Dave Ramsey Says THIS Is A Stupid Doctrine | Pastor Reacts

The Rich Young Ruler and the Camel Through the Needle

I tell you, it's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven. This is what you do when you get some money. You serve the poor. You take care of people that are hurting.

You lift people up. But you can't do that when you're freaking broke. This is how stupid this doctrine is. It makes me angry. Can you tell?

Yeah, I can tell.

He wasn't saying you can't get to heaven because you're wealthy. He was saying that young man didn't go to heaven because he wouldn't follow Christ.

Did Dave Ramsey just characterize what happened correctly? If we're not careful, we'll all completely miss what Jesus is really talking about. Dave Ramsey just went off on a particular doctrine that many in the church believe.

As a matter of fact, he gets visibly angry as he goes after Christians who believe this doctrine. But what is this doctrine and who has the right opinion on this? We're going to get into all of that in just a moment.

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So I am a 23-year-old college student majoring in finance and economics. I'm considered a homeless student, and I was raised by a single mother, and I've taken a lot of family curses and a lot of first-generation college students.

And that is all to say, you know, I want to create financial freedom for myself, and I believe I have the right mindset of doing so. And this pertains to my question of me being a believer in God, and how do I handle the comments people make, not necessarily financially saying that I can never get there, but why should I in the first place?

Like, why would I want to? The mindset of being financially free. And they say, you know, Jesus says it's easier for the camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to make it to heaven, which is true, but they pretty much make it seem I'm evil or I'm doomed given I want to be wealthy.

And, you know, I know being wealthy requires intent, so I have to stay focused, but it's starting to mess with my mindset of like, oh, like, is this wrong? You know, because I value Jesus.

Who are the they?

Who are the they that are saying these things to you?

Just people I come in contact with, whether it's like, you know, even family or.

Well, honey, you're going to come in contact with ignorant people your whole life.

Yeah, I just I wanted to know, like.

I don't mind answering it for you, but we can't fix their biblical illiteracy. OK, so I can, for instance.

Matthew 19 and the Rich Young Ruler

So the situation is this young lady wants to build wealth and she's apparently taking steps to do so. And others in her life are quoting Jesus and saying that this is wrongheaded. This is the wrong attitude to have.

And Dave Ramsey is pushing back and saying these people are biblically illiterate. Now, this lady referenced the scripture. Maybe she quoted. I'm not sure. Let's just go to the scripture so that we're all on the same page when we're thinking about this issue.

Matthew chapter 19, verse 23. Jesus said to his disciples, truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

Now, this is attached to a situation that just took place. Take a look at this. Go all the way back up to verse 16. And behold, a man came up to him saying, teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?

And he said to him, why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments. The rich man said to him, which ones? And Jesus said, you shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The young man said to him, all these I've kept.

What do I still lack? And Jesus said to him, if you would, so now here it is. If you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me.

When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, sorrowful, can't say that word today, for he had great possessions.

Okay.

And then Jesus says this thing about the camel in the eye of the needle. Now the disciples hear this and they don't like it. Verse 25, when the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished saying, who then can be saved?

But Jesus looked at them and said, with man, this is possible. But with God, all things are possible. And then Peter said in reply, see, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?

Jesus said to them, truly, I say to you in the new world, when the son of man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. But everyone who has left houses or brothers or sister, father, mother, children, or lands for my namesake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.

Many are who are first will be last and the last first. Now there's a whole sermon here, you know, to unpack all of the goodness in this biblical passage. By the way, we're going through the gospel of Matthew together over on my Patreon.

You can jump into that Bible study absolutely for free right now. The link is below. And when we get to, so we're not there yet, but when we get to Matthew 19, I'm going to make sure that we dig down deep and look at all the goodies, all the wonderful truths and treasures in this passage.

Okay.

But apparently, this young lady's family and friends are using Jesus' words to say that she should not be seeking to build wealth. Again, Ramsey says, that's not the way to understand the passage. Let's see what happens next.

Wealth, Idolatry, and the Call to Follow Christ

I can take that scripture and let's talk it through.

Okay.

So that comes from the story of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus. And he said, master, I want to follow you. And Jesus said, go and sell all that you have and serve the poor. And then you can follow me.

And the story says he went away with his head hung low because he was very wealthy and he didn't want to sell his stuff to follow Jesus. And Jesus turned to the disciples and said, I tell you, it's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven.

Okay.

So, okay. Let's be good students of scripture. Did Dave, now I've sped him up a little bit.

Okay.

So this might, this might make it a little difficult for you, but did Dave Ramsey just characterize what happened correctly in the passage? Before we go any further, before you hear what I have to say about this, what do you think?

Did Dave Ramsey accurately capture what was said? Let me know in the comments and we'll circle back around on this.

And the disciples, if you keep reading, were greatly amazed. They were blown away by that statement because it was believed in those times that wealthy people could buy their way into heaven. And so the disciples said, who then master can be saved?

And Jesus said, no one. Can be saved. No one comes to the father except through the son. Meaning that this is a teaching on grace through the cross of Christ. It is not a teaching about wealthy people, not going to heaven.

Again, you have your Bibles open in front of you, hopefully. Especially take a look at verses 23 to 26, right? So 23, 24, 25, and 26. Is that what's going on in this passage? Ask yourself.

Wealthy people don't go to heaven, nor do poor people go to heaven, except through the father, through the son that gave his life on the cross. That's the teaching that Jesus was doing there. So what you have here is someone who's doing Twitter or worse than that, TikTok doctrine, meaning they've abbreviated it and didn't follow through and read the whole thing.

So they don't know what the flip they're talking about, because it's not what the Bible is saying, nor was it what Jesus was saying. He wasn't saying you can't get to heaven because you're wealthy. He was saying that young man didn't go to heaven because he wouldn't follow Christ.

Not because he wouldn't sell his stuff. But Jesus looked into his heart and said, you have an idol in your heart, and you have something between me and you, and it's your stuff. And so if you worship stuff, you have a problem.

That's not a Christian act. Christians aren't supposed to have idols. As a matter of fact, most of us that are believers actually believe that we don't own anything. We're managing all of it for God. And part of our management is to take care of our own household first, or we're worse than an unbeliever, right?

So this is someone who didn't finish reading, and because they grew up poor and they heard poor stuff, and somebody told them in a poor church somewhere that being poor is somehow holy. Poor is not holy.

Rich is not holy. Holy is holy.

Okay, that's actually the most replayed moment right there. Rich is not holy. Poor is not holy. Holy is holy. The questions you should be asking at this point are, is it possible to be rich and a Christ follower at the same time?

And I suppose related, were there any rich Christ followers in the Bible? That's a separate Bible study you could do. Also, what was Jesus saying in Matthew chapter 19, right? Ramsey says Jesus' issue with the rich man was not because he was rich, but because he refused to get rid of his idol, which was wealth.

The key verses that help us understand what's happening is verses 20 to 22. Okay, so let's just go back over one more time. The young man said to Jesus, all these things I have kept, the commandments, what do I still lack?

Jesus said to him, if you would be perfect, if you would be complete, go sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, God at that time, for he had great possessions.

So the man has obeyed the law in every regard. At least that's what he says he has done. And then Jesus says, okay, if you want to be complete, then sell everything you have, give to the poor and follow me.

By the way, that's the traditional invitation to be a disciple of Jesus. This idea of selling or forsaking everything comes out of the model that Jesus probably had in his own mind, which is when Elijah called Elisha, and Elisha slaughtered all of his oxen and gave it away.

You remember this? This is 1 Kings 19, 21, and he returned from following him. So this is Elisha. And he took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people and they ate.

Then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him. That's what Elisha did when he was called to be Elijah's disciple. It was, by the way, Elisha was understood to be well off. I don't know if he was as rich as the rich man in Matthew 19, but he certainly had some prized possessions and he gave them away to the people so the people could benefit from his possessions.

And then he became Elijah's disciple. That's what Jesus is inviting the rich young man to do. His reactions show that his possessions weren't idle.

Why?

Well, because his possessions kept him from following Jesus. That is exactly what idolatry is. Whatever you placed at the top of your hierarchy of trust above even the Lord himself is your idol. Psalm 52, 7 says, see the man who would not make God his refuge, would not do it, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction.

Where does this type of misplaced trust come from? The Bible says it comes from an uncontrollable desire for money. That's why the apostle Paul says this, Colossians 3, verse 5, put to death therefore what is earthly in you.

Watch what this is. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion. Here it is. Evil desire and covetousness. Now some other translations say greed, which is idolatry.

Okay.

So those last two descriptors, evil desire and covetousness, those things are idolatry. And that's the point that Jesus is showing the rich man. He has great possessions and he did not want to give them up in order to be Jesus' disciple.

Wealth, the Kingdom of Heaven, and Care for the Poor

And this is somebody that's jealous and small-minded and so forth because they don't deal with scriptures like Deuteronomy 18 that says, and you shall remember the Lord, your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth.

Why would it say in the Bible that God gives you the power to get wealth and then say you can't get to heaven after you did that? That would be inconsistent.

That's true. The Bible says that. It's Deuteronomy 8, 18. Look at this. You shall remember the Lord, your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers as it is this day.

I mean, you can read it at face value. Wealth here is defined as an abundance of flocks and herds and building nice houses and accumulating silver and gold. How do I know that? Well, that's right up above it in verses 11 to 13.

Herds, flocks, verse 13, silver, gold, right? So Ramsey is pointing out things that are true. But as I'm listening to him, I'm noticing that he's completely misunderstood another aspect of what Jesus is talking about.

And if we're not careful, we'll all completely miss what Jesus is really talking about. And I'll give you some more thoughts on this in just a moment, but let's play this out.

But it's not inconsistent because that isn't what Jesus was saying. And he didn't say that money is the root of all evil, did he? You know, Elisa, you know, he said that the love of money is the root of all evil.

And so this is a form of heresy. It's called Gnosticism that has invaded the poor mouth American Christian. And here's the real problem with it. It's actually so statistically off that it's astronomically bad.

So those people, if you were to ask them that made those ridiculous statements, okay? If you were to ask them, so you're saying the people with the top 1 of income in the world would be named wealthy?

Yes.

And you would be saying those people aren't going to heaven?

Yes.

Well, here's a startling number for you. If you make $30 ,000 a year, you're in the top 1 of income earners in the world. So you're going to hell based on that ridiculous doctrine that is so biblically illiterate.

I mean, he's not wrong. By the way, he's animated, you know, that's for sure. He's not wrong about any of this. Hey, real quick. I hope this video is blessing you. Would you do me a favor and like and subscribe to the channel?

It really does help me to get this video out to more and more people. I really do appreciate it.

You can't convince those people of that. But this is how, you know, once you understand that, then this gives you permission to go be the winner that you're planning to be without guilt. Now, I don't want you to worship money and I don't want you to be a greedy jerk.

I always want you to be generous. Those will be Christian activities. I want you to put others first. I want you to be thoughtful. I want you to be managing all of this money in a way that makes God smile and it takes care of your family and takes care of your community.

But guess what? Poor people don't feed hungry children. Rich people are the ones that feed them.

Okay.

I'm so glad that he circled back around and said this because here's my issue with Ramsey's read on Matthew 19. Take one more look with me at Matthew 19. Pop quiz. What is the kingdom of heaven? Look at this.

And Jesus said to his disciples, truly I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. What is that? By the way, answer in the comments if you know it. What is Jesus talking about when he talks about the kingdom of heaven?

Every now and then I get asked this question. Something like this. If the gospel is the message of the resurrected Christ, then what gospel was Jesus preaching when he was alive? Has anyone ever asked you that question before?

The answer is Jesus said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, right? But that sort of raises the question. What is the kingdom of heaven? What is he talking about? It's actually not what Dave Ramsey has been saying this whole time.

Ramsey has been saying that the kingdom of heaven means dying one day and going to heaven. Rewind the tape and you can hear it clearly. That's what he's saying. But that's not it at all. The kingdom of heaven is the present day expression of God's people putting the world back together again today.

It is the action of God's people expanding Eden and reintroducing the dynamic that God had with humanity in Eden to the whole world. This is what Adam and Eve were originally supposed to do by the way, but the world became fractured because of the first sin in the garden and mankind now has succumbed to other authorities in their life.

But that's what's so wonderful about the gospel. You know, it's not just a statement about the resurrection of Jesus, although on this side of the cross for us, it certainly entails it, but it's also a statement about the authority and the kingship of Jesus right now.

Jesus is king today. And because he is, that means that all authority has been given to him on this earth and in heaven. So we can go out and we can make disciples and be the light that the world desperately needs to see, right?

That's the Sermon on the Mount, right? Matthew chapter five, so that they may see our good works and give glory to our father in heaven. That's supposed to be a reality right now, ladies and gentlemen.

That's not something we wait to happen someday at the end of time. You know, because if you think that way, then Christianity becomes like some kind of spiritual fire insurance or something. No, no, no.

That's something that we are supposed to be doing. We Christians every day, when we wake up in the morning, we venture out into the world with fresh breath in our lungs, the Lord has given us.

Amen.

And if we realize that, that's what the kingdom of God is. It's a call to obey Jesus and watch our circles of influence be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit today. If we understand all of those things, then clearly taking care of the poor is part and parcel to the kingdom of God.

Now, this is where, this is where I feel like progressive Christianity has hijacked the message of Jesus in a sense, and then sort of put traditional Christians at odds with this particular talking point that I'm about to tell you, okay?

And then when we hear this, we go, ooh, progressive Christianity. No, this is just a fuller teaching of Jesus Christ, okay? If you pay close attention to what Jesus told the rich young man, you can see it.

It's clearly, it's right there in front of our eyes, right? Watch this. The rich young man in verse 20 just said, I've obeyed all the commandments. What do I have to do now? Jesus said, if you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and what?

Give it to the poor. So he didn't just say sell your possessions, right? Sell your possessions and give it to the poor.

Why?

Because God's desire, friends, has always been that we take care of the outcasts among us, the aliens, the orphans, and the widows in our society. As a matter of fact, God cares so much about that particular thing that he promises that a day will come when this happens.

Watch this. Matthew 25, 31. When the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the king will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me.

Notice who responds to this? The righteous do. Verse 37. These are not the unrighteous or the non-believers. These are the righteous ones who should know what the Lord expects. Verse 37. Then the righteous will answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink?

And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the king will answer them. Here it is. Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me.

The inverse is also true. Verse 45. Then he will answer them saying, truly I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

God cares so much about taking care of the outcasts among us.

Why?

Because that's also part and parcel to putting the world back together again. It's part of the message. And he cares so much about it that he actually conflates taking care of the outcasts to taking care of the Lord himself.

That's how much he cares about us doing this today. So we need to be very careful about how we talk about the kingdom of heaven. I just heard Dave Ramsey say on multiple occasions that the kingdom of heaven is when we die and go to heaven later.

It's not. It's about reflecting heaven here on this earth now. It's about bringing Shalom back to the world and transforming our circles of influence as we obey Christ's teachings. By the way, does this take it all away from the reality of dying one day and going to heaven?

Absolutely not. But man, if we don't understand the kingdom of heaven, we miss out on what the Lord wants us to do with our talents and our treasures right now. So good for Ramsey. Because this is why Christians can be wealthy.

It's so that they can use their wealth to obey God with their abundance.

You know who's getting people out of Haiti right now? Rich people. That's who's getting the orphans. I was with a friend this week and they dropped some serious money getting 15 orphans out of a cave to keep those gangs from raping them and turning them into sex traffic.

It wasn't poor people did that. These rich guys chartered a freaking helicopter with some ex special forces guys went in and got 15 kids out. That won't be on the news. But rich guys that are in America did that, that are Christians.

Poor people didn't do that crap. I'm just telling you. So this is what you do when you get some money. You serve the poor. You take care of people that are hurting. You lift people up. But you can't do that when you're freaking broke.

This is how stupid this doctrine is. This wrong toxic version makes me angry. Can you tell?

Yeah, I can tell.

I wanted to give you the slow clap, but it's not appropriate.

Lisa, I'm going to send you a copy of the book I did on this subject. It's called The Legacy Journey. And it's got a whole bunch of these things in there that I just outlined for you. Give you permission to win.

But what you've got to do is you have to be careful who you let have your ear. Don't let these people speak into your ear. Like you said, you're breaking generational curses. And I grew up in a neighborhood where people said stuff like, little man can't get ahead.

The rich man always holds the little man down. And if you believe that crap, you're always going to be a little man. I grew up in that neighborhood and I'm not. I'm so stupid, I had to become a millionaire twice.

So I had to do it two times just to prove it could be done, I guess. So you're a rock star, kiddo. You're amazing. And don't let anyone tell you you shouldn't or couldn't or won't win.

Wealth, Christian Stewardship, and the Limits of the Interview

Yeah, truth be told, I don't listen to Dave Ramsey all that much, because I have a humongous problem with what he says. I'm just not familiar. I don't, I just, I'm not a regular listener. But he's right, okay?

Don't listen to voices that seek to reinforce concepts that the Bible is not teaching. That's a recipe for disaster, okay? Boy, fascinating subject. But now it's your turn. What do you think about this issue?

Should Christians not pursue wealth or should they? Can they even do it and still be a follower of Jesus Christ? Let me know what you think in the comments. My goodness, at the very least, this is probably an activity and a practice that Christians should pursue with great care, you know, if they are seeking to accumulate wealth in order to take care of themselves and others.

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You can join me for exclusive live streams and ask me anything you want. The link for the Patreon is below. I'm gonna return soon with more videos, but in the meantime, I'll say bye for now.