KFLCC Kingdom Economics

F INANCIAL S ECURITY IN THE L AST D AYS

It is said that the Bible contains about five hundred verses on prayer and another five hundred on faith. However, there are about eight hundred that deal with money or stewardship. In the New Testament are two passages that seem to contradict each other, one in Matthew and one in Luke: No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. M ATTHEW 6:24 And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? L UKE 16:9-12 Matthew records Christ telling us to make no friends of mammon, while the Luke reference indicates that Christ’s instruction is to make friends of mammon. The first question is, what is mammon? The word comes from the Aramaic, mam and nos, meaning prosperity. Those speaking Syraic Aramaic believed that mammon was the god of riches and wealth. According to some scholars, the word is akin to the Hebrew word for being steadfast and firm. A well-known Hebrew word a-men or amen is a word we say that means, “So be it;” but amen is also a word used to indicate that the word spoken can be trusted. The Gesenius Lexicon points out that the word mammon is derived from the word for treasure. For example, in Genesis 43:23, the word treasure is matmown, which is similar to the word mammon. In the setting of Luke 16, verses 1-8 teach of a steward who is overseeing his master’s finances, and the emphasis is on not wasting the master’s money. In verses 19-31 is the story of a rich man who did not care for a sick, poor man who was begging at the gates of his home. That entire chapter covers the subject of making right decisions with your possessions and finances. It is between these two stories that Christ inserted the statement, “make friends of mammon.” Thus the apparent contradiction is that on one hand, you cannot serve God and

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