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“Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God”
(MATTHEW 19:24, LUKE 18)
This is one of the most popular Biblical quotations that people interpret as those who are rich do not have a way to God and only the poor can enter the kingdom of heaven. But is it really the true meaning? To decipher this, one must understand the context from which this phrase is taken.
So, the story is that a man ran up to Jesus and asked him the way to inherit eternal life. First, Jesus tells him to follow the ten commandments. To this the man replies that he has never broken any of the commandments. Jesus then asks the man to sell everything and give it to the poor. Upon hearing this, the man is crestfallen and it is then when Jesus makes this statement.
Thus, it is not that simply a rich man cannot enter the kingdom of God. Any man who yearns for an eternal life should be able to give up whatever he has. When Jesus choses fishermen as disciples, he does not say the same thing to them – in contrast he first shows them to catch abundant fish and then asks them to follow him. He doesn’t talk to them to give up anything because they have nothing to give up.
The rich man, on the other hand, has a lot to lose or at least that’s what he thinks. Thus, the question of giving up arises for him. It is not a question of being rich; it is a question of possessiveness.
The heart of the statement is that Jesus never tells them to leave their art. The fisherman need not give up his art of fishing, and the rich man need not give up the art of being rich. Just as a fisherman never forgets fishing wherever he is, a rich man too cannot forget the art of being wealthy. A rich man will be rich anywhere. However, when a rich man identifies himself with his riches alone, is where the problem arises.
To understand the true quality of a successful rich man, who has truly ascended beyond his riches, I remember a quote from Herman Hesse’s book Siddhartha:
“He always seems to be merely playing with our business affairs,
they never fully become a part of him,
they never rule over him,
he is never afraid of failure,
he is never upset by a loss.”
A truly wealthy and rich man is one who is oblivious to his riches – who does not think of his riches every waking moment; he is one whose job is creating wealth full stop.
