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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFinancial Guru Dave Ramsey: Jesus Was Wrong To Say Rich People Can’t Go To Heaven
Financial self-help author Dave Ramsey dismissed as heretics Christians who took Jesus at his word on his famous quote about rich people, camels, and heaven. The bestselling author and real estate investor appeared on Pat Robertsons 700 Club program this week to promote his latest book, The Legacy Journey: A Radical View of Biblical Wealth and Generosity.
Robertson heaped praise on Ramsey and his book, which he described as biblically sound all the way through. Theres a bunch of heresy going around talk about some of those heresies, Robertson said. People are teaching heresy, and this is solid, what youve got here in this book. Ramsey complained that liberal Christians accurately quoted Matthew 19:24 to support progressive taxation and other efforts to address wealth inequality.
The biggest one I get from folks based on their political agenda, and not really their biblical knowledge, is that if a camel cant get through the eye of a needle, then a rich man cant get into heaven, Ramsey said. If thats the case, then Jesus blood that was spilled at Calvary isnt powerful enough to get a rich man into heaven, Ramsey said. I think thats called heresy. Im pretty sure it is, look it up.
Robertson agreed, and his guest compared liberal Christians to ancient mystics who lived around the same time as Jesus. When you start putting limits on the power of the cross and limits on the power of grace that is extended to us from the Father through the son, based on someones wealth, then thats Gnosticism the worship of spirit versus materialism versus the worship orthodoxy, Ramsey said. So what that means is that someone just doesnt understand the Bible. He said the Bible is not inconsistent and actually promoted the accumulation of wealth. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/financial-guru-dave-ramsey-jesus-was-wrong-to-say-rich-people-cant-go-to-heaven/
Orsino
(37,428 posts)...by about one hundred-seventy degrees. They're stopping, for now, just short of directly equating money with virtue, but one day they'll be asking whether poor people could go to heaven.
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)Poor people don't pray as hard as rich people
unblock
(52,227 posts)and a cooperative camel.
the needle can be bought. not sure about the camel's cooperation.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)3rdwaydem
(277 posts)The precise Aramaic translation of the passage in question is something along these lines,
"But Yeshua said to his disciples, Amen, I say to you, that it is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
What I think he was trying to communicate was that it is difficult for one who values the material over the spiritual to enter Heaven.
I was once told by my Rabbi, when I was was young, that we should focus more on where we, individually, are going and who we are rather than dwell on how much another earns through his labors or investments.
Stay in your own lane. I've always found this to be good advice.
hlthe2b
(102,272 posts)I like that.
3rdwaydem
(277 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)Of course he's praying to get into heaven.
Nuclear Unicorn
(19,497 posts)Downwinder
(12,869 posts)Frustratedlady
(16,254 posts)If I were Robertson, my knees would be a little sore from all that praying that God forgive him for bilking all those little old ladies of their grocery money.
I imagine his "estate" will be rather huge.