Jesus and the rich young man


Jesus and the rich young man is an episode in the life of Jesus recounted in the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament. It deals with eternal life and the world to come.
, 1879.

Narratives

In Matthew and Mark, the discussion is set within the period when Jesus ministered in Perea, east of the River Jordan. In Matthew, a rich young man asks Jesus what actions bring eternal life. First, Jesus advises the man to obey the commandments. When the man responds that he already observes them, and asks what else he can do, Jesus adds:
Luke has a similar episode and states that:
The non-canonical Gospel of the Nazarenes is mostly identical to the Gospel of Matthew, but one of the differences is an elaboration of this account. It reads:

Interpretation

This event relates the term eternal life to entry into the Kingdom of God. The account starts with a question to Jesus about eternal life, and Jesus then refers to entry into the Kingdom of God in the same context. To avoid conflict with the Christian doctrine which states that salvation is "by grace through faith" dispensational theologians distinguish between the Gospel of the Kingdom, which is being taught here, and the Gospel of Grace, which is taught in dispensational churches today.
The rich young man was the context in which Pope John Paul II brought out the Christian moral law in chapter 1 of his 1993 encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor.
While Jesus's instructions to the rich young ruler are often interpreted to be supererogatory for Christians, Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that this interpretation acquiesces in what he calls "cheap grace", lowering the standard of Christian teaching:
Some Christians interpret this passage literally, and try to put it into practice, backing it up with the example of the church as described in Acts 2 and Acts 4. Various monastic groups would follow this line of thought, as would the Bruderhof and some other Anabaptist groups, such as the Hutterites.