Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Dave Ramsey: Fighting Bible Bending with Bible Bending

On his January 27th radio show Dave Ramsey answered a listener's question:
Jeb in Tennessee sends this [...]: "Considering the religious foundation of your scheme, please respond to the following Bible verse: 'Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom God' (Mathew 19:24, NIV). You talk all the time about how much cash you have stock piled and the BMWs you have owned, sounds hypercritical to me. Please respond."

So Jeb, are you telling me then--to start with I don't have a scheme I've got a game plan that does align with biblical teachings--I guess your statement is that "no rich people go to heaven." Is that your statement? Because that's the context by which you have laid this out.

In which case, I would say as a Christian that you are blaspheming the scriptures. You have just said that the price that Jesus paid for sinners on the cross was enough to cover murders, prostitutes and drug deals should they choose to ask for forgiveness of their sins and accept Jesus as Lord, but not a rich man. Is that your premise?

Well, I mean, it doesn't take a doctoral genius to grasp the idea that blaspheming then, sir. And so, what you are... you have the spirit of Eeyore. You think anyone who has done better than you, anyone who has won out there, must be pulled down by your toxic view of Christianity and you make me sick.

Your backwoods crap because you haven't learned the Bible; you ought to be ashamed of yourself. So yes, I am offended for you to say that because I have build wealth using God's ways of handling money, that I don't get to go to heaven. I am offended by that and I think Jesus' blood will cover that.

But I'll also give you another Bible lesson. One thing you need to learn to do if you are going to study the Bible, sir, is that you are going to read things in context. That is, continue to read. You can pull a few words or one line out of the Bible and make it say anything if you have twisted it with the level of toxicity of which you are doing this. If you continue to read, right after this, Jesus says that, "no man gets to the Father, except through the son." And he was penetrating the myth of the day that rich people could buy their way into heaven. So if you knew the context, historically, and if you were to read four or five verses on either side of this you would begin to get an idea of what the Bible was really saying. So, now I have responded...

Gosh, sounds like someone struck a nerve.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

heh, brutal wasn't it. Dave rarely goes off in full force like that, but when he does watch out. I cringe sometimes though and just hope he's not totally speaking off the cuff when he's responding to those on the air...hopefully he's done a little background research before firing off an answer so he doesn't go off course with his answer...sounds like he did though since he had the surrounding phrases readily available to reference at the end of his rant. But, that definitely was a fun one to listen to.