Compare Judas' actions in John 12:6 with Proverbs 28:22. What insights emerge? Key passages • John 12:6 – “He did not say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. As keeper of the money bag, he used to take from what was put into it.” • Proverbs 28:22 – “A stingy man hastens after wealth and does not know that poverty will come upon him.” What we see in Judas (John 12:6) • Position of trust: appointed treasurer for the disciples’ common purse • Pattern of theft: repeatedly helping himself to the funds • Pretended compassion: cloaked greed with pious concern for the poor • Root issue: love of money overriding love for Christ (cf. 1 Timothy 6:9-10) What Proverbs warns (28:22) • “Stingy man”: literally, one with an “evil eye”—a person fixated on gain • “Hastens after wealth”: impatient scrambling for quick profit • “Poverty will come”: ultimate loss—material, spiritual, even eternal Points of connection • Same heart: Judas embodies the “stingy man” whose eye is on money, not God • Same haste: Judas pressed for immediate gain, skimming offerings and later selling Jesus for thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:14-16) • Same blind spot: failed to see the poverty ahead—guilt, despair, suicide, and eternal separation (Acts 1:18-25) • Same principle: greed disguises itself (Proverbs 21:2) yet inevitably destroys (Proverbs 15:27) Additional scriptural echoes • Exodus 20:15 – Commandment against stealing, flagrantly broken by Judas • John 13:2, 27 – Satan seizing the greedy heart fully given to money • Psalm 41:9 – Betrayal by a close friend, prophetically fulfilled in Judas • Mark 8:36 – “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” Take-home insights • Hidden sin is never hidden from God; outward roles cannot mask inward motives. • Greed grows in the soil of small compromises—Judas pilfered long before he betrayed. • Scripture’s warnings are literal: the greedy person truly ends in poverty. • Love for Christ and love for money cannot coexist (Matthew 6:24). • Faithful stewardship starts with contentment and trust, not accumulation and haste. |
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