PERSONAL
FINANCES; POVERTY

It is hard for a rich church to understand that her Lord was a poor man. Were He to appear today on our city streets as He appeared in Jerusalem, He would in all probability be picked up for vagrancy. Were He to teach here what He taught the multitudes about money, He would be blacklisted by churches, Bible conferences and missionary societies everywhere as unrealistic, fanatical and dangerous to organized religion.

Our Lord simply did not think about money the way His professed followers do today; and more particularly He did not give it the place our religious leaders give it. To them it is necessary; to Him it was not. He had nowhere to lay His head, and we have made poetry out of His poverty while being extremely careful not to share it.

Matthew 8:20; Matthew 19:24; Mark 6:8–9; Luke 6:20–38

The Warfare of the Spirit, 6.