Christianity has always taught private property is fine — but Jesus told multiple people to sell everything they owned. Which version is actually biblical?

• A2

  Alex 211w ago

  I grew up in a prosperity gospel church. My mom gave her last $200 as a 'seed offering' because the pastor told her God would multiply it back. She was evicted two months later. If the American church wants to talk about what's biblical on money, maybe start by acknowledging that the version of Christianity most Americans actually encounter is basically a pyramid scheme with hymns.

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• A_

  Avery _x6d ago

  My grandfather was a missionary in Congo for 35 years. Owned almost nothing. Buried two children there. When he came back to the States and saw how churches spent money on building campaigns and coffee bars he wept. Literally wept. He didn't say a word, just got up and left the building. I think about him every time someone explains to me why the prosperity of the American church is actually fine.

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  Iris6d ago

  I'm a pastor and I'll be honest with you: I preach about money maybe twice a year and I keep it general because I know half my congregation will leave if I push too hard and I need their tithes to keep the lights on. I hate that that's true. But it's true. The institutional church has a structural incentive to not preach this text faithfully and almost nobody is willing to say that out loud.

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• T2

  Taylor 215d ago

  I think the real scandal isn't that Christians own things. It's that Christians in the wealthiest nation in human history give an average of 2.5% of their income to anything charitable. Not even to church — to ANYTHING. The tithe question is fake. The 'sell everything' question is fake. We haven't even started doing the basic thing. If you disagree with me explain why you're comfortable with that number.

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• TL

  Theo L.1w ago

  The rich young ruler text is clear. Jesus looked at him and LOVED him, and then told him to sell everything. That love is what made the command serious. If we say 'oh that was just for him personally' we are basically saying Jesus had a habit of handing out individualized salvation requirements and that makes the whole gospel incoherent. Either wealth is a spiritual danger Jesus took seriously or it isn't.

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  Marco6d ago

  lol 'the scholarly consensus' always shows up right when someone needs a reason not to feed hungry people

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  Liam1w ago

  i literally just want someone to explain to me why it's so easy for American Christians to say 'sell everything' was only for the rich young ruler but we apply 'do not murder' universally without blinking. we pick and choose which commands are universal and which are situational entirely based on what's convenient for us and that is the whole problem right there

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• Q2

  Quinn 215d ago

  I don't think you have to sell literally everything to take the text seriously. But I also don't think you get to own a lake house and a stock portfolio and spend an hour debating this online and then go to bed feeling like you've honored what Jesus said. At some point faithfulness has to cost something real. Not everything. Something.

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• R

  Reese6d ago

  The sheep and goats parable in Matthew 25 is the one that should keep wealthy Christians up at night. Jesus doesn't say 'did you believe the right things.' He says: I was hungry, naked, sick, in prison. What did you do about it? And the people who FAILED that test weren't cartoonish villains — they were surprised. They didn't even know they'd missed it. That's the terrifying part.

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• YT

  Yuki T.5d ago

  Here's what I keep coming back to. Every other hard command in the Sermon on the Mount gets taken seriously as at least a radical DIRECTION, even if not literally — don't murder means don't even be angry, don't commit adultery means don't even look with lust. We apply the intensification principle everywhere EXCEPT money. With money we suddenly reverse the logic and go SOFTER than the literal text. Why? I genuinely want someone to give me an answer that isn't just 'because it makes me uncomfortable.'

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• P

  Priya1w ago

  The Acts 2 community held all things in common. Acts 4 has Barnabas selling a field. Acts 5 has Ananias and Sapphira DYING because they lied about proceeds from a sale. The Spirit apparently took communal economics seriously enough to kill people over it. But sure, tell me again how my 401k is totally fine.

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• ML

  Maya L.5d ago

  Francis of Assisi literally sold everything and his movement transformed European Christianity. Mennonites and Quakers have maintained radical simplicity for centuries and they're not extinct. It CAN be done. We just decided not to because American Christianity married American capitalism sometime around 1950 and nobody filed for divorce.

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• NL

  Noah L.6d ago

  if that 'hold it loosely' argument were true then why did Jesus not say 'hold it loosely'? why did he say SELL IT AND GIVE TO THE POOR? at some point the text means what it says

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• TR

  Theo R.5d ago

  Even if regular churchgoers give double that, it's still not impressive when you hold it next to 'sell everything you have.' I'm not sure 5% is the victory lap we think it is.

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• R

  Reese1w ago

  I sold a second car we didn't need and gave the money to a family in my church who was about to lose their apartment. Felt more like Christianity than anything I've done in a decade of Sunday mornings. Not saying everyone has to do that. Just saying when you actually do it, the text stops feeling like a historical curiosity and starts feeling like instructions.

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• FB

  Feli B.1w ago

  okay but zacchaeus gave HALF and Jesus said salvation came to his house. so apparently 50% is also acceptable? which is it? sell everything or just give generously? the texts don't even agree with each other and nobody wants to talk about that

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• K2

  Kofi 211w ago

  Hard disagree with the Acts 2 romanticism crowd. Luke never presents the Jerusalem church's economic model as the command for all believers everywhere. It was a specific community response to a specific moment. And notably — that community ended up so poor that Paul spent years collecting relief offerings for them from other churches. The model didn't even work financially. That should at least make us ask questions.

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  Zara6d ago

  That's a real point but also notice how we always land on 'wealth enables good things' and never on 'radical giving enables good things.' We frame it to protect the wealth. Every time.

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  Taylor5d ago

  Fine. The phrase 'my brothers' (adelphoi mou) is used elsewhere by Jesus to refer to disciples specifically but also in a broader sense to anyone who does the will of the Father. Matthew 12:49-50. Matthew 28:10. The term flexes. The claim that it exclusively means traveling missionaries is one reading, not the only reading, and it's suspiciously convenient for comfortable people.

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• F

  Feli1w ago

  Context. Context. Context. Jesus was diagnosing the specific idol of THAT specific man. The man's wealth was his god. Jesus didn't tell Nicodemus to sell everything. Didn't tell the woman at the well. Didn't tell the centurion. He targeted the thing that had the man's heart. That's not a universal financial policy, that's a physician prescribing for one patient.

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• K

  Kofi6d ago

  The question isn't really 'sell everything or not.' The question is whether your possessions own YOU. That's the consistent thread across all the money texts — the rich young ruler, the parable of the sower, Zacchaeus, the camels and needles, the sheep and goats. It's about where your security actually lives. A person can own very little and be utterly enslaved to getting more. A person can own much and hold it loosely. Jesus is after the heart, full stop.

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• R

  Ravi6d ago

  Because Jesus also said 'if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out.' Are we gouging eyes? Hyperbole is a real literary device He used constantly. The Sermon on the Mount is full of it. That doesn't make the underlying demand less serious — it makes it more serious because it's targeting the interior disposition, not just the external behavior.

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  Priya5d ago

  That was a snarky non-answer. If you want to argue that 'least of these' is universal, make the exegetical case. Don't just mock the person engaging the actual text. That kind of response is why Christians don't take each other seriously.

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• LS

  Liam S.1w ago

  Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Wesley — none of them taught that private property was sinful. Wesley came closest by living simply and giving radically but he never taught you sin by owning a house. Two thousand years of serious theologians who also read these same texts landed somewhere other than 'sell everything is universal law.' That doesn't make them right, but a little humility toward the tradition wouldn't hurt.

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  Nina6d ago

  Okay but wealth also enables missions. The printing press. Bible translation organizations. Seminary education. Medical missions. Clean water projects. None of that happens without people who built wealth and then deployed it. The Reformation itself was partly funded by German nobles with serious money. Not all wealth is hoarding.

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  Noah5d ago

  2.5% is the average including non-churchgoers. Regular churchgoers consistently give more. Not defending the number, it should be higher, but at least be accurate about what we're measuring.

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• LS

  Liam S.6d ago

  Thank you for saying that. That's the most honest thing I've read on this site.

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• Y

  Yuki6d ago

  You're reading Matthew 25 wrong. The 'least of these my brothers' in context refers specifically to persecuted Christian missionaries, not to the poor generally. That's the scholarly consensus going back to multiple church fathers. I'm not saying we ignore the poor — we obviously shouldn't — but weaponizing that text to guilt people about their savings account is eisegesis.

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