Believer's Bible Commentary by William MacDonald

Author:William MacDonald [MacDonald, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Religion, Biblical Commentary, Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9780785212164
Google: 0ymcSSIIXPsC
Amazon: 0840719728
Barnesnoble: 0840719728
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 1995-03-14T22:00:00+00:00

B. Warning Against Greed (12:13-21)

12:13 At this point, a man stepped out from the crowd and asked the Lord to settle a dispute between his brother and himself over an inheritance. It has often been said that where there's a will, there are a lot of relatives. This seems to be a case in point. We are not told whether the man was being deprived of his rightful portion, or whether he was greedy for more than his share.

12:14 The Savior quickly reminded him that He had not come into the world to handle such trivial matters. The purpose of His coming involved the salvation of sinful men and women. He would not be deflected from this grand and glorious mission to divide a pitiful inheritance. (In addition, He did not have legal authority to judge matters involving estates. His decisions would not have been binding.)

12:15 But the Lord did use this incident to warn His hearers against one of the most insidious evils in the human heart, namely covetousness. The insatiable lust for material possessions is one of the strongest drives in all of life. And yet it completely misses the purpose of human existence. "One's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses." As J. R. Miller points out:

This is one of the red flags our Lord hung out which most people nowadays do not seem much to regard. Christ said a great deal about the danger of riches; but not many persons are afraid of riches. Covetousness is not practically considered a sin in these times. If a man breaks the sixth or eighth commandment, he is branded as a criminal and covered with shame; but he may break the tenth, and he is only enterprising. The Bible says the love of money is a root of all evil; but every man who quotes the saying puts a terrific emphasis on the word "love," explaining that it is not money, but only the love of it, that is such a prolific root.

To look about, one would think a man's life did consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. Men think they become great just in proportion as they gather wealth. So it seems, too; for the world measures men by their bank-account. Yet there never was a more fatal error. A man is really measured by what he is, and not by what he has.42

12:16-18 The parable of the rich fool illustrates the fact that possessions are not the principal thing in life. Because of an exceptionally good crop, this wealthy farmer was faced with what seemed to him a very distressing problem. He did not know what to do with all the grain. All his barns and silos were crammed to capacity. Then he had a brainstorm. His problem was solved. He decided to pull down his barns and build bigger ones. He could have saved himself the expense and bother of this tremendous construction project if he had just

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