MenuFor adult study: "Parable of the Rich Fool"
The story summary and questions were written in a way that makes it possible to use a New Testament reference in place of the Urantia reference. A selected chapter from a 1932 book, titled Treasure-House of the Living Religions, supports a spiritual theme that is found within the story. Children will use a one page handout that includes a coloring picture.
Paper 165:4.1-3
The Urantia Book
The story summary and questions were written in a way that makes it possible to use a New Testament reference in place of the Urantia reference. A selected chapter from a 1932 book, titled Treasure-House of the Living Religions, supports a spiritual theme that is found within the story. Children will use a one page handout that includes a coloring picture.
Paper 165:4.1-3
The Urantia Book
I will pull down my barns and build larger ones
Students may read Paper 165:4.1-3
One day, a man came to Jesus with an inheritance complaint. Jesus warned him and everyone else about covetousness. Then, he told them a story about a rich man whose land produced abundant crops. He had so much that he built new barns to hold all his goods. He thought he was all set for many years. He said to himself, “Eat, drink, and be merry.” But that night he died, and “his soul was required of him.” He had been rich in earthly treasures but not “rich toward God.”
Discussion Questions
It is good to be wise about money, but sometimes people think the most important goal in life is to have more money and things. Why is that foolish? Talk about what the soul is. Can you think of some ways we can become “rich toward God”?
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Additional reading:
Read the remainder of section 4. Jesus had three more conversations after he told the parable of the rich fool.
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Re: Riches
163:2.10 Riches have nothing directly to do with entrance into the kingdom of heaven, but the love of wealth does. ...
163:3.3 ... If one’s wealth does not invade the precincts of the soul, it is of no consequence in the spiritual life of those who would enter the kingdom.”
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New Testament reference
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Chapter 37—Wealth and Prosperity—p.197
Riches slay the fool, if he seeks not what is beyond.
Out of his craving for riches
The fool slays himself, as it were others. (Buddhism)
Death, the great transition, is not clear
To him who is childish, heedless,
Deluded with the delusion of wealth. (Hinduism)
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