Originally Posted by aron
"Enjoying the riches"... James said, "If you are enjoying your riches, and your brother goes by, hungry and cold, and you say, 'Be blessed, be warmed and filled', what is your enjoyment, really? Empty rhetoric." (cf Ja 2:16).
And then, John, "You say, 'I am rich, and need nothing', but you are destitute" (Rev 3:17)
And then, James again, "Howl, you rich... your riches burn you like fire" (cf Ja 5:1,3).
All this 'enjoyment' is to me just empty rhetoric. It precludes any issue, it is held as an end of itself, bringing God. In fact any issue, any work, is dismissed as "dead works", somehow obviating the grace of God. Yet that is nowhere stated in Paul's epistles, that we no longer need to heed Jesus' admonition to give to those who can't repay us, that our reward will be great in heaven.
Somehow with "enjoying the riches" we can ignore Jesus' repeated admonitions to be generous, and not to be selfish, because of Paul's epistle to the Romans stresses faith, and WL sussed out for the Body of Christ to be built up by repetitive chanting and shouting. That's the enjoyment - heel-rocking, neck-rolling, fist-pumping, sing-song cadence. And "love your neighbour" is nowhere to be found.
I see no riches whatsoever. Just dust.
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