Many people—like most of us reading this devotional—are fairly familiar with this passage. The thing that interests me about this little interchange is that the question the man asks is our question as well. We, too, want to know what we must do to be granted eternal life.
Jesus tells the man what he already knows. In the understanding of the day, obedient Jews were expected to keep the law (which interestingly enough Jesus does not limit to the Ten Commandments) in order to maintain righteousness with God. When Jesus heard that the man had kept the commandments, He added that bit about selling everything, giving the money to the poor, and then following Him.
Most of us wish Jesus had not added that last part. We like our bank accounts and stock portfolios and bonds and securities. The man went away grieving, apparently because he “had a structured settlement and needs cash now.”
Jesus then tells His disciples that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. Notice that Jesus does NOT say that a wealthy person CAN’T enter the kingdom.
And, yes, I have heard the story about the smaller gate through a city wall that was called the Needle’s Eye, through which a camel could shuffle on its knees with difficulty. That’s not the point. Jesus was not trying to be literal here. He wanted to explain what He meant by using a comparison everyone would understand.
The point is that wealth creates a false sense of security. We think that when we have a certain amount of resources, we are all set. But the value of those resources can fluctuate. Certainly in the past several months, the stock market has taught us that our wealth can be quickly erased.
Jesus’s teaching here asks the question: What do we focus on? Is it the rate of the Fed, or is it the Word of God? Is our hope built on our portfolio or on “nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness”?