What Would You Pay to Have Access to the Kingdom?

I heard of a study trying to determine the value of ‘thoughts and prayers’ (a phrase often uttered after a mass shooting or natural disaster). It turns out no one is willing to pay for ‘thoughts’. However, Christians are willing, on average, to pay $4.30 of the $5 given them to receive prayers from a stranger. Atheists won’t pay anything. It seems they would want to be paid if you’re going to pray for them. One of the researchers admits $5 isn’t much and therefore it isn’t much of a sacrifice to pay for prayer at this amount. To me, the study begs an analysis of one of Christ’s parables...

In the parable, Christ describes the Kingdom of Heaven as like a field with buried treasure. A person stumbles across the treasure, buries it (or re-buries it) and then sells everything to get it. From previous blogs, it seems the Good News is that we have access to God the Father. We know this is through the Spirit, through prayer—a Good News that’s not dependent on your ethnicity or lineage, your deeds but more of your spirit’s alignment with His.

If you couldn’t have access now, if you didn’t know that God hears your prayers and loves you, what would you pay to gain the ability to pray and be heard by the One True God? Would you pay $4.30? Would you pay a day’s wages—median $211? Would you pay a month’s—$4000+? Would you pay a year’s wages? Would you give all of your net worth and more?

As a side note to the study, it turns out that if people pray for a charitable organization, they give less money, apparently believing the prayers are worth something.

Courtesy of PNAS.org and researchers