You know how I keep telling you there’s no topic about which we can easily say “the Bible says” because the Scripture tends to have many points of view about any one thing, in many books spanning several centuries and cultures and contexts. etc etc?

Well there’s one exception.

There’s one topic about which the diversity of writers speak with absolute uniformity. In every context, in every book, in every culture.

It’s wrong to get rich by exploiting the labor of others.

This also happens to be one of the ideas you’ll find in pretty much every religion.

People of faith, all over the globe, at all times in history, speak unanimously. Hoarding wealth is wrong.

Of course, there have always been “people of faith” who try to justify the accumulation of wealth, but always, always, always there are prophets speaking out against them.

Now, the Bible doesn’t speak about things that didn’t exist in the times and places it was written, and modern day capitalism isn’t precisely present in any of the Bible times. So no, the Bible doesn’t speak directly about capitalism. To condemn or support.

But the Bible is *full* of condemnations of greed, rules limiting how much wealth can be accumulated by one person, prohibitions against exploiting workers, regulations to keep you from pushing for profit at all cost, and flat out anger at the rich.

There *are* passages that promise “if you do these things, you’ll prosper,” but the “you” there is PLURAL.

“If y’all, the whole community, keep my rules about care for others, y’all, the whole community, will prosper.”

So no, Jesus was not a fucking capitalist.

And only a false prophet would say such a thing.