22) A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children,
But the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.

19) “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;

20) but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

21) For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

25) “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

26) Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

27) Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

28) “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;

29) and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30) Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

31) “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’

32) For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

33) But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

34) Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

New Birth’s Eddie Long got $3 million

In 1995, Bishop Eddie Long established a nonprofit, tax-exempt charity to help the needy and spread the gospel.

But it was Long, leader of the largest church congregation in Georgia, who became the charity’s biggest beneficiary.

The charity, Bishop Eddie Long Ministries Inc., provided him with at least $3.07 million in salary, benefits and the use of property between 1997 and 2000 — nearly as much as it gave to all other recipients combined during those years, tax records show.

It is one of at least 20 nonprofit and for-profit corporations that Long founded after becoming pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in 1987.
…
Any problem people may have with his charity, Long said, was rooted in some people’s expectations that pastors should be poor.

“I would love to sit with you and walk with you through the Bible to show that Jesus wasn’t poor,” he said.

His congregation is inspired by seeing its pastor do well, Long said.

“I’m not going to apologize for anything. . . . ”
…

Christians gather around the world each Christmas to sing about “poor baby Jesus” asleep in the manger with no crib for his bed.

But the Rev. Creflo Dollar looks inside that manger, and he doesn’t see a poor baby at all.

He sees a baby born into wealth because the kings visiting him gave him gold, frankincense and myrrh. He sees a messiah with so much money that he needed an accountant to track it. He sees a savior who wore clothes so expensive that the Roman soldiers who crucified him gambled for them.

Dollar sees a rich Jesus.

“He was rich, he was whole, and I use those words interchangeably,” says Dollar, senior pastor of World Changers Church International, a 23,000-member College Park church, which broadcasts its services on six continents.

Dollar is part of a growing number of preachers who say that the traditional image of Jesus as a poor, itinerant preacher who “had no place to lay his head” is wrong.

“Did Jesus have money? Well, the Bible was clear. Kings brought him gold,” Dollar says. “Did Jesus have money? It’s clear. He had a treasurer to keep up with it.”

Yet many academic scholars say pastors like Dollar are inventing a rich Jesus for selfish reasons.
…
Dollar preaches the Prosperity Gospel, where the basic tenet is God rewards the faithful with wealth, spiritual power and debt-free living. And he is joined by a host of other nationally known preachers:

• Bishop T.D. Jakes, one of the most popular televangelist in the United States, a best-selling author and star of MegaFest, one of the largest annual revivals in the country.

• Televangelist Oral Roberts, founder of Oral Roberts University.

• And Atlanta’s own Bishop Eddie Long, pastor of the city’s largest church, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, 25,000 strong.
…
In that encounter, the Gospels say Jesus told the man that it is “harder for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Dollar says, however, Jesus wasn’t saying wealth was a barrier to being accepted by God.

He says the “eye of the needle” was an ancient passageway entering Jerusalem that was so small that a camel had to drop to its knees to squeeze through. Jesus meant that a man who trusted in his riches would have similar difficulties adjusting to God’s way of handling riches, Dollar says.

“This guy had an opportunity to love God with his possessions, but he couldn’t do it because his possessions had him,” Dollar says.
…
Eric Meyers, a professor of archaeology at Duke University, says he has never heard a single reputable scholar argue for a rich Jesus.

“It’s new to me,” he says at the beginning of the conversation. But as he listens to a litany of arguments on why Jesus was rich, he breaks in: “Now you’re getting me mad.”

Meyers, who personally excavated the village of Nazareth where Jesus lived during a 19-year-period, says there is absolutely no evidence of an “eye of the needle” gate in Jerusalem.

And Meyers, editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaelogy in the Near East, says simply put, Jesus was poor — like virtually all the people around him.

“He didn’t even have his own tomb,” Meyers says. “He had to get it from a friend.”
…

50) Now behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man.

51) He had not consented to their decision and deed. He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God.

52) This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

53) Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock, where no one had ever lain before.

54) That day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near.

55) And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid.

56) Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.

1) Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples,

2) saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me.

3) And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.”

4) All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying:

5) “ Tell the daughter of Zion,

‘ Behold, your King is coming to you,
Lowly, and sitting on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.’”

6) So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them.

7) They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them.

And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

9) Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying:

“ Hosanna to the Son of David!

‘ Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’
Hosanna in the highest!”

10) And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, “Who is this?”

11) So the multitudes said, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.”

24) When they had come to Capernaum, those who received the temple tax came to Peter and said, “Does your Teacher not pay the temple tax?”

25) He said, “Yes.”
And when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?”

26) Peter said to Him, “From strangers.”
Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free.

27) Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast in a hook, and take the fish that comes up first. And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money; take that and give it to them for Me and you.”

13) You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am.

14) If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

15) For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.

16) Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.

17) If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

6) Now godliness with contentment is great gain.

7) For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.

And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.

9) But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.

10) For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.