Luxuries are harmful to the Soul
Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. The English word “rich” is an analogue for a Greek word that can be defined as “material abundance” — that is to say that material luxuries are included here. Material luxuries may even be the primary definition, since someone who puts their wealth towards a righteous cause can probably avoid being counted among the “rich” if they live frugally. The point here is to establish that luxuries are harmful to the soul, potentially even more harmful than money.
Don’t Covet Your Neighbor’s X
The 10th Commandment says not to covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. This means that even if your neighbor has some kind of luxury, you are not supposed to want it, much less try and take it from him.
What does it mean to love thy neighbor?
“Love” doesn’t have an agreed upon definition. If riches and/or luxuries are harmful to the soul, giving luxuries to another would harm their soul. This means that sharing your luxuries with them is not loving towards them according to the Christian definition of the word. You might also be encouraging them to covet your luxury, which would be encouraging them to break the 10th commandment.
How Can You Share Luxuries?
Let’s assume that, despite the first three points, you still wants to hold a position that the eleventh commandment (“Love each other” or “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself”) requires the sharing of luxuries. This means that you’ve somehow decided that luxuries are not harmful to the soul and that the Christian definition of love is compatible with material luxuries. A dilemma remains in that some luxuries cannot be split.
For example, someone could buy themselves a new television. If you have two neighbors, how do you handle such a luxury? You can’t break your new screen into thirds, no one can use one third of a television. One could decide that instead of buying a nice television, if they have two neighbors, they could buy three cheap television sets instead. Then they share the televisions with their neighbors and are in compliance. Although, what if your neighbors already have a television? What if you have ten neighbors? Do you buy eleven televisions?
Or does it mean that you can only buy yourself a television that is equal to the ones they already own? That might seem like a way to make it work, but what if they all have different models and sizes of televisions that each have different values? Do you average them all? Figure out who has the cheapest television? Is that worth it? Will they hate having you in there examining their television sets?
We could go on about this for quite awhile but it would be unnecessary. The conclusion Jesus wanted us to come to here is obvious if one does what they’re supposed to do: give up. The impossibility of solving this dilemma is meant to make the Christian give up on obtaining luxuries entirely because it’s not a dilemma that can be solved. This very difficult question makes perfect sense if one accepts that luxuries and riches are considered harmful to the soul, aren’t loving and should not be possessed in the first place.
If we want to choose another example, let’s pretend that the luxury is a fine vase. If one has four neighbors then the vase needs to be divided into five pieces, one for each household. Doing this requires smashing the vase, thereby destroying it — exactly as God intended.
The Political Angle
People will have their politics, there is no helping that. They should, however, leave Christianity out of it. Christianity has no position on the redistribution of luxuries because a good Christian is not supposed to have personal luxuries to begin with. If a Christian does have them, he is encouraged to agonize over them until he eventually smashes them into pieces.
In the United States right now, we have Democrats saying “Jesus wants you to buy people Obamaphones” and Republicans saying “Jesus wants you to buy yourself an iPhone” but the truth is that Jesus doesn’t want either of those things. The real Jesus is not very popular these days.
Approved Luxuries
It should be added (and I intend to source this eventually) that certain kinds of communal luxuries are clearly approved of in the Bible. These are luxuries which, by their nature, can be shared with others. Decorations in a community church or other community places are mentioned consistently in the Bible. Musical instruments are also mentioned and they are a kind of luxury that can be shared with others (when you play the instrument for them) and which are of no use to someone who lacks the appropriate skills anyway.
Common sense should dictate that extremely expensive instruments should be avoided if that expense bears no additional function. You also can’t make use of half of a guitar (unless you’re a luthier?) so even if your neighbor is a guitar player who lacks a guitar, you don’t have to smash your guitar for him. It would make sense though to collaborate with your guitar-less guitar playing neighbor and see if the two of you can obtain instruments together.
Alexander Fāng 