You say you've done everything proper and according to God's Word and ways, and somehow you've STILL managed to accumulate personal wealth? Friend, have you become deceived and lost your way? No, as I've stated previously, there's no biblical edict against wealth, just many like the ones quoted above detailing how you're supposed to handle it if it does come your way. That's the whole point of the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) and the Parable of the Minas (Luke 19:1-27) — we're responsible for that with which we've been entrusted.
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For those of us schooled in the military arts, one of the best strategies when factors aren't perfectly aligned in your favor is to run away. Get out of there. The formal term is "tactical withdrawal", the description of keeping a superior force at bay while you make an organized escape in order to fight from a better position and/or at a better time, preferably one that's most favorable to winning. In this case, Paul is advocating that to "fight the good fight of faith" and win, it's most advisable to run as fast and hard as you can from the pursuit of earthly wealth for the superior attainment of spiritual riches.
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Well, there you have it — the origin of "You can't take it with you" is actually the Bible. But I think it's important to note that nowhere in the Bible does it state that wealth is bad, but what is done with it reveals the true nature of one's character. Anything that becomes an obsession to the point of becoming a replacement for one's spiritual faithfulness becomes a tool for evil, a lever for destruction.
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So you absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, beyond all attempts to argue to the contrary have the Truth on your side. You're right, they're wrong, there is no gray area whatsoever. So how do you broach the topic with another believer? How do you "slap them down" with the absolute Truth to put them in their place? Well, it's not a license to "sharply rebuke" anyone, but an opportunity to prove the quality of your own biblical love in how you choose to behave.
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As I've said many times before, and am sure to repeat many more times to come, if I could I'd wave my magic wand and all the Bibles in the world would be changed so that "The Old Testament" would read "The Beginning", "The New Testament" would read "The Middle", and a blank page inserted at the end labeled "The End". The point is that the Bible needs to be treated as one, contiguous whole. In fact, my argument is that you can't fully understand the New Testament without being properly grounded in the Old.
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What exactly is the "this" in "For it is for THIS we labor and strive"? It's referring to "godliness" back in verse 8. In Paul's letter to Timothy, something extremely focused on preparing someone for proper, biblical leadership, the word "godliness" is used 9 times. It's only used 15 times total in the whole New Testament. Of all the characteristics by which to measure Christianity, of all the ways to parse Christian demographics, the primary unit of measure is supposed to be the degree to which we begin to take on the likeness and image of Christ, to become more like He who's overcome the world than the world itself.
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My, how things have changed. 30 years ago, even 15 years ago, if you'd asked me why I believed Jesus was about to return I would have cited the rise in ecumenism (a one-world religion), the rise of the International Monetary Fund as a basis for a one-world banking system, the return of Jews to Israel, all the myriad happenings in the Middle East and so forth. I still believe in those things even stronger than before, but something else has risen to the number one slot in my list: deception in the church.
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