Passage, Treasure And The Heart In The Gospel Of Luke

Words: 1966
Pages: 8

The Passage, Treasure and the Heart (12:13-34) in The Gospel of Luke, illustrates how man is ought to act in a world centered on material possessions. The author emphasizes the primary issue of greed through grounding one's stability in what they own. The passage provides guidance by insisting to its readers that in seeking God’s kingdom, one will be rich and protected through faith alone.

The text prior to this section describes Jesus addressing his disciples amongst a crowd of thousands that have gathered to listen to him. Amongst the crowd, a man’s voice calls out to Jesus. "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” The man seems to carelessly undermine the significance of Jesus addressing his disciples. However, at this instant, Jesus is presented with an opportunity to moralize a society
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He had too much crop to store in his current barns, so he decided that he would build larger barns. The man would store away his plentiful crop that sufficed to provide relaxation and stability. The man rejoiced. "My soul, you have many good things laid up for years to come. Relax, eat, drink, enjoy yourself!” He stated. This proverbial expression is also expressed in Qoh 8:15 and Tobit 7:10 and can be compared in Isa 22:13 which is cited by Paul in Corinthians 15:32. In this case, the author highly discourages a life lived as this. (Johnson, 1991) Jesus continues, telling the people how God demanded the man’s soul that night and asked the man what value his possessions were now. Here, the parable contrasts the difference between the humans plan for possessions and the irrelevance of both the plans, and the possessions, due to the unpredictability of life. This theme can also be seen in James 4:13-16. Jesus parallels this with people who build “personal treasures”, but are not “rich towards God”. The author has certain conditions which characterize having wealth in God (Johnson,