Worshiping Mammon instead of Jesus.

Matthew 6.24, Luke 16.13

Some years ago there was a meme going round social media, warning folks what might happen if society went cashless. Some of the memes claim Dave Ramsey wrote it; he didn’t. Like most memes which go viral quickly, it’s meant to frighten people—and this one played right into many a Christian’s fears about the End Times, so Christians helped spread it. That’s how I came to see it.

My comment after yet another friend posted it on Facebook: “Isn’t it funny? The first thing Christians worry about when the Beast comes… is Mammon.”

Jesus used the Syriac word ܡܳܡܽܘܢܳܐ/mamoná once in his his Sermon on the Mount—and in its parallel verse in Luke—to describe wealth. It got transliterated into Greek as μαμωνᾷ/mamoná (and the Textus Receptus adds a letter μ/my, so “mammoná”); then into Latin as mamonæ. John Wycliffe translated it “riches,” as did the Geneva Bible, but the King James Version turned it back into “mammon.”

Matthew 6.24 KWL

“Nobody’s able to be a slave to two masters.

Either they’ll¹ hate one and love the other,

or look up to one and down on the other:

Can’t be a slave to God and Mammon.”

Luke 16.13 KWL

“No slave is able to be a slave to two masters.

Either they’ll¹ hate one and love the other,

or look up to one and down on the other:

Can’t be a slave to God and Mammon.”

Why’d the authors of the gospels go with “mammon” instead of the usual Greek words for wealth, πλοῦτος/plútos or χρῆμα/hríma or εὐπορία/evporía? Or, because this verse is so often translated, “You cannot serve both God and money” (GNB, NIV, NLT), why not the word for money (literally “silver”), ἀργύριον/argýrion?

Well, we don’t know. It’s likely because the ancient Christians first memorized this Jesus-saying with the Syriac word deliberately kept in it. The original-language word was important to them, and if Jesus is the one who made ’em memorize the saying, it’s likely important to him too. He wants us Christians to pay more attention to this word.

So we did. In fact when the ancient Christians preached on mamoná, they Grecianized it—they tacked on a Greek noun-ending, turning into not just a Greek word, but a Greek name. That’s why so many Christians, myself included, capitalize it. They treated Mammon like a person, ’cause Jesus said you can’t serve Mammon as well as God—and it must therefore be a competitor god. Obviously a false god, but still.

And since mamoná is a cognate of the Hebrew word מַטְמוֹן/matmón, “secret riches,” people imagine Mammon is therefore be a god of riches, wealth, or money.

In Luke, Jesus speaks of Mammon right after his Shrewd Butler Story. Maybe you remember it; maybe not, ’cause pastors hesitate to teach on it, ’cause Jesus straight-up praises an embezzler. In it, a butler makes friends by undercharging his boss’s debtors. Lk 16.1-9 Jesus’s moral: “Make yourselves friends with your filthy lucre,” Lk 16.9 or as the KJV puts it, “the mammon of unrighteousness.” And the Pharisees in his audience responded by rejecting it—’cause they were φιλάργυροι/filárgyri, “silver-lovers.” Lk 16.14

So… is Mammon the pagan god of money? Or simply Jesus’s personification of money? Or a mistranslation?

Jesus and divorce.

Matthew 5.31-32, 19.3-11, Luke 16.18.

The Fundamentalist churches I grew up in, didn’t believe in divorce—because, they claimed, Jesus doesn’t believe in divorce. Their proof texts are usually today’s passages:

Matthew 5.31-32 KWL

31“It’s said, ‘Whoever divorces his woman:

Give her a divorce document.’ Dt 24.1

32I tell you:*

Everyone who divorces his woman,

apart from a matter of unchastity,

makes her adulter.

And whoever might marry a divorcée,

adulters.”

Luke 16.18 KWL

“Everyone who divorces his woman

and marries another, adulters.

And one who was divorced from her man:

One who marries her, adulters.”

Hence most Fundies are pretty adamant that there’s one, and only one, reason for divorce: Πορνείας/porneías, unchastity. The KJV translates it “fornication,” and the NIV “sexual immorality.” Depending on your favorite bible translation, there are plenty of ways Fundies have found to spin what porneías means.

For most, it’s any and all nonmarital sexual activity. Sex before you’re married—porneías. Sex with anyone else while you’re married—adultery of course, and porneías. Pornography both before and during marriage: You’re looking at another person lustfully, adultering with that person in your mind, Mt 5.28 and Jesus bluntly forbids that, so that’s porneías too. Yep, porn is considered valid grounds for your spouse to divorce you. Doesn’t matter if your spouse is watching it with you.

Okay, but is our cultural definition of “sexual immorality” what the scriptures mean by unchastity?

Well, if you’re looking for me to say, “Nope!” so you can get away with stuff, I’m gonna disappoint you. Our cultural definitions, of course, aren’t the same. But they’re similar. Similar enough for there to be a bunch of overlap.

The people of Jesus’s day were still operating with a patriarchal idea of relationships between men and women. It’s an idea which in many ways is wholly inappropriate for Christians, ’cause it inherently turns women into second-class citizens, into the property of their patriarchs, and Jesus means for men and women to be equals in his kingdom. Husbands are not the masters of their wives, and any man who says so is usurping Christ Jesus’s rightful authority over his wife.

But in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus isn’t teaching that particular lesson. He’s dealing with the culture as it was. Which isn’t our culture! So we gotta understand where they were coming from, before we can see just how this teaching applies to us.

We gotta be better than “the righteous.”

Matthew 5.17-20, Luke 16.16-17.

Right after Jesus speaks on salt and light in his Sermon on the Mount, and tells his followers we need to be the world’s light, he says this about how we’re to live in order to be that salt and light: We gotta be righteous.

And by “righteous” Jesus does not mean we have to conform to popular Christian culture. We don’t have to be “righteous” the way conservative church people define righteousness. He doesn’t demand we act like they do, think like they do, dress like they do, vote like they do, or otherwise try to fit their standards. Jesus has a standard. What’s his standard? Well, the thinking and behavior he spells out in his Sermon on the Mount. He expects that of us. If the people of our churches are doing that—well they should, and good for them! But if the people of our churches are doing no such thing, and think they’ve found some other path to righteousness, like cheap grace or dispensationalism, I gotta warn you: Jesus doesn’t know them. And really it’s not safe to be among them. Leave, and join a better church.

If we wanna be righteous, we gotta trust Jesus. And Jesus says we gotta follow him. And—and here’s the part where you’re gonna see a lot of Evangelicals balk—we gotta also observe the Law of Moses. Certain commands still apply! Some don’t, because they only ever applied to ancient Hebrews. Some have clearly been superseded by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; the ritual cleanliness rules are an obvious example. But loving our neighbors or the Ten Commandments never stopped being valid; never stopped defining whether we’re right and wrong in God’s sight.

So if we wanna follow Jesus, we can’t be one of those Christians who think we’ve found a loophole which gets us out of obeying his commands and teachings in the scriptures. Israel’s scribes and Pharisees were notorious for their loopholes, and applied ’em so liberally Jesus couldn’t help but call them hypocrites, who pretended to be devout but were as pagan and evil as any Greek or Roman. Jesus expects way, way better of his students and followers.

His words, not mine!—

Matthew 5.17-20 KWL

17“None of you² should think

that I come to tear down the Law or the Prophets.

I don’t come to tear down,

but build up.

18For amen!—I promise you:²

Heaven and earth might pass away,

but neither one yodh nor one dot

ought ever pass away from the Law;

not until everything’s done.

19So whoever might annul the smallest of these commands,

and might teach this to people:

They¹ will be called least in heaven’s kingdom.

And whoever might do and teach them,

this one will be called great in heaven’s kingdom.

20For I tell you² this:

Unless your² rightness superabounds—

more than scribes and Pharisees—

you² might not enter heaven’s kingdom.”

The Dives and Lazarus Story.

Luke 16.19-31.

This story is often called the Story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, or Lazarus and the Rich Man, depending on who oughta come first. Since it’s actually not about Lazarus, stands to reason the rich man should come first. Traditionally this man’s been called Dives (usually pronounced 'daɪ.viz instead of like the verb) ’cause that’s what he’s called in verse 19 in the Vulgate; dives is Latin for “rich.” So I’m gonna call him Dives; it saves time.

Every once in a while some literalist insists this story is not a parable. This is the only story where Jesus refers to someone by name—so they figure this must mean something, and claim Jesus is straight-up talking about a real-life guy named Lazarus, who lived in first-century Israel. Some of ’em even claim the Lazarus of this story is Lazarus of Bethany, Jesus’s personal friend whom he later raised from the dead, Jn 11.1-44 and this is how Lazarus died. Which makes no sense, because Lazarus’s family asked Jesus to come cure him; they didn’t just dump Lazarus at Dives’s door, hoping this idle rich guy might uncharacteristically do something charitable.

On the other extreme, we have people who insist this story is pure fiction. Primarily because they have very different beliefs about afterlife. Jesus, they insist, is not accurately describing what happens when people die. We go to heaven. Or hell. Some insist we’re immediately resurrected and live in New Jerusalem from now on; others claim we live in some glorified spiritual form while we await the Resurrection. Hindus and Buddhists believe we get reincarnated, and of course pagans and Mormons believe we become angels.

In some cases, the Christians who insist Jesus isn’t accurately describing afterlife are dispensationalists who believe this used to be the way afterlife worked—maybe—but not anymore. There’s a popular Christian myth called “the harrowing of hell,” which says before Jesus died to atone for our sins, God saved nobody by his grace—therefore nobody but the most saintly people ever, like Job or Abraham (and here, Lazarus), could make it to paradise. Nobody had the karma! So they were forced to wait in hell till Jesus died. Once he died, Jesus went to hell, same as them… but with keys! He unlocked the gates, stepped on gatekeeper devil Belial’s neck, freed all the Old Testament saints, and took ’em with him to heaven. And now, nobody experiences anything like Jesus describes in this story. Christians go to heaven.

Considering that God isn’t limited by time whatsoever, it makes no sense that he can’t apply Jesus’s then-future atonement to the sins of the people who existed before Jesus. In fact there’s every indication he did: Their sins, which were many, never hindered him with instigating relationships with them!

Nah, both the literalists and the myth-believers have it wrong. This story is a parable. Lazarus isn’t a literal guy. But this is, loosely, what the afterlife looks like. Then, and now. And it’s meant as a warning to those of us who are wealthy, but don’t bother to use our wealth to further God’s kingdom. If all we care about is our own comfort, we may not experience any such comfort in the afterlife. Billionaires beware.

Luke 16.19-31 KWL

19“Somebody is wealthy.

He’s wearing purple and white linen,

partying daily, in luxury.

20Some pauper named Lazarus was thrown out by the plutocrat’s gate,

covered in open sores,

21desiring to be fed with whatever fell from the plutocrat’s table,

but the dogs which came are licking his sores.

22The pauper comes to die,

to be carried off by the angels to Abraham’s fold.

The plutocrat also dies

and is entombed.

23In the afterlife, the plutocrat lifts up his eyes—

he’s getting tortured in the pit—

and sees Abraham far away,

and Lazarus in his folds.

24Calling out, the plutocrat says, ‘Father Abraham!

Have mercy on me and send Lazarus,

so he might dip his fingertip in water, and might cool my tongue,

because I suffer great pain in these flames!’

25Abraham says, ‘Child, remember:

You received your good things in your life,

and Lazarus likewise received evil.

Now, here, he is assisted—

and you suffer.

26In all this space between us and you,

a large gap was fixed

so those who want to come to you from here, can’t.

Nor can they pass from there to us.’

27The plutocrat says, ‘Then I ask you, father,

might you send Lazarus to my father’s house?

28For I have five siblings.

So Lazarus might urge them,

lest they also come to this place in the pit.’

29Abraham says, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets.

Heed them.’

30The plutocrat says, ‘No, father Abraham!

But if anyone comes back from the dead to them,

they’ll repent!’

31Abraham tells him, ‘If they don’t heed Moses and the Prophets,

neither will they be convinced

when someone rises from the dead.’ ”

The Shrewd Butler Story. And mammon.

Luke 16.1-9.

As you know, Jesus said you can’t be a slave to both God and Mammon, Mt 6.24 and as a result people tend to think of Mammon as a person. It’s not really. Whenever Jesus and the Pharisees spoke about mammon, they meant money, and they were speaking of it negatively. Exactly like we do whenever we describe money as “lucre.” Nobody ever talks about clean lucre; it’s always filthy lucre; it’s always money used wrong, used for evil.

Same deal with mammon, which is why I translated τῷ ἀδίκῳ μαμωνᾷ/to adíko mamoná (KJV “the unrighteous mammon”) as “filthy lucre.” You come across lucre in this story, it means mammon. Got it? Good.

Jesus tells this story right after the Prodigal Son Story, Lk 15.11-32 if that context helps: A man squandered all his money, and when he came home his father threw him an expensive party; and his brother objected to the wastefulness (or to use old-timey English, the prodigality) of both the wasteful man and his extravagant father. And since we’re on the topic of wastefulness…

Luke 16.1-9 KWL

1 Jesus also told his students, “There’s a certain plutocrat who had a butler.

This plutocrat accused him of wasting his possessions.

2 Calling the butler, the plutocrat told him, ‘Why do I hear this about you?

Turn over your books, for you can’t run the house.’

3 The butler told himself, ‘What can I do?—my boss is taking the house-running from me.

I’m not strong enough to dig; I’m ashamed to beg.

4 I know what I’ll do—so when I’m fired from being butler,

other plutocrats will take me into their houses.’

5 Calling each one of his boss’s debtors, the butler told the first, ‘How much do you owe my boss?’

6 The debtor said, ‘A hundred jars olive oil.’

The butler told him, ‘Take the receipt, sit, and quickly write fifty.’

7 Then the butler told another, ‘And you: How much do you owe?’

The debtor said, ‘A hundred cors [37,000 liters] grain.’

The butler said, ‘Take the receipt and write eighty.’

8 The butler’s boss praised the impropriety, for the butler acted shrewdly,

for the children of this age are more shrewd than the children of light of the same generation.

9 I tell you, make yourselves friends with your filthy lucre,

so when it runs out, they might take you into their great houses.”

This story really weirds out Christians, because most of us cannot for the life of us understand how Jesus could make the butler the hero of this story, and point to his example as one to follow. Didn’t the guy just totally rip off his boss? He was gonna get fired for squandering money; he turns right around and squanders more money in order to suck up to his boss’s creditors; and his boss is actually pleased with this behavior. What the what?

It makes more sense once it finally sinks in Jesus isn’t a Mammonist… and we largely kinda are.

What’s the proper place of money?

What’s money for? Duh; it’s so you can buy things. Money can be traded for goods and services. This isn’t just Economics 101; kids learn this as soon as they watch their parents buy stuff. “So that’s what those shiny discs are for; no wonder Mom gets upset when I swallow ’em.”

Money’s a resource. Need stuff? Money helps you buy it. Need food, clothes, shelter, transportation, electricity, internet? Money. Does the government need to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare? Money; your money, ’cause the rich always seem to create loopholes so it’s never their money. Everything runs on money.

So we need money. How much? Enough to cover the bills, really. A little extra so we can afford to be generous and help the needy, and a little extra to sock away in case of unexpected problems.

But that’s not a mindset our culture encourages. We’re told we oughta have enough money so we can afford anything we want. So we can buy anything our hearts desire. So we can live in comfort, if not luxury. So we need never work for money again. We’re told we ought to want to be rich… and if we don’t want that, there’s gotta be something dangerously wrong with us. If you don’t wanna be rich, you must be a Marxist or something.

Why this sudden pivot to a fearful extreme? Duh; spiritual warfare. Tempters don’t want you to think. They want you to freak out at anything which threatens their grip on you. Right now they got us by our desires for wealth, comfort, and power. Take those desires away, and they got nothing.

Hence Paul’s warning about the love of money. 1Ti 6.10 The worship of money, materialism and Mammonism, gets people to lose all sense of money’s proper place. It becomes their meaning of life: Get money, and get more. Then blow most of it on luxuries—at the expense of your bills, your emergency funds, and especially the needy. Heck, the needy should be earning their own money. How dare they ask for mine?

Does God’s kingdom run on money? Nope; that’d be grace. Although you’d never know it to hear some churches, ’cause they’re constantly begging for money. But either that’s because their members aren’t generous, or because their leaders are greedy. In other words, they’ve been infested with Mammonism. It’s when money takes priority over grace.

And our interpretations of the bible likewise get infested with Mammonism. It’s why people read this story and don’t understand what Jesus is teaching. So they skip it, and teach on his other stories. Or they tackle it, and come up with gobbledygook.

We gotta begin by understanding the proper place of money in Jesus’s mind. It’s a resource. Is it the only resource we have? Of course not; we have the Holy Spirit’s power, which is how Jesus could make bread out of nothing. Having him cure you is way cheaper than American healthcare. Money is finite, but God’s power is infinite; it’s the dynamo of the universe. He wants us to depend on that, on the Spirit, not money. If anything money’s a workaround; a way to respond to the Spirit’s “No” with “Fine; I’ll buy it myself.”

Gotta wonder how many churches are following the money instead of the Spirit… but I expect that’d take another article.

Nope, this isn’t embezzlement.

When a πλούσιος/plúsios (plutocrat; KJV “rich man”) put an οἰκονόμος/ikonómos (house-runner, or butler; KJV “steward”) in charge of his estate, the butler really was in charge of the estate. He didn’t have to run anything past his boss; he effectively was the boss. He had the boss’s signet ring. He could order anything in his boss’s name. His boss’s money was his money; his boss’s property was his property; they were totally interchangeable.

Well, so long that the boss was pleased with his administration. At the top of this story, the boss had decided to fire his butler, ’cause he felt his estate had been squandered. Jesus doesn’t say why and how, and we needn’t speculate because it doesn’t matter. What matters is how the butler decided to act.

While the butler was still in charge, before he handed over the paperwork, he quickly had his boss’s debtors come over, and he forgave part of their debts. Many interpreters claim this was theft or embezzlement on the butler’s part; how dare he change the receipts? But the butler had the authority to do exactly as he did: He was in charge of his boss’s money, and he was authorized to forgive debts if he so chose. Really he could’ve forgiven the entire debt if he wanted… and if he had, maybe Mammonists wouldn’t struggle so much with this story. “Why, he forgave debts like God forgives debts. How generous.” Instead he only forgave the debtors in part… so people now get hung up on the financial loss.

Why’d the butler do this? He said it himself: “Other plutocrats will take me into their houses.” Lk 16.4 He did this to set himself up for a future job. He expected other wealthy families to hear of this, and hire him because he lowered the debtors’ bills. Hire him knowing he might do this with their money too.

If you’re fixated on money, this story makes less and less sense as we go. Forgiving his debtors pleased his boss? Forgiving debtors might please future bosses? Aren’t these plutocrats trying to make money?—how on earth is this butler of any value to them? How would this behavior curry favor? Why is the boss pleased with his behavior?

I’ve heard one interpretation which claimed the debtors couldn’t afford to pay that much oil and grain at that time, so the butler lowered the bills till they could pay it—and now the boss had oil and grain, whereas if the amounts remained as high as they were, the boss would never get paid back. Kinda like when banks forgive the interest on certain debts so they can get something instead of nothing. Yeah, that’s a clever spin on the idea, but if that were so, Jesus would’ve said so. He didn’t.

The reality is the boss was impressed with something more valuable than money: His butler’s shrewdness.

To Mammonists, nothing’s more valuable than money. If it’s not gonna make ’em money right away, or in the long run, it’s not a worthwhile investment. But the plutocrat in this story isn’t a Mammonist, and Jesus isn’t a Mammonist. They recognize wisdom’s more important than money—and no, not just because wisdom can make you money. Wisdom’s not just a means to an end.

But money is. The butler used money to make the debtors appreciate him. Wise plutocrats, who were used to the Roman Empire’s tendency to use money to grease the wheels of leaders, judges, officials, taxmen, everyone, would immediately realize here’s a man who knows when to make money, and when to buy favor. In an empire where there’s really no such thing as civil rights, favor make all the difference between life and death.

“The children of this age are more shrewd than the children of light of the same generation,” Jesus pointed out. Lk 16.8 Worldly people know how to work the system. Less-worldly people get so hung up on their principles, they sometimes lose sight of what’s really important. Like favor with others. If people like you, they’re less likely to line you up against the wall and shoot you when the revolution comes. If you have favor with pagans, it’s way easier to share Jesus with them.

Whereas if you’re a jerk about it, or prioritize your mammon over everything else… well, so much for God’s kingdom.

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Jesus’s most misinterpreted teaching.

Matthew 5.17-20, Luke 16.16-17.

Matthew 5.17-20 KWL

17“None of you² should think

that I come to tear down the Law or the Prophets.

I don’t come to tear down,

but build up.

18For amen!—I promise you:²

Heaven and earth might pass away,

but neither one yodh nor one dot

ought ever pass away from the Law;

not until everything’s done.

19So whoever might annul the smallest of these commands,

and might teach this to people:

They¹ will be called least in heaven’s kingdom.

And whoever might do and teach them,

this one will be called great in heaven’s kingdom.

20For I tell you² this:

Unless your² rightness superabounds—

more than scribes and Pharisees—

you² might not enter heaven’s kingdom.”

Luke 16.16-17 KWL

16“The Law and the Prophets

are preached as good news until John.

Since then, God’s kingdom is preached as good news,

and everybody forces their way into it.

17It’s easier for heaven and earth to pass away

than one dot of the Law to fail.

Despite this very lesson, many Christians do in fact teach Jesus did come to dissolve “the Law and the Prophets”—the way people in his day referred to the bible, our Old Testament.

As in Luke 16.16-17, Jesus is not announcing the termination of the OT’s relevance and authority (else Luke 16.17 would be incomprehensible), but that “the period during which men were related to God under its terms ceased with John”; and the nature of its valid continuity is established only with reference to Jesus and the kingdom.

—D.A. Carson, Expositor’s Bible Commentary at Mt 5.17

It’s still relevant, still authoritative; it’s why Christian bibles still include it. But it’s no longer valid. It no longer counts. Fun to read, useful for historical context, and we can even pull a few End Times prophecies out of it. But follow it? Nah.

Exactly how is that not dissolving it? See, καταλῦσαι/katalýsë, which I translated “to dissolve,” refers to breaking stuff apart, like in water. Pour water on a sugar cube to dissolve it, and it’s no longer solid. Can’t construct any sugar-cube buildings, like the ones we made in grade school: It’s useless for any function which requires it to be solid. That’s precisely what Jesus said he didn’t do: He didn’t turn the Law and Prophets into crumbling, insubstantial mush. Yet that’s precisely what we claim he did: Rendered it moot. Invalid. Not binding. And therefore, really, not relevant and authoritative.

This idea exposes a huge, huge error in the way Christians think about God, his commands, the Law, and legalism. Worse, this false idea worms into the rest of Jesus’s teachings. Really, every instruction we find in the bible. As a result, Christians use grace as a loophole, an excuse to ignore Jesus’s teaching—or misunderstand it, misapply it, even violate it.

Gonna be a lot of “smallest” Christians in his heavenly kingdom.

Mammonists versus God.

Luke 16.8-15.

the Shrewd Butler Story, Jesus commended the butler for using his boss’s money to generate goodwill instead of profits, and his moral was for his followers to do likewise.

Mammonists stumble all over this story. To them the point of money isn’t to use it as a resource, but to accumulate it and gain power by it. To their minds the butler was completely untrustworthy. He was already accused of squandering it, Lk 16.1 and then he turned round and deliberately squandered it by changing his boss’s debtors’ receipts. Lk 16.5-7 He made it look like he collected more money than he actually had; like his boss was owed less than he truly was; and he did it to benefit himself instead of enriching his boss—which was his job, wasn’t it? He embezzled from his boss. He stole. He’s a thief. There’s a command against theft in the bible somewhere; it’s one of the bigger ones!

So Mammonists really don’t know what to do with Jesus commending this butler… except to conclude, “I guess Jesus appreciates shrewdness over goodness.”

No he doesn’t. As I pointed out when I dealt with the story, the butler had full authority over his boss’s estate, and could legitimately do whatever he wished with it. Including forgive debts. He stole nothing. He embezzled nothing. It might be improper, ’cause you certainly can’t afford to do such things all the time. But it wasn’t sin.

…Well, unless losing money is a sin. And to Mammonists, that’s an egregious sin. Isn’t wise at all. Indicates you’re not worthy of having money in the first place, and deserve to lose it all. (There’s a lot of karma-based thinking in Mammonism, ’cause it helps Mammonists justify the iffy things they do to gain and hoard wealth.)

Jesus isn’t Mammonist, and neither are the butler and his boss in the story. They rightly recognize money as a resource, not a raison d’être. It’s a means to an end; it’s not the end itself. By contrast Mammonists figure it is the goal, and the Christians among ’em figure the whole point of turning to Jesus is so we can gain stuff. Mansions in New Jerusalem. Golden crowns full of jewels. Treasures in heaven, which they constantly imagine as material possessions they get to keep forever. And, if they’re into the prosperity gospel, they can even tap into some of that wealth now.

As a non-Mammonist, the plutocrat in the story recognized money—even “filthy lucre,” as I translated τῷ ἀδίκῳ μαμωνᾷ/to adíko mamoná (KJV “the unrighteous mammon”) —is here today, gone tomorrow. Friends can be just as transitory, but when friendship is done right, it doesn’t have to be. And the goodwill his butler generated with his debtors, was gonna come in handy in future—and not just for the butler. It was a wise move, and a wise boss would keep such a guy around.

Luke 16.8-9 KWL

8 “The butler’s master praised the impropriety, for the butler acted shrewdly,

for the children of this age are more shrewd than the children of light of the same generation.

9 I tell you, make yourselves friends out of improper mammon,

so when it runs out, they might take you into their great houses.”

“Their great houses” is how I rendered τὰς αἰωνίους σκηνάς./tas eoníus skinás, “the eternal tents” (KJV “everlasting habitations”). Y’get many Christians who insist it’s about God accepting us into heaven—despite a plural they letting you into plural tents—or the idea that once we get to New Jerusalem, we’re greeted by all the needy people we’ve helped. But properly it’s a euphemism for old money, for great families who’ve been indirectly running the country forever, and they’re the very best friends to have whenever we run afoul of temporal political leaders. That is what the butler was thinking of when he came up with his scheme: He wanted to be taken in by some other plutocrat. Lk 16.4 And it’d be just as shrewd of us Christians to have a few plutocrats in our corner.

Can we handle money? Or really anything important?

Of course Jesus had more to say on the subject of money, and continued:

Luke 16.10-13 KWL

10 “Trustworthy in little things means trustworthy in big things.

Improper in little things means improper in big things.

11 So when you’re not trustworthy with filthy lucre, who will trust you with truth?

12 If you’re not trustworthy with another’s things, who will give you your own things?

13 No slave is able to be a slave to two masters: Either they’ll hate one and love the other,

or look up to one and down on the other: Can’t be a slave to God and Mammon.”

Pharisee logicians taught the principle of light and heavy (Hebrew קַל וחומר/qal v’khomér), which westerners call the argumentum a fortiori, “argument from the stronger [point].” Jesus’s statement “Trustworthy in little things means trustworthy in big things” is a great example of it: If it’s true in a small instance, in a simple case, it’s just as true (and way more consequential) in a big instance, in a complicated situation. If the butler can’t be trusted with money, he can’t be trusted anywhere. If we can’t be trusted with money, we can’t be trusted anywhere.

Mammonists regularly misinterpret this to say we oughta have our financial houses in order. And by “in order,” they mean profitable. We oughta reduce our unnecessary expenses, ’cause they’re bleeding us dry. We oughta eliminate debt, ’cause the interest payments are largely keeping us in debt. Cut up those credit cards! Buy, not rent. Buy used instead of new. Buy generics instead of name-brand items. Use coupons. Squeeze those pennies till Lincoln farts.

Um… was what the butler did profitable? No.

“But in the long run it is,” Mammonists sometimes claim: The goodwill generated by forgiving a few debts, means people are more likely to do business with the boss in future. They’ll think, “He knocked off a few jars of oil from my debt, so I kinda owe him one,” or that maybe he’ll give them another surprise discount in the future. More business, more profits. Shrewd.

And again, not what the butler did. He wasn’t thinking of his boss’s reputation, but his own. He wanted people to think well of him—and if they thought well of his boss instead of him, and didn’t even think of him at all, his scheme would’ve failed. He was offering the debt reduction, not his boss. Spin it all you like into it being good business, good public relations. But you’d be missing the point.

Likewise if you take the other extreme and conclude the butler wasn’t trustworthy. He’d only be untrustworthy if he lied to his boss. He didn’t. His boss would know about the scheme, ’cause it’d be kinda obvious: His debtors had marked up the receipts. Lk 16.5-7 There was no such thing as correction fluid back then: The old amount would be crossed out on the papyrus, and the new one written down. (Or, if they wastefully used parchment for bookkeeping, the old amount was scratched off—but still visible.) Didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened—and the boss immediately recognized what was up, and found it clever.

Lastly Jesus’s comment about not being a slave to both God and Mammon. I’ve commented more than once how Americans are kinda determined to prove Jesus wrong. We’ve done a lousy job of it so far. We’ve mostly just reimagined Jesus till the version of him we follow approves of all our greed and materialism. But at that point we’re not following Jesus anymore; just our own desires, mainly our desire for wealth.

Mammonist Pharisees.

No surprise, the Pharisees in Jesus’s audience balked at this lesson. Same as Christians do nowadays—the difference being that Christians pretend to follow Jesus anyway. Pharisees figured they could take or leave him, and in this case they figured they could even mock him.

Luke 16.14-15 KWL

14 Hearing these things, the silver-loving Pharisees mocked Jesus.

15 Jesus told them, “You justify yourselves before people—and God knows your hearts.

Those who are exalted before people, are disgusting before God.”

Sounds kinda rude of Jesus, but knowing his character, we know the reason he said this was not to slam his hecklers. It was to warn ’em of reality: Their wealth is not the indication of God’s approval they believed it to be. Some people are wealthy because God enriches ’em. The rest are wealthy because they stole it, inherited it, are idiots who were given wealth by other idiots (but then again I did just mention inheritance), or they got it through dumb luck. Institutional biases keep certain groups poor, and of course the wealthy have rigged things so they can keep their wealth. There’s a lot of unfairness in the system, and people have been tricked into thinking nothing but hard work can overcome it.

But like Jesus said, God knows our hearts. Exalting ourselves in order to justify our wealth, or to justify materialism, or to claim our riches make us better and worthier and greater: God finds it disgusting. Not just because Mammonism is idolatry; because it blinds us to all the sins we commit so we can hold onto our stuff, and put it ahead of God’s kingdom.

Paradise: The nicer part of the afterlife.

PARADISE 'pɛr.ə.daɪs noun. In the afterlife, the place of the blessed. [Usually equated with heaven.]

2. The garden of Eden.

3. An ideal, happy, peaceful, or picturesque place or state.

[Paradisal pɛr.ə'daɪz.əl adjective.]

Perdís was an ancient Persian word for “a park.” Persian parks were particularly known for their decorative, ornamental gardens.

Both Hebrew and Greek borrowed the word. Late Biblical Hebrew turned it into pardés, which is found in the bible thrice. Sg 4.13, Ec 2.5, Ne 2.8 Ancient Greek turned it into parádeisos, also found thrice. Lk 23.43, 2Co 12.4, Rv 2.7 It’s where we get our English word paradise.

Of course in English a paradise refers to any nice place. I tend to hear it describe tropical beaches, which are hardly garden-like. But the Pharisees grew to use it primarily to describe Eden, the place of the first humans. And the afterlife.

Like Ecclesiastes commented, nobody really knew what happened to a human’s spirit after death. Ec 3.21 But they speculated. To them, once the body was in sh’ól/“the grave,” once the neféš/“soul, lifeforce” was extinguished, the spirit would go elsewhere and await resurrection. In the Old Testament, “elsewhere” was the same for both the righteous and the wicked. Ec 9.10 They didn’t imagine it as a place of reward nor punishment. It was simply where the dead went.

No, that’s not a pleasant idea. That’s why over time the Pharisees came to believe God sorted people in the “elsewhere” for reward and punishment, before resurrection. Different parts of the afterlife. A restful part, and a hellish part.

Y’know that story Jesus told of Lazarus and the rich man? Lk 16.19-31 Like that. The rich man’s torment, the Pharisees designated ge-Henna, after the burning landfill outside Jerusalem. Lazarus’s comfort, in contrast, was designated paradise, as if the LORD had teleported Eden into the afterlife, and let the ghosts of the deceased wander around there. (Not sure what they’d do with the fruit trees, though.) Yeah, both these terms are metaphors. Torment wasn’t literally a burning garbage fire, although it was mighty bad. Comfort wasn’t literally Eden.

Now, here’s the problem: Is this what our afterlife is gonna consist of? ’Cause for most Christians, this simply won’t be good enough. Our preachers promised us mansions in heaven. We want that. We don’t wanna lounge around with Abraham and await Jesus’s return; we wanna see our dead relatives and friends, then find Jesus and give him a big ol’ hug (and maybe weep on his toga for a bit), then run into the fields and play with our childhood pets which died years ago. We don’t just want comfort; we want our eternal reward. Right away.

So we wanna hear Jesus has significantly changed things since bible times. Here’s the problem: Bible doesn’t say he’s changed a thing. But Christian mythology sure does, and that’s the story Christians prefer.