Interesting tie in with Lazarus! Can you tell us more about why we need Lazarus more than Lazarus needs us?
Also, let's not call each other's notes amateurish. Instead just try to have the humility to see their perspective. Yes, my orc has purple hair and works in HR.
I apologize for the misunderstanding.
I was referring to my own note as an amateur take - not anyone else’s. I do not have any credentials to interpret scripture is all I meant by that.
I think it’s hard to take things out of context. Just before that passage, is the unusual passage of the dishonest steward where the master commends the dishonest steward and says “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”
The more wealth you have – and this isn’t necessarily money, although that is a part of it – the more you are required to steward it on earth towards friendship. In both passages, it’s a given that this wealth is only temporary. In both passages, those who had none were not held to much account.
I think we need the poor because even if their existence is a result of our own fallen nature, it is allowed to persist so that a great a good can come from it. But that greater good involves proper stewardship. It’s not so easy to say give it all away – that can actually lead to worse outcomes. We have other obligations, but besides feeding the poor – we have obligations to know the truth, and our tools for getting to The Truth in this world involve getting closer and closer through uncovering worldly truths. And the more that you have, wealth, however, defined, but most especially monetary because that is the most flexible, the more you have to hone your prudence to deploy that in virtuous ways.
But I think one temptation of material wealth is to delude yourself into thinking that you could do even greater good, if you had even more material wealth, and so you delay action with the excuse that you are accumulating more so that someday you will have more and more leverage. I think that’s possible, but I do think to go down that pathway without succumbing to making it all about the accumulation of the wealth does become more and more like threading and needle.
If you know the poor, if you really know them, if you shake hands are up shoulders with them, it grounds you. It rains you in. If you keep them outside, away from you, away from contact, you can live inside your head, wrapped up in your thoughts, imagination of self glory, and never actually do any good. We need Acts of the apostles more than just grand plans
