Mark 10:23-27 And Jesus looked round about, and said to his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!… See yonder lake! The bigger the stream that runs into it — lying so beautiful and peaceful in the bosom of the shaggy mountain — the bigger the stream it discharges to water the plains, and, like the path of a Christian, wend its bright and blissful way on to its parent sea. But, in sad contrast with that, the more money some men gain, the less they give; in proportion as their wealth increases, their charities diminish. Have we not met it, mourned over it, and seen how a man, setting his heart on gold, and hasting to be rich, came to resemble a vessel with a narrow, contracted neck, out of which water flows less freely when it is full than when it is nearly empty? As there is a law in physics to explain that fact, there is a law in morals to explain this. So long as a man has no hope of becoming rich; so long as he has enough of bread to eat, of raiment to put on, of health and strength to do his work and fight his honest way on in the world, he has all man really needs — having that, he does not set his heart on riches; he is a noble, unselfish, generous, large-hearted, and, for his circumstances, an open-handed man. But by success in business or otherwise, let a fortune come within his reach, and he clutches at it — grasps it. Then what a change! His eye, and ear, and hand close; his sympathies grow dull and blunt; his heart contracts and petrifies. Strange to say, plenty in such cases feeds not poverty but penuriousness; and the ambition of riches opens a door to the meanest avarice. (T. Guthrie, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! |
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