Thematic Selections from the Bible

Lk 12:16-21

16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:

17 and he reasoned within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have not where to bestow my fruits?

18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my grain and my goods.

19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry.

20 But God said unto him, Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?

21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

This parable is not telling us to have no plans for the future, but not to let greed overcome our ability to differentiate between what’s good and bad. The rich man is a shrewd businessman. Instead of simply building more barns, he chose to tear down the current barns and build larger ones. We might think that is foolish, but this shows that his land is very valuable indeed – It would cost less to tear down the barn and rebuild it, than to lose that patch of arable land to farm on. The rich man had a bountiful crop that year, but instead of selling his fruits of labour at a cheaper rate (demand = supply, after all), the rich man chose to store his grain in barns, to be sold the next season when supplies were less. But what’s wrong with wanting to maximize profits? The message that Jesus wanted to bring across was to be wary of our ever increasing consumerist society. If we look at society around us, most of our spending is based on credit. Many of us are over our heads in debt, struggling to pay for house, car and furniture loans. Even in the face of our slumping economy, we’re being exhorted to spend money and buy things. But does buying more things change anything? Jesus said that our lives are not measured by the things that we have. What then, is it measured by?

Is our goal in life to store up riches in barns, and then to sit back, eat, drink and make merry? What riches can we take with us when we die? Even Solomon, with all his riches presented to him by people from all over the earth proclaimed in Ecclesiastes that “everything is meaningless”! If everything is temporal, then what remains? Jesus tells us to be “rich toward God”, for to have godliness with contentment is great gain. We don’t need bigger barns – we need a bigger heart for God.