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“Jesus didn’t accuse the man of dishonesty, theft, or injustice…. He was living the life others dreamed of. What’s wrong with that? Then comes the big surprise: ‘But God said to him, “You fool! Tonight you will die. Then who will get what you have stored up?”’” - Randy Alcorn

Discussion

Mon, 02/02/26

It strikes me that a key to what Luke is getting at here is in Luke 12:21, where he notes that this is the consequence for those who store up things for themselves, but are not rich towards God. So there's a subtext that, at least in an ancient Jewish context, at least one of those barns was filled with grain that should have been brought to the Temple for the priests, levites, and such.

Then you've also got questions like "would the rich landowner have been allowed to own that much land under the Mosaic law, or should it have reverted to the original families?", "does this hoarding of grain expose it to rot and rust per Matthew 6:19-20?", and "is the landowner getting the curse of Proverbs 11:26 by hoarding grain?".

More or less, there's a lot of background that Alcorn mostly misses here. Translating it into modern Christianity can be difficult, but I think we ought to try. Certain--as I've seen with some of my relatives--the rot and rust part applies today.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.