Jump Start # 276

Proverbs 22:2 “The rich and the poor have a common bond, the Lord is the maker of them all.”

  Our passage today shows the similarities in things that do not seem to be similar. The rich and the poor—every culture and every generation has them. Often the rich control the poor and in some cases take advantage of the poor. The rich likes being rich and the poor hates being poor. The rich has doors opened to him that the poor does not. The rich can afford food that the poor can only dream of. The rich lives in a larger and nicer house than the poor. The rich can afford trips that the poor can not. The poor struggles just to survive.  

  The N.T. gives us a vivid description of the difference between the rich and the poor in the example of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man wore purple, which was extremely expensive to make in Biblical times. The rich man ate well every day. Lazarus seems to have run out of luck. Someone, probably, his family, laid him at the gates of the rich man’s estate. That was his only hope, that the rich man passing to and fro would have some compassion upon him and care for him.

  The rich and the poor. So different in life. Our passage pulls them both together by reminding us that God has made them both. I suppose, one way to look at this passage is to say that it was God who made the rich man rich and the poor man poor. But looking at this more, it is God who simply made them. It would be easy for the rich to have no association with the poor and to view the poor with contempt and disgust. Little does he realize that God made him as well as the poor man. He really isn’t different after all. They come from the same source and that is God.

  Now, thinking about this more, we see just how similar the rich and the poor are. Both have souls made in the image of God. Both have sinned and are in need of salvation. Both need Jesus. Both have only one way to get into Heaven and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. The rich man’s money may open many doors on earth, but it will not open the gates of Heaven. He, like the poor man, must bow to the God of Heaven if he wants to get in there.

  Paul would define some of these cultural differences in the book of Galatians. There he lists, Jew and Gentile; slave and master; male and female. Particularly, I like the slave and master contrast. What a contrast it is—one person owning another. Yet, in Jesus, in the church, they were equals. I can imagine on a given Sunday, that the master would share the Lord’s Supper with the slave he owned. That would be different. The master handing the slave bread. It is the slave, at home, who feeds the master, but in Christ, those difference do not exist.

  The book of James addresses the poor man and the rich man. James rebukes the brethren for favoring the rich man and ignoring the poor man. That was wrong then and it is wrong today. The poor man may be dirty. He might smell. His clothes worn and old. It’s easy to ignore that. Invite the rich man to your home, maybe he’ll bring a gift! Be friends with the rich. Spend your time with the rich. It is easy to get caught up in that type of thinking. Our verse today reminds us that God made us both. That not only goes for the rich and the poor, but the black and the white, the republican and the democrat, the American and the Iranian, the college grad and the flunk out, the success and the failure, the famous and the nobodies, those who seem to be able to do it all and those who can’t seem to do anything, the good guy and the bad guy, the saint and the sinner, the man with money and the man who is broke. God has made us all.

  We suffer the same fate and that is death. The rich man’s money may buy him medicine that puts it off for a while, but it is appointed for all to die, that includes the rich and the poor. And often in the same cemetery they are buried. The rich man under a huge monument and the poor man in a paupers grave.

  We also learn from our study of the Bible, “that to whom much is given, much is required.” The rich man with his resources will have more opportunities than the poor man. God expects the rich man to do more. The same goes with ability and talent. The same goes for those in this country compared to a “poor nation.”

  Rich or poor—can be blessings or curses, either way around. God wants us to realize that we are connected to Him and each other. Being mindful of that will help us be generous as God is, and it will tend to make us thankful and humble.

  In eternity, what will matter is being rich in God and having a faith that made a difference.

Roger