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God or Wealth - Luke 16:13
God or Wealth - Luke 16:13
"No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." Luke 16:13
The Greek word here translated as ‘wealth’ by the NASB95, was transliterated by the KJV as ‘mammon’, which has no real meaning to most people in today’s world. The NRSV also translates it as ‘wealth’ while the ESV and NIV translate it as ‘money’.
Thus, again we see Jesus addressing the problem of money, wealth, and materialism. Jesus gives us several broad maxims concerning such:
You can NOT serve God and wealth (16:13) (He repeated this in the sermon on the Mount, Matt. 6:24)..
He told the rich young ruler: “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:24-25).
YET, people have been trying to prove Jesus wrong on this for 2000 years! Thus they find themselves siding with the Pharisees against Jesus: “Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Him” (Luke 16:14),
Were there SOME rich who were saved? Yes, but with great difficulty (cp. Zacchaeus in Luke 19, read also 1 Tim. 6:17, Abraham, Job, David); but I believe these are the exceptions and the exceptional! The biggest difficulty is the deceitfulness of such which lies at the very heart of wealth! In the parable of the sower, He spoke of “the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22). Two great deceptions:
1) I can handle it!
2) Just a bit more, rather than I will have more than enough, let alone ‘I have enough’.
No, I do not have the answer to how YOU will balance such in your life as I am not sure that I have it balanced in my own life. YOU will have to answer to the Lord, but be warned, you may have been deceived by such materialism! Perhaps we need to pray:
7 Two things I asked of You, Do not refuse me before I die: 8 Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, 9 That I not be full and deny You and say, "Who is the Lord?" Or that I not be in want and steal, And profane the name of my God. (Proverbs 30:7-9)
Hugh DeLong
