Read Mark 9-12
You know the commandments, Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your Father and Mother. – Mark 10:19, NIV
This is a most interesting listing of the 10 Commandments that comes from the mouth of Jesus to the rich young ruler. The rich young ruler wants to know from Jesus what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. Now we know that earning eternal life is not possible, because it requires perfection. Jesus probes this young man’s understanding of his imperfections through a recitation of the 10 Commandments. He responds that the man should keep the commandments. It would seem that this was to elicit a level of humility in the face of the law of God. Jesus recites the second half of the 10 Commandments with two surprises. First He does not say Thou shalt not covet, He says thou shalt not defraud. Second Jesus puts the commandment to Honor your Father and your Mother last in the list. The man should have noticed these two changes to the typical recitations of the law, but he does not and he raps himself in his imagined perfection and bombastically states that he has kept all the commandments.
Jesus knew that this young man had broken all of these commandments in order increase his wealth. Jesus’ rewording of the 10th commandment tells us this. This man’s coveting and scheming had been acted upon through defrauding others. Notice in verse 22 that the young man was one who owned much property. It is most likely that there were given Jesus’ comments at least a few of these properties obtained through a process of desire, scheming and defrauding. Jesus was picking at precisely the point of this man’s sin and he refused to see it.
Technically we usually think of defrauding as a form of stealing, but Jesus puts this application of the 8th commandment in the place of the 10th commandment to highlight some of this man’s real estate and political transactions. As he had been going around the city and country he had seen pieces of property that he wanted and through political (remember he was a rich and powerful ruler or political official) shenanigans, he was able to acquire the desired property. It is clear from what Jesus said that all of this young man’s wealth did not come through legitimate means and he knew it.
One of the scabs that Jesus picks in this man’s life is that he has used his political power to gain what he wanted. He defrauded others out of what they had through his political connections and power. He was a corrupt politician who had rationalized his behavior to the point where in his own mind he was a completely righteous person. He conveniently forgot about all the political graft and corruption that he had been a part of…
Contrast this man with Zacheus who as a tax collector had defraud lots of people, but when confront by the presence of Jesus agreed to pay back 4 times everything that he had stolen and give 50% of his money to charity. Clearly Zacheus was facing his sin and this young man was not. So Jesus finally just says the only way for you to earn eternal life is to give away all of your money. Jesus is in effect saying all of your money is dirty.
Jesus’ positioning of the 5th commandment regarding “honor your father and mother” to last was also probably a message to this young man. But the man does not flinch, he is blinded to his own sin. We can speculate that because this man is a young, wealthy political figure that his parents did not approve of his being in league with the Roman government officials or that he was too busy being young, rich and powerful to have any time for His parents anymore. They were ignored and/or spurned.
The reason that Jesus finally says that this man must give away all that he has is not because poverty is the way to heaven, but it was to point out to this man that so much of what he had was based on fraud and corruption that the whole was tainted. The other reason that Jesus would have said that this man must give away all his wealth was because money was clearly his god. He had become rich through fraud and greed. He put money ahead of everything else and Jesus was trying to point out that the man had violated the first commandment. Thou shall have no other gods before me.
- Gil Stieglitz is the Executive Pastor at Adventure Christian Church
