10:25
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God”. Jesus now emphasises how difficult/impossible it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. You may well have heard that the “eye of a needle” was a narrow gate in the walls of Jerusalem. There is actually no evidence for this, and the eye of a needle is probably just an eye of a needle. The point is that such a thing was impossible.
10:26
The disciples' amazement was then doubled, for now it wasn’t just hard, but absolutely impossible for a rich man to be saved. So the disciples then asked “Who then can be saved?” Why did they ask this? They, and Jewish society (along with all of humanity) looked at “entering the kingdom of God” from a purely human perspective. Wealth can be utterly deceptive (Mark 4:19) and it can fool us into thinking we are secure. Surely someone who has kept the commandments and has been blessed with wealth is blessed by God and deserves or has salvation?
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