The Effect of Wealth On the Human Soul— Part Deux.

“There is an obvious chicken-and-egg question to ask here.  But it is beginning to seem that the problem isn’t that the kind of people who wind up on the pleasant side of inequality suffer from some moral disability that gives them a market edge.  The problem is caused by the inequality itself: It triggers a chemical reaction in the privileged few.  It tilts their brains.  It causes them to be less likely to care about anyone but themselves or to experience the moral sentiments needed to be a decent citizen.

Or even a happy one.  Not long ago, an enterprising professor at Harvard Business School named Mike Norton persuaded a big investment bank to let him survey the bank’s rich clients.  (The poor people in the survey were millionaires.)  In a forthcoming paper, Norton and his colleagues track the effects of getting money on the happiness of people who already have a lot of it: A rich person getting even richer experiences zero gain in happiness.  That’s not all that surprising; it’s what Norton asked next that led to such an interesting insight.  He asked these rich people how happy they were at any given moment.  Then he asked them how much money they would need to be even happier.  ‘All of them said they needed two to three times more than they had to feel happier,’ says Norton.

The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that money, above a certain modest sum, does not have the power to buy happiness, and yet even very rich people continue to believe that it does: The happiness will come from the money they don’t yet have.  To the general rule that money, above a certain low level, cannot buy happiness there is one exception.  ‘While spending money on oneself does nothing for one’s happiness,’ says Norton, ‘spending it on others increases happiness.’

If the Harvard Business School is now making a home for research exposing the folly of a life devoted to endless material ambition, something in the world has changed— or is changing.  And I think it is: There is a growing awareness that the yawning gap between rich and poor is no longer a matter of simple justice but also the enemy of economic success and human happiness.  It’s not just bad for the poor.  It’s also bad for the rich.  It’s funny, when you think about it, how many rich people don’t know this.  But they are not idiots; they can learn.  Many even possess the self-awareness to correct for whatever tricks their brain chemicals seek to play on them; some of them already do it.  When you control a lot more than your share of the Froot Loops, there really isn’t much doubt about what you should do with them, for your own good.  You just need to be reminded....”  Indeed, we do.

“Do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased” {Heb. 13:16}.  “God is ever delighted by sacrifices like this, God is always satisfied by the fruit of a generous heart” {RR Exp}.  Doesn’t get much clearer than this, does it?

— excerpted from an article by Michael Lewis originally appearing in The New Republic, taken from The Week magazine’s Dec. 31st, 2014 edition.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously

The Effect of Wealth On the Human Soul— Part I.

“What is clear about rich people and their money— and becoming ever clearer— is how it changes them.  A body of quirky but persuasive research has sought to understand the effects of wealth and privilege on human behavior— and any future book about the nature of billionaires would do well to consult it.

One especially fertile source is the University of California at Berkeley psychology department lab overseen by a professor named Dacher Keltner.  In one study, Keltner and his colleague Paul Piff installed note takers and cameras at city street intersections with four-way Stop signs.  The people driving expensive cars were four times more likely to cut in front of other drivers than drivers of cheap cars.  The researchers then followed the drivers to the city’s crosswalks and positioned themselves as pedestrians, waiting to cross the street.  The drivers in the cheap cars all respected the pedestrians’ right of way.  The drivers in the expensive cars ignored the pedestrians 46.2 percent of the time— a finding that was replicated ...by another team of researchers in Manhattan, who found drivers of expensive cars were far more likely to double-park.

In yet another study, the Berkeley researchers invited a cross section of the population into their lab and marched them through a series of tasks.  Upon leaving the laboratory testing room, the subjects passed a big jar of candy.  The richer the person, the more likely he was to reach in and take candy from the jar— and ignore the big sign on the jar that said the candy was for the children who passed through the department.

Maybe my favorite study done by the Berkeley team rigged a game with cash prizes in favor of one of the players, and then showed how that person, as he grows richer, becomes more likely to cheat.  In his forthcoming book on power, Keltner contemplates his findings:

If I have $100,000.00 in my bank account, winning $50 alters my personal wealth in trivial fashion.  It just isn’t that big of a deal.  If I have $84 in my bank account, winning $50 not only changes my personal wealth significantly, it matters in terms of the quality of my life— the extra $50 determines what bill I might be able to pay, what I might put in my refrigerator at the end of the month, the kind of date I would go out on, or whether or not I could buy a beer for a friend.  The value of winning $50 is greater for the poor, and, by implication, the incentive for lying in our study greater.  Yet it was our wealthy participants who were far more likely to lie for the chance of winning fifty bucks.

There is plenty more like this to be found, if you look for it.  A team of researchers at the New York Psychiatric Institute surveyed 43,000 Americans and found that, by some wide margin, the rich were more likely to shoplift than the poor.  Another study, by a coalition of non-profits called the Independent Sector, revealed that people with incomes below 25 grand give away, on average, 4.2 percent of their income, while those earning more than 150 grand a year give away only 2.7 percent.  A UCLA neuroscientist named Keely Muscatell has published an interesting paper showing that wealth quiets the nerves in the brain associated with empathy: If you show rich people and poor people pictures of kids with cancer, the poor people’s brains exhibit a great deal more activity than the rich people’s....  ‘As you move up the class ladder,’ says Keltner, ‘you are more likely to violate the rules of the road, to lie, to cheat, to take candy from kids, to shoplift, and to be tightfisted in giving to others.  Straightforward economic analyses have trouble making sense of this pattern of results.’”

I bet they do.  God, however, does not.  He said, “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap, and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” {1 Timothy 6:9-10b}.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously

The Clash of Kingdoms.

Stirred by the fervor of their religious leaders’ hatred and envy, the crowd screams for Jesus’ death.  “Crucify, crucify!” {Matt. 27:23}.  It’s just one word in the Greek, like the football chants of a rabid fan-base: ‘D-fense, D-fense!’  It is pure mob mentality at this point.  As Matthew recorded, “When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd.  ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood,’ he said.  ‘It is your responsibility!’”  And “all the people answered, ‘Let His blood be on us and on our children,’” vv. 24-25.  And it was.  One generation away, in 70 AD, the Day of Reckoning would come.

I was thinking about Jesus the other day, about the inevitability of Jesus’ death.  It was going to happen; it was bound to happen.  You can’t bring the Message He brought and live the Life He lived, you can’t teach the things He taught and so beautifully illustrate by your actions a Life of devotion to God, passion for God, and allegiance to His Kingdom in complete contradiction to the kingdoms of this Earth, to their gluttony and greed, their lust for Mammon and hunger for power, to the worship of oneself ...and not get killed sooner or later.  Jesus painted a very clear picture of the Kingdom of Grace, a Kingdom He tells Pilate is “not of this world.”  It is a Kingdom in which the world’s order of power, prominence, and possession is inverted, and replaced by justice, mercy, and humility {Mic. 6:8}.

It is a Kingdom which neither cares for nor prioritizes the Profit Motive which makes our modern world ‘go round.’  The Bankers running our show on the national and international level would gouge out their eyes and rip the ears off their heads before they would consider expunging all debt every seven years, pressing the ‘reset’ button on economic relations, as God instructed His people Israel {cf. Deut. 15:1-11, which begins with, “At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.”}.  That is a Message no one wants to listen to: “Where is the profit in that?  Where in the world will we make our money?”  I don’t know.  Try fleecing taxpayers for your ridiculous bonuses; it’s always worked before.

What is His Kingdom?  It is the piercing Light which clashes violently with the darkness of men’s deeds— both individually and corporately, systemically.  And let’s be honest: nobody wants to hear the Message of a Kingdom which demands every ounce of allegiance we possess.  No ‘king’ or ‘queen’ wants to hear that their kingdom, however large or small, is inconsequential to Eternity and will one Day be crushed by the “weight of glory.”  Nobody.

So Jesus goes to His death, hanging on our cross and suffering in our stead, with the courage and heroism only a perfect Man could display— the God-man, undivided deity and sinless humanity welded as One forevermore.  When the price of sin was paid and the ransom of mankind accomplished, He cried out, “It is finished ...forever!” {Jn. 19:30}.  Then, as Peter boldly declares over and over in the Book of Acts before the very people whom he once cowered from: “But God raised Him from the dead, freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him” {2:24}.  Impossible indeed! ...for Death to hold the Author of Life!  In v. 32 he says, “God has raised this Jesus to Life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.”  A martus is a legal, historical “witness,” one who bears testimony in a judicial sense to people, places and things.  Peter’s conclusion?  “Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ”— Master and Messiah {v. 36}!  Amen and amen.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously

The Creed.

In 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 we find what Paul describes as the earliest tradition common to all Christians.  En protos in v. 3 means ‘first in rank, order, influence and honor,’ above all else.  I.e, “I am delivering to you the traditions which were delivered to me by eyewitnesses, and these are:”

 I.  “That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures....”  The prophet Isaiah said of Jesus, the Lamb of God, “He was pierced through for our transgressions [Every sin, literally, like a spear-thrust through the soul], He was crushed for our iniquities [The ‘grapes of God’s wrath’ poured out in full]; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.  We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” 53:5-6.  “Christ died for our sins as attested from Scripture” is both historical fact and the centrepiece of Salvation, for if our sins have not been paid for, expiated and expunged from every record human and divine, then we are still “dead in” them.  But the Victory was won in the Conquest of the Cross and Satan’s stranglehold on the souls of men was broken forever.

II. “That He was buried....”  Which is the sign that Jesus had died, truly and physically.  Paul doesn’t make a point of the empty tomb because by its very definition ‘resurrection’ meant a new body which left no corpse behind!  Unlike the Gospels, he doesn’t even mention it because eyewitness testimony is the strongest proof possible.  In Paul’s world, to say that someone was “buried” and “raised” three days later was to say unequivocally the tomb is empty!  Speaking of resurrection is enough to imply this and much, much more.

III. “That He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures....”  1000 years before the birth of Christ, David said to the Lord in Psalm 16, “My heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because You will not abandon me to the Grave [to Sheol], nor will You let Your Holy One see decay,” vv. 9-10.  Jews living at the time of Jesus believed that the soul, the spirit, didn’t fully depart from the body til somewhere around the 3^rd day.

IV.     “And that He appeared to Peter [the fact that he uses the Aramaic form of Peter’s name, Cephas, points to an early Semitic source for the Creed], then to the Twelve [the official Apostles we know from the Gospels and the Acts].  After that, He appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.”  That is, “some have fallen” into physical death.  It’s like Paul saying, “You want to check my facts?  Go to the sources themselves.  Twenty-five years after the Resurrection of the Son of God, most of them are still here.”  “Then he appeared to James [the half-brother of Jesus], then to all the Apostles...,” which clearly refers to a number larger than “the Twelve.”  This, I believe, is “the Seventy” sent out two by two in Luke 10:1.

What we have in vv. 3-7 is the reiteration of a Christian Creed which can be traced all the way back to the formative stages of the early Church.  Scholars of every color and hue— from the ultra-liberal to the overly-conservative— agree that this Creed can be dated to somewhere between three to eight years from the Crucifixion of Christ Jesus.  It is unparalleled in World History that legends of these kinds {as skeptics are so apt to claim} would rise up around the life of a humble Palestinian carpenter who had been crucified by the Romans as a condemned criminal, and be believed by multitudes who turned to Him as their Lord and Liege, their Savior and Sovereign.  A 19^th century historian by the name of Julius Muller challenged the scholars of his era to demonstrate anywhere in history where within thirty years {same amount of time which passed between Paul’s first letter to Corinth and the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ} a series of legends had accumulated around a historic figure and become firmly fixed in the set of beliefs surrounding them.

Muller’s challenge has never been met.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously