“And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”” – Luke 12:19
The parable of the rich fool, a strong warning against greed, at first glance seems to be a warning directed to the rich of the world, but whether you consider yourself rich or poor the warning against greed is for all of us.
Many of us may feel let off the hook when we see the title “parable of the rich fool”, but the truth is rich is a relative term. I myself have felt both wealthy and poor in my lifetime based more on where I live rather than what I own. I am sure that a tour around the world will give any of us a different perspective on our own wealth or lack of it. This is not a parable for others; it is a parable for us.
In the parable the rich man was guilty of using his possessions as a means of creating an easy life for himself. This is an error that could be made by anyone of us. His error was storing up possessions for himself so that he could “take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” What should have he done? Jesus says that he should have lived a life rich toward God. In the parable we can see what a life rich toward God is not, but what is it? Two parts of the Bible came to my mind as I considered this; The parable of the Good Samaritan, and James passage regarding true religion (James 1:27). In both, helping those in need is equated with serving God. We serve a God who desires us to serve him by serving those around us.
This is why the parable of the rich fool is really an admonishment for all of us. We are all capable of putting our time, talents, and possessions to work helping those in need and in that way serving our God. This can be done if we are blessed with few possessions or an abundance. In order to be an effective mission society we must strive together be rich toward God. We must use our talents; great or small, our possessions; abundant or scarce and our time in service of God and avoid the temptation to store these up for our own pleasure.
Financial Update
At the end of September we did not provide full allowances to all of our missionaries. After designated support funds were used up, we needed an additional $65,814 to meet full allowances. We used the entire general fund balance of $32,602 and an additional $16,591 from estate funds to bring minimum allowance payments to 65 percent of the target amount. Of our 48 missionary units, 17 received full allowance and 30 received the minimum amount. Thank you for your ongoing prayers and support!