Rich Jesus, Poor Jesus

“What Rich Pastors Teach Their Church about Jesus

That Poor and Middle Class Pastors Do Not!”

What would Jesus be like if he walked among us today in Singapore? How would Jesus dress, where would Jesus live, will Jesus drive? Would he dress simply, stay in a rented HDB flat and use public transport? Or, would he be speaking to us in designer suit, stay in a waterfront house and drive a luxury car? Does it matter? Some rich prosperity gospel* pastors are teaching their churches that it does.¹

These pastors claim that, contrary to the traditional view of mainline churches, Jesus was rich, i.e. materially wealthy! They argue that Jesus was rich because he wore good (expensive) clothes. They know Jesus had expensive clothes because the Roman soldiers at his crucifixion did not tear his seamless tunic but cast lots for it. Jesus apparently also owned two houses, including one in Capernaum², a village by the Sea of Galilee. “Mary and Joseph took a Cadillac to get to Bethlehem because the finest transportation of their day was a donkey”, claimed another prosperity preacher, “poor people ate their donkey. Only the wealthy used it as transportation.”¹

The hilarious hermeneutics by this genre of preachers were matched only by their egomaniacal explanations of why it was important that Jesus was materially rich. “If you believe Jesus is your Saviour, you can be saved. If you believe Jesus is your healer, healing is yours. If you believe Jesus isn’t poor, you (will be) able to (break) out of poverty and come into God’s abundance and prosperity!”²

I almost fell off my chair!

“Because a servant can never be greater than his master,” said the preacher, “we become like whom we worship. If we worship a poor Saviour, we will always (be) poor but if you worship a Saviour who we know to be rich and prosperous, and more than enough, we will be changed from glory to glory!”³

I am on the floor.

“A poor man cannot teach you how to prosper…only a rich man can show you. A poor Saviour cannot get you out of poverty, only a prosperous Saviour can….”³

I crack up on the floor.

Because they teach wealth as a right and a sign of God’s blessing, they pursue material prosperity to show that God’s favour is on them. But any person on the street will recognise that an excessive, luxurious lifestyle is an anomaly in a spiritual leader. They then use a rich Jesus to sacralise their lifestyle.

Were Jesus and the Twelve rich?

Fig. Graphic characterisation of a 'typical'agrarian society
like that in 1st century Palestine

The bible is not explicit on this. But knowledge of the social stratification of 1^st century Palestine and a proper reading of the Scriptures gives a reasonable idea. They were not of the destitute poor. Those were the bottom 10% of society: the ‘expendables’ –beggars, cripples, lepers, criminals. Neither were they of the rich upper class. Those were the 10% of population who owned 90% of the wealth: the aristocrats – rulers (e.g. King Herod and his court), military leaders (e.g. the un-named Centurion), reli-gious leaders (priests, high priests, Sadducees) bureaucrats, scribes and merchants who provided luxury items to the ruling, retainer and priestly classes. Jesus and Joseph were described as tektōn (Mk 6:3; Matt 13:55) which mean wood worker or stone mason. These skilled artisans were thought to be at a level of what we call ‘blue-collar   workers’   today.  Evidence   suggests   that   Jesus   was   most appropriately considered lower ‘middle class’. As for the disciples, fishermen were comparable to carpenters but perhaps less well off as their work required less skills. However, James and John, sons of Zebedee, maybe better off because their family had ‘hired servants’ (Mk1:20). Matthew who was a tax collector may have had been substantially better off. The other disciples were probably Galilean peasants except for Judas who was thought to be the only non-Galilean among the Twelve.^4,5,6 

Rich Jesus, Rich Disciples

Paul in 2 Cor 8:9 highlighted that our Lord was rich and we are rich.

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”  However, this is clearly a theological, rather than a sociological, statement.⁴

Our Lord Jesus Christ was rich but made himself poor – “…being in very nature God… (he)made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross.” (Phil 2:6-8)

We were poor but He made us rich. Eph1:3 – 2:10 describe our new life in Christ. The following rephrasing of the passage attempts to distill its essence.  

God has blessed us in Christ, with every spiritual blessing,

in the heavenly places

In love, he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ

In him we have redemption through his blood,

the forgiveness of our trespasses,

according to the riches of his grace,

which he lavished upon us.

In him we have obtained an inheritance

In him you were sealed,

with the promised Holy Spirit, 

who is the guarantee of our inheritance,

until we acquire possession of it.

The hope to which he has called you

The riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints

The immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe

You were dead in the trespasses and sins

But God, because of the great love with which he loved us, 

made us alive together with Christ,

raised us up with him,

seated us with him in the heavenly places.

That he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace

For by grace you have been saved through faith,

this is not your own doing,

it is the gift of God,  

so that no one may boast.

We are his workmanship, created for good works,

that we should walk in them.

It is with this richness in Christ that we are able to say, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” (Phil 4:12) The Bible does not promise health or wealth as a guaranteed reward for spiritual obedience. “But we do not lose heart because our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Cor 4:17)

References

1. Passions over 'prosperity gospel': Was Jesus wealthy? Dec 25, 2009, John Blake, CNN (http://articles.cnn.com/2009-12-25/living/RichJesus_1_jesus-prosperity-gospel-teachings?_s=PM:LIVING, accessed 15/09/2012)

2. Was Jesus Poor Pt 2(1-2) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s28skvVp1PM, posted 10/04/2011, accessed 15/09/2012)

3. 9 reason y Jesus is rich (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcOEBSmZbuQ, posted up 27/04/2010, accessed 23/03/2011).This video has been taken down. Transcript available. 

4. Neither Poverty nor Riches. A Biblical Theology of Possessions. Blomberg,1999 Apollos

5. A Marginal Jew Vol I. John P Meier1991, Doubleday

6. Social Classes in Agrarian Society. Sheila E McGinn (http://www.jcu.edu/bible/205/Readings/LenskiSocialClasses.htm,  accessed 18 Sept 2012)

7. Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification. Gerhard E Lenski , 1984 The University of North Carolina Press 

*Glossary

Prosperity Gospel - the teaching that believers have a right to the blessings of health and wealth and that they can obtain these blessings through positive confessions of faith and the "sowing of seeds" through the faithful payments of tithes and offerings.(Definition from “A Statement On Prosperity Teaching.” Lausanne Theology Working Group, Africa Chapter, Akropong, Ghana, 8-9 October, 2008 and 1-4 September 2009)