Understanding a Link between Almsgiving and Christian Discipleship

The King James Version (KJV) is mostly used in these lessons. Click here to access the KJV online.

Having dealt with the heavenly inheritance in giving alms, the last area of understanding almsgiving remains for the encounter with the rich ruler in Luke 18. It provides a way to understanding a link between almsgiving and Christian discipleship. The rich ruler story in Luke 18 helps illuminate a concern that the sin of greed and its subsequent impurity is destructive of the pathway to discipleship because greed fosters one’s faith in material wealth and possessions. This kind of faith is misplaced since these earthly treasures will not provide salvation. For some on the way to following Yahushua, the demands of Luke 18 to give away everything in almsgiving will be necessary because of the way in which a person has faith in mammon over Yahuwah. The corrective to such a wrongheaded impurity is through almsgiving-repentance, placing one’s faith in Yahuwah, and then following Christ. For others on the way to following Yahushua, one does not need to sell all of one’s possessions to gain repentance and purity and to follow after Christ.⁶⁰ This latter approach is typified in the encounter of Yahushua with the tax collector Zacchaeus.

Luke 19 begins with the story of Zacchaeus, a very wealthy chief tax-collector in Jericho, who wants to see Yahushua passing along the way but is unable to see Him along with the crowds due to his short stature. Zacchaeus climbs a tree to see Yahushua and when He sees Zacchaeus, He invites himself to Zacchaeus’s house. Filled with joy, Zacchaeus climbs down to greet Yahushua. The grumbling of the crowd commences about Yahushua visiting the house of a sinner. “But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone, I shall repay it four times over.’ And Yahushua said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost’” (Luke 19:8–10).⁶¹ Zacchaeus, like the rich ruler, comes in search of Yahushua. The reader is not told why Zacchaeus has come to look for Yahushua, nor does Zacchaeus ask Yahushua “what shall I do?” The short Zacchaeus climbs a tree to encounter Yahushua. Yahushua takes note of Zacchaeus and calls upon the hospitality of Zacchaeus and his house. And in return, Zacchaeus receives Yahushua with joy, not sadness like the rich ruler. Spontaneously, Zacchaeus promises acts of almsgiving from his wealth and restitution for his extortion. He does not wait for any instruction from Yahushua. In his joy, Zacchaeus manifests fruits worthy of repentance through almsgiving and restitution and thereby shows the interiority of his body, his heart. Zacchaeus places his faith in Yahushua and finds his heavenly treasury.