Was Jesus Wealthy? - Part 2

In a previous post, I dealt with some of the ideas put forth by prosperity preachers that Jesus was, in fact, a wealthy man. The impetus for these posts comes from an article at CNN.com that you can find here.

Biblical and historical ignorance are on full display every time one of these Ministers of Materialism opens his or her mouth. There was so much I wanted to cover, I decided to split it up into 2 posts.

The argument for Jesus’ affluence continues:

[The Rev. C. Thomas] Anderson says Jesus never would have had disciples or a large following if he was poor. He would not have been able to command their respect.
"The poor will follow the rich, the rich will follow the rich, but the rich will never follow the poor," Anderson says.

But, what about Martin Luther King? And Mahatma Gandhi (who wore a diaper)? The article points out that they amassed quite a following without being paragons of opulence.

The Scriptural record is clear that the people followed Jesus because of the healing and the teaching. He taught things the religious establishment of that day did not. He offered hope in the form of reconciliation with God – something they cherished back then, and that seems to be lost on society today.

But this assertion points to a more troubling problem I have with the prosperity movement: the idea that we must ascend to greatness (i.e. material wealth) in order to be effectively used by God. This betrays a worldly and covetous heart, and it flies in the face of Biblical truth:

1Co 1:26-29 NIV Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. (27) But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. (28) He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, (29) so that no one may boast before him.

I pray that the peddlers of prosperity would spend less time feeding their flesh, and more time meditating on the Word of God.

Was Jesus Rich?

The prosperity preachers are really reaching in order to justify their religion of opulence. For years they’ve been spouting the nonsense that, contrary to centuries of understanding, Jesus was a materially wealthy man.

You see, they have to assert this falsehood in order to legitimize their own right to wealth (after all, they are the King’s Kids). This affluence is also available to their followers, who are willing to plant a fully deductible faith-seed into their ministry.

This article from CNN.com does a good job presenting both sides of the argument that Jesus was wealthy. Here are some quotes:

[Rev. C. Thomas] Anderson says Jesus couldn't have been poor because he received lucrative gifts -- gold, frankincense and myrrh -- at birth. Jesus had to be wealthy because the Roman soldiers who crucified him gambled for his expensive undergarments. Even Jesus' parents, Mary and Joseph, lived and traveled in style, he says. "Mary and Joseph took a Cadillac to get to Bethlehem because the finest transportation of their day was a donkey," says Anderson.

This is an example of blatant biblical ignorance coming from a supposed Man of God. Even a cursory glance at scripture will show that there is no mention of Mary and Joseph taking a donkey on their journey. That’s just the stuff of legend used to fill out a nativity scene at Christmas time.

Also, regarding the gold, frankincense, and myrrh, it’s widely agreed that these “lucrative gifts” were used to finance their trip to Egypt (remember that – fleeing from the murderous King Herod?). Presumably, Joseph had no carpenter clients in that area, so they would have used the gifts to live on during that time.

As for the soldiers gambling for His clothing? Records from that era show that this was a typical practice. Roman soldiers routinely gambled for any intact garment of a crucifixion victim. What wasn’t typical, though, was the crucifixion of the wealthy. This torturous death was reserved for the despised slaves and rebels.

More on this in the next post.