“If you want to be perfect, go, sell all your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” Matthew 19: 21
Jesus tells us in this passage that to enter heaven, and eternal bliss, we should give up all our possessions and wealth and follow him.
Yet, he also says that you have to treat your fellow man as you would your savour, in the respect of, clothing him, feeding him and giving him drink if he should need these necessities. However, to give the needy, the clothes, food and drink that they need, you have to have the money to buy it.
Therefore I feel that one of the messages of the church is not, that owning money is a horrific thing, but that the way you use the money can be the decider on whether it is either good or bad.
In ‘1 Timothy 6: 9-11’ he says “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men in to ruin and destruction.”
Though much this may be true, he doesn’t take into consideration that to get rich you can also help others.
Firstly, if you become wealthy through a company, then you are responsible for handing out jobs to lots of people, and, as long as you look after your workers, this can help the men/women in your employment, and also help the local economy.
Secondly, if someone makes a lot of money in a music industry, then they are helping to give pleasure to lots of people.
Finally, many businesses rich enough, give huge amounts of money to charity, and without that money, they wouldn’t be able to hand these funds over. In the 1890’s, the Cadbury’s Chocolate Company gave vast amounts of money to charity and also helped their workers. In Victorian London, workers were badly treated, and their lives were extremely dangerous, however Cadbury’s built its own town out of its own money to keep them safe and happy. They built sports facilities, and provided dinning halls and hospitals. Without the money that Cadburys had made, they wouldn’t have been able to help their follow men, and make the lives of hundreds of people better.
