In this article, we will mainly learn that according to Christians, the only true wealth is found in God, and absolutely not in material goods.
In the Bible – Poverty and Wealth
[Speaking of God] He sends away empty those who have become rich! Lk 1:53 is sung by Christians in the Magnificat.
Blessed are the poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God, as it is written in Chapter 6 of the Gospel of Saint Luke.
In the Gospel of Saint Mark, we find this teaching of Jesus Christ:
Jesus sat in the Temple in front of the treasury, and watched how the crowd put money in. Many rich people put in large sums of money.
A poor widow came forward and put in two small coins.
Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “Amen, I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.
For all of them took from their superfluity, but she took from her poverty: she put in all that she had, all that she had to live on.”
St. Mark in the Bible, Chapter 12
A central verse in the Gospel of St. Luke (Chapter 12) is this word spoken by Jesus:
“Beware of all greed, for one’s life, even in abundance, does not depend on what he has.”
In the Imitation of Jesus Christ – Poverty and Wealth
TheImitation of Jesus Christ, described as the most printed book after the Bible of its time, is a book of piety that was a source for many personalities, thinkers and religious. St. Therese of Lisieux, for example, never left it, and “knew almost every chapter by heart”.
The sovereign wealth is to strive for the kingdom of heaven through contempt for the world. Vanity, then, to amass perishable riches and to hope in them.
In the Imitation of Jesus Christ, That we must imitate Jesus Christ, and despise all the vanities of the world
→ Summary of the Wealth of Nations – Adam Smith
