Hi!
Scuze me for barging in… Beaver, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the story interpreted better, more clearly than you’ve done here! Amen!
I think Jesus was indeed telling the rich young man to sell it all… He was telling him to get rid of all of the things in his life that he’d placed before God!
Jesus wasn’t saying that there was anything wrong with having wealth. He was saying that idolizing that wealth before God was wrong.
When Nicodemus visited Jesus we know that he was a very wealthy man. Jesus didn’t tell him to rid himself of all of his wealth and follow Him… Why? Because he did not idolize his wealth in the same way that this young man did. Nicodemus was told that he must be born again. Perhaps he was being told that he must be a humble child and give give up that which he idolized before God… His power and status.
We all have to be born again in one manner or another.