NOTES for Deu 8:1-20

God gives prosperity to human beings. He blesses wealth and multiplies lands, gardens, houses... You do not have very many houses and gardens? Do not despair: there is not only material wealth but also the wealth of the soul, of one's inner world, the wealth of the spirit! Only in spiritual abundance does a person come to know God...

Or is it the other way around after all? Does the Kingdom of God belong instead to the poor in spirit, those who mourn, and those who hunger (Matt. 5, Luke 6)? And is it not harder for a rich man to enter it than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle? Is this not what today's reading warns us about?