Jesus Christ · The Sermon on the Mount
Two Masters and Mammon
Jesus does not say serving money is unwise, or risky, or spiritually distracting. He says it is impossibleto do at the same time as serving God — “No man canserve two masters.” The word for “serve” is slave-language: total, undivided ownership. And the money-word itself, mammon, is never translated into Greek at all — left standing, almost, like the name of a rival god.
The Text
— Matthew 6:24No one 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.Delivered, one commentator wrote, “with a kind of indignant curtness” — impossible, not merely unwise.
This single verse sits between two other money sayings — treasure in heaven (6:19–21) and the single, generous eye (6:22–23) — and just before Jesus turns to worry over food and clothing (6:25–34). All four are one continuous argument about where the heart's true loyalty and rest are found.
The Split Servitude
— the verse's own crossing patternTwo clauses, one crossing pattern — the two negative verbs meet on one diagonal, the two positive verbs meet on the other, and both lines point to the same verdict.
What He Is Saying
— not evil — a rival claim on total loyaltyJesus never says money is evil. He says it functions, for a fallen heart, as a rival claimant to the total loyalty that belongs to God alone. The parallel lines he gives — “hate the one and love the other,” “hold to the one and despise the other” — are not two ways divided loyalty might turn out badly. They are the only two ways loyalty can turn out at all. There is no third option where both are served a little.
What “serve” actually means hereslave-service, not a shift on the clock
The word behind “serve” describes the service a slave owes a master — total, exclusive, around the clock — not the part-time, negotiable labor of a hired hand. A servant can work for whoever pays; a slave belongs to one owner. That is the category Jesus places money in: not a competing interest to be balanced against God, but a competing master whose claim, if accepted at all, is total.
Why “Mammon” was left untranslateda word, almost, for a rival god
“Mammon” is an Aramaic loanword. Matthew and Luke both simply transliterate it rather than translating it into Greek — an unusual choice that several commentators below read as deliberate: money is being named almost as a rival deity, not treated as a neutral Greek noun for wealth. Albert Barnes calls it outright “a name given to an idol worshipped as the god of riches.”
The Voices
— “no man can serve two masters”No man can serve two masters - The master of our heart may be fitly termed the love that reigns in it. We serve that only which we love supremely. A man cannot be in perfect indifference betwixt two objects which are incompatible: he is inclined to despise and hate whatever he does not love supremely, when the necessity of a choice presents itself.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), Matt 6:24
No man can serve two masters,.... Whose orders are directly contrary to one another: otherwise, if they were the same, or agreed, both might be served; but this is rarely the case, and seldom done.
John Gill· Exposition of the New Testament (1746–1748), Matt 6:24
Whoso serves mammon, (that is, riches,) verily serves him, who, being for desert of his perversity set over these things of earth, is called by the Lord, The prince of this world. Or otherwise; who the two masters are He shows when He says, Ye cannot serve God and mammon, that is to say, God and the Devil. Either then man will hate the one, and love the other, namely God; or, he will endure the one and despise the other. For he who is mammon's servant endures a hard master; for ensnared by his own lust he has been made subject to the Devil, and loves him not. As one whose passions have connected him with another man's handmaid, suffers a hard slavery, yet loves not him whose handmaid he loves. But He said, will despise, and not will hate, the other, for none can with a right conscience hate God. But he despises, that is, fears Him not, as being certain of His goodness.
Augustine of Hippo· Catena Aurea by Aquinas (430), on Matt 6:24
The Voices
— what “mammon” meantMammon—riches are so termed in Syriac. Let the covetous man who is called by the Christian name, hear this, that he cannot serve both Christ and riches. Yet He said not, he who has riches, but, he who is the servant of riches. For he who is the slave of money, guards his money as a slave; but he who has thrown off the yoke of his slavery, dispenses them as a master.
Jerome· Catena Aurea by Aquinas (420), on Matt 6:24
Mammon - Mammon is a Syriac word, a name given to an idol worshipped as the god of riches. It has the same meaning as Plutus among the Greeks. It is not known that the Jews ever formally worshipped this idol, but they used the word to denote wealth. The meaning is, ye cannot serve the true God, and at the same time be supremely engaged in obtaining the riches of this world. One must interfere with the other.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical (1832–1869), Matt 6:24
The Voices
— a rival claim, pronounced impossibleHaving thus, you see, spoken generally, that He might persuade the hearer to be an uncorrupt judge of His words, and to sentence according to the very nature of the things; when he hath made sure of his assent, then, and not till then, He discovers Himself. Thus He presently adds, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Let us shudder to think what we have brought Christ to say; with the name of God, to put that of gold. But if this be shocking, its taking place in our deeds, our preferring the tyranny of gold to the fear of God, is much more shocking.
John Chrysostom· Homily on the Gospel of Matthew 21 (on Matt 6:24)
The service of this god and the true God together is here, with a kind of indignant curtness, pronounced impossible. But since the teaching of the preceding verses might seem to endanger our falling short of what is requisite for the present life, and so being left destitute, our Lord now comes to speak to that point.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), Matt 6:24
The church's own teachers, across the centuries, have not landed in exactly the same place on wealth and stewardship — some have warned hardest against its danger, others have modeled its generous use, and the roster carries both emphases honestly.
Where It Points
— the same choice, elsewhere in ScriptureFor the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. By craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.Paul, writing decades later, names the root of the very rivalry Jesus exposed here.
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 records the identical saying — the same two masters, the same impossibility.
But if it is unpleasing in your sight to serve the LORD, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD!”Centuries earlier, Joshua puts the same choice to Israel: choose your master, today.
Closing
Jesus does not ask his hearers to hate money, or to pretend it does not matter. He asks them to see clearly what it competes for: not a portion of the budget, but the whole of the heart's allegiance — and to notice that only one master can actually hold that place.