Matthew 19:16-22 And, behold, one came and said to him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?… It is not to be hastily concluded from this, that the rich man is to give all that he has to the poor. If, in deference to any narrow and superficial interpretation of Christ's language, a man should take his wealth and distribute the whole of it in largesses to the poor to-morrow, he would be doing the poor an incalculable evil and not a benefit. Men ask, "Why do not you, as a believer in Jesus Christ and the Sermon on the Mount, make common cause in the things of this world with the destitute around you, and trust for the needful food and raiment to Him who feeds the birds and clothes the lillies?" Why not, indeed! Is it merely because such an act would be fanatical and enthusiastic, or because political economy forbids it? Or, because, whatever else I ought or ought not to do, I ought not to do my brother man a wrong? Is anybody ignorant of the fact that every human life needs the discipline of forethought and self. denial, of responsibility and self-help; and that if I by my ill-judged kindness enable another to escape things, I am degrading and hurting him as well as abusing my own power? What would be the effect of the announcement that half a dozen rich men had disinherited themselves, and that to-morrow morning fifty millions of dollars would be distributed to the poor? Does anybody care to contemplate the pandemonium that New York would become — the idleness, the licentiousness, the fierce hatreds, the bitter discords, the mad license that would be engendered: and ought a Christian man to do an act that would make his brother men incalculably worse instead of better? (Bishop H. C. Potter.) Parallel Verses KJV: And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? |
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