**“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”** (2 Cor 8:9)  

Jesus chose to turn his back on riches. He could have been rich if he had fallen for Satan’s temptation to worship him. He would have become the king of this world. But, as we all know Jesus’ kingdom was somewhere else: “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36)

The problem is that the text says that Jesus “was rich”. He was, however, only potentially so, because he chose to not fall for the temptation to exercise his powers to amass wealth. His legacy in this area was that of  contentment over greed (Heb 13:5), 

Both Luke and Matthew remembered what Jesus’ thought about worldly riches, however Luke’s  rendition seems clearer than Matthew’s.

>“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort” (Luke 6:20,24). 

Thus, Matthew seems to differ, but the Aramaic Bible in Plain English seems to have the correct interpretation of this passage:

>"Blessed by The Spirit are the poor, because theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mat 5:3).

Jesus also said that we should sell our excess belongings, stuff we can do without, and give to the poor to store up treasures in heaven. And that if we did this we would follow his example (Luke 18:22)

“To store up treasures in heaven by giving to the poor” has to be a paraphrase of “becoming rich through his poverty”.

The other way of tackling this issue (which doesn’t fit as well) is the symbolic spiritual approach. But Jesus was not a trailblazer here. It is too common to even contemplate this, because it is being repeated every day in every classroom all over the world. Even Jesus was subjected to this by the teachers in the synagogues when he was young. By teachers, rich in knowledge, who lowered themselves down to a child’s level too better teach stuff.