Give all your money to the poor, and follow me.

[Aractus]

The interpretations that Christians have of the bible is amazing. Most of the time Christians are trying to explain away so much of the awful stuff that's written in the bible, and try to make it fit into our modern understanding of morality.

However what amazes me more is that when you present modern Christians with what I'd consider one of the better (although perhaps not economically wise) sections of the bible, they equally try to excuse it away, and pretend that it means something else, although it was supposedly said by Jesus himself many times. That is to give up away all your material possessions and live simple lives of spiritual contemplation, owning nothing.

See this is why I generally don't participate in threads like this. Taking Bible verses out of context, or telling us how to interoperate the Bible (which you don't follow) shows you have little interest in building a robust argument, and are more interested in arguing over trivialities that are so easily refuted as I will demonstrate.

Matthew 19:21 (Context: talking to a man who asks Jesus how to get to heaven.)
Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
...
Have the Christians on this forum done this? Do they actually think about what the bible says, or (the more likely explanation) do they simply accept the interpretation of the hybrid capitalist/christian theology pushed by the majority of modern day Christianity.

Notice how you've already intentionally misquoted the Bible - and then bolded it to make your point firm?

Your argument is that the Bible instructs Christians to sell all of their possessions.

Let's get a few facts straight first.

1. The rich young ruler was not a follower of Christ.
2. Nevertheless he addresses Jesus using a distinguished title "Good Master" (good teacher), which is an unusual title but also shows the ruler places Christ above himself. Nicodemus - another ruler - addresses Jesus with a similar title in John 3:2 (so much for the Bible's inconsistencies), none other address themselves earnestly this way before Christ.
3. He seeks to be justified before God by the Law of Moses.
4. He asks Jesus about the afterlife, being that he was rich and young, death would seem a long way off to him and shows spiritual maturity in asking this question.
5. His question is not "how do I get to heaven" as you claimed it is. His question is "What good deed shall I do that I may have eternal life". He specifically asks how to EARN eternal life, not how to receive it.
6. Jesus answers his question immediately and the answer is NOT "sell your possessions". His answer to the question is "if you shall enter life, keep the commandments".

7. The ruler subsequently asks "what commandments". His question implies that he is uncertain that he is or can be justified by the Law of Moses. He would know the commandments very well and have no reason to ask what the commandments are.

In response to this Jesus rattles off “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honour your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

8. The ruler asserts "All these I have kept". There are two primary flaws is his answer which are about to be exposed. The first is that he was tested using lesser commandments - Christ didn't mention the greatest commandment "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (see Matt 22:34-40). Nor did Jesus mention any other commandment that directly relates to serving God (keeping the Sabbath, absconding from idols, etc).

The second flaw is he has answered only half of the required response. See Ezra 7:10 "For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of Jehovah, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel." The young ruler has studied the law diligently, but has not seeketh to do it.


You're going to tell me I'm "explaining away the problem". What utter rubbish, if you bothered to read the Bible in a purely unbiased way then you would not reach the bizarre conclusions that you've drawn.

1 Timothy 6:10 - another verse that readily gets misquoted -
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.