Gnats And Camels

[poliphilo]

Judy sent me an article about Pat Robertson's mining interests and how his charities stand to make money out of Katrina. I understand that the man's sailed pretty close to the wind in the past, mixing God's business with his own.

When I was studying the Bible the thing that really stood out for me (and made me feel extremely uncomfortable) was the bit about how hard it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I wasn't exactly rich back then, but I was comfortably middle-class and it gnawed at me that I wasn't poor enough to satisfy God. It was reading the Bible that made me a socialist (of sorts.) I didn't (and don't) see how a serious Christian can jump any other way.

You have to go through the Bible with a fine tooth-comb to find (debatable)texts condemning homosexuality, but the ones condemning the rich are lying about on the surface in plain view. The New Testament says that people who concentrate on obscure, fiddly bits of doctrine and miss the bleeding obvious, are "straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel." If Pat read the Bible as closely as he says he does he wouldn't be mining diamonds. He really wouldn't. A wealthy evangelist- it's a contradiction in terms.

Comments

[ex-kalymura481.livejournal.com]

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:24)

How interesting; that lesson has always stuck with me, too. Though, the embellishments of a mountain pass & having to strip your camel of luggage in order to enter Jerusalem appealed to me, so that may be why. I tend to read far too much into the bleeding obvious, rather than miss it…

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I didn't know about the mountain pass. I was taught that "the eye of a needle" might have been the poular name for one of Jerusalem's gates, but I guess I prefer to think of it as an extravagant, not to say, surreal image.