Quote:
Originally Posted by davinci
i don't know how to say this without coming across as flame, but I believe most religion is based on greed.
I personally don't understand BILLION dollar churchs and ministers that get paid more than rock stars.
didn't Jesus say, give away your things and follow me...or something like that?
hipocracy and greed are hallmarks of religion.
there is also religion that helps and is beneficial to society; I'm certain of that as well. I think most however is just show business.
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You're preaching to the choir. I think many Christians agree with you on this. There is a big push now for ministries to open their books and show what ministry pay rates are. Some are voluntarily doing that. Some are not. The one place where a highly paid minister might be justified is those who earn their money based on book sales. I'm not a Rick Warren fan as I disagree with many of his ideas, but the guy made a lot of money on his books and gave back every penny he was ever paid by the church. You have to respect that.
The quote from Jesus you refer to is regarding a rich young ruler who came to him asking what he needed to do to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus told him what the scripture said and the ruler replied he had done that since his youth. Jesus then replied he lacked one thing and told him to sell everything he had, give to the poor, and come follow Him. The ruler went away sad because he had many great things that he didn't want to give up. The interpretation is that Jesus wasn't against the man's riches, except it was keeping the ruler from following Him. I have some confidence in that interpretation because many other rich people followed Jesus and He never told them to sell everything to follow Him. Zacchaeus was a wealthy tax collector who Jesus ate with and claimed salvation had come to. Jesus never told Zacchaeus to sell everything. In fact, on his own Zacchaeus offered half of everything he had for the poor. When he did this Jesus didn't stop him and say he needed to give it all. Based on the right interpretation we can make the proper application and say that Jesus requires us to give up anything and everything that keeps us from following Him. If you're money and things don't prevent you from following Jesus then you don't have to get rid of them. Some people are actually better able to serve God with their things and money.