Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Leaving Behind Material Goods
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Exodus 12:5-7
When the Israelites did this, it marked their first actual involvement in what God was doing other than giving mental assent to His works. In the analogy to New Testament theology, this act is tantamount to accepting the blood of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and it symbolizes the protection from death through forgiveness God Himself supplied. Repentance is not symbolized in this analogy until Israel left Egypt. But does Egypt represent sin? Only indirectly. Egypt represents the place of our bondage, the location in which we commit our sins. In the analogy, sin is something we leave behind when we accept the blood of Jesus Christ. What did Israel leave behind in Egypt that represents sin? Remember that each Israelite who came out of Egypt represented over 400 years of Israel living in Egypt. Though they were slaves there, they lived in the area that Pharaoh describes in Genesis 47:6 as being the best land in Egypt. We know from Exodus 12 that they had houses because God told them to remain in their houses overnight. Those homes had furnishings, and just like any other family that has lived in one place for a long time, they had generations of family heirlooms. They were not wealthy, but they had all the trappings of home. They had family "treasures" that belonged to great-grandma or great-grandpa and been handed down to the generation of the exodus. Now they were about to leave. If we were in that situation, what would we take, and what would we leave behind? We have hundreds of possessions: houses, automobiles, furniture, pots and pans, pictures, mementos, figurines, knick-knacks, clothing—all kinds of things. What the children of Israel left behind—it does not matter what it was—represented sin. When we accept the blood of Jesus Christ and repent, we choose at that point to leave things behind that will hold us back on our journey to the Kingdom of God. They literally took with them only what they could carry. Some of them may have had some carts, but even so, they could take only a fraction of what they possessed. They did not do any sacrificing in the wilderness because they even had too few animals to sacrifice. What they left behind, all their excess baggage, represents sin. In Hebrews 12:1, Paul says to get rid of "the sin which so easily ensnares us" so that one can run the race—and that is what these people did. They left behind anything that would hold them back from reaching the Promised Land, their "sins."
John W. Ritenbaugh
Unleavened Bread and Pentecost
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Luke 17:28-31
In Luke 17:20, the Pharisees asked Christ when the Kingdom of God would come. He gives them a short answer, then in verse 22, He begins a longer answer to the disciples. In verse 26, He mentions “as it was in the days of Noah” as an example. In verses 28-31, He provides another one. In verse 31, the King James Version uses “stuff” instead of “goods.” If we are outside our homes, and it is time to go, we are not to worry about our stuff. There will come a time in each of our lives when we will have to choose between the comfort of our current existence and following God into the unknown, just as so many in the Bible were required to do. The list is long: Noah, Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, etc. Each of these men, and often their wives and families as well, had settled lives, with homes full of stuff. Yet, God motivated them to leave it behind.
Mike Ford
Stuff
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Luke 17:31-32
In Genesis 19, angels literally pull Lot and some of his family out of Sodom before it is destroyed. It is the evilest of places, the world in all its “glory,” as it were, and Lot's wife wants to return to it, just as some of the Israelites later wanted to return to Egypt, to the world. Is our "stuff" bad? Only if we put the wrong priority on it. If we are puffed up and vain about our car, home, clothing, phone, or whatever, then yes, it can be wrong. If God were to say to us, “Come here,” and we responded, “Hang on a sec, let me grab my phone,” then I would say, “Remember Lot's wife.”
Mike Ford
Stuff
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