Hank Smith: 00:04 Hello, my friends. Welcome to another followHIM Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I’m here with the amazing John Bytheway. Hi, John Bytheway.

John Bytheway: 00:12 Hi, Hank.

Hank Smith: 00:13 I think you’re amazing, John.

John Bytheway: 00:15 Right back at you.

Hank Smith: 00:16 We are going to cover one question from this week’s lesson. John, the question that we have this week, is it sinful to be rich? Because Jesus says in Matthew 19 after having this exchange with a rich man who couldn’t sell his possessions, he says, “Oh, verily I say unto you that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” The apostles are like, “Oh goodness, who can be saved?” John, what would you say to someone who thinks Jesus is saying it’s sinful to be rich?

John Bytheway: 00:51 It’s a good question, and we can play doctrinal ping pong with this one a lot. The fact is it’s not what’s in your wallet, it’s what’s in your heart. I’ve known people and you’ve known people who we would call rich. I didn’t think I was rich until I went to the Philippines on my mission, and then I came home and went, “Wow, we’re rich.” What the scriptures teach over and over again is not so much that you have riches, but if your heart is set on your riches instead of your heart set on God.

  01:20 I love that Jesus didn’t say it’s impossible. He said, “It’s hard. It’s hard.” And then when the apostles said, “Well, who can be saved,” he said, “Well, with God it’s possible,” because God can do things to people’s hearts, that they don’t set their hearts on their riches. They set their hearts on God. Is that what you were thinking?

Hank Smith: 01:35 Absolutely, John. I think one of the things that you hit on early in your comment was, who’s rich? Because when I think of other people, I’m like, oh yeah, they’re going to have a hard time.

John Bytheway: 01:45 They’re rich.

Hank Smith: 01:47 They’re rich. They’re really going to struggle. If we look across the history of the world and what most, if not all of our listeners have, you are definitely in the top percentage of what you have, possessions that you have. I think we all need to read this as if we are the rich.

John Bytheway: 02:03 We’re the rich. We have multiple changes of clothes. We have food in our refrigerator right now, change in our wallet. He who has eternal life is rich. You’ll have the riches of eternity, the scriptures say. That’s exactly where to start. What do you mean by rich exactly?

Hank Smith: 02:18 Yep. Because once I realize I’m the rich man, then all of a sudden I’m worried. John, I’ve heard it said that there’s a gate in Jerusalem called Eye of the Needle. Have you heard that?

John Bytheway: 02:29 Yeah. It’s kind of a fabled. I mean, the idea sounds kind of, oh, I see, a camel has to shed all of its possessions and kneel down in order to get through this gate. Somebody made that up. But the scholars that I know that know Jerusalem say, “No, no such thing existed. Jesus was just using some hyperbole.”

Hank Smith: 02:50 That used to be in scholarship. That was something in the early 1900s, late 1800s, that was thought to be true. Afterwards, it was found not to be true. I usually ask my students, if that’s not true, what is Jesus saying? Can you get a camel through the eye of a needle? They’re like no. I’m like, well, sure you could. It’s going to hurt the camel. But if you had a pretty heavy strainer, you could get a camel through the eye of a needle.

  03:14 I like this idea that you brought out, John, that he is saying on their own, you can’t. You’re not going to get into heaven. But if you’ll turn your life over to God and your riches over to God for whatever he wants you to do with them, then yes. With God, those things that seemed impossible are possible.

John Bytheway: 03:34 It’s a good warning for us. Because like you said, when we start to count our blessings, it will surprise us what the Lord has done and we’ll have to go, “Yeah, we’ve got a lot.” We have to be careful that we’re focused on the right things too.

Hank Smith: 03:48 Now, Paul said the love of money is the root of all evil. We’ve really got to check that, and maybe that’s one of the purposes of tithing, is to make sure I can tell the Lord I love him more than money, and I get a chance to do that every month.

John Bytheway: 04:03 The law of consecration.

Hank Smith: 04:04 Do you still love me more than money? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. We’re with Dr. Matt Townsend this week, and you’re going to love what he has to say about these chapters. And then come back here next week, we’ll have another followHIM Favorites.