“You cannot serve God and money”
Luke 16:13
Foreign wordSettledJesus
No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (Luke 16:13 BSB)
What it sounds like today
'Money,' a plain economic noun.
The cultural key
The underlying word is Aramaic mamona: wealth, property, possibly from a root meaning 'that in which one trusts.' Older translations kept it untranslated: 'Mammon.' Jesus personifies it as a rival master demanding service; 'serve' is the language of slavery to a lord, not of owning a tool. In Luke the saying caps the parable of the dishonest manager and triggers the Pharisees, 'who were lovers of money,' to ridicule him; the next verse answers them. Same Aramaic mamona underneath.
Recovered meaning
Wealth is not neutral stuff in this saying; it is a would-be god. You can own money or be owned by it, and no one successfully takes orders from two lords.
Parallels: Matthew 6:24