The Rich Young Man

Matt. 19:16-30; Luke 18:18-30; Mark 10:17-31.

The rich young ruler came to Jesus with the assumption that he was already a good man. Perhaps he came to Jesus in an attempt to get Jesus to ‘validate’ him and his good works. By his and other people’s standards, his work must indeed have been good.

Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?

He realized that Jesus was a good man but he felt short of recognizing Him as God. Perhaps this is why Jesus responded the way He did.

“Which ones?”. When he said this, you can almost sense some arrogance in him; almost as if daring Jesus to name a few and he was sure that he could say, “I have kept them”. Perhaps Jesus entertained this thought (or He did so because He love his man, Mark 10:21) and only quoted 6 commandments ­– all that deals with relation to your fellow man. But He could also have quoted any one of the 613 laws that Moses gave. Given this situation, I think you or I would have ‘put him in his place’ and quote some obscure law that we know no one would keep.

All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?

Even though he felt that he had kept all these commands (and I imagine he kept them only in the letter and not in the spirit of the law; most certainly not the standards Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount), he rightly felt that something was still lacking in him.

Jesus saw through all this and gave him the one command that would have brought him peace and joy in the Lord. If he had followed through on this command, He could have been blessed even more that he could have imagined, perhaps like Job or he could have been a close disciple of Jesus or he could have been with Joseph of Arimathea when he buried Jesus. But he simply went away sad and that was the end of his story in the bible.

 “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Richness is relative. We who are living in Shillong in 2022 could be relatively poor as compared to someone living in West Europe or US or Canada or Japan. But we are rich as compared to someone from a third world country. So when Jesus say, “it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” don’t you go looking at yourself as poor in comparison to some rich person. You are a rich man/woman and it is impossible for you to come to Christ on your own. Left on our own, we will never, ever come to Christ and be a believer. Jesus said that this is impossible with people. But all things are possible with God. So we should not only be grateful to God for our salvation and eternal life but also allowing us to come to Him in the first place.

Don’t get the impression that it’s wrong to be rich. Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. (Gen 13:2); Then Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold; and the Lord blessed him. The man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous (Gen 26:12-13).

It’s easy for the rich (and that means you too) to trust in yourself, your skills and talents and your wealth. “I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing” could very well be your mantra. Would you be surprised to know that this is what Jesus said to the church in Laodicea in Rev 3:17?