Luke 12:13 - Meaning and Application

In these verses, we see first the appeal one of Jesus’ hearers made to him, and how out of place it was. The man said, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” (Luke 12:13). Some think the brother had cheated him, and that he came to Jesus for help because the law was expensive to enforce. If that is so, his brother was a hard and violent man, one who took more than his share and held it back by force.

But others think the man wanted Jesus to help him do wrong. The law gave the oldest brother a double share of the inheritance, and even a father could not ignore that rule (Deuteronomy 21:16-17). This man may have wanted Jesus to pressure his brother into dividing everything equally, share and share alike. That seems likely, because Jesus used the moment to warn against greed, that is, the desire to have more than God has given us.

Jesus refused to step into the dispute. He said, “Man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” (Luke 12:14). In matters like this, Christ would not take the place of a lawgiver or a civil judge. He could have done the work of a judge and lawyer just as he healed diseases, but that was not part of his mission. The words also recall how Moses was rejected by his own people in Egypt, when they asked, “Who made you a ruler and a judge?” (Acts 7:27, 35).

This shows the nature of Christ’s kingdom. It is a spiritual kingdom, not an earthly one. It does not take civil power away from rulers, and it does not interfere with lawful property rights. It does not promise worldly gain to its followers, as if faith were a path to getting more money or land. It also does not encourage believers to press their claims harshly against one another, but often calls them to yield for the sake of peace. And ministers should not get tangled up in the business of this life when their work is to serve the word of God (2 Timothy 2:4).

From this, Jesus gives the crowd a needed warning. Though he did not come to divide estates, he did come to guide consciences about how people view their possessions. He said, “Watch out and guard yourselves against greed” (Luke 12:15). Greed is a sin that can slip into the heart quietly, so we must keep a careful watch over ourselves. We also must hold our hearts tightly, so greed does not rule them.

Jesus adds the reason: “A person’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). Our true happiness does not depend on having much wealth. This is true of the soul, which is the real person. Worldly things do not fit the soul’s nature, cannot meet its deepest needs, and will not last as long as the soul will last.

Even for the body, wealth is no guarantee of a good life. Many people with little money live contented and peaceful lives, while others with great wealth are miserable. A simple meal with love is better than a rich feast without it. Some people have plenty but enjoy none of it, because they spoil their own peace and cannot be satisfied. Others, like Ahab and Haman, are still restless and bitter even with abundance.

Jesus then explains this with a parable, showing the folly of people who live only for this world and the misery that follows at death. The story is meant to warn not only the man who came to Jesus about his inheritance, but all of us, so that we may guard against greed. It tells of a rich man whose land produced a great harvest. He had a large estate, like a small prince in his own right, and his wealth came largely from the fruit of the earth. He had much land, and his land was fruitful, so much so that more only brought him more.

The fruitfulness of the earth is a great blessing, but God often gives it in great measure to wicked people, and it becomes a trap for them. So we must not judge God’s love or hatred by what we see on the outside.

We also see what was going on in this man’s heart in the middle of all this plenty. He was thinking to himself, and God knows and watches every thought we have inside. He is the one who sees and judges the thoughts and purposes of the heart. We are mistaken if we think thoughts are hidden, or that thoughts are free from God’s notice.

Notice what he worried about. When he saw an unusually large crop on his land, he did not thank God for it. He did not think about the good he could do with it. Instead, he troubled himself with this question: What should I do, since I have no place to store my crops? He speaks like a man at a loss and full of confusion. The poorest beggar in the land, who did not know where his next meal would come from, could hardly have said a more anxious thing. Worry is often the result of worldly abundance, and it is a common fault of people who have much. The more people have, the more they worry about keeping it, adding to it, and deciding how to save or spend it.

Notice also his plans, which came out of his worries and were foolish like them: “I will do this. I will tear down my barns because they are too small, and I will build bigger ones. Then I will store all my grain and goods there, and I will be at ease.” First, it was foolish for him to call the crops his own fruits and goods. He stresses, “my fruits” and “my goods,” but what we have is only lent to us for use. The property still belongs to God. We are only managers of our Master’s goods, tenants on our Master’s land. God says, “It is my grain and my wine” (Hosea 2:8-9).

Second, it was foolish to hoard what he had and think that was a good use for it. He planned to store everything in his own barn, as if none should go to the poor, none to his family, none to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow. Third, it was foolish to let his plans grow as his harvest grew. Because his land had produced more than usual, he talked about bigger barns, as if next year would surely be as rich as this year, or richer. But next year the barns might be too large, just as this year they were too small. Years of famine often follow years of plenty, as happened in Egypt. He would have done better to save some of the grain for this one year.

Fourth, it was foolish to think he could relieve his worry by building new barns. Building them would only add more worry. Anyone who knows anything about building understands that. God’s way of curing harmful anxiety truly works, but the world’s way only increases it. Even after he built them, more worries would still come. The bigger the barns, the bigger the cares (Ecclesiastes 5:10). Fifth, it was foolish to make these plans as if nothing could stop them. “This I will do,” he says. But he never says, “If the Lord wills, I will live” (James 4:13-15). Fixed, confident plans are foolish, because our time is in God’s hand, not our own. We do not even know what tomorrow will bring.

Then we hear his pleasant hopes after all these plans were finished: “I will say to myself, You have plenty of goods stored up for many years. Take it easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself” (Luke 12:19). His foolishness appears just as clearly in how he hoped to enjoy his wealth as in how he tried to get it. First, he was foolish to put off enjoyment until his plans were complete. He thinks he will rest only after he has built and filled bigger barns, which will take time. Why not rest now? As the old story says, one man kept saying, “Then we will live,” and his friend answered, “We may live now if we choose.”

Second, it was foolish to be so sure his goods were stored up for many years, as if bigger barns were safer than the old ones. In an hour, the barns could burn to the ground and take everything with them, perhaps by lightning, which no one can guard against. A few years can bring great change. Moths and rust can destroy, and thieves can break in and steal. Third, it was foolish to count on ease just because he had plenty. Many things can disturb a person even in great wealth. One dead fly can ruin a whole jar of fine perfume, and one thorn can spoil a soft bed. Pain, sickness, trouble in family relationships, and especially a guilty conscience can take away peace from someone who has much of this world’s wealth.

Fourth, it was foolish to think he should use his abundance only for eating, drinking, and enjoying himself. That is just pleasing the body and feeding the appetite, with no thought of doing good to others or serving God better. It is like saying we live to eat, instead of eating to live. It treats human happiness as nothing more than the highest pleasure of the senses. Fifth, and most foolish of all, he said all this to his soul. If he had said, “Body, take your ease, because you have goods stored up for many years,” that would at least have made sense. But the soul, as an immortal spirit that can live apart from the body, gains nothing from a barn full of grain or a bag full of gold.

If a man had only the life of an animal, he might be satisfied with food and drink. But what does that matter to a human soul, with its deeper needs and desires that those things can never meet? This is the great foolishness of people who live for this world, they spend their souls on wealth and physical pleasure.

Here is God’s verdict on all of it, and we can be sure his judgment is true. The man said to himself, “Take your ease.” If God had said that too, the man would have been happy, and the Spirit would have made believers truly at rest. But God said something very different. We must stand or fall by his judgment, not by our own, or by the praise of other people (1 Corinthians 4:3-4). His neighbors praised him and thought he was doing well for himself (Psalm 10:3; Psalm 49:18), but God said he was doing badly for himself: “You fool, this very night your soul will be demanded from you” (Luke 12:20).

God said this, meaning he planned it and made it known, either through the man’s conscience, through some warning event, or through both together. This came when the man was at the height of his success, while his mind was busy with plans to enlarge his barns, not just by adding a small space, but by tearing them down and building larger ones. While he was making all these plans and thinking he had reached a settled future, God spoke to him. In the same way, Belshazzar was struck with fear by the writing on the wall in the middle of his feast.

Notice the name God gives him: “You fool,” or Nabal, pointing to Nabal in the Old Testament, whose name means “fool,” a man whose heart had become hard as stone while he was enjoying the rich food prepared for his sheep-shearers. Worldly people are fools, and the day is coming when God will call them by their true name, “You fool,” and they will finally agree.

Now notice the sentence God passes on him, a sentence of death: “This very night your soul will be demanded from you.” The words mean, “They will demand your soul,” and then whose will all these things be that you have prepared? He thought he had goods for many years, but he would lose them that very night. He thought he would enjoy them himself, but he would leave them to he knew not whom.

The death of worldly people is miserable in itself and frightening to them. First, it is a forceful taking away, like an arrest. Their soul, the one thing they have treated so carelessly, is required of them. What has a person done with a soul if he has used it so poorly? “Your soul will be required” also suggests that he is unwilling to let it go. A godly person, who has stopped clinging to this world, gladly gives his soul back at death. But a worldly person feels it torn from him, and the thought of leaving this world terrifies him.

“They will demand your soul.” God will demand it, and he will also ask for an account of it. “What have you done with your soul? Give an account of that trust.” The words can also point to evil angels, as servants of God’s justice. Just as good angels receive faithful souls and carry them to joy, evil angels receive wicked souls and carry them to punishment. The devil claims such a soul as his own, because it has, in effect, already given itself to him.

Second, death is a surprise, an unexpected seizure. It comes in the night, and night terrors are the hardest to bear. For a good man, death is like daytime, even like morning. But for a worldly man it is night, a dark night, and he lies down in sorrow. It is “this night,” this very night, without delay. There is no chance to delay, no time to ask for one more day. In the middle of his pleasant plans for many years of enjoyment, all of it ends at once (Isaiah 21:4).

Third, death leaves behind everything he has gathered with so much labor and care. All the things he counted as his happiness, built his hopes on, and expected to enjoy later, he must leave behind. Their glory does not go down with them (Psalm 49:17). They go out of the world as naked as they came into it, and they gain nothing from what they stored up, either in death, in judgment, or in eternity.

Fourth, they leave these things to people they do not know. “Then whose will these things be?” Not theirs, for sure. They do not know what kind of people will receive them, their children or relatives, whether wise or foolish (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19), whether they will honor the family name or disgrace it, whether they will use the inheritance well or waste it. They do not even know whether those they intended to give it to will live long enough to enjoy it, or whether it will pass into someone else’s hands entirely. Even if they know who receives it first, they do not know who will receive it after that.

If many people had known who would own their house after their death, they would have rather burned it than improved it.

Fifth, death proves their folly. Worldly people are fools while they live, and their way is foolishness (Psalm 49:13). But their foolishness becomes plain when they die: “At the end, he will be a fool” (Jeremiah 17:11). Then it is clear that he worked hard to store up treasure in a world he was leaving behind, but never cared to store treasure in the world he was going to.

So this parable is applied here: “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:21). That is the path and the end of such a person. He stores up treasure for himself, for the body, for this world, for self in opposition to God, for that self that ought to be denied. His mistake is thinking that his flesh is his true self, as if the body were the whole person. If self is rightly understood, only the true Christian stores up treasure for himself and is wise for himself (Proverbs 9:12). His other mistake is making it his business to provide for the flesh, and calling that providing for himself. All his labor is for his mouth (Ecclesiastes 6:7), just making provision for the flesh.

He makes a serious mistake when he counts as his treasure only the things stored up for this world, the body, and this present life. These are the riches he trusts in, spends on, and sets his heart on. The greatest mistake of all is that he has no concern to be rich toward God.

To be rich toward God means to be rich in God’s sight, and God’s view is the one that matters. It means being rich in the things of God, rich in faith (James 2:5), rich in good works and in the fruit of right living (1 Timothy 6:18), and rich in grace, comfort, and spiritual gifts. Many people have plenty of this world’s goods, yet they lack everything that would truly enrich their souls and make them rich toward God, rich for eternity.

This is the folly and misery of a worldly person: “So is he.” Our Lord Jesus Christ, who knows what the end of all things will be, has told us what such a person’s end will be. It is a terrible foolishness that so many people care more for the wealth of this world than for the wealth of the world to come, more for what belongs to the body and this short life than for what belongs to the soul and eternity.