Money and Salvation

When Zacchaeus said he would give half his money to the poor and pay back fourfold those he had cheated, Jesus did not merely say, "Good idea."  He said --

“Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham." - Luke 19:9

This is amazing.  Jesus judged the reality of this man's salvation based on his willingness - no, his cheerful eagerness - to part with his money for the glory of God and the good of others.

Then there is the counterpart to Zacchaeus - the rich young ruler.  This earnest, hardworking young professional asked Jesus what good thing he could do to get eternal life.  When Jesus recited God's commandments, the man said he had kept them all.  Then the Lord delivered the bottom line --

“If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” - Matthew 19:21

Lacking our sophisticated, twenty-first century knowledge of how to close a conversion, Jesus said something that cost him a valuable convert.  We might surmise by the results that this was the wrong this to say --

When the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.         Matthew 19:22

 After losing this potential follower, a  man so sincere that he was grieved to turn away, Jesus said to His disciples --

“I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."    Mathew 19:23

He said it was harder than for a camel to go through a needle's eye.  This left the disciples --

The disciples were astounded. “Then who in the world can be saved?” they asked.                   Matthew 19:25

When people asked John the Baptist what they should do to bear the fruit of repentance, he told them first to share their clothes and food with the poor.  Then he told the tax collectors not to collect and pocket extra money.  Finally he told the soldiers not to extort money and to be content with their wages.

No one asked John about money and possessions.  Those two things were of such high priority, so close to the heart of what it takes to follow God, that John couldn't talk about spirituality without talking in terms of how we can handle our money and possessions.

The Ephesian occultists demonstrated the reality of their spiritual conversions by their willingness to burn their magic books, which were worth the vast sum of 50,000 days' wages, the equivalent of perhaps six million dollars in today's economy.  The depth of transformation in the lives of the early Christians was most clearly evident in their willingness to surrender their money and possessions to meet each other's needs.

It was no more natural for the Christians in the book of Acts to cheerfully liquidate and disburse assets they had spent their lives accumulating than it would be for us.  Although private ownership of property was still practiced by the early Christians, the joyful giving and sharing of this property became the new norm of supernatural living.