The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus #10

The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, sometimes called Dives and Lazarus, is a story Jesus told about a wealthy man and a poor beggar whose fortunes are reversed after death. It appears only in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 16:19-31) and is the only parable of Jesus in which a character is given a name. It is often cited in discussions of wealth, poverty, and what the Bible says about life after death.

The Parable

A rich man dressed in purple and fine linen and feasted lavishly every day. At his gate lay a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table, while the dogs came and licked his sores (Luke 16:19-21). Both men died. Lazarus was carried by angels to Abraham’s side, while the rich man was buried and found himself in torment in Hades (Luke 16:22-23).

The rich man called out to Abraham to send Lazarus to cool his tongue with a drop of water. Abraham replied that in life the rich man had received good things and Lazarus bad, that now their positions were reversed, and that a great chasm was fixed between them so that no one could cross (Luke 16:24-26). The man then begged that Lazarus be sent to warn his five brothers. Abraham answered that they have Moses and the prophets, and when the man objected that they would repent if someone came back from the dead, Abraham said that if they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead (Luke 16:27-31).

Context

Luke places this story immediately after Jesus’s teaching on money, including the statement that no one can serve both God and money. Luke notes that the Pharisees, who loved money, ridiculed him, and Jesus told them that God knows their hearts and that what people highly value can be detestable to God (Luke 16:13-15). The story is directed at that attitude. The rich man is never accused of any crime other than ignoring the poor man at his own door. The name Lazarus comes from a Hebrew name meaning God helps, and the rich man is called Dives, Latin for rich, only in later tradition.

The Old Testament had already condemned luxury paired with neglect of the poor (Amos 6:4-7). The image of Abraham’s side reflects Jewish ideas of blessed rest with the patriarchs. The final line, about someone rising from the dead, reads to many Christians as an anticipation of the resurrection of Jesus and of the disbelief that would follow it.

Meaning

Jesus’s primary lesson is that wealth brings responsibility, and that reversal awaits those who neglect the poor. A second lesson concerns Scripture: the brothers already have all the warning they need in Moses and the prophets.

Christians differ over whether this is a literal glimpse of the afterlife or a parable that uses popular Jewish imagery of Hades to make a moral point. Some Protestant and Catholic interpreters treat it as reliable teaching that the dead are conscious and that destinies are fixed at death. Others, including some Adventist and other traditions that hold to soul sleep, read it as a symbolic story and not a description of the intermediate state. Almost all agree on its warning about indifference to those in need.