Jesus Christ · The Sermon on the Mount
Treasure in Heaven
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth… but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” This is not Jesus telling His hearers to own nothing — a few verses later He assumes they will still need food and clothing (6:25–34). It is Jesus asking a sharper question: where has your ultimate hope been banked? Whatever that answer is, He says, is also the answer to where your heart actually lives.
The Text
— Matthew 6:19–21Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.The two banks — one that moth, rust, and thieves can reach, one they cannot.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.The verdict: your heart already lives wherever you banked your hope.
These three verses open the sermon's fourth movement (6:19–34), coming right after Jesus's teaching on secret fasting (6:16–18) and opening straight into the eye-as-lamp and the two-masters sayings that follow (6:22–24). Giving, prayer, and fasting were about where a disciple's performanceis aimed; treasure is about where a disciple's hope is aimed.
The Two Treasuries
— a cross-section of Matthew 6:19–20Every threat that reaches the vault below the line stops dead at the line itself — none of the three has ever once crossed it.
What He Is Saying
— not a ban on having — a claim on where hope livesRead this passage next to 6:25–34, a few verses later, and the point sharpens: Jesus assumes His disciples will still need food, drink, and clothing — He is not telling anyone to own nothing. The command is about orientation, not possession. Two banks are on offer: an earthly one that three different thieves can always reach, and a heavenly one that none of them can touch. Whichever bank gets your ultimate trust is also, Jesus says, where your heart has already gone to live.
The three ways ancient wealth diedmoth, rust, thieves
Jesus names three specific, everyday losses His hearers would have known from experience. Moth ruined the fine woven garments that made up a large share of ancient household wealth — cloth stored in a chest for years, found eaten through. Rust(the Greek word means “eating into” or “consuming”) covers the slow corruption and wastage of stored grain, oil, and metals — wear and tear no vault could fully stop. Thieves“break through” — literally dig through — the mud-brick walls of an unguarded house, the third and most sudden loss of all. Three different thieves, Jesus says, and none of them can cross into the other account.
A real transfer, not a vague metaphorhow treasure moves to heaven
“Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” is not poetic vagueness — the church has long read it as a real transaction, worked out through generosity here. Luke states the mechanism outright: “Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old” (Luke 12:33). What is given away in trust becomes, in Jesus's accounting, the one deposit no moth, no rust, and no thief can ever reach.
The Voices on Earthly Treasure
— the church hears Matthew 6:19In Jas 5:2 there is an evident reference to our Lord's words here. and rust--any "eating into" or "consuming"; here, probably, "wear and tear." doth corrupt--cause to disappear. By this reference to moth and rust our Lord would teach how perishable are such earthly treasures. and where thieves break through and steal--Treasures these, how precarious!
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), Matt 6:19
Here are three precepts according to the three different kinds of wealth. Metals are destroyed by rust, clothes by moth; but as there are other things which fear neither rust nor moth, as precious stones, He therefore names a common damage, that by thieves, who may rob wealth of all kinds.
Rabanus Maurus· Catena Aurea by Aquinas (856), Matt 6:19
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth - What blindness is it for a man to lay up that as a treasure which must necessarily perish! A heart designed for God and eternity is terribly degraded by being fixed on those things which are subject to corruption.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), Matt 6:19
The Voices on Heavenly Treasure
— the church hears Matthew 6:20But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven--The language in Luke (Lu 12:33) is very bold--"Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not," &c. where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal--Treasures these, imperishable and unassailable!
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), Matt 6:20
But the praise of Heaven is eternal, and cannot be carried off by invading thief, nor consumed by the moth and rust of envy.
Hilary of Poitiers· Catena Aurea by Aquinas (367), Matt 6:20
Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven - That is, have provision made for your eternal felicity. Do not exhaust your strength and spend your days in providing for the life here, but let your chief anxiety be to be prepared for eternity.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832–1869), Matt 6:20
Where the Heart Follows
— the church hears Matthew 6:21For where your treasure is--that which ye value most. there will your heart be also--"Thy treasure--thy heart" is probably the true reading here: "your," in Lu 12:34, from which it seems to have come in here. Obvious though this maxim be, by what multitudes who profess to bow to the teaching of Christ is it practically disregarded!
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), Matt 6:21
Where your treasure is - If God be the treasure of our souls, our hearts, i.e. our affections and desires will be placed on things above. An earthly minded man proves that his treasure is below; a heavenly minded man shows that his treasure is above.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), Matt 6:21
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. This applies not only to money, but also to all passions and possessions. The stomach is the god of gluttons: there it has its heart, where its treasure is.
Jerome· Commentary on Matthew (420), Matt 6:21
Where It Points
— the same claim, made across ScriptureInstruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, and to be generous and ready to share, treasuring up for themselves a firm foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.Paul to Timothy — the same transfer, named as “a good foundation against the time to come.”
Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide yourselves with purses that will not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.The parallel saying, in Luke's own wording — “sell that ye have, and give alms.”
Your riches have rotted and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and consume your flesh like fire. You have hoarded treasure in the last days.James picks up the same picture — riches “corrupted,” garments “motheaten.”
Luke's parallel makes explicit what Matthew leaves as instruction: the transfer happens through generosity, not through mysticism. Paul tells Timothy the same thing in his own words — the wealthy are to be “rich in good works,” laying up “a good foundation against the time to come.” James, writing later, warns the wealthy who ignored this teaching that their hoarded riches have “corrupted” and their garments have become “motheaten” — the very images of Matthew 6:19, turned into a verdict.
Closing
Every disciple already has a treasure and already has a heart following it — the only live question Jesus leaves open is which bank it is in. Moth, rust, and thieves can only reach one of them.