Lessons learned from the Parable of the Rich Man and the Beggar Lazarus
I have often said that out of context, the Bible can be misused, and verses can be abused, to make God’s Word say almost anything anyone might want. Out of context, I can say that some people I know have voluntarily had their own legs almost entirely cut off. In context, I can say I have a number of friends who have willingly and happily had something very close to that done, in the form of either a hip or knee replacement. Hip or knee surgery is an extremely difficult and painful procedure that largely structurally separates the leg from the body. For most people there is a rehabilitation time of months. Why would anyone go through many months of painful healing and rehabilitation? For the relief from pain once healed, for the benefits over whatever condition required the surgery, and for a better future.
Looking for a better future is something we do naturally. While contentment is something desirable, see Philippians 4:10-13, contentment should not become confused with complacency. God made us and wants us to plan ahead:
Proverbs 16:3
3 Commit to the LORD whatever you do,
and he will establish your plans.
But there must be a close relationship between our plans and God’s plans. If not, our plans must give way to His. Proverbs 19:21.
James 4:13-16
13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”
14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.
My friends who have had a knee or hip replaced or who have had other significant surgeries have all voluntarily undergone painful procedures, all because of a hope and a plan for a healthier future. However, their futures still lie in God’s hands.
But there is a disconnect in many people’s lives. Instead of planning for the future, or taking a long view, many people instead chose pleasure in the present and ignore the inevitable future. In doing that, they eliminate God from their choices – until it is too late. This parable demonstrates that bad choice, the permanency of that choice, and its extraordinarily high cost.
Luke 16:19-31
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.
20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores
21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried.
23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.
24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.
26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family,
28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
The parable of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus has features in it that are interesting to study and even more interesting to apply both to people’s individual lives and to churches. It was a lesson Jesus taught intended to catch the attention of every person with significant wealth but lacking a heart for God. The beggar, Lazarus, is named. But Jesus skillfully did not name the rich man, allowing the listener or reader to fill in the blank with his or her own name.
This parable also follows the parable of the unjust steward. In that earlier parable, Jesus addressed the shrewdness of the people of the world. Between the two parables is a short section, Luke 16:16-18, that almost looks out of place. It isn’t.
Luke 16:16-18
16 “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing their way into it.
17 It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.
18 “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
An entire book could be written about this short passage and its use as a transition from the parable of the unjust steward and the parable of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus. Jesus had just finished the parable of the shrewd manager with a sharp rebuke directed at the Pharisees who were listening. Luke 16:14-15. The Pharisees were a religious and political group who claimed they strictly followed the law. But what they really did was add to and twist God’s law. At times they made the law something they could follow but that left others behind.
There were pronouncements intended to clarify the law to help people, but the pronouncements were often arbitrary additions to God’s law. For example, the Jewish people were not supposed to work on the Sabbath. But exactly what is work? How is it defined? The Pharisees declared that walking less than a particular distance, a Sabbath mile, was not work but that walking more than that was work. There was never any support in God’s Word for that particular distance, but someone had to help the Jewish people by giving some guidelines. They felt they were divinely appointed to give that guidance. Their guidance just happened to be convenient for themselves because they didn’t need to walk long distances like the common people.
This was understandably offensive to Jesus.
Matthew 23:13
13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
God’s law was not to be disregarded, rewritten, abused or ignored; it was still the law. Yet the Pharisees did all of that and more, creating absurd and arbitrary barriers for the Jewish people. The efforts of the Pharisees were justifiably viewed as men trying to force their way into the kingdom of God. Jesus was declaring the law to be unalterable when in verse 17 He said, “It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.” Then Jesus gave them one example of their rewriting and abusing the law, their approval of divorce. The Pharisees had added permission for divorce to the law for such ridiculous circumstances as when a wife burned breakfast.
Only then, in that context, did Jesus tell the parable of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus. With the parable of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus, Jesus addresses the consequences of a very bad choice, the choice of the world and its comforts over the kingdom. The audience listening to Jesus tell this parable included wealthy men, as well as wealthy Pharisees and teachers of the law. One or more might even have been dressed in purple, the color of the wealthy, the color of the clothes of the rich man in the parable. Jesus was making this parable personal for them – and they knew it.
The descriptions of the two men created a gulf between them equal to the gulf between the ultra-wealthy and the poorest of the poor existing today. Lazarus is a beggar with open sores being licked by dogs, hoping to eat scraps from the wealthy man’s table. The unnamed rich man is dressed and living in luxury “every day.”
Then, in eternity, the tables are turned and their positions reversed. The reversal of their positions is as graphic and dramatic as the differences before their deaths. Jesus creates that contrast with this story to illustrate the horror of hell and separation from God compared to the blessing of heaven and unity with God.
Lessons for the church and for believers
In this parable placed correctly in context, Jesus gave us many lessons for believers and for the church.
Do not show favoritism and do not ignore those in need
Every “religious” person needs to beware of this parable and the illustration of those who have wealth but do not give and lack compassion. The wealthy man very well have worked hard and earned his wealth honestly. There is no mention of dishonesty, nor should any be assumed. The point of the parable isn’t that wealth is evil but the bad choice of selfish hoarding and a lack of compassion for those less fortunate. Lazarus sat at the rich man’s gate, and given his poverty, it seems obvious there was no compassion or help given to him.
The rich man ignored the law and the prophets. Leviticus 25:35, Deuteronomy 15:7-8, Deuteronomy 15:11, Proverbs 19:17, Proverbs 21:13, Isaiah 10:1-3, Isaiah 58:6-11, and Zechariah 7:8-10.
And God has made it clear that compassion in one’s heart must move to action with one’s hands. It is not enough to have compassion, we also need to act. See James 2:1-13 and 1 John 3:16-24.
There will be no peace for those ignoring the poor and those in need.
1 John 3:19-21
19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence:
20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God
Do not love money
Money, the love of money, and the idolatry of money was a common topic of the parables of Jesus and of the Bible. Money, possessions and wealth have been said to be in more than 2,300 verses. I have never counted them, but that is likely true given the abundance of parables including instruction on money, wealth and possessions, plus in the many passages in the book of Proverbs and Paul’s writings, including 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 as well as 1 Timothy 6.
This parable bluntly tells that message.
Luke 16:25
25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.
This parable is perhaps saying even a bit more than that. I am sure the rich man did love money; he did display his wealth, wearing the purple clothes of the wealthy and living in luxury every day. But I think his greater sin was having that wealth while right at his gate was a poor, ill and neglected man. The obvious opportunity to be generous with his wealth was there.
Proverbs 21:13
13 Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor
will also cry out and not be answered.
The believer and the church that neglect God’s heart for the poor will be like the rich fool.
God has given us all the warning we need
Yes, it would be a lot more convenient if we had a personalized, direct, neon-flashing sign in the sky telling us the danger of money. But God has given us all that we need to know the truth. Frankly, given what I have seen in the world, I am absolutely convinced Jesus is right. Even a neon sigh flashing in the sky wouldn’t work. We have had message after message about God’s love, His desire for a relationship with us, His heart to draw us back to Him, but He desires to make that relationship optional. He allows people to chose hell. The rich man did exactly that and finally realized that he had made a bad choice that was going to last for an eternity.
Luke 16:27-31
27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family,
28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
The response to the plea may seem to be lacking in mercy, but believing it is too harsh ignores the sovereignty of God and the enormous efforts God had made to reach out to draw His people back to Him – an effort that has extended over thousands of years. Prophet after prophet was ignored, mistreated or killed. The Bible has been distributed and also ignored. Telling God to try one more time especially for the rich man’s family was dishonoring to God, saying that God’s many revelations and witnesses over thousands of years were not trustworthy enough and one more effort would be necessary.
They (and we) had Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micah, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi who wrote books and many others whose revelations are included in the writings of the above-listed prophets. If you need more, perhaps one more isn’t enough and you need two or even three more. Or four more with other signs and miracles. And a neon sign flashing in the sky! No, God has given us all the signs, wonders, revelations, and messages we need. We need to make a choice based on the evidence we have. See Matthew 12:38-40, John 1:45, John 5:46, and Luke 24:27.
That is especially reasonable given that Jesus raised at least two from the dead, healed many from incurable illnesses and even walked on water.
Believers and the churches filled with believers need to know God’s heart for the poor and be generous with all with which God has blessed us. 2 Corinthians 9:11. That is a lesson we can’t afford to ignore.
About the Author
John Campbell has retired from a 40-year legal practice as a trial attorney in Tampa. He has served in multiple volunteer roles at Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz, Florida, where he met Jesus. He began serving as the Executive Director of the Idlewild Foundation in 2016. He has been married to the love of his life, Mona Puckett Campbell, since 1972.
This is the eleventh in a series of articles on financial and other issues facing the American church in this no longer very new millennium. These articles represent the personal thoughts and reflections of the author and are not necessarily a statement of The Idlewild Foundation. These articles are based upon parables told by Jesus and stories from the gospels on events in His life, applying His life and teachings to the lives of believers and to the church as a whole and not to any one church in particular.