The Rich Man and Lazarus - A Bible story whose message is often missed or misinterpreted. 

The Rich Man and Lazarus is a story found in Luke chapter 16, verses 19-31. It has become controversial in recent years as people debate the meaning of these verses. The main problem that both sides of this debate is that both sides come to this parable looking at it through 21st century eyes instead of 1st century eyes. In doing so, both sides sermons have become lacking or so it seems to me. This is my attempt to briefly show what I see in these verses.

To see the message here, you must first go back to Luke 15:1 and see who is here at this time. When looking at this verse, you see that along with Jesus and His disciples, there were Tax Collectors, Sinners (A word that is used to describe Jewish people whom the Pharisees and and Experts in the Biblical Law condemned because of their unholy lifestyle.), along with Pharisees and Experts in the law. The rest of chapter 15 is devoted to Jesus telling parables (fictional stories that teach Biblical Truths) that defend Jesus' association with the Tax Collectors and Sinners and describe what His mission is to them. 

At the start of chapter 16 Jesus turns to His disciples and tells them the parable of a dishonest steward.  This is a parable that teaches - "make friends for yourselves by how you use worldly wealth, so that when it runs out, you will be welcomed into the eternal homes."

This offends the Pharisees.  This brings us to verse 14 and 15 which is key to understanding the upcoming parable. These verses say  - "14 The Pharisees (who loved money) heard all this and ridiculed him. 15 But Jesus said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in men’s eyes, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly prized among men is utterly detestable in God’s sight." You might want to reread verse 15 because this is key to the upcoming verses.

Going from verse 15 we skip down to the text for this post.

"19 “There was a rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 But at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus whose body was covered with sores, 21 who longed to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. In addition, the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “Now the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And in Hades, as he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far off with Lazarus at his side. 24 So he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in anguish in this fire.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus likewise bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in anguish. 26 Besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us, so that those who want to cross over from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ 27 So the rich man said, ‘Then I beg you, father—send Lazarus to my father’s house 28 (for I have five brothers) to warn them so that they don’t come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they must respond to them.’ 30 Then the rich man said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31 He replied to him, ‘If they do not respond to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Now the first thing that I want to discuss is the question of whether or not this is a parable or a true story.  Both sides make valid points to their case, but in the end by making their point, they miss the truth that this teaching brings. The first thing that I want to point out is that this story is in the form of a parable. The starting words, "There was a" is much like "Once upon a time" in the American dialect, which means that this is a fable or more truthfully a parable. However, in the upcoming verses, one of the characters is named Lazarus. That is rare in parables and many believe that shows that this is a true story that Jesus is telling. People who argue these viewpoints do so because of how they want to interpet verses 22-31. More on that later.

The first thing that I want to look at is "the rich man". Who is this man. The first thing that is very oblivious.  He has wealth. He dresses in the finest clothes. He not only eats everyday, but his everyday meals are feasts, much like our Thanksgiving feasts.  What is often left out in sermons is that this is a man whom the Pharisees would praise and honor.  That means that the rich man is a good Jewish man. He does all the right things. He goes to and participates in the Jewish festivals.  He would demonstrate his spiritual cleanliness by going into a Mikveh and then into Synagogue or the Temple. 

Now the second main character in this story is Lazarus. He is on the other end of the spectrum. He is very poor. His body was covered in sores, which would make him spiritually unclean  and unable to gather and/or worship with others. He was reduced to having to beg for food and found himself sitting at the gate of this rich man's house. Now someting that is often missed in the telling of this story is the meaning of the name Lazarus. His name means "whom God helps". The meaning of this name would not be lost on Jesus' audience and adds to the meaning of the story.  Now the main desire of Lazarus is for table scraps from the rich man's table. These would be the crumbs that were often ate by the animals. ( It is tempting for me to go a goose chase to Mark 7:28, but I will not do so here).

Now we get to their deaths and again we see the extreme differences in how this is carried out. The Rich Man died and was buried. His funeral would have been a royal one full of mourners and a large procession going to his burial where he was sealed inside a tomb. The poor man also died. What the story doesn't say and that would have been understood by the original audience is that Lazarus' body would have been casted in a burning garbage pit in a place called Gehenna. A place full of maggots, and fire.  

Nest we get to see the other worldly destinations of the two main characters. The rich man is in an eternal Gehenna with fire and worms and Lazarus (whose name means "whom God helps") is carried to Abraham's side or bosom. 

Now we meet a third character in this story. Father Abraham. This term of God points out that both of these men were descendants of Abraham. They were both Jewish men, but now in the ultimate role reversal -  the one (who was highly praised in life) is in torment and the one (who was highly despised in life) is by the side of God and God is holding him like one would a child or someone when you are comforting them in their grief. And we see here what Jesus was talking about in verse 15 ( For what is highly prized among men is utterly detestable in God’s sight.).  The rich man is now the beggar (desiring a drop of water from Lazarus) and Lazarus is now in wealth.  We could end the post right here because that is the main point. The difference between the values we put on people and what God values. However if we did that we would miss the dueling viewpoints and their arguments over verses 23 - 31. The people who generally want this to be a parable do so because they want to dismiss this description of Hell or Judgement. However even if they are right about this as a parable, they miss that God gave His judgement in the afterlife and not this life. Also from what I have noticed is that this viewpoint waters down Jesus words - "utterly detestable" to the point where they do not carry any meaning or consequence. 

 Now the other side of this debate is the literalists who take this as a literal place of judgement. (Those who know me know that I come from this side of the debate). However many of these people miss what these verses teach.  This teaching comes from verses 27-31.  (27 So the rich man said, ‘Then I beg you, father—send Lazarus to my father’s house 28 (for I have five brothers) to warn them so that they don’t come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they must respond to them.’ 30 Then the rich man said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31 He replied to him, ‘If they do not respond to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’). 

 The rich man's request for someone to rise from the dead points out to him wanting someone to go and describe this place of torment to his family who is still alive. In other words, the rich man was wanting someone to go back and speak with authority about judgement, and thee fire and brimstone of Hell.  This is the message of a lot of evangelists, preachers, teachers, and pastors of today. Now the danger of this is that they all miss what Jesus is teaching in the next verse. They have Moses and the Prophets. Moses is referring to the first five books of what we call the Old Testament, the first major division of that Testament. The Prophets refer to the last 17 books of teh Old Testament and the last major division (Sometimes this division is further divided into Major Prophets and Minor Prophets). This phrase Moses and the Prophets is a synonym for the scriptures. Jesus would demonstrate the worthlessness of this teaching by literally raiseing people from the dead and no where in scripture does it say that anyone became a disciple of Jesus from these men. You see people who preach these sermons do so to produce converts, but Jesus isn't looking for converts. He is wanting disciples.   A convert may say the sinner prayer, but seldom has the works coming from their hearts that show love and faith. As James would later say in his letter - their faith is dead. a disciple who commits his life to the following of Jesus. They learn what Jesus says and they strive daily to become more like him so that when someone sees them they see Jesus through them.  

So the proverbial question here is - where do you find yourself in this narrative? 

Righteous Lot and the story of Sodom

 I have felt the need lately to go back and look at the story of Lot.  The man who was Abraham's nephew and will forever be known for living in Sodom.  This is a familiar story, but I want to look at the whole study and see what the Bible really says about it.  As we head into this story, we do so knowing that Lot was a Righteous man as recorded in 2 Peter 2. 

We first hear of Lot in Genesis 11 in the genealogy of Shem who was the son of Noah (The man who is linked to an ark (boat) and the flood). We get down to Terah who was the Father of Abram and Haran.  Haran was the father of Lot.  Then Haran dies, and Terah takes his son Abram, Abram's wife - Sarai (who was also his half-sister), and his grandson Lot and they head out to Canaan. While they  had reached a place called Charan (Most translation say Haran which is confusing since this is also the name of Abram's dead brother). while they were there, Terah dies. That leaves Abram, Sarai, and Lot. Then The Lord tells Abram to go to the land of Canaan and they all go.

Now when a famine comes upon the land, they escape to the land of Egypt. While there  They tell Pharaoh that Sarai is Abram's sister and not his wife and Pharoah takes Sarai to be his wife.  God then starts causes bad things to happen and Pharaoh discovers that Abram and Sarai are actually married and he kicks the whole bunch out of Egypt. Lot was a part of all of this. So they left Egypt and head for the wilderness of the Negeb. 

At that time, both Abram and Lot were successful ranchers who had both stock and herds of animals and the land there could not support both men's livestock and fighting would break out because of that. So Abram gets together with Lot and they decide to go different ways as way for them to maintain their relationship with each other. And so Lot decides to go to the Eden-like setting of the Jordan Valley where the city kingdoms of Sodom and Gomorrah existed. and Abram heads further into the land of Canaan. 

While Lot was living in that land, a war broke out and a number of kings invaded and made war with Sodom, Gomorrah and the region and won the war.  They also captured Lot and Lots possessions and went on their way. When this news reached Abram, Abram raised an army and went after these kings and won the victory and took back everything that this kings had took including Lot and Lot's possessions. Abram then headed back to meet up with the king of Sodom and there he also met the priest king of Salem named Melchizedek. Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of all the spoils of victory and then he returned everything to the king of Sodom minus the offerings to Melchizedek and also a part to the men who helped Abram.

At this point we skip forward a few chapters and we find that Abram is now Abraham and Sarai is now Sarah.  Abraham has a son named Ishmael with Sarah's handmaid - Hagar.  Also the ritual of circumcision has begun.

Abraham is resting during the heat of the day when 3 men appear before him. Now these men must have had an otherworldly appearance. I say that by Abraham's reaction and in a few verses we see a similar reaction from Lot. Now it is revealed that one of these men was the Lord Jehovah and the other two were angels. Here we see among other things the reveal that Sodom, Gomorrah and the whole region would be destroyed. Abraham then intercedes for Sodom and The Lord tells Abraham that if there are 10 righteous men in the city, the city would be spared.

So what was the people in this region doing that was so evil? The verses that I've been suminizing have already said that they were guilty of living for sensual pleasure. Ezekiel 16:49-50 tells us that their sin was that they had arrogance, abundant food, prosperous ease of living, did not aid the poor and needy, did abominations   (sexual sins from having sex with anyone who is not your spouse, (including other family members) same sex relationships, and bestiality - Jude also hints at them doing bestiality).  But now let's get back to the story. These two angels approach the city gates of Sodom and that is where Lot is at.  It is interesting that since the rescue of the people of Sodom by Abraham (Lot's Uncle) that he now sits at the city gates which is a place of influence and honor. Lot has a similar reaction to Abraham when he sees these otherworldly people and talks them into coming to his house, getting their feet washed, eating and spending the night. The Angels agree to this and after they have finished eating, all the men of the city had gathered outside of Lot's house. These men had gathered to gangrape these angels.  Now, many people teach that this was a homosexual act, but it wasn't. Homosexuality is congenial, and this was not. this was forced. This style of rape is about destroying a person, with their penis as their weapon. Lot offers to sacrifice his two youngest daughters to save the otherworldly men. The response of the mob shows us that Lot was trying to use his influence for good, when they cry out against Lot saying that he came that he came there as a guest and now has become a judge over them. So the mob decide to do to Lot what they wanted to do to the strangers plus more. The otherworldly men or angels pull Lot inside and tell him to gather his kin. Lot goes to his two son in laws but they treat Lot like he was like Don Quixote.  The angels then tells Lot to take his wife and two remaining daughters and leave the city. They then pretty much have to take them by the hand and drag them out of the city and tell them to leave the area and to not look back. Lot's wife does look back and becomes a pillar of salt. Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole region was destroyed by fire and sulfur raining down on the region, but Lot had interceded for the town of Zoar and at first went there and then he went on further into a cave where his daughters thought that they were the last ones standing. They get their father drunk and have sex with him and bear him sons. I included this because when God delivered Israel out of Egypt later on, He tells them to leave the incestuous descendants of Lot alone and let them dwell in the land.

It is important that we as Christians get this story right, because God uses this story as how it will be in the end times and how God can and will deliver His people out of destruction.

The start of Sin and its Cure

 One thing that I've noticed over the course of my life is this sin that no one talks about. We find it throughout scriptures. We see it in our nation. We place  these people on high pedestals.  Our political elections are designed to put people who demonstrate this sin into power..We even find this sin within our churches, and I believe that it is this sin that is causing our church attendance to decline and the moral decay of our nation to increase.

Before I go any further, let me post a couple of verses of scriptures to demonstrate where this sin takes all of us.  The verses are Isaiah 14: 13-14. I'm quoting the NASB in all verse references in this blogpost.

13 "But you said in your heart,

'I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God,
And I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the recesses of the north.

14 'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.'

As you can see these verses are talking about the subject elevating himself to God.  These verses are from a bigger context dealing with God's judgement of certain people and nations and there is a debate about who these verses are referring to, but no matter what the position of that debate you may hold, the meaning of what I am discussing here is the same.  I believe that self-exalting is to sin what love is to righteousness. 

To look at this, let's go back to the Garden Of Eden and look at what made the fruit of the Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil so tempting.  We find what I'm talking about in Genesis 3:5

 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

This is the verse right before the fruit looked good to eat. It was when Adam and Eve saw the tree as a means to exalt them to be God's equal that caused the sin of eating.

Now before we go any further, let us acknowledge that there are two ways to exalt oneself. you can elevate yourself by your actions and achievements or you an elevate yourself by cutting down others. Both ways will result in you being exalted about the others.

Now applying that to God's law that He handed down to Israel, we see:

Worshipping other Gods instead of the one true God, lowers God from His rightful Status.

Making images of a God that is beyond being represented in an Image, lowers God's Status.

When you use God's name in a vain way, you lower God's status.

Working 7 days a week or forcing your hired help to work seven days a week is a way to exalt yourself. 

When you dishonor your father or mother, you lower their status and exalt yourself

When you murder someone, you exalt yourself above them.

When you commit adultery, your cut down and exalt yourself over your spouse, the person you have the affair with and also their spouse.

Stealing exalts yourself over others.

Bearing false witness or lying about someone else, cuts them down to exalt yourself.

Even just wanting or desiring to do those things, even if you don't act upon those thoughts, serves to exalt yourself over others.

Now maybe we can look back at what I started this blog post about. The American way is to honor those who have found a way to exalt themselves above others, whether it is through their monetary  accomplishments, or athletic achievements, etc.  Our Elections are based upon candidates exalting themselves. Our churches are full of Pastors who use their Seminary degrees as a means to exalt themselves. They use church statistics to exalt them and their local congregation above others. Even regular members seek to exalt themselves to be the "bell cow" of the congregations to dictate the actions of others. I could go into examples, but I think that everyone gets the ideal. Every person who has been born since Adam and Eve has had this sin, except one.

Now, I think is a good time to look at the cure for this sin and to do that, we need to look at the one, I just mentioned. That One is the person that we Non-Jews call Jesus. So let us look at Philippians 2: 5-8

5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 

While the whole book of Philippians is a good book to read for this, let us look at these Christological verses that I quoted and see these things about Jesus

Jesus was in the form of God. He was equal with God. He was God. As we look at these next actions of His, let us remember that and that He never became a doormat for others to walk on.

He emptied Himself. Instead of Exalting Himself, He lowered Himself and thus elevated us. He took the form of a bond-servant, or a slave. The lowest position of any person on Earth and He became like us.  When Jesus did that, He elevated us. Then He was obedient to the point of being tortured to death and dying on a cross. By Doing this He exalted us to the point where we can now receive Sanctification.  That is we can be cured from our sins.  We can become Justified. That is - Jesus took the punishment that we deserve.  This is the basis of forgiveness. I can forgive those who harmed me because I know that someone has received punishment for that hurt that I received. 

Now Jesus did not stay in that humbled position, because God has exalted Jesus about all of us and because of that - we who have accepted His Lordship over us are elevated to be considered younger siblings to Jesus. This is what love does.  Love elevates others.  When we humble ourselves instead of exalting ourselves, we are in a position to show love for others. To meet their needs, elevates them to a higher status. By seeing our actions of love, they see the how God seeks to exalt and can take part in that, by asking God to do that for them and they will be part of the family of God.