Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!porthos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ivy%chem@ucsd.edu (Ivy Blumberg) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: how rich is rich? Message-ID: Date: 15 Sep 89 09:29:28 GMT Sender: hedrick@porthos.rutgers.edu Organization: Chemistry Dept, UC San Diego Lines: 22 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu >Which brings up an interesting suggestion: Those who tend to think of Jesus >as invariably utterly solemn and serious ought to read the Gospels with an >eye to seeing all His humorous (though certainly pungent) utterances -- like Touche--I agree with you there! >this comes from being an affluent American Christian, since much (but by no >means all) of American Christianity seems to either ignore the issue of riches >or turn it on its head by figuring that being a rich -- or shall we say, >financially blessed -- Christian necessarily means that you're in good with >God! How many times had I blithely read over that passage and that statement >of Christ's before, noddingly accepting it, ignoring its tremendous punch -- This brings up a puzzling subject for me. Can anyone give me some scripture-based ideas on the difference between materialistic and being blessed by God (i.e. David, Solomon) We just had a speaker come to our church from Mexico city who made the point that the Christians there considered it materialistic to own 3 shirts! What a contrast to Southern California living! ======================================================================== Ivy B.