Biblical economics, Bible and prosperity, etc

[bobbieinok]

google these and similar topics.......google John Hagee, John Avanzini, Gary North (nephew of founder of Christian Reconstructionism; Dominion theory)

for example,

http://www.geocities.com/curetsky/avoid/avanzini.html

....

Be that as it may, Avanzini preaches a Jesus that looks more like himself than the Jesus of the Bible. Avanzini comes up with many proof texts to try to assert that Christians should be rich because Jesus was rich. For instance, based on John 19:23, Avanzini says:

John 19 tells us that Jesus wore designer clothes. Well, what else you gonna call it? Designer clothes - that's blasphemy. No, that's what we call them today. I mean, you didn't get the stuff He wore off the rack. It wasn't a one-size-fits-all deal. No, this was custom stuff. It was the kind of garment that kings and rich merchants wore. Kings and rich merchants wore that garment.(2)


Beyond that, Avanzini states:

Jesus had a nice house, a big house - big enough to have company stay the night with Him at the house. Let me show you His house. Go over to John the first chapter and I'll show you His house.... Now, child of God, that's a house big enough to have company stay the night in. There's His house.(3)
Jesus was handling big money because that treasurer He had was a thief. Now you can't tell me that a ministry with a treasurer that's a thief can operate on a few pennies. It took big money to operate that ministry because Judas was stealing out of that bag.(4)

more....

[blonndee]

1. Yeah, that's why Jesus told the rich young man to sell what he had and

give to the poor. Because he was a hypocrite. That's why Jesus said it was harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to enter the eye of a needle. That's why Peter had to "fish" money out of a fish's mouth to pay the temple tax for Jesus; because Jesus was so rich. The son of a carpenter?!?

I'm the daughter of a carpenter and I can tell you there's little money in house-building.

It was probably a big deal that Judas was stealing from the coffers because it's fucking STEALING! If one of your best friends stole from you, wouldn't that be more offensive than if some stranger did it? Furthermore, if Jesus' communist ideals were catching on, which is likely, stealing from that would be the most immoral act possible according to Jesus' inside group.

I attended a "prosperity" church, which was the catalyst for my abandonment of Christianity altogether. Fucking greedy hypocritical, selfish motherfuckers. (Sorry, sore point.)

[blonndee]

3. Okay, I can't shut up about this.

"Jesus had a nice house, a big house - big enough to have company stay the night with Him at the house. Let me show you His house. Go over to John the first chapter and I'll show you His house.... Now, child of God, that's a house big enough to have company stay the night in."

Okay, WHERE in John the first chapter?!? John 1 is about the Word, and about John the Baptist, and about Jesus calling his first disciples to join him. There's NOTHING about Jesus' house.

Jesus was fucking HOMELESS!!!
"And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay head." (Matt 8:20).
"And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay head. (Luke 9:58).

The original hippie, Jesus. Money? I think not.

[Igel]

4. Jesus would have left his professional. He would have

been trained as a carpenter, who wasn't necessarily just a guy who hammered 2x4s together. Carpenters were also cabinet makers, did building design, and the fancy carving that so frequently is in fashion.

In any event, after Joseph died, Jesus would have been in charge of his family. He probably made sure that wouldn't be the case. He would have had a house. He left it.

That his robe was expensive is the subject of a long tradition of commentary. Tough to weave a one-piece chiton that has a neck hole, and it wasn't commonly done. Not "walmart" stock, that. Much easier to sew them out of two hunks of cloth. But his was probably a gift.

As for big house, depending on the time of the year many folks slept on the roof (hence the Levitical requirement to have railings). Lots of room for many people. Schindler in LA built houses with open-air sleeping accommodations.

As for hippy, I think Jesus would have found as much fault with the 1960s hippies as he would with the military. He wasn't antinomian.

[mojaverose]

2. Jesus, the Christian, and Wealth

As a person coming from a religious tradition of poverty as a true sign of loving God, and as one who has worked very hard to get myself out of that mindset, I don't see anything wrong, or anti-Jesus, in the idea that he was wealthy. In fact, even if he never used it he was the wealthiest person ever to walk the globe. As my daughter says, "If He's coming for dinner, He's bringing it."
In fact, the Bible out and out says that if you get Wisdom, all the rest will follow. Store your wealth in heaven.
As I see the problem, the desire for money, or power, or sex, or anything else, as a way of satisfying bodily cravings is Lust. Using wealth or anything else to Get One Up on other people (neener, neener, neener) is a sin. But recognizing God as the source of one's supply, and knowing that, as the child of the King of all, one can never want for anything Is Wisdom.
The problem with wealthy people is not that they are wealthy, but that they are prone to rely on material wealth, and think that it separates them from the rest of Humankind.
Poverty is a "disease" every bit as much as cancer or leprosy. If God is against the last two, why not the first?