성경

 

Luke 12:13-21 : The Parable of the Rich Fool

공부

13 Just then a man in the crowd appealed to Him. "Rabbi," he said, "tell my brother to give me a share of the inheritance."

14 "Man," He replied, "who has constituted me a judge or arbitrator over you?"

15 And to the people He said, "Take care, be on your guard against all covetousness, for no one's life consists in the superabundance of his possessions."

16 And He spoke a parable to them. "A certain rich man's lands," He said, "yielded abundant crops,

17 and he debated within himself, saying, "`What am I to do? for I have no place in which to store my crops.'

18 "And he said to himself, "`This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and in them I will store up all my harvest and my wealth;

19 and I will say to my life, "`Life, you have ample possessions laid up for many years to come: take your ease, eat, drink, enjoy yourself.'

20 "But God said to him, "`Foolish man, this night your life is demanded from you; and these preparations--for whom shall they be?'

21 "So is it with him who amasses treasure for himself, but has no riches in God."

주석

 

The Sin of Covetousness

작가: Bill Woofenden

"Take heed, and beware of covetousness." Luke 12:15

Additional readings: Genesis 4:1-15, Psalm 39, Psalm 40

Today, because of conditions of unrest, instability, and fear, many reforms are being advocated. This effort extends to education. And indeed the most potent and desirable reform would be a reform in education, for a better education would make us better and humbler men and women. But what is most needed at every educational level from the kindergarten to the university is an adequate religious education; otherwise we may fill our minds with many knowledges and not know to what end we are studying.

Men need a knowledge of God and of spiritual things. Ignorance concerning the Lord and spiritual truths prevents a right valuation of human motives and therefore makes impossible a sound understanding of history, of sociology, of human behavior in general. It interferes with the appreciation of the arts and with the building of a sound social structure. Every subject ought to be taught against a background of religion.

Because of the confusion in religious thought, particularly in the western world, there is suspicion of religious teaching, and we are told that the creeds of the churches are obstacles in the way of Christianity and that if only creeds were taken away, people would flock to the churches and they would be filled to overflowing. In not a few churches creeds have been discarded, but the expectations were not fulfilled. As a matter of fact no creedless church can come into its kingdom, for there must be common beliefs as a basis of common understanding and action.

It is necessary that men recognize a power outside of themselves, which is the Lord, and come to know Him, to learn His laws, and to live according to them. One of these laws is that given in our text. "Take heed, and beware of covetousness." This is generally accepted, as it is generally understood, by people of all religions, and certainly among Christians. People may be in doubt about some of the precepts urged upon us by the Church as necessary to the Christian way of life, but our right attitude toward the property of others is not one of them. We might mention several subjects on which Christian people are divided in their opinions, but a debate for and against the right to be covetous would fail for lack of argument because, whether or not most people actually avoid covetousness, all are quite agreed that it is a sin.

But what does it mean to covet? To covet is eagerly to desire anything not possessed by us at the moment. The thing desired may be in the possession of someone else, but not necessarily. Thus we may break the obvious sense of the ninth commandment simply by desiring our neighbor's house. But we may also fall into the sin of being covetous of more wealth than we possess, not the wealth of anyone in particular, but just wealth in the abstract. And this latter use of the word, is surely its true Christian use.

The sin of coveting is really a certain wrong attitude to the things we do not happen to possess, whether they belong to other people or not. Covetousness in this sense is another name for greed. Everyone knows that greed is a sin. And the fact that everyone falls into it in one way or another and the fact that theft is the commonest item in the criminal calendar in no way disproves that people really do know it to be a sin. It only goes to show that something more than a knowledge of sin is required in order to shun it.

It should be noted especially that the sin of covetousness is not a sin of action but of desire. The man who covets his neighbor's goods in direct contradiction of the ninth and tenth commandments is not actually stealing his neighbor's goods and no court of law could make him chargeable, although of course the implication is that if there were no risk of discovery involving punishment or less to himself, he would steal when the opportunity offered. No doubt the coveters of this life are the thieves of the next. Still it is noticeable that the other sins listed in the ten commandments are concerned with some evil activity of the outward life. The murderer, the adulterer, the thief, the man who bears false witness are guilty of actual evil activities directed against the wellbeing of the neighbor, whereas coveting is a sinful desire which is still a sin whether it finds expression in activity or not. Of course this is equally true of all sins. Sin of every kind has its root in the heart or will of man where it may be found prompting, suggesting, urging to some evil course of action. From the will it grows up to the understanding, where the desired evil becomes a conscious thought and where it either receives the check of conscience or else passes out into the life as a deliberate action.

It is the will of man that sins, not his body. Hence all sin is perpetrated first in our desires. In the eyes of the law the murderer is a murderer because of the life he has willfully taken; in the eyes of the Lord he is a murderer because of the life he has willfully desired to take. And the same applies to every other kind of sin. The Lord Himself expressed this truth when He said, "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment." The Lord was showing that the sin of which heaven takes account in any murder is not the action of the hands but the hate in the heart; for there, and there only, the sin had its inception.

The final commandments point to the inwardness of sin; they unmask the corrupt will of man in which greed has set up its powerful rule and from which it invariably tries to govern the life according to the order of hell. Covetousness is greed. Greed is self-love. Self-love is the root of all sin, and hence the prime cause of all those sins against which the commandments warn so sternly.

But is covetousness such an evil? People say, "I can quite understand that if I steal my neighbor's goods in actual fact, I am injuring my neighbor and consequently I have sinned. But if I merely covet his goods without actually taking them, I have injured no one. In what then does my sin consist? I have not stolen anything, I have not sinned against my neighbor, for he remains entirely unaffected by my coveting—he may even be quite ignorant of it. Why should the Lord be concerned when no one else is?"

People who talk in this way admit the full force of the distinction between the legal code which the law administers and the moral code which the law cannot touch. And at the same time their question raises the whole issue of the authority of that moral code.

First let it be recognized that sins are in every case and without exception fundamentally sins against the Lord and no one else. They do of course involve our fellow beings, as in the obvious instances of murder and theft, and the law takes action and exacts penalties to protect us and our fellows against such things, but this is really a secondary consideration, seen from the spiritual standpoint. The real fact that matters is that when anyone sins, he has sinned first against the Lord. The Lord gives the Law. He it is who stands behind all laws which are in conformity with Divine revelation. He alone sanctions the moral code and gives validity to its laws. He alone declares what is to be done and what is to be avoided. Therefore whatever is done in disobedience to the Divine Law, whether in thought, word, or deed and whether or not it has a noticeable effect on others, is a sin—a sin against God. And while it may go unpunished in this life because it is beyond the reach of the legal code, it cannot possibly be without effect upon the inner life of the sinner and possibly of others too.

"Against whom have I sinned?" asks the coveter of his neighbor's goods. "Against God" is the answer. "But whom have I injured?" he inquires. "Certainly yourself," he may be told, for no one can encourage desires that are contrary to the Lord's revealed will without injury to his soul. The soul is formed to receive love and wisdom from its Creator and ordained to respond by a life of heavenly obedience. If instead the soul in its freedom chooses to reject the law of love and wisdom and to prefer its own law, then the effect is that the soul is injured, whether we realize it or not.

But this is not all the answer to the problem. When we are living in obedience to Divine Law and doing our best to check covetousness and greed, then we become instruments of the Lord for His operation in the world about us. When our life is orderly, the life of heaven flows down into us and passes out to bless other lives in our deeds and words and probably in our thoughts and desires too. But when we create disorder in our lives, whether we are found out or not. heaven’s inflowing life is stopped; it cannot get through us, and we are therefore responsible for withholding the heavenly influences from other people. We cannot help being in some degree our brother's keeper. We cannot shirk our individual responsibility for the world's happiness or unhappiness. The spiritual rectitude of our lives is intimately bound up with the world about us, and if we are to be the means of bringing the Divine blessings into our environment, then obedience to the Laws of the Lord and the shunning of evils as sins against Him are absolutely necessary.

It is in the internal effect on the individual that evil most clearly manifests itself. The covetous person is dissatisfied with his lot and is unhappy. Covetousness blinds him to his opportunities for use. His attitude toward the world is that it owes him a living, and he blames others instead of himself for his condition.

And we know what such a person is in his social group. He is not a pleasant and helpful acquaintance. He does not see his opportunities for use and service to the community. He is thinking of what he ought to have instead of thinking of what he can do with what he has. It is because of its effect on our souls and on others that we are commanded, "Take heed, and beware of covetousness."

성경

 

1 Kings 7

공부

   

1 Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished all his house.

2 For he built the house of the forest of Lebanon; its length was one hundred cubits, and its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits, on four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams on the pillars.

3 It was covered with cedar above over the forty-five beams, that were on the pillars; fifteen in a row.

4 There were beams in three rows, and window was over against window in three ranks.

5 All the doors and posts were made square with beams: and window was over against window in three ranks.

6 He made the porch of pillars; its length was fifty cubits, and its breadth thirty cubits; and a porch before them; and pillars and a threshold before them.

7 He made the porch of the throne where he was to judge, even the porch of judgment: and it was covered with cedar from floor to floor.

8 His house where he was to dwell, the other court within the porch, was of the like work. He made also a house for Pharaoh's daughter (whom Solomon had taken as wife), like this porch.

9 All these were of costly stones, even of cut stone, according to measure, sawed with saws, inside and outside, even from the foundation to the coping, and so on the outside to the great court.

10 The foundation was of costly stones, even great stones, stones of ten cubits, and stones of eight cubits.

11 Above were costly stones, even cut stone, according to measure, and cedar wood.

12 The great court around had three courses of cut stone, and a course of cedar beams; like as the inner court of the house of Yahweh, and the porch of the house.

13 King Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre.

14 He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass; and he was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill, to work all works in brass. He came to king Solomon, and performed all his work.

15 For he fashioned the two pillars of brass, eighteen cubits high apiece: and a line of twelve cubits encircled either of them about.

16 He made two capitals of molten brass, to set on the tops of the pillars: the height of the one capital was five cubits, and the height of the other capital was five cubits.

17 There were nets of checker work, and wreaths of chain work, for the capitals which were on the top of the pillars; seven for the one capital, and seven for the other capital.

18 So he made the pillars; and there were two rows around on the one network, to cover the capitals that were on the top of the pillars: and so did he for the other capital.

19 The capitals that were on the top of the pillars in the porch were of lily work, four cubits.

20 There were capitals above also on the two pillars, close by the belly which was beside the network: and the pomegranates were two hundred, in rows around on the other capital.

21 He set up the pillars at the porch of the temple: and he set up the right pillar, and called its name Jachin; and he set up the left pillar, and called its name Boaz.

22 On the top of the pillars was lily work: so was the work of the pillars finished.

23 He made the molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and its height was five cubits; and a line of thirty cubits encircled it.

24 Under its brim around there were buds which encircled it, for ten cubits, encircling the sea: the buds were in two rows, cast when it was cast.

25 It stood on twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east; and the sea was set on them above, and all their hinder parts were inward.

26 It was a handbreadth thick: and its brim was worked like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily: it held two thousand baths.

27 He made the ten bases of brass; four cubits was the length of one base, and four cubits its breadth, and three cubits its height.

28 The work of the bases was like this: they had panels; and there were panels between the ledges;

29 and on the panels that were between the ledges were lions, oxen, and cherubim; and on the ledges there was a pedestal above; and beneath the lions and oxen were wreaths of hanging work.

30 Every base had four bronze wheels, and axles of brass; and the four feet of it had supports: beneath the basin were the supports molten, with wreaths at the side of each.

31 The mouth of it within the capital and above was a cubit: and its mouth was round after the work of a pedestal, a cubit and a half; and also on its mouth were engravings, and their panels were foursquare, not round.

32 The four wheels were underneath the panels; and the axles of the wheels were in the base: and the height of a wheel was a cubit and half a cubit.

33 The work of the wheels was like the work of a chariot wheel: their axles, and their rims, and their spokes, and their naves, were all molten.

34 There were four supports at the four corners of each base: its supports were of the base itself.

35 In the top of the base was there a round compass half a cubit high; and on the top of the base its stays and its panels were of the same.

36 On the plates of its stays, and on its panels, he engraved cherubim, lions, and palm trees, according to the space of each, with wreaths all around.

37 In this way, he made the ten bases: all of them had one casting, one measure, and one form.

38 He made ten basins of brass: one basin contained forty baths; and every basin was four cubits; and on every one of the ten bases one basin.

39 He set the bases, five on the right side of the house, and five on the left side of the house: and he set the sea on the right side of the house eastward, toward the south.

40 Hiram made the basins, and the shovels, and the basins. So Hiram made an end of doing all the work that he worked for king Solomon in the house of Yahweh:

41 the two pillars, and the two bowls of the capitals that were on the top of the pillars; and the two networks to cover the two bowls of the capitals that were on the top of the pillars;

42 and the four hundred pomegranates for the two networks; two rows of pomegranates for each network, to cover the two bowls of the capitals that were on the pillars;

43 and the ten bases, and the ten basins on the bases;

44 and the one sea, and the twelve oxen under the sea;

45 and the pots, and the shovels, and the basins: even all these vessels, which Hiram made for king Solomon, in the house of Yahweh, were of burnished brass.

46 In the plain of the Jordan did the king cast them, in the clay ground between Succoth and Zarethan.

47 Solomon left all the vessels [unweighed], because they were exceeding many: the weight of the brass could not be found out.

48 Solomon made all the vessels that were in the house of Yahweh: the golden altar, and the table whereupon the show bread was, of gold;

49 and the lampstands, five on the right side, and five on the left, before the oracle, of pure gold; and the flowers, and the lamps, and the tongs, of gold;

50 and the cups, and the snuffers, and the basins, and the spoons, and the fire pans, of pure gold; and the hinges, both for the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and for the doors of the house, [to wit], of the temple, of gold.

51 Thus all the work that king Solomon worked in the house of Yahweh was finished. Solomon brought in the things which David his father had dedicated, [even] the silver, and the gold, and the vessels, and put them in the treasuries of the house of Yahweh.