Is Jesus saying earning money is bad or that hoarding it is bad? If you earn a lot of money and give to charity, take care of your community, and spend it for the betterment of your neighbors does this make it hard to get into heaven?
Individual behavior notwithstanding, prosperity theology is exactly about hoarding wealth [1]:
> When deconstructed, there is a great deal in the doctrines and practices of the movement, which concurs with Wade Clark Roof’s view that North American ‘supply-side spirituality’ has always carried the assumption that the individual is entitled to an endless supply of material satisfactions.
What largesse its individual adherents may - and, under their own rule, may not! - distribute, detracts nothing from the school's focus on worldly acquisitiveness.
The state of their souls is a matter between them and what they worship. Having had firsthand opportunity to observe their behavior as well as their teaching, I have not in either sense seen them particularly interested in following the examples Christ gave and set.
What they are doing is attempting to collapse the parable, and have the riches of heaven while they live on earth. If there is a hell, this will land them there.
I'm not defending the prosperity "theology" in any way, which is why I said He speaks in parables, as evil people always hear what they want to hear anyways, and reveal themselves in doing so.
The prosperity defense of the parable is that it was actually referencing a specific gate in Jerusalem that was very narrow and hard to get a camel through, so you had to unload your camel and get it to kneel through the gate. So you just have to be "humble."
That may be optimistic, because exactly like Scientology they prey upon the desperate. I knew them a long time ago; there are many more people now in such a state.
They further indict themselves in so doing, of course: 'As you do to the least of these...' But they still do it.
I don't wish to seem as if I seek an argument with you, and I also do not wish them to have the privilege of ever claiming they did it all unawares.
While we think of "rich" as a quantity, I think in the parable "rich" refers to a state of mind.
In the parable (the parable of the "rich young ruler") it is the "love of money" which is the fundamental issue, not the quantity of it.
Some people are able to attract large quantities of money, yet are able to flow that money to others well. Others have much less, but their love of money leads to exploitation, hoarding, jealousy, covetousness, selfishness and so on.
The "love of money" is in many ways the antithesis of Christian theology. Which is why the parable explains how it's a fundamental stumbling block - what we'd call a deal-breaker.
American Christians are unfortunate to live in a secular culture which values money over everything else, and this has permeated into the church culture. One need look no further than the political support, by professing Christians, to a "rich man" rather than to a "Godly man" within their own party.
The "love of money" is the root of all evil, not the money itself.
Jesus speaks in parables for a reason.