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Money in the Gospels |
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The Gospel is not about money, but about Jesus Christ, God's Son (Romans1:1-4). However, money is mentioned a number of times in the Gospels as it is something necessary to our life here, and the Christian is to use it in ways that are right before God as well as before men. |
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Matthew, having been a tax collector, could be expected to mention it, which he does as much as any of the other Gospel writers. Luke also mentions it a good many times though sometimes the references appear to be only incidental as when he refers to the two denarii given to the host in the parable of the good Samaritan. Apart from incidents also mentioned |
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by Luke and in a few cases by Mark and John, Matthew is the only gospel writer that gives us the story of the temple tribute (Matthew 17:24-27), the parable of the two debtors, (Matthew 18:24-28), though Luke also gives a rather different parable about two debtors (Luke 7:41), the parable of the vineyard workers (Matthew 20:1-16) and the money given to the watch |
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Mark gives us significantly less references to money than Matthew, but he does refer, in addition to references also in Matthew, to the two hundred denarii of food in the incident of the feeding of the five thousand (Mark 6:37), as also does John (John 6:7). He also gives us the value (300 denarii)of the ointment poured out on Jesus (Mark 14:5) as also does John |
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(John 12:5). The incident of the widows two mites is also given by Mark (Mark 12:41-44) and in this he is recording the same event as Luke (Luke 21:1-4). |
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Luke is the only gospel writer that gives us the parable of the lost drachma (Luke 15:8). Apart from the incidental reference to money in the parable of the good Samaritan already mentioned he is also the only gospel writer that refers to the giving of tribute to Caesar at our Lord's trial (Luke 23:2). |
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John only gives three references to money, the two already mentioned where the references are common only to Mark and John, and also one common to Matthew and Mark - the reference to money changers (John 2:15). |
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In writing about references to money it is to be borne in mind that it is something that is not necessarily clearcut, for instance, references to pay such as that in Luke 3:14 could be said to be references to money, though pay (wages) could be given in non-monetary terms as in other places (e.g. Romans 6:23). |
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Apart from references to money there are a good many references to tax-gatherers in the Gospels, particularly Matthew and Luke. Tax-gatherers (publicans in AV) are mentioned nine times by Matthew, twice by Mark and ten times by Luke. John does not mention them. Luke also tells us about Zacchaeus who was chief tax-gatherer. However, if we count by |
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incidents rather than references, Matthew gives six cases, Mark one, Luke five and John none. Luke also contains the chief tax-gatherer incident already mentioned. |
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What can we learn from all this ? The fact that Matthew was the vessel used to record a large number of incidents involving money in one way or another fits in with the fact that he had been a tax-gatherer. The fact that Luke and the other synoptic gospel writers confirm many of these incidents show that they were not artificially contrived to fit in with the |
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fact that Matthew had been a tax-gatherer, but were in fact real events. |
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The incidents recorded for our instruction show, inter alia, that :- |
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(5) Sparrows which are of little monetary value are cared for by God; how much more us (Matthew 10:29; Luke 12:6). |
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