Christian Mission and Poverty

Chapter 1: Early Christian Teaching

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participating in the economic systems of contemporary society. He begins what will become the common practice of offering a theological interpretation of a biblical text. His choice of the story of the “rich young ruler” will be echoed by many others.

Text Who is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?

1. Those who give addresses of praise to the rich appear to me to be rightly judged not only flatterers and base, but also godless and treacherous; godless, because in neglecting to praise and glorify God, who is alone perfect and good, “from whom are all things, and by whom are all things, and for whom are all things” (Rom 11:36), they invest with divine honors men wallowing in an unpleasant and terrible life, and . . . liable on this account to the judgment of God; and treacherous, because, although wealth is of itself sufficient to puff up and corrupt the souls of its possessors, and to turn them from the path by which salvation is to be attained, they stupefy them still more, by inflating the minds of the rich with the pleasures of extravagant praises . . . and adding conceit to wealth, a heavier burden to what is already heavy by nature, from which something ought instead to be removed and taken away as being a dangerous and deadly disease . . . For it appears to me to be far kinder, than basely to flatter the rich and praise them for what is bad, to aid them in working out their salvation in every possible way . . . 2. Perhaps the reason that salvation appears more difficult to the rich than to poor men, is not a single one but is many. For some, merely hearing, and that in an off-hand way, the words of the Savior, “that it is easier for a camel to go