Paul’s First Letter to Timothy, though many scholars doubt Paul wrote it, reflects the heart of the Christian hope that Paul expressed in his letters: “Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” At the end of this letter, Timothy is encouraged to imitate “Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession” and “to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is at the coming of Christ Jesus that the fullness of him “who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords” will be displayed. This is the cosmic perspective that makes kings, tyrants, presidents, celebrities, nobles and rich men and women seem small or, rather, allows them to be viewed in the proper light: they are people like everyone else, not inherently better, not inherently worse, created by God for the “unapproachable light” of divinity, not for the passing glory, honor and riches of this world.

But it is hard to be humble, or to share, when you are the rich man and your perspective is narrowed to this world or, even narrower, to one’s own desires. Jesus tells what seems like a simple parable in Luke 16 about a rich man and a poor man. But the poor man has a name, which alerts us that this parable may not be as simple as it seems. After all, whose name do you know better, Bill Gates or the beggar on your corner? But here we learn that the poor man’s name is Lazarus, while the rich man’s name remains unknown. Yet no one is nameless to God. We are all known by name, whether rich or poor; and no one, in the eyes of God, is superior to another. Our worth, our inherent belovedness, is not based on who we are but what we are: human beings created in the image of God.

There is another point about Lazarus’ name that is even more telling for this specific parable. The rich man seems to be separated from Lazarus and God only because of his wealth, which seems unjust, improper, simply not fitting. Why should earthly wealth condemn one to an eternal life of misery? The parable is subtle, however; the clue to why the rich man is judged is in the details. Lazarus lay in misery by the rich man’s gate for a long time, begging for food, but his pleas were not heard. Rather, they were ignored. How do we know this? In the parable it is the rich man who identifies Lazarus by name, when he calls out: “Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.” If he knows Lazarus by name in the afterworld, he knew Lazarus by name when he begged for mercy and food in this world. But the rich man decided he had better things to do than help the poor man at his gate. That decision to ignore the poor, Jesus demonstrates for us, has eternal implications.

Even accounting for the rich man’s turning away from Lazarus, the issue of wealth still discomfits. It does seem that there is something inherently distracting about worldly riches that focus our attention on earthly pleasures. In the parable Abraham says, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.” This is properly frightening, for it does suggest a kind of quid pro quo, where the “good things” of this life equate to agony in the life to come and “evil things” in this life to comfort in the world to come. Is this a necessary outcome?

No, for Jesus, throughout Luke and all of the Gospels, suggests that proper use of wealth can have positive implications both for those in need now and for the life to come. It is especially pertinent for those of us who are wealthier than we want to admit. We need to be certain about what truly matters to us, for it matters now and it matters eternally.

This article appears in September 23 2013.

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.