{"id":6859,"date":"2015-08-28T00:05:10","date_gmt":"2015-08-28T07:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=6859"},"modified":"2015-08-27T14:06:20","modified_gmt":"2015-08-27T21:06:20","slug":"camels-and-needles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/08\/28\/camels-and-needles\/","title":{"rendered":"Camels and Needles"},"content":{"rendered":"

An important man asked Jesus, \u201cGood Teacher, what must I do to have eternal life?\u201d<\/p>\n

\tJesus said, \u201cWhy do you call me good? Only God is good. You know the commandments: \u2018Be faithful in marriage. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not tell lies about others. Respect your father and mother.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\tHe told Jesus, \u201cI have obeyed all these commandments since I was a young man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tWhen Jesus heard this, he said, \u201cThere is one thing you still need to do. Go and sell everything you own! Give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven. Then come and be my follower.\u201d When the man heard this, he was sad, because he was very rich.<\/p>\n

\tJesus saw how sad the man was. So he said, \u201cIt\u2019s terribly hard for rich people to get into God\u2019s kingdom! In fact, it\u2019s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into God\u2019s kingdom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tWhen the crowd heard this, they asked, \u201cHow can anyone ever be saved?\u201d<\/p>\n

\tJesus replied, \u201cThere are some things that people cannot do, but God can do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tPeter said, \u201cRemember, we left everything to be your followers!\u201d<\/p>\n

\tJesus answered, \u201cYou can be sure that anyone who gives up home or wife or brothers or family or children because of God\u2019s kingdom will be given much more in this life. And in the future world they will have eternal life.\u201d (Luke 18:18\u2013 30)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tSaturday Night Live once performed a skit about a rich man who devoted his fortune to finding a way to fit a camel through the eye of a needle so that he could get to heaven. But neither a shrinking ray, a giant, camel-sized needle, or pureeing a camel with a giant blender quite seemed to be the solution.<\/p>\n

\tJesus’ point about the camel was to counter the prevailing notion that God\u2019s favor or disfavor was demonstrated on the basis of one\u2019s bank account and general prosperity. Those who were wealthy, most believed, were favored by God and therefore certain to achieve heaven. Those who were poor and sick, most believed, were just as obviously destined to be excluded from it.<\/p>\n

\tJesus taught instead that salvation came from God and was dependent upon God. The disciples wondered who could be saved. Jesus affirmed that people couldn\u2019t do it, but that for God, it was in fact possible. We are can enter God\u2019s kingdom because of what Jesus did on the cross and for no other reason.<\/p>\n

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An important man asked Jesus, \u201cGood Teacher, what must I do to have eternal life?\u201d Jesus said, \u201cWhy do you call me good? Only God is good. You know the commandments: \u2018Be faithful in marriage. Do not murder. Do not … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6859"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6859"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6861,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6859\/revisions\/6861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}