Treasure

Heaven Is Not a Reward

One of the most persistent religious ideas is that Heaven is the reward for a good life. The statement sounds so natural that hardly anyone asks what it implies. Yet if Heaven is truly a reward, then goodness becomes a transaction. A person behaves properly now because something enormously desirable will be given later. The scale of the promised payment is so immense that even the language of sacrifice begins to lose its meaning. What sacrifice could really be called costly if the person making it knows that an eternity of perfect life is waiting as compensation?

Expect lashes, wealthy people!

You will think twice about your abundant wealth

With the wealth you receive from God you get the same size of obligation to distribute it. Otherwise prepare to receive lashes. Who do you think will receive less lashes: a billionaire who donated 500 million out of his one billion, or a millionaire who donated 500 thousand out of his one million? You might think the half a billion did more good things: more hospitals, more food for the homeless...

“You Fool”: Reconsidering God's Words to the Rich Man

The Parable of the Rich Fool is often presented as a straightforward story of divine judgment. A wealthy man accumulates great riches, God becomes displeased, and the man is condemned. For many readers, the matter appears settled by a single word:

“You fool!”

The assumption is that God is pronouncing a sentence.

Yet this assumption deserves closer examination.

The Rich Fool and the Inheritance He Forgot

The Parable of the Rich Fool is commonly interpreted as a warning against greed and the accumulation of wealth. While this is certainly part of the story, such a reading often overlooks the context that gave rise to the parable in the first place. Jesus does not tell this story in a vacuum. He tells it in response to a very specific request.

A man approaches Him and says:

“Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

Creed of the Unhidden Treasure

I believe in the Lord of Light,
who made all things to be seen and known,
and in whose presence nothing is lost.

I believe that theft is born of darkness,
that hiding is the root of corruption,
and that secrecy is the shadow of fear.

I believe that the treasures of earth perish
because they are buried in concealment,
where moth and rust do their silent work
and the hands of thieves find their paths through clay.

“Where Thieves Do Not Approach”: A Methodological Reading of Jesus’ Teaching on Treasure in Heaven

When Jesus told His listeners not to store up treasures on earth, “where moth and rust corrupt, and thieves break through and steal,” He was not giving an abstract moral maxim. He was speaking to ordinary villagers who lived in a world of fragile possessions, clay walls, and anxious nights. To understand His words properly, we must enter their elementary frame of experience, where the concept of stealing itself had a more tangible, almost physical meaning.

Someone Has to Think About the Morning

The Night Before the Sermon

The night was cool, and the small fire burned low.
The twelve lay scattered in the open, each wrapped in his cloak, asleep after a long day of walking and teaching. Only Judas remained awake.

The purse lay beside him — a rough, patched bag with a thin leather strap. He loosened its knot and felt the small pile of coins with his fingers. The metal was warm from his hand, and the sound of it, the soft clink in the dark, gave him a strange comfort.

What Kind of Thief Was Judas Iscariot

The Gospels give us only one explicit charge against Judas Iscariot before his betrayal — that “he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to take what was put into it” (John 12:6).
This line, written long after the events, has shaped centuries of judgment. Yet, when we look carefully at the context and reconcile the scattered clues, a far more natural and down-to-earth explanation emerges — one that reveals Judas as the most practical, even indispensable, member of the group.

Treasure