Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 128 · May 8
Gain the Whole World
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Alexander of Macedon died at Babylon in 323 BC, when he was thirty-two years old. He had conquered an empire that stretched from Greece to the borders of India. Within about two decades his generals had carved it into pieces and his young son had been killed. He gained the whole world, and it was gone almost as soon as he had it.
Jesus asked, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" These are words from the marketplace, and the next breath carries on with the bookkeeping: "Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" He was doing the sums out loud, in front of a crowd He had called over to hear.
Be careful with the English here. The word printed "soul" is the same Greek word that is printed "life" in the sentence just before: "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it." The word is psyche, and the KJV translates it two ways within three lines. So any teaching that sets a person's soul against their body is leaning on a seam in the translation. What is at stake is the man himself, everything he would still be if all he owned were taken from him tonight.
Jesus told the same sums as a story. A farmer had a record crop. He planned bigger barns and talked to himself about it: "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." God answered him with that same word, like a lender calling in a loan: "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee."
The question admits that the man really did gain the world, so the world is not the problem. What Jesus questions is the price, and that price is never named at the moment it is paid. It is paid in small instalments, and none of them looks like a sale. The promise sits right beside it, in the same breath: "whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." Whatever you lose for Christ is not lost at all, because He keeps it, and He keeps you.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 128 is Wounded for Us (Isaiah 53:5).