No one can be a slave to two masters. No doubt that slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and disdain the other. You can t be enslaved to both God and a bank account. And again I tell you, it s easier for a Camel to squeeze through a needle s eye than for a wealthy person to get into God s domain. I think most people would not find humor in that last quote.
Most people assume that the message is that rich people are likely to go to hell.
While the quotes given above are regarded by the Fellows of the Jesus seminar to be close to the actual words spoken by Jesus, they suggest that the evangelist Matthew added his own words following the above verses to soften a harsh text. In stripping away layers of Christian theology that have been mixed into the dialogues of Jesus in the scriptures, they suggest the idea that Jesus was not of an apocalyptic mind set. Jesus spoke most characteristically of God's rule as close or already present but unobserved. In this sense Jesus' remarks would be seen not as a condemnation but rather the inability of the rich to get with it. This type of exaggeration is characteristic of Jesus.