­ness of of­fer­ing sac­ri­fices grad­u­ally de­vel­oped into the game of man’s philo­sophic bar­gain­ing with God. And all this rep­re­sented a new de­vice for in­sur­ing against bad luck or, rather, an en­hanced tech­nique for the more def­i­nite pur­chase of pros­per­ity. Do not en­ter­tain the mis­taken idea that these early sac­ri­fices were a free gift to the gods, a spon­ta­neous of­fer­ing of grat­i­tude or thanks­giv­ing; they were not ex­pres­sions of true wor­ship.

• historically › Amenemope taught w. was gift of God

95:4.2Amen­emope taught that riches and for­tune were the gift of God, and this con­cept thor­oughly col­ored the later ap­pear­ing He­brew phi­los­o­phy. This no­ble teacher be­lieved that God-con­scious­ness was the de­ter­min­ing fac­tor in all con­duct; that ev­ery mo­ment should be lived in the re­al­iza­tion of the pres­ence of, and re­spon­si­bil­ity to, God. The teach­ings of this sage were sub­se­quently trans­lated into He­brew and be­came the sa­cred book of that peo­ple long be­fore the Old Tes­ta­ment was re­duced to writ­ing. The chief preach­ment of this good man had to do with in­struct­ing his son in up­right­ness and hon­esty in gov­ern­men­tal po­si­tions of trust, and these no­ble sen­ti­ments of long ago would do honor to any mod­ern states­man.

• historically › gave no Egyptian legal advantage under Ikhnaton

95:5.8The su­preme word of Ikh­na­ton’s re­li­gion in daily life was “righ­teous­ness,” and he rapidly ex­panded the con­cept of right do­ing to em­brace in­ter­na­tional as well as na­tional ethics. This was a gen­er­a­tion of amaz­ing per­sonal piety and was char­ac­ter­ized by a gen­uine as­pi­ra­tion among the more in­tel­li­gent men and women to find God and to know him. In those days so­cial po­si­tion or wealth gave no Egyp­tian any ad­van­tage in the eyes of the law. The fam­ily life of Egypt did much to pre­serve and aug­ment moral cul­ture and was the in­spi­ra­tion of the later su­perb fam­ily life of the Jews in Pales­tine.

• historically › prosperity was reward of serving El Shaddai

96:1.6One of the dom­i­nant ideas of the re­li­gion of this era was the Egyp­tian con­cept of di­vine Prov­i­dence, the teach­ing that ma­te­rial pros­per­ity was a re­ward for serv­ing El Shad­dai.

• acquiring › psychic circle attainment augments potential for material prosperity

110:6.19There is only an in­di­rect re­la­tion be­tween cos­mic-cir­cle at­tain­ment and ac­tual spir­i­tual re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence; such at­tain­ments are re­cip­ro­cal and there­fore mu­tu­ally ben­e­fi­cial. Purely spir­i­tual de­vel­op­ment may have lit­tle to do with plan­e­tary ma­te­rial pros­per­ity, but cir­cle at­tain­ment al­ways aug­ments the po­ten­tial of hu­man suc­cess and mor­tal achieve­ment.

• dangers › undeserved w. may be greatest human affliction

118:10.9Some of the amaz­ingly for­tu­itous con­di­tions oc­ca­sion­ally pre­vail­ing on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds may be due to the grad­u­ally emerg­ing pres­ence of the Su­preme, the fore­tast­ing of his fu­ture uni­verse ac­tiv­i­ties. Most of what a mor­tal would call prov­i­den­tial is not; his judg­ment of such mat­ters is very hand­i­capped by lack of far­sighted vi­sion into the true mean­ings of the cir­cum­stances of life. Much of what a mor­tal would call good luck might re­ally be bad luck; the smile of for­tune that be­stows un­earned leisure and un­de­served wealth may be the great­est of hu­man af­flic­tions; the ap­par­ent cru­elty of a per­verse fate that heaps tribu­la­tion upon some suf­fer­ing mor­tal may in re­al­ity be the tem­per­ing fire that is trans­mut­ing the soft iron of im­ma­ture per­son­al­ity into the tem­pered steel of real char­ac­ter.

• historically › lack of w. did not imply social inferiority in Nazareth

126:5.1Grad­u­ally Je­sus and his fam­ily re­turned to the sim­ple life of their ear­lier years. Their clothes and even their food be­came sim­pler. They had plenty of milk, but­ter, and cheese. In sea­son they en­joyed the pro­duce of their gar­den, but each pass­ing month ne­ces­si­tated the prac­tice of greater fru­gal­ity. Their break­fasts were very plain; they saved their best food for the evening meal. How­ever, among these Jews lack of wealth did not im­ply so­cial in­fe­ri­or­ity.

• persons possessing wealth › wealthy should administer w. as trustee for succeeding generations

132:5.1A cer­tain rich man, a Ro­man cit­i­zen and a Stoic, be­came greatly in­ter­ested in Je­sus’ teach­ing, hav­ing been in­tro­duced by Ang­a­mon. Af­ter many in­ti­mate con­fer­ences this wealthy cit­i­zen asked Je­sus what he would do with wealth if he had it, and Je­sus an­swered him: “I would be­stow ma­te­rial wealth for the en­hance­ment of ma­te­rial life, even as I would min­is­ter knowl­edge, wis­dom, and spir­i­tual ser­vice for the en­rich­ment of the in­tel­lec­tual life, the en­no­ble­ment of the so­cial life, and the ad­vance­ment of the spir­i­tual life. I would ad­min­is­ter ma­te­rial wealth as a wise and ef­fec­tive trus­tee of the re­sources of one gen­er­a­tion for the ben­e­fit and en­no­ble­ment of the next and suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions.”

• acquiring › 10 methods of amassing

132:5.2But the rich man was not fully sat­is­fied with Je­sus’ an­swer. He made bold to ask again: “But what do you think a man in my po­si­tion should do with his wealth? Should I keep it, or should I give it away?” And when Je­sus per­ceived that he re­ally de­sired to know more of the truth about his loy­alty to God and his duty to men, he fur­ther an­swered: “My good friend, I dis­cern that you are a sin­cere seeker af­ter wis­dom and an hon­est lover of truth; there­fore am I minded to lay be­fore you my view of the so­lu­tion of your prob­lems hav­ing to do with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of wealth. I do this be­cause you have asked for my coun­sel, and in giv­ing you this ad­vice, I am not con­cerned with the wealth of any other rich man; I am of­fer­ing ad­vice only to you and for your per­sonal guid­ance. If you hon­estly de­sire to re­gard your wealth as a trust, if you re­ally wish to be­come a wise and ef­fi­cient stew­ard of your ac­cu­mu­lated wealth, then would I coun­sel you to make the fol­low­ing anal­y­sis of the sources of your riches: Ask your­self, and do your best to find the hon­est an­swer, whence came this wealth? And as a help in the study of the sources of your great for­tune, I would sug­gest that you bear in mind the fol­low­ing ten dif­fer­ent meth­ods of amass­ing ma­te­rial wealth:

132:5.3“1. In­her­ited wealth—riches de­rived from par­ents and other an­ces­tors.

132:5.4“2. Dis­cov­ered wealth—riches de­rived from the un­cul­ti­vated re­sources of mother earth.

132:5.5“3. Trade wealth—riches ob­tained as a fair profit in the ex­change and barter of ma­te­rial goods.

• dangers › spiritual stigma when derived from oppression; restore unfair w. to rightful owners

132:5.6“4. Un­fair wealth—riches de­rived from the un­fair ex­ploita­tion or the en­slave­ment of one’s fel­lows.

132:5.7“5. In­ter­est wealth—in­come de­rived from the fair and just earn­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties of in­vested cap­i­tal.

132:5.8“6. Ge­nius wealth—riches ac­cru­ing from the re­wards of the cre­ative and in­ven­tive en­dow­ments of the hu­man mind.

132:5.9“7. Ac­ci­den­tal wealth—riches de­rived from the gen­eros­ity of one’s fel­lows or tak­ing ori­gin in the cir­cum­stances of life.

132:5.10“8. Stolen wealth—riches se­cured by un­fair­ness, dis­hon­esty, theft, or fraud.

132:5.11“9. Trust funds—wealth lodged in your hands by your fel­lows for some spe­cific use, now or in the fu­ture.

132:5.12“10. Earned wealth—riches de­rived di­rectly from your own per­sonal la­bor, the fair and just re­ward of your own daily ef­forts of mind and body.

132:5.13“And so, my friend, if you would be a faith­ful and just stew­ard of your large for­tune, be­fore God and in ser­vice to men, you must ap­prox­i­mately di­vide your wealth into these ten grand di­vi­sions, and then pro­ceed to ad­min­is­ter each por­tion in ac­cor­dance with the wise and hon­est in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the laws of jus­tice, eq­uity, fair­ness, and true ef­fi­ciency; al­beit, the God of heaven would not con­demn you if some­times you erred, in doubt­ful sit­u­a­tions, on the side of mer­ci­ful and un­selfish re­gard for the dis­tress of the suf­fer­ing vic­tims of the un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances of mor­tal life. When in hon­est doubt about the eq­uity and jus­tice of ma­te­rial sit­u­a­tions, let your de­ci­sions fa­vor those who are in need, fa­vor those who suf­fer the mis­for­tune of un­de­served hard­ships.”

• do not dictate how rich men shall regard their w.

132:5.14Af­ter dis­cussing these mat­ters for sev­eral hours and in re­sponse to the rich man’s re­quest for fur­ther and more de­tailed in­struc­tion, Je­sus went on to am­plify his ad­vice, in sub­stance say­ing: “While I of­fer fur­ther sug­ges­tions con­cern­ing your at­ti­tude to­ward wealth, I would ad­mon­ish you to re­ceive my coun­sel as given only to you and for your per­sonal guid­ance. I speak only for my­self and to you as an in­quir­ing friend. I ad­jure you not to be­come a dic­ta­tor as to how other rich men shall re­gard their wealth. I would ad­vise you:

132:5.15“1. As stew­ard of in­her­ited wealth you should con­sider its sources. You are un­der moral obli­ga­tion to rep­re­sent the past gen­er­a­tion in the hon­est trans­mit­tal of le­git­i­mate wealth to suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions af­ter sub­tract­ing a fair toll for the ben­e­fit of the pres­ent gen­er­a­tion. But you are not ob­li­gated to per­pet­u­ate any dis­hon­esty or in­jus­tice in­volved in the un­fair ac­cu­mu­la­tion of wealth by your an­ces­tors. Any por­tion of your in­her­ited wealth which turns out to have been de­rived through fraud or un­fair­ness, you may dis­burse in ac­cor­dance with your con­vic­tions of jus­tice, gen­eros­ity, and resti­tu­tion. The re­main­der of your le­git­i­mate in­her­ited wealth you may use in eq­uity and trans­mit in se­cu­rity as the trus­tee of one gen­er­a­tion for an­other. Wise dis­crim­i­na­tion and sound judg­ment should dic­tate your de­ci­sions re­gard­ing the be­quest of riches to your suc­ces­sors.

132:5.16“2. Ev­ery­one who en­joys wealth as a re­sult of dis­cov­ery should re­mem­ber that one in­di­vid­ual can live on earth but a short sea­son and should, there­fore, make ad­e­quate pro­vi­sion for the shar­ing of these dis­cov­er­ies in help­ful ways by the largest pos­si­ble num­ber of his fel­low men. While the dis­cov­erer should not be de­nied all re­ward for ef­forts of dis­cov­ery, nei­ther should he self­ishly pre­sume to lay claim to all of the ad­van­tages and bless­ings to be de­rived from the un­cov­er­ing of na­ture’s hoarded re­sources.

132:5.17“3. As long as men choose to con­duct the world’s busi­ness by trade and barter, they are en­ti­tled to a fair and le­git­i­mate profit. Ev­ery trades­man de­serves wages for his ser­vices; the mer­chant is en­ti­tled to his hire. The fair­ness of trade and the hon­est treat­ment ac­corded one’s fel­lows in the or­ga­nized busi­ness of the world cre­ate many dif­fer­ent sorts of profit wealth, and all these sources of wealth must be judged by the high­est prin­ci­ples of jus­tice, hon­esty, and fair­ness. The hon­est trader should not hes­i­tate to take the same profit which he would gladly ac­cord his fel­low trader in a sim­i­lar trans­ac­tion. While this sort of wealth is not iden­ti­cal with in­di­vid­u­ally earned in­come when busi­ness deal­ings are con­ducted on a large scale, at the same time, such hon­estly ac­cu­mu­lated wealth en­dows its pos­ses­sor with a con­sid­er­able eq­uity as re­gards a voice in its sub­se­quent dis­tri­bu­tion.

• dangers › spiritual stigma when derived from oppression; restore unfair w. to rightful owners

132:5.18“4. No mor­tal who knows God and seeks to do the di­vine will can stoop to en­gage in the op­pres­sions of wealth. No no­ble man will strive to ac­cu­mu­late riches and amass wealth-power by the en­slave­ment or un­fair ex­ploita­tion of his broth­ers in the flesh. Riches are a moral curse and a spir­i­tual stigma when they are de­rived from the sweat of op­pressed mor­tal man. All such wealth should be re­stored to those who have thus been robbed or to their chil­dren and their chil­dren’s chil­dren. An en­dur­ing civ­i­liza­tion can­not be built upon the prac­tice of de­fraud­ing the la­borer of his hire.

132:5.19“5. Hon­est wealth is en­ti­tled to in­ter­est. As long as men bor­row and lend, that which is fair in­ter­est may be col­lected pro­vided the cap­i­tal lent was le­git­i­mate wealth. First cleanse your cap­i­tal be­fore you lay claim to the in­ter­est. Do not be­come so small and grasp­ing that you would stoop to the prac­tice of usury. Never per­mit your­self to be so self­ish as to em­ploy money-power to gain un­fair ad­van­tage over your strug­gling fel­lows. Yield not to the temp­ta­tion to take usury from your brother in fi­nan­cial dis­tress.

132:5.20“6. If you chance to se­cure wealth by flights of ge­nius, if your riches are de­rived from the re­wards of in­ven­tive en­dow­ment, do not lay claim to an un­fair por­tion of such re­wards. The ge­nius owes some­thing to both his an­ces­tors and his progeny; like­wise is he un­der obli­ga­tion to the race, na­tion, and cir­cum­stances of his in­ven­tive dis­cov­er­ies; he should also re­mem­ber that it was as man among men that he la­bored and wrought out his in­ven­tions. It would be equally un­just to de­prive the ge­nius of all his in­cre­ment of wealth. And it will ever be im­pos­si­ble for men to es­tab­lish rules and reg­u­la­tions ap­pli­ca­ble equally to all these prob­lems of the eq­ui­table dis­tri­bu­tion of wealth. You must first rec­og­nize man as your brother, and if you hon­estly de­sire to do by him as you would have him do by you, the com­mon­place dic­tates of jus­tice, hon­esty, and fair­ness will guide you in the just and im­par­tial set­tle­ment of ev­ery re­cur­ring prob­lem of eco­nomic re­wards and so­cial jus­tice.

• persons possessing wealth › wealthy should not look on all they control as private possession

132:5.21“7. Ex­cept for the just and le­git­i­mate fees earned in ad­min­is­tra­tion, no man should lay per­sonal claim to that wealth which time and chance may cause to fall into his hands. Ac­ci­den­tal riches should be re­garded some­what in the light of a trust to be ex­pended for the ben­e­fit of one’s so­cial or eco­nomic group. The pos­ses­sors of such wealth should be ac­corded the ma­jor voice in the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the wise and ef­fec­tive dis­tri­bu­tion of such un­earned re­sources. Civ­i­lized man will not al­ways look upon all that he con­trols as his per­sonal and pri­vate pos­ses­sion.

• dangers › spiritual stigma when derived from oppression; restore unfair w. to rightful owners

132:5.22“8. If any por­tion of your for­tune has been know­ingly de­rived from fraud; if aught of your wealth has been ac­cu­mu­lated by dis­hon­est prac­tices or un­fair meth­ods; if your riches are the prod­uct of un­just deal­ings with your fel­lows, make haste to re­store all these ill-got­ten gains to the right­ful own­ers. Make full amends and thus cleanse your for­tune of all dis­hon­est riches.

132:5.23“9. The trustee­ship of the wealth of one per­son for the ben­e­fit of oth­ers is a solemn and sa­cred re­spon­si­bil­ity. Do not haz­ard or jeop­ar­dize such a trust. Take for your­self of any trust only that which all hon­est men would al­low.

132:5.24“10. That part of your for­tune which rep­re­sents the earn­ings of your own men­tal and phys­i­cal ef­forts—if your work has been done in fair­ness and eq­uity—is truly your own. No man can gain­say your right to hold and use such wealth as you may see fit pro­vided your ex­er­cise of this right does not work harm upon your fel­lows.”

132:5.25When Je­sus had fin­ished coun­sel­ing him, this wealthy Ro­man arose from his couch and, in say­ing farewell for the night, de­liv­ered him­self of this prom­ise: “My good friend, I per­ceive you are a man of great wis­dom and good­ness, and to­mor­row I will be­gin the ad­min­is­tra­tion of all my wealth in ac­cor­dance with your coun­sel.”

• historically › Moses taught righteousness rewarded by prosperity

135:5.1In or­der to un­der­stand John’s mes­sage, ac­count should be taken of the sta­tus of the Jew­ish peo­ple at the time he ap­peared upon the stage of ac­tion. For al­most one hun­dred years all Is­rael had been in a quandary; they were at a loss to ex­plain their con­tin­u­ous sub­ju­ga­tion to gen­tile over­lords. Had not Moses taught that righ­teous­ness was al­ways re­warded with pros­per­ity and power? Were they not God’s cho­sen peo­ple? Why was the throne of David des­o­late and va­cant? In the light of the Mo­saic doc­trines and the pre­cepts of the proph­ets the Jews found it dif­fi­cult to ex­plain their long-con­tin­ued na­tional des­o­la­tion.

• persons possessing wealth › wealthy should feed the poor

135:6.8John con­ducted classes for his dis­ci­ples, in the course of which he in­structed them in the de­tails of their new life and en­deav­ored to an­swer their many ques­tions. He coun­seled the teach­ers to in­struct in the spirit as well as the let­ter of the law. He in­structed the rich to feed the poor; to the tax gath­er­ers he said: “Ex­tort no more than that which is as­signed you.” To the sol­diers he said: “Do no vi­o­lence and ex­act noth­ing wrong­fully—be con­tent with your wages.” While he coun­seled all: “Make ready for the end of the age—the king­dom of heaven is at hand.”

• Jesus › decided against compromise with influence of riches

136:8.4Je­sus had trav­eled much; he re­called Rome, Alexan­dria, and Da­mas­cus. He knew the meth­ods of the world—how peo­ple gained their ends in pol­i­tics and com­merce by com­pro­mise and diplo­macy. Would he uti­lize this knowl­edge in the fur­ther­ance of his mis­sion on earth? No! He like­wise de­cided against all com­pro­mise with the wis­dom of the world and the in­flu­ence of riches in the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom. He again chose to de­pend ex­clu­sively on the Fa­ther’s will.

• Jesus › did not preach against w., rather its unfair distribution
• significance of wealth › no sin to possess honorable w., but love of w. diverts affections

140:8.154. Eco­nomic at­ti­tude. Je­sus worked, lived, and traded in the world as he found it. He was not an eco­nomic re­former, al­though he did fre­quently call at­ten­tion to the in­jus­tice of the un­equal dis­tri­bu­tion of wealth. But he did not of­fer any sug­ges­tions by way of rem­edy. He made it plain to the three that, while his apos­tles were not to hold prop­erty, he was not preach­ing against wealth and prop­erty, merely its un­equal and un­fair dis­tri­bu­tion. He rec­og­nized the need for so­cial jus­tice and in­dus­trial fair­ness, but he of­fered no rules for their at­tain­ment.

140:8.16He never taught his fol­low­ers to avoid earthly pos­ses­sions, only his twelve apos­tles. Luke, the physi­cian, was a strong be­liever in so­cial equal­ity, and he did much to in­ter­pret Je­sus’ say­ings in har­mony with his per­sonal be­liefs. Je­sus never per­son­ally di­rected his fol­low­ers to adopt a com­mu­nal mode of life; he made no pro­nounce­ment of any sort re­gard­ing such mat­ters.

140:8.17Je­sus fre­quently warned his lis­ten­ers against cov­etous­ness, declar­ing that “a man’s hap­pi­ness con­sists not in the abun­dance of his ma­te­rial pos­ses­sions.” He con­stantly re­it­er­ated, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” He made no di­rect at­tack on the pos­ses­sion of prop­erty, but he did in­sist that it is eter­nally es­sen­tial that spir­i­tual val­ues come first. In his later teach­ings he sought to cor­rect many er­ro­neous Uran­tia views of life by nar­rat­ing nu­mer­ous para­bles which he pre­sented in the course of his pub­lic min­istry. Je­sus never in­tended to for­mu­late eco­nomic the­o­ries; he well knew that each age must evolve its own reme­dies for ex­ist­ing trou­bles. And if Je­sus were on earth to­day, liv­ing his life in the flesh, he would be a great dis­ap­point­ment to the ma­jor­ity of good men and women for the sim­ple rea­son that he would not take sides in pres­ent-day po­lit­i­cal, so­cial, or eco­nomic dis­putes. He would re­main grandly aloof while teach­ing you how to per­fect your in­ner spir­i­tual life so as to ren­der you many­fold more com­pe­tent to at­tack the so­lu­tion of your purely hu­man prob­lems.

• dangers › harms majority of its devotees

140:8.18Je­sus would make all men God­like and then stand by sym­pa­thet­i­cally while these sons of God solve their own po­lit­i­cal, so­cial, and eco­nomic prob­lems. It was not wealth that he de­nounced, but what wealth does to the ma­jor­ity of its devo­tees. On this Thurs­day af­ter­noon Je­sus first told his as­so­ciates that “it is more blessed to give than to re­ceive.”

• Jesus › decided against compromise with influence of riches

141:7.8To in­sure the rec­og­ni­tion of his Fa­ther in the un­fold­ing of the plan of the king­dom, Je­sus ex­plained that he had pur­posely ig­nored the “great men of earth.” He be­gan his work with the poor, the very class which had been so ne­glected by most of the evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gions of pre­ced­ing times. He de­spised no man; his plan was world-wide, even uni­ver­sal. He was so bold and em­phatic in these an­nounce­ments that even Pe­ter, James, and John were tempted to think he might pos­si­bly be be­side him­self.

• significance of wealth › does not indicate God’s favor

148:6.2“My son, you do not com­pre­hend the mean­ing of ad­ver­sity or the mis­sion of suf­fer­ing. Have you not read that mas­ter­piece of Semitic lit­er­a­ture—the Scrip­ture story of the af­flic­tions of Job? Do you not re­call how this won­der­ful para­ble be­gins with the recital of the ma­te­rial pros­per­ity of the Lord’s ser­vant? You well re­mem­ber that Job was blessed with chil­dren, wealth, dig­nity, po­si­tion, health, and ev­ery­thing else which men value in this tem­po­ral life. Ac­cord­ing to the time-hon­ored teach­ings of the chil­dren of Abra­ham such ma­te­rial pros­per­ity was all-suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence of di­vine fa­vor. But such ma­te­rial pos­ses­sions and such tem­po­ral pros­per­ity do not in­di­cate God’s fa­vor. My Fa­ther in heaven loves the poor just as much as the rich; he is no re­specter of per­sons.

• dangers › harms majority of its devotees

151:2.2Af­ter a mo­ment of si­lence, Pe­ter said: “Mas­ter, we have talked much con­cern­ing the para­ble, and this is the in­ter­pre­ta­tion I have de­cided upon: The sower is the gospel preacher; the seed is the word of God. The seed which fell by the way­side rep­re­sents those who do not un­der­stand the gospel teach­ing. The birds which snatched away the seed that fell upon the hard­ened ground rep­re­sent Sa­tan, or the evil one, who steals away that which has been sown in the hearts of these ig­no­rant ones. The seed which fell upon the rocky places, and which sprang up so sud­denly, rep­re­sents those su­per­fi­cial and un­think­ing per­sons who, when they hear the glad tid­ings, re­ceive the mes­sage with joy; but be­cause the truth has no real root in their deeper un­der­stand­ing, their de­vo­tion is short-lived in the face of tribu­la­tion and per­se­cu­tion. When trou­ble comes, these be­liev­ers stum­ble; they fall away when tempted. The seed which fell among thorns rep­re­sents those who hear the word will­ingly, but who al­low the cares of the world and the de­ceit­ful­ness of riches to choke the word of truth so that it be­comes un­fruit­ful. Now the seed which fell on good ground and sprang up to bear, some thirty, some sixty, and some a hun­dred­fold, rep­re­sents those who, when they have heard the truth, re­ceive it with vary­ing de­grees of ap­pre­ci­a­tion—ow­ing to their dif­fer­ing in­tel­lec­tual en­dow­ments—and hence man­i­fest these vary­ing de­grees of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence.”

• acquiring › faithfulness will not insure rewards of
• acquiring › flows in well-organized channels; wise planning essential for

160:4.10It re­quires in­tel­li­gence to se­cure one’s share of the de­sir­able things of life. It is wholly er­ro­neous to sup­pose that faith­ful­ness in do­ing one’s daily work will in­sure the re­wards of wealth. Bar­ring the oc­ca­sional and ac­ci­den­tal ac­quire­ment of wealth, the ma­te­rial re­wards of the tem­po­ral life are found to flow in cer­tain well-or­ga­nized chan­nels, and only those who have ac­cess to these chan­nels may ex­pect to be well re­warded for their tem­po­ral ef­forts. Pov­erty must ever be the lot of all men who seek for wealth in iso­lated and in­di­vid­ual chan­nels. Wise plan­ning, there­fore, be­comes the one thing es­sen­tial to worldly pros­per­ity. Suc­cess re­quires not only de­vo­tion to one’s work but also that one should func­tion as a part of some one of the chan­nels of ma­te­rial wealth. If you are un­wise, you can be­stow a de­voted life upon your gen­er­a­tion with­out ma­te­rial re­ward; if you are an ac­ci­den­tal ben­e­fi­ciary of the flow of wealth, you may roll in lux­ury even though you have done noth­ing worth while for your fel­low men.

• persons possessing wealth › Jesus’ counsel to Matadormus

163:2.5Then said the young man: “But, Mas­ter, I am not con­tent to be your dis­ci­ple; I would be one of your new mes­sen­gers.” When Je­sus heard this, he looked down upon him with a great love and said: “I will have you to be one of my mes­sen­gers if you are will­ing to pay the price, if you will sup­ply the one thing which you lack.” Mata­dor­mus replied: “Mas­ter, I will do any­thing if I may be al­lowed to fol­low you.” Je­sus, kiss­ing the kneel­ing young man on the fore­head, said: “If you would be my mes­sen­ger, go and sell all that you have and, when you have be­stowed the pro­ceeds upon the poor or upon your breth­ren, come and fol­low me, and you shall have trea­sure in the king­dom of heaven.”

• historically › w. betokened divine approval for Jews
• significance of wealth › w. is of no consequence if it does not invade soul

163:2.6When Mata­dor­mus heard this, his coun­te­nance fell. He arose and went away sor­row­ful, for he had great pos­ses­sions. This wealthy young Phar­isee had been raised to be­lieve that wealth was the to­ken of God’s fa­vor. Je­sus knew that he was not free from the love of him­self and his riches. The Mas­ter wanted to de­liver him from the love of wealth, not nec­es­sar­ily from the wealth. While the dis­ci­ples of Je­sus did not part with all their worldly goods, the apos­tles and the sev­enty did. Mata­dor­mus de­sired to be one of the sev­enty new mes­sen­gers, and that was the rea­son for Je­sus’ re­quir­ing him to part with all of his tem­po­ral pos­ses­sions.

• dangers › love of w. incompatible with spiritual loyalties

163:2.10Riches have noth­ing di­rectly to do with en­trance into the king­dom of heaven, but the love of wealth does. The spir­i­tual loy­al­ties of the king­dom are in­com­pat­i­ble with ser­vil­ity to ma­te­ri­al­is­tic mam­mon. Man may not share his su­preme loy­alty to a spir­i­tual ideal with a ma­te­rial de­vo­tion.

163:2.11Je­sus never taught that it was wrong to have wealth. He re­quired only the twelve and the sev­enty to ded­i­cate all of their worldly pos­ses­sions to the com­mon cause. Even then, he pro­vided for the prof­itable liq­ui­da­tion of their prop­erty, as in the case of the Apos­tle Mat­thew. Je­sus many times ad­vised his well-to-do dis­ci­ples as he taught the rich man of Rome. The Mas­ter re­garded the wise in­vest­ment of ex­cess earn­ings as a le­git­i­mate form of in­sur­ance against fu­ture and un­avoid­able ad­ver­sity. When the apos­tolic trea­sury was over­flow­ing, Ju­das put funds on de­posit to be used sub­se­quently when they might suf­fer greatly from a diminu­tion of in­come. This Ju­das did af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with An­drew. Je­sus never per­son­ally had any­thing to do with the apos­tolic fi­nances ex­cept in the dis­burse­ment of alms. But there was one eco­nomic abuse which he many times con­demned, and that was the un­fair ex­ploita­tion of the weak, un­learned, and less for­tu­nate of men by their strong, keen, and more in­tel­li­gent fel­lows. Je­sus de­clared that such in­hu­man treat­ment of men, women, and chil­dren was in­com­pat­i­ble with the ide­als of the broth­er­hood of the king­dom of heaven.

• dangers › love of w. incompatible with spiritual loyalties

163:3.1By the time Je­sus had fin­ished talk­ing with Mata­dor­mus, Pe­ter and a num­ber of the apos­tles had gath­ered about him, and as the rich young man was de­part­ing, Je­sus turned around to face the apos­tles and said: “You see how dif­fi­cult it is for those who have riches to en­ter fully into the king­dom of God! Spir­i­tual wor­ship can­not be shared with ma­te­rial de­vo­tions; no man can serve two mas­ters. You have a say­ing that it is ‘eas­ier for a camel to go through the eye of a nee­dle than for the hea­then to in­herit eter­nal life.’ And I de­clare that it is as easy for this camel to go through the nee­dle’s eye as for these self-sat­is­fied rich ones to en­ter the king­dom of heaven.”

163:3.2When Pe­ter and the apos­tles heard these words, they were as­ton­ished ex­ceed­ingly, so much so that Pe­ter said: “Who then, Lord, can be saved? Shall all who have riches be kept out of the king­dom?” And Je­sus replied: “No, Pe­ter, but all who put their trust in riches shall hardly en­ter into the spir­i­tual life that leads to eter­nal prog­ress. But even then, much which is im­pos­si­ble to man is not be­yond the reach of the Fa­ther in heaven; rather should we rec­og­nize that with God all things are pos­si­ble.”

• significance of wealth › w. is of no consequence if it does not invade soul

163:3.3As they went off by them­selves, Je­sus was grieved that Mata­dor­mus did not re­main with them, for he greatly loved him. And when they had walked down by the lake, they sat there be­side the wa­ter, and Pe­ter, speak­ing for the twelve (who were all pres­ent by this time), said: “We are trou­bled by your words to the rich young man. Shall we re­quire those who would fol­low you to give up all their worldly goods?” And Je­sus said: “No, Pe­ter, only those who would be­come apos­tles, and who de­sire to live with me as you do and as one fam­ily. But the Fa­ther re­quires that the af­fec­tions of his chil­dren be pure and un­di­vided. What­ever thing or per­son comes be­tween you and the love of the truths of the king­dom, must be sur­ren­dered. If one’s wealth does not in­vade the precincts of the soul, it is of no con­se­quence in the spir­i­tual life of those who would en­ter the king­dom.”

• leaving w. for sake of kingdom

163:3.4And then said Pe­ter, “But, Mas­ter, we have left ev­ery­thing to fol­low you, what then shall we have?” And Je­sus spoke to all of the twelve: “Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, there is no man who has left wealth, home, wife, breth­ren, par­ents, or chil­dren for my sake and for the sake of the king­dom of heaven who shall not re­ceive man­i­fold more in this world, per­haps with some per­se­cu­tions, and in the world to come eter­nal life. But many who are first shall be last, while the last shall of­ten be first. The Fa­ther deals with his crea­tures in ac­cor­dance with their needs and in obe­di­ence to his just laws of mer­ci­ful and lov­ing con­sid­er­a­tion for the wel­fare of a uni­verse.

163:3.5“The king­dom of heaven is like a house­holder who was a large em­ployer of men, and who went out early in the morn­ing to hire la­bor­ers to work in his vine­yard. When he had agreed with the la­bor­ers to pay them a denar­ius a day, he sent them into the vine­yard. Then he went out about nine o’clock, and see­ing oth­ers stand­ing in the mar­ket place idle, he said to them: ‘Go you also to work in my vine­yard, and what­so­ever is right I will pay you.’ And they went at once to work. Again he went out about twelve and about three and did like­wise. And go­ing to the mar­ket place about five in the af­ter­noon, he found still oth­ers stand­ing idle, and he in­quired of them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all the day?’ And the men an­swered, ‘Be­cause no­body has hired us.’ Then said the house­holder: ‘Go you also to work in my vine­yard, and what­ever is right I will pay you.’

163:3.6“When evening came, this owner of the vine­yard said to his stew­ard: ‘Call the la­bor­ers and pay them their wages, be­gin­ning with the last hired and end­ing with the first.’ When those who were hired about five o’clock came, they re­ceived a denar­ius each, and so it was with each of the other la­bor­ers. When the men who were hired at the be­gin­ning of the day saw how the later com­ers were paid, they ex­pected to re­ceive more than the amount agreed upon. But like the oth­ers ev­ery man re­ceived only a denar­ius. And when each had re­ceived his pay, they com­plained to the house­holder, say­ing: ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour, and yet you have paid them the same as us who have borne the bur­den of the day in the scorch­ing sun.’

163:3.7“Then an­swered the house­holder: ‘My friends, I do you no wrong. Did not each of you agree to work for a denar­ius a day? Take now that which is yours and go your way, for it is my de­sire to give to those who came last as much as I have given to you. Is it not law­ful for me to do what I will with my own? or do you be­grudge my gen­eros­ity be­cause I de­sire to be good and to show mercy?’”

• dangers › love of w. incompatible with spiritual loyalties

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.

• significance of wealth › no sin to possess honorable w., but love of w. diverts affections

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.

• significance of wealth › is unenduring

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?”

• persons possessing wealth › 3 questions asked of the rich

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.

165:5.1That evening af­ter sup­per, when Je­sus and the twelve gath­ered to­gether for their daily con­fer­ence, An­drew asked: “Mas­ter, while we were bap­tiz­ing the be­liev­ers, you spoke many words to the lin­ger­ing mul­ti­tude which we did not hear. Would you be will­ing to re­peat these words for our ben­e­fit?” And in re­sponse to An­drew’s re­quest, Je­sus said:

165:5.2“Yes, An­drew, I will speak to you about these mat­ters of wealth and self-sup­port, but my words to you, the apos­tles, must be some­what dif­fer­ent from those spo­ken to the dis­ci­ples and the mul­ti­tude since you have for­saken ev­ery­thing, not only to fol­low me, but to be or­dained as am­bas­sadors of the king­dom. Al­ready have you had sev­eral years’ ex­pe­ri­ence, and you know that the Fa­ther whose king­dom you pro­claim will not for­sake you. You have ded­i­cated your lives to the min­istry of the king­dom; there­fore be not anx­ious or wor­ried about the things of the tem­po­ral life, what you shall eat, nor yet for your body, what you shall wear. The wel­fare of the soul is more than food and drink; the prog­ress in the spirit is far above the need of rai­ment. When you are tempted to doubt the sure­ness of your bread, con­sider the ravens; they sow not nei­ther reap, they have no store­houses or barns, and yet the Fa­ther pro­vides food for ev­ery one of them that seeks it. And of how much more value are you than many birds! Be­sides, all of your anx­i­ety or fret­ting doubts can do noth­ing to sup­ply your ma­te­rial needs. Which of you by anx­i­ety can add a hand­breadth to your stature or a day to your life? Since such mat­ters are not in your hands, why do you give anx­ious thought to any of these prob­lems?

165:5.3“Con­sider the lilies, how they grow; they toil not, nei­ther do they spin; yet I say to you, even Sol­o­mon in all his glory was not ar­rayed like one of these. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive to­day and to­mor­row is cut down and cast into the fire, how much more shall he clothe you, the am­bas­sadors of the heav­enly king­dom. O you of lit­tle faith! When you whole­heart­edly de­vote your­selves to the procla­ma­tion of the gospel of the king­dom, you should not be of doubt­ful minds con­cern­ing the sup­port of your­selves or the fam­i­lies you have for­saken. If you give your lives truly to the gospel, you shall live by the gospel. If you are only be­liev­ing dis­ci­ples, you must earn your own bread and con­tribute to the sus­te­nance of all who teach and preach and heal. If you are anx­ious about your bread and wa­ter, wherein are you dif­fer­ent from the na­tions of the world who so dili­gently seek such ne­ces­si­ties? De­vote your­selves to your work, be­liev­ing that both the Fa­ther and I know that you have need of all these things. Let me as­sure you, once and for all, that, if you ded­i­cate your lives to the work of the king­dom, all your real needs shall be sup­plied. Seek the greater thing, and the lesser will be found therein; ask for the heav­enly, and the earthly shall be in­cluded. The shadow is cer­tain to fol­low the sub­stance.

165:5.4“You are only a small group, but if you have faith, if you will not stum­ble in fear, I de­clare that it is my Fa­ther’s good plea­sure to give you this king­dom. You have laid up your trea­sures where the purse waxes not old, where no thief can de­spoil, and where no moth can de­stroy. And as I told the peo­ple, where your trea­sure is, there will your heart be also.

165:5.5“But in the work which is just ahead of us, and in that which re­mains for you af­ter I go to the Fa­ther, you will be griev­ously tried. You must all be on your watch against fear and doubts. Ev­ery one of you, gird up the loins of your minds and let your lamps be kept burn­ing. Keep your­selves like men who are watch­ing for their mas­ter to re­turn from the mar­riage feast so that, when he comes and knocks, you may quickly open to him. Such watch­ful ser­vants are blessed by the mas­ter who finds them faith­ful at such a great mo­ment. Then will the mas­ter make his ser­vants sit down while he him­self serves them. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you that a cri­sis is just ahead in your lives, and it be­hooves you to watch and be ready.

165:5.6“You well un­der­stand that no man would suf­fer his house to be bro­ken into if he knew what hour the thief was to come. Be you also on watch for your­selves, for in an hour that you least sus­pect and in a man­ner you think not, shall the Son of Man de­part.”

165:5.7For some min­utes the twelve sat in si­lence. Some of these warn­ings they had heard be­fore but not in the set­ting pre­sented to them at this time.

• historically › w. betokened divine approval for Jews
• persons possessing wealth › Jesus condemned the wealthy because they were usually wanton and irreligious; would commend consecrated, worshipful man of wealth

166:4.3“All too long have your fa­thers be­lieved that pros­per­ity was the to­ken of di­vine ap­proval; that ad­ver­sity was the proof of God’s dis­plea­sure. I de­clare that such be­liefs are su­per­sti­tions. Do you not ob­serve that far greater num­bers of the poor joy­fully re­ceive the gospel and im­me­di­ately en­ter the king­dom? If riches ev­i­dence di­vine fa­vor, why do the rich so many times refuse to be­lieve this good news from heaven?

169:3.1When the meet­ing be­came too noisy, Si­mon Pe­ter, stand­ing up, took charge, say­ing: “Men and breth­ren, it is not seemly thus to dis­pute among your­selves. The Mas­ter has spo­ken, and you do well to pon­der his words. And this is no new doc­trine which he pro­claimed to you. Have you not also heard the al­le­gory of the Nazarites con­cern­ing the rich man and the beg­gar? Some of us heard John the Bap­tist thun­der this para­ble of warn­ing to those who love riches and covet dis­hon­est wealth. And while this olden para­ble is not ac­cord­ing to the gospel we preach, you would all do well to heed its lessons un­til such a time as you com­pre­hend the new light of the king­dom of heaven. The story as John told it was like this:

169:3.2“There was a cer­tain rich man named Dives, who, be­ing clothed in pur­ple and fine linen, lived in mirth and splen­dor ev­ery day. And there was a cer­tain beg­gar named Laz­a­rus, who was laid at this rich man’s gate, cov­ered with sores and de­sir­ing to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s ta­ble; yes, even the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beg­gar died and was car­ried away by the an­gels to rest in Abra­ham’s bo­som. And then, pres­ently, this rich man also died and was buried with great pomp and re­gal splen­dor. When the rich man de­parted from this world, he waked up in Hades, and find­ing him­self in tor­ment, he lifted up his eyes and be­held Abra­ham afar off and Laz­a­rus in his bo­som. And then Dives cried aloud: ‘Fa­ther Abra­ham, have mercy on me and send over Laz­a­rus that he may dip the tip of his fin­ger in wa­ter to cool my tongue, for I am in great an­guish be­cause of my pun­ish­ment.’ And then Abra­ham replied: ‘My son, you should re­mem­ber that in your life­time you en­joyed the good things while Laz­a­rus in like man­ner suf­fered the evil. But now all this is changed, see­ing that Laz­a­rus is com­forted while you are tor­mented. And be­sides, be­tween us and you there is a great gulf so that we can­not go to you, nei­ther can you come over to us.’ Then said Dives to Abra­ham: ‘I pray you send Laz­a­rus back to my fa­ther’s house, inas­much as I have five broth­ers, that he may so tes­tify as to pre­vent my broth­ers from com­ing to this place of tor­ment.’ But Abra­ham said: ‘My son, they have Moses and the proph­ets; let them hear them.’ And then an­swered Dives: ‘No, No, Fa­ther Abra­ham! but if one go to them from the dead, they will re­pent.’ And then said Abra­ham: ‘If they hear not Moses and the proph­ets, nei­ther will they be per­suaded even if one were to rise from the dead.’”

169:3.3Af­ter Pe­ter had re­cited this an­cient para­ble of the Nazarite broth­er­hood, and since the crowd had qui­eted down, An­drew arose and dis­missed them for the night. Al­though both the apos­tles and his dis­ci­ples fre­quently asked Je­sus ques­tions about the para­ble of Dives and Laz­a­rus, he never con­sented to make com­ment thereon.

• persons possessing wealth › Jesus condemned the wealthy because they were usually wanton and irreligious; would commend consecrated, worshipful man of wealth

196:2.8Je­sus blessed the poor be­cause they were usu­ally sin­cere and pi­ous; he con­demned the rich be­cause they were usu­ally wan­ton and ir­re­li­gious. He would equally con­demn the ir­re­li­gious pau­per and com­mend the con­se­crated and wor­ship­ful man of wealth.