Rich man Poor man parable.

[W2L]

Unrighteous wealth is the Physical Money of the world, Mammon.

The True Riches, is the Knowledge of the Kingdom of God.

Thank you. Proverbs says that wisdom and understanding are the real treasure. More precious than gold and precious stones.

 

[GingerBeer]

What do you make of this parable?

Luke 16:19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

Some say it is a parable and some say it is a history. What do you say?

 

[JIMINZ]

Some say it is a parable and some say it is a history. What do you say?

What would make it fall into the category of History?

 

[W2L]

Some say it is a parable and some say it is a history. What do you say?

I say it doesnt matter. It sounds like a parable to me, but who knows.

 

[GingerBeer]

What would make it fall into the category of History?

Check with those who say it is a history. I've seen the claim that it is a history in numerous books dealing with and attempting to refute soul-sleep and annihilationism so you might start with those sorts of books and those issues.

 

[GingerBeer]

I say it doesnt matter. It sounds like a parable to me, but who knows.

Even in a parable would you point to things that Jesus says that are not true?

 

[W2L]

Even in a parable would you point to things that Jesus says that are not true?

Good question. I would say no. Jesus did use symbolic language to teach truth however. When He said we are sheep did He mean we are actually sheep? Its not true that im a sheep, not in the literal sense but in a spiritual sense i am.

 

[GingerBeer]

Good question. I would say no. Jesus did use symbolic language to teach truth however. When He said we are sheep did He mean we are actually sheep? Its not true that im a sheep, not in the literal sense but in a spiritual sense i am.

I wouldn't say "a spiritual sense" just as a metaphor.

 

[W2L]

I wouldn't say "a spiritual sense" just as a metaphor.

Perhaps. I like to think of Psalms 23. The Lord is my shepherd.

 

[GingerBeer]

Perhaps. I like to think of Psalms 23. The Lord is my shepherd.

Popular psalm and excellent too.

 

[friend of]

At this point, you could pretty much classify everyone above the poverty line as the rich man. Middle class people have extraordinary luxury compared with the poor.

 

[friend of]

21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.

This part suggests to me that they were acquainted with one another. Lazarus may have begged for the rich man's scraps, but was not given, as he longed for them. In this way, the Rich man's character is revealed as one who is conceited and cruel, not so much as sparing even his refuse to help another in need.

 

[gordonhooker]

What do you make of this parable?

Luke 16:19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

Jesus wraps it all up into a complete package in Matt. 25:35-40 I believe.

One of my favourite parables.

 

[Zoey <3]

What do you make of this parable?

Luke 16:19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

Easy. The rich man lived running from God. He lives absorbed in the ways of the world with no intentions of even thinking about God the father. He refused to care for God's children such as Lazarus. God takes care of his children even when the world does not.

1 Samuel 2:7
The LORD makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts.

Proverbs 13:7
There is one who pretends to be rich, but has nothing; Another pretends to be poor, but has great wealth.

Worldly riches are not true riches. They never have been. And they never will be.

 

[aiki]

What do you make of this parable?

Luke 16:19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

Well, there are a number of things that are worth noting about this parable:

1.) It is the only parable in which a person is actually named (Lazarus).
2.) It is the only parable that employs a circumstance unknown to Jesus's audience. In all other instances, Jesus used things common to the experience of his listeners to make his points (Marriage feast, lost coin, servant-Master relationship, etc.).
3.) The Rich Man does not protest his circumstance.
4.) We are told how Lazarus is taken to Abraham's bosom (by angels) but no mention is made of how the Rich Man is transported to hell.
5.) Both men do not cease to exist upon their decease to be reconstituted at the Resurrection. Lazarus and the Rich Man retain full individuality and identity in the afterlife, and are visible, feel thirst, and can think, and speak, and remember their past lives.

Often I hear the idea among professing Christians that the parable is entirely figurative (which is code for "it can mean anything I want it to mean"). I don't believe that. It seems evident to me that Jesus described an actual state of affairs in his parable, as he did in every other parable he told. This is reinforced by the fact that Lazarus is named. Jesus did not name any of the people in his other parables. Naming Lazarus creates a specificity of detail in Jesus' account that is strongly suggestive of a true-to-life event.

 

[RDKirk]

Some people in this world would love to have scraps off a rich mans floor.

When I was stationed in the Philippines, it was the one place overseas that we lived off base, in the 'ville.

Every morning, our "housegirl" put the garbage out on the curb to be collected by whoever owned the truck that had the contract for our neighborhood.

But there was a poor guy who sometimes got to our garbage before it was picked up--the garbage of Americans can be valuable. That bothered us because someone who knows your garbage knows quite a lot about your life.

So my wife instructed the housegirl to watch for the truck and hand the garbage bag directly to the collector.

That Sunday, we were in church on base, and the pastor was preaching on Lazarus and the rich man. Of course, I was well acquainted with the story, but this time when the pastor spoke of Lazarus getting the scraps from the rich man's table, it struck me:

"There is a man in hell more righteous than I am!"

 

[RDKirk]

Another point about the parable is that it overturns what had been the current Jewish thought of the relationship of wealth to righteousness.

Based on the promises of the Mosaic Law and the Proverbs, the Jews believed that wealth was the reward for righteousness and the evidence of righteousness, while poverty was the consequence of unrighteousness.

Jesus does not actually make any judgment statements about how the rich man became wealthy. The rich man may well have been doing all that the Law required, like not gleaning his fields and leaving the corners unharvested. He may have been tithing exactly as the Law required. Jesus doesn't actually say that the rich man is unrighteous.

So when He suddenly states that the rich man is in torment after death and that it's the poor man in the bosom of Abraham ("Sleeping with his fathers"), the crowd would have gone, "Wait...Whaaaaaa?"

And that was a teaching moment.

 

[W2L]

Thank you for the replies everyone.

 

[Monk Brendan]

Reminds me of "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" ..sorry, had to paraphrase!

I think the chasm represents a psychological (i.e. spiritual) barrier, not imposed by a vindictive God but by the rich man's inability to understand the nature of compassion.

I wonder if spiritual proximity i.e. 'empathy' is a factor of the trial?

Psychological and spiritual matters are two different things. They are not synonyms.

 

[Der Alte]

All of the early church fathers who quote or refer to the passage about Lazarus and the rich man considered it to be factual vice a parable.
.....I have seen many questions about why was the rich man sent to Hades. Was it because he was rich or was there another reason? Irenaeus explains it very clearly. The rich man violated this commandment.

Deuteronomy 15:7-8
(7) If there be among you a needy man, one of thy brethren, within any of thy gates, in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from thy needy brother;
(8) but thou shalt surely open thy hand unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth.
• Irenaeus Against Heresies Book II Chapter XXXIV.-Souls Can Be Recognised in the Separate State, and are Immortal Although They Once Had a Beginning.
Ireneaeus, [120-202 AD], was a student of Polycarp, who was a student of John.
1. The Lord has taught with very great fulness, that souls not only continue to exist, not by passing from body to body, but that they preserve the same form [in their separate state] as the body had to which they were adapted, and that they remember the deeds which they did in this state of existence, and from which they have now ceased,-in that narrative which is recorded respecting the rich man and that Lazarus who found repose in the bosom of Abraham. In this account He states that Dives [=Latin for rich] knew Lazarus after death, and Abraham in like manner, and that each one of these persons continued in his own proper position , and that [Dives] requested Lazarus to be sent to relieve him-[Lazarus], on whom he did not [formerly] bestow even the crumbs [which fell] from his table.
ANF01. The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus | Christian Classics Ethereal Library
• Clement of Alexandria [A.D. 153-193-217] The Instructor [Paedagogus] Book 1
On the Resurrection.
This was the day. “And a certain poor man named Lazarus was laid at the rich man’s gate, full of sores, desiring to be filled with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table.” This is the grass. Well, the rich man was punished in Hades, being made partaker of the fire; while the other flourished again in the Father’s bosom.
• Tertullian A Treatise On The Soul [A.D. 145-220.]
In hell the soul of a certain man is in torment, punished in flames, suffering excruciating thirst, and imploring from the finger of a happier soul, for his tongue, the solace of a drop of water. Do you suppose that this end of the blessed poor man and the miserable rich man is only imaginary? Then why the name of Lazarus in this narrative, if the circumstance is not in (the category of) a real occurrence? But even if it is to be regarded as imaginary, it will still be a testimony to truth and reality . For unless the soul possessed corporeality, the image of a soul could not possibly contain a finger of a bodily substance; nor would the Scripture feign a statement about the limbs of a body, if these had no existence.
• Tertullian Part First A Treatise On The Soul Chapter 57
9. Moreover, the fact that Hades is not in any case opened for (the escape of) any soul , has been firmly established by the Lord in the person of Abraham, in His representation of the poor man at rest and the rich man in torment.
• The Epistles Of Cyprian [A.D. 200-258] Epistle 54 To Cornelius, Concerning Fortunatus And Felicissimus, Or Against The Heretics
Whence also that rich sinner who implores help from Lazarus, then laid in Abraham’s bosom, and established in a place of comfort, while he, writhing in torments, is consumed by the heats of burning flame, suffers most punishment of all parts of his body in his mouth and his tongue, because doubtless in his mouth and his tongue he had most sinned.
• Methodius Fragments On The History Of Jonah [A.D. 260-312]
But souls, being rational bodies, are arranged by the Maker and Father of all things into members which are visible to reason, having received this impression. Whence, also, in Hades, as in the case of Lazarus and the rich man, they are spoken of as having a tongue, and a finger, and the other members; not as though they had with them another invisible body, but that the souls themselves, naturally, when entirely stripped of their covering, are such according to their essence. ​