Jesus to the rich young ruler: "distribute the money"

The problem begins with rendering unto Caesar that which is his due. What the Christians failed to see is that NOTHING is due Caesar.

Now that the Christians have become Caesar, perhaps, other Christians see the problem. (The rest of us do.).

See Psalm 23, Hosea 2:19--חֶסֶד

Acts 5:1-11

1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”

5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.

7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”

9 Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

This is definitely a train wreck as Neil pointed out. The entire passage is about inheriting eternal life, not wealth redistribution. This is what we should expect from those in Liberal camps. Taking that which people said and twisting it for their own agenda. Jesus had a word for these people, "white-washed tombs."

What a theological train wreck. I enjoyed most of the comments above. I blogged on it here -- http://tinyurl.com/22mz8ng .

Number of things Jesus said about giving away your money: A lot.

Number of things He said about petitioning Caesar (i.e., the government) to take from neighbor A to “give” to neighbor B: Zero.

If she wants to take the passage literally, why hasn’t she sold all her possessions and given the money to the poor?

Jesus also told people to stop whining about taxes.

POSTED BY: DAVID6 | DECEMBER 14, 2010 7:19 PM

No, he didn't. He said to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, or something to that effect. It's a huge stretch to consider that telling them to stop whining about taxes. Almost as huge a stretch as considering the Bible to say that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

In the interest of journalistic integrity, I demand that the Post replace the above head shot of the authoress with a likeness that is less than three decades old.

"Not to take from your neighbor and distribute his money."

Jesus also told people to stop whining about taxes.

Wow
I just noticed that you're a Soros employee.

You really don't care about any of this, do you?
Just playing a role

"Sell all that you own and distribute the money."

That's actually a poor English translation of the Greek.
The KJV has it "sell that thou hast, and give to the poor"
That word *hast* is a Greek compound word, "huparchonta" meaning to rule over.
The man asked Jesus what it was that he, personally, was lacking.
When you have that word, and knowledge of the fact that he had much property, obviously, his shortcoming was that he didn't have compassion.
(Or perhaps he acquired his wealth by harming the poor)
For him, overcoming that would have meant selling what "he ruled over", implying that he was very wealthy.
Why else would the disciples be astonished upon hearing his words?
You have to remember, these people really believed in a sovereign God, unlike most today.
For them, wealth was a sign of God's blessings, and this guy had it.

But his unwillingness to sell what he "ruled over", when Christ had already told them that they would receive eternal life, be judges over the twelve tribes of Israel, and receive 100-fold increase over anything they gave up, is evidence that the man worshiped his possessions, and was unfit.

There were many rich people in the New Testament about whom Christ had nothing negative to say.
His own relatives were wealthy, actually

Susan, this is religious baloney. You seem to have forgotten about God's 10th commandment of the sin of coveting thy neighbor's property. I have found those who continually say things like "the rich don't deserve their wealth" and that it should be "shared with the rest of us" are on pretty thin moral ground because they are in effect coveting other's money for their own perceived wants.

As you surely know, a Liberal's definition of charity is to tax me to pay for their pet cause. This is not charity.

Susan - you left out a MAJOR part of the quote in your title of the article, and although you included it in the article, you ignored it.

"Sell all that you own and distribute the money."

It says to sell all that you own. Not to take from your neighbor and distribute his money. But to distribute what you own.

Here in the US we have this principle called the separation of church and state.

It is not the duty of the government to distribute wealth on the basis of some religious moral code.

My Liberal friends object to me using my moral views to direct the activity of the government. I object to Liberals using their concept of morality to direct the activity of the government.

If you want the Government to spend money wisely give them less money.We need to force Washington to become more austere and to acheive that we need to give them less not more tax dollars.Just look at the bill going through Congress now that all the liberal Democrats are screaming and kicking about but lo and behold they tacked on another $85 billion in earmarks.