ON BEING RICH Dear Professor, I think these thoughts are very human and too earthly!

We should rather listen to the Word of God which teaches us, the poor inherit the earth. One wise person says, you truly possess only those things you give away. It is possible to be rich in mans sight but be really poor before God like the rich fool in the gospel. As the Lord says, how does it profit a man to gain the whole world at the price of his own soul? This explains Pauls pronouncement: the love of money is the root of all evil. Money is the essence of the world; therefore, we are told, to hate the world not love it (1 John 2.15-17). We cannot serve both God and money the Mammon (the god) of unrighteousness. Why did the Son of God live poor in this world and asked people to follow him? Judas Iscariot was the treasure, remember? Evil lurks in the banks and the bankers. These are the ones that rule this dark world - who rob people what is rightly theirs (rightly theirs because they have earned it by the sweat of their brows, Gen. 3.19). Thoreau says, a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. And again the Apostle says, it is enough that we have food and cloth (1 Tim. 6.8). There are no good things. Things are indifferent: they are not good or bad. There is only One that is good. Things possessed (loved) improperly corrupt the soul; make people criminal both the rich and the poor. The other night I was watching a movie: Wall Street Money Never Sleeps. The peoples motto in that movie was: in greed we trust. I tell you, it is terrible what is going on in this world - if only we fully knew it! It is by Gods mercy we are ignorant! Do not covet, says God. He says earn. He says also give freely what you have received freely. Share what you possess. Do we know this? About coveting the letter of James has this to say, you want something which you cannot have, and so you are bent on murder; you are envious, and cannot attain your ambition, and so you quarrel and fight. The last of the Ten Commandments goes like this: you shall not covet your neighbors house; you shall not covet your neighbors wife, his slave, his slave-girl, his ox, his ass, or anything that belongs to him. Most of the evil that is in the world can be attributed to coveting. To become rich at someone elses expense. Wanting to possess what is not lawfully yours! Well Who says I want to be rich? No I dont. I want to be one of Gods poor more than anything else. I am happy with what God has allotted to me.