And *I* say to you, Make to yourselves friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, that when it fails ye may be received into the eternal tabernacles.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
He that is faithful in the least is faithful also in much; and he that is unrighteous in the least is unrighteous also in much.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who shall entrust to you the true?
The Lord has just told the story of a steward who used his master's money to secure his own future. Now He draws out the point for His disciples: how you handle money decides what God will put into your hands next. His question is not about amount but about trust.
Kelly looks first at the word itself.
"Unrighteous wealth." The word here means false, in contrast with genuine riches. For the word "true," compare John 1:9 and John 17:3; and see Matthew 13:22 and similar places, "the deceitfulness of riches."
The name goes further than that. Money stands for a world that has pushed God out — yet the Lord turns even this to good use.
Our use of present things is always unrighteous, for we have lost our title. These riches now stand for the world's separation from God, and for setting up self and its pleasures in the place of God. But the Lord turns it round to good. By nature we are unrighteous stewards of unrighteous wealth. Using it for Him becomes a matter of faithfulness. Spent on self, it takes up its natural character again: the expression of selfishness. On the other hand, this use is a test of faithfulness... Whoever has used or given it according to the mind of God — setting God up and self down — God will entrust on the same principle with what is more important, even the true riches.
Calling money the least thing does not make it unimportant. Small amounts often test a person more than large ones do.
The smallest thing gives us a place to glorify God. But we must think little of the present in the light of the future... Yet, as everyone knows, little things test how real we are. A man may be honest about something of great value and still take liberties in what is petty. Some say that judging a moral failure severely over a small sum is a fuss about nothing. There is no greater mistake. In small things a man's true character is often best known.
The next verse calls present possessions "another's." That other person is Christ, and it changes what a believer thinks he owns.
The Christian's whole course here is that of someone acting for another, even Christ. We are servants holding things in trust for the Lord. The Christian should treat his time, his money, his abilities and his property as his Master's goods. His business is to serve his Master and carry out His will. This matters enormously. Covetousness is trying to make your own the earthly things God has not given you.
Holding things for someone else makes a person more generous, not less.
If we looked on them as our own, we might be tempted to spend them on ourselves, or to hoard them up — laying up treasure in the last days, as James 5:3 says. But once we see them as wholly another's, we can afford to be generous with them. We can pour them out on every interest of His, looking on to that scene where we shall receive our own things.
The riches God waits to entrust are not a bigger bank balance. They belong to the believer in Christ — and nothing on earth does.
We have a title in grace to use, in a heavenly way, that to which we have no title at all as man... Our own things are the heavenly things; the earthly things belong to another. These earthly, passing goods are not your own. If you do not use your title in grace and give them away in love, how can God trust you with the spiritual things that are "your own"? Our own things are all the glories of Christ — all that is Christ's is ours.
Failing here costs more than a reward later. It spoils the enjoyment of what truly is yours.
You cannot measure a man's godliness by his giving. Yet it cannot exist without giving, for "faith apart from works is dead." And whoever tries to satisfy himself with what is not his own, but is only his to steward, will find the things that really are his own unsatisfying in the same measure.
- Trust. Everything you hold — time, money, abilities, property — belongs to your Master. Covetousness is claiming as your own what God has not given you.
- Test. Money is the least thing. Yet small matters are where a person's true character shows, so the smallest thing becomes a place to glorify God.
- Turn. Wealth is called "unrighteous" because it stands for a world that has left God out. Spent on self, it stays that way. Used for Him, the Lord turns it to good.
- Transfer. The "true riches" are the heavenly things, all that is Christ's. God asks how you handled His goods before He entrusts you with your own.
- Result. Grasp what you only hold in trust, and even what is truly yours will not satisfy. Hold it loosely, and you can be generous now, with eternity in view.
and if ye have not been faithful in that which is another's, who shall give to you your own?
The Lord has just told a parable about a steward handling goods that were never his. Now He presses a question about ownership: whose are the things we hold, and what is "your own"?
One writer applies this to the Christian. What looks like your own property you actually hold in trust, and your whole life here is service for someone else.
Present property is not strictly one's own. The whole course of the Christian here is really that of one acting for another, even Christ. We are servants in trust for the Lord. The Christian ought to regard his time, his money, his abilities and his property as the goods of his Master. His business is to serve his Master and faithfully carry out His will. This matters enormously. Covetousness means trying to make earthly things your own when God has not given them to you.
The older wording "another man's" makes it sound like a human owner. One writer corrects that.
But then there are things also which we may speak of as "our own." What are these? Ah, they are what the Lord speaks of as, after all, "the true riches." "And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's" — not "another man's," but God's, of course — "who will give you that which is your own?"
Two instincts usually decide what we do with money: spending it on ourselves and hoarding it. Seeing money as a trust cuts off both.
They are not our own. They are "that which is another man's" — the master's goods, according to the parable, which are still in our hands until the master finally takes our stewardship away. If we looked on them as our own, the temptation would be to spend them on ourselves, or hoard them up — heaping treasure together in the last days, as James 5:3 says. But when we see them as wholly "another man's," we can afford to be generous with them. We can pour them out on every interest of His, looking on to that scene where we shall receive our own things. Only such a view of money, to speak plainly, can free us from a power that rules the human heart so strongly.
If earthly goods are only on loan, something else must truly be ours. Commentators point to what the believer already has in Christ and will never lose.
"Another's goods" are those which God has allowed us to use on earth for the time being, but we cannot call them our own, for we only have them in trust. But God gives the believer today "every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." These are his own, because he will keep them for eternity. This is in contrast to what we have only for a time on earth.
What is truly ours also reaches into the future.
When the glory comes, we shall have what is our own. What a wonderful truth, that the wide scene of Christ's glory in which we shall reign with Him will be ours! Then we shall hold power and glory without abusing them; now we can only safely use what we have by counting it Christ's and using it according to His will.
Failing this test costs more than a loss later on. Clutching what is not ours spoils the enjoyment of what is. The writer below keeps the older wording "mammon of unrighteousness"; the ESV says "unrighteous wealth."
To use in this way what is so commonly, and so characteristically, the "mammon of unrighteousness" is not unrighteous. It is faithfulness in what belongs to Another. It is only "that which is least," as earthly things must be. Yet even so it can test and show what a person's character is about the "true riches." You cannot measure a man's godliness by his giving. But on the other hand godliness cannot exist without it, for "faith apart from works is dead." And whoever tries to satisfy himself with what is not his own, but of which he is only a steward, will find that his own things satisfy him just as little.
- Another's. Money, time, abilities and property are not strictly your own. You hold them in trust, as a servant acting for Christ.
- Covetousness. Covetousness is grasping at earthly things God has not given you. It tries to turn a trust into a possession.
- Freedom. See goods as wholly another's, and you can afford to be generous. Only that view breaks money's grip on the heart.
- Your own. What is truly yours is the true riches: every spiritual blessing in Christ, kept for eternity, and the glory you will share with Him.
- Test. The least things now show your character. Try to satisfy yourself with what is not yours, and what is truly yours will satisfy you just as little.
No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and will love the other, or he will cleave to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
The Lord ends a long section about a steward, his master's goods, and money that was never the steward's own. It presses one question: who owns you?
The word the Lord uses is not a general word for a worker. Reference works note its narrower sense:
oiketēs, "household servant." Luke 16:13; Acts 10:7; Romans 14:4; 1 Peter 2:18.
So the picture is of someone who belongs to a house, not someone who takes shifts. That is why serving two masters is not just hard, but impossible.
Older translations keep the word "mammon" where the ESV says "money." It is not a demon's name but an ordinary word raised to the rank of a rival master:
An Aramaic word meaning "riches." Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13 present it as a "master": "You cannot serve God and mammon." Luke 16:9 calls it "unrighteous mammon," because it belongs to this world, where people have refused God's rights over everything. It stands in contrast to true riches, which belong to the world to come.
Money itself is not the problem. The problem is the throne it climbs onto. One commentator states the order: possessions "are given to be of service to us, not that we should serve them."
The verse does not ask what you say you serve. It asks what directs you:
Besides, this object really becomes our master; in truth Satan governs by it. What governs our heart, our object, is our master, and so the love of money rules… This will show itself in loving one and hating the other, or at least holding to one and despising the other.
There is no neutral third option where a person serves no one. The moment self takes charge, you have already chosen a master:
If I do not have Christ as my Master, I will make myself my master. The moment we set up our own will, we find ourselves in Satan's service. The fallen will is Satan's slave.
The Lord describes two cases here. Commentators read them as two kinds of people, not two stages:
One person may have strong feelings of love toward one master and hatred toward the other. In another, the feeling may not be so strong. Even then, the fact of holding to one and belittling the other will be evident.
The fiery person swings to extremes; the mild person simply drifts. Either way the attempt collapses. Of the milder case, one writer says such divided service "can only be a form on one side." It leaves "a halting inconsistency of life in which the Christian side is bound to be the one that fades."
The verse uses a hard word — "despise" — and it is aimed at people who would never say they hate God. Eli, who feared God but favoured his sons, is offered as the example:
We find the same truth in Luke 16:13… To covet the things the world can offer is to despise God. In general our souls are very little aware of this, but this is how God looks at things.
Wealth wraps itself around a person and changes where he stands:
Possessions here wrap themselves around the heart. They give a man a false place among the people around him, feeding his pride and shutting God out. So it is impossible to make both God and mammon the object of the heart. You cannot make the best of both worlds. It is either one or the other, but not both.
The answer is not poverty. It is to hold what you own as belonging to Someone else:
A Christian should treat his time, his money, his abilities and his property as the goods of his Master. His business is to serve his Master and carry out His will faithfully. This matters enormously, because covetousness means trying to make earthly things your own when God has not given them to you.
- One house. The word for "servant" is a household servant — someone who belongs, not someone who clocks in. Belonging to two houses is impossible by definition.
- One master. Mammon is riches personified as a master. Whatever governs your heart is already your master, and if it is not Christ, it is self — and Satan governs through it.
- One test. Two temperaments, one result. The strong heart loves one and hates the other. The weak heart just holds to one and belittles the other. Both fail.
- One verdict. Coveting what the world offers counts as despising God — even in people who fear Him, like Eli.
- One cure. Not giving up possessions, but holding them as your Master's goods. Covetousness is calling your own what God never handed over.
And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things, and mocked him.
Jesus had been teaching His disciples about money, and others were listening. Their answer was not an argument but a laugh, and Luke tells us where it came from: they loved money.
The Lord had been speaking to His followers about handling money. The listeners who reacted were the Pharisees, and one commentator notes exactly which nerve had been struck.
Now the Pharisees, not the disciples, come before us. The passage describes them as lovers of money. The Lord's teaching to the disciples did not touch their forms or their legalism; it touched their love of money. After they had "heard all these things," they "ridiculed him." The evil He had warned the disciples about was at work in the Pharisees with nothing to check it.
The term Luke uses is not a general grasping after more. It is a specific word, and it is striking where else it turns up.
The Greek word philargyria means, literally, "love of money." It is the miser's sin, and a person can indulge it while professing religion. So Luke 16:14 applies it to the Pharisees, and 2 Tim. 3:2 applies it to those who had a form of godliness but denied its power. This love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, 1 Tim. 6:10, and those who go after it are liable to wander away from the faith, and to pierce themselves with many sorrows.
Their scorn had a logic behind it.
But that cuts deep, for the Pharisees are in His audience. They are the eager defenders of the law, and at the same time they are lovers of money. So they mock Him. Had the law not promised every earthly good to the man who kept it? From there the step was easy. A man who had never felt how hopeless his condition was on that basis could treat the profits of his own greed as the sign that God accepted him.
Their greed also shut a door.
The greed of the Pharisees (v. 14) kept them from going after the things that belong to faith. Those things were unseen, and in their judgment too far-fetched to trust. They went after the good things of this present life, as though they could use the things of God however they pleased.
Jesus had said no servant can serve two masters. The Pharisees' response demonstrated it in front of everyone.
By rejecting the Lord's teaching, the Pharisees proved it was true. They clung to money and despised the Lord; they could not serve both. So the Lord announces God's judgment on them. Judgment is needed where influence is great, and that influence is unholy.
He did not defend Himself. He shifted the case from the opinion of onlookers to the knowledge of God.
They cared only for the outside, for what people can see and what people admire. They ignored the God who cares about the state of men's hearts, and whose thoughts are completely opposed to men's. In the end God's thoughts will stand and men's thoughts will fall.
Commentators press this verse home rather than leaving it with the Pharisees. One gives a working definition of the sin, and refuses to let the discovery of it drive anyone away from Christ.
What He taught was a heavenly principle, and they loved money. Greed is living for this world, and we are greedy just so far as we are laying our plans for this world. Now, when you find such corruption in yourself, what do you do? Do not let it lead you to give up Christ. Let it lead you to put on your armour.
This sin is also good at hiding from the conscience it lives in.
The Pharisees loved money, and they could only turn Christ's teaching into a joke (see Luke 16:14). The same will be true of everyone who catches the same infection from them. They will not see how the truth rightly applies, whether about greed or anything else. They will try to define it in a way that suits them. They will interpret it, adjust it, trim it down and bend it, until they have succeeded completely in getting their conscience out from under the edge of God's truth.
- Heard. Jesus aimed His words about money at the disciples. The Pharisees overheard, and the teaching touched their love of money, not their legalism.
- Money. The word means "love of money" — the miser's sin. A person can carry it while still professing religion.
- Mocked. They laughed because the law had promised good things to whoever kept it. Their own wealth looked to them like God's approval.
- Weighed. They clung to money and despised the Lord at once, and no one can serve both. God weighs the heart, not the outside, and His verdict stands.
- Warned. The same greed hides easily in any conscience. When you find it in yourself, do not give up Christ — put on your armour.
And he said to them, *Ye* are they who justify themselves before men, but God knows your hearts; for what amongst men is highly thought of is an abomination before God.
The Pharisees listening to Jesus loved money, and they laughed at His teaching about wealth. He answered with one sentence that overturns the scale men use to weigh themselves: who decides what a life is worth, God or the crowd?
Their mockery had a reason behind it. The law promised earthly good to the man who kept it. So a full purse looked like a certificate of God's approval, and a man could judge his own case.
But that cuts deep. The Pharisees are in His audience, and these zealous defenders of the law are at the same time lovers of money. So they mock Him — had not the law promised every earthly good to the man who kept it? From this, one easy step followed for a man who had never felt how hopeless his condition was on that footing. He could treat the fruit of his own covetousness as the token of his acceptance with God. So, as the Lord told them, they justified themselves before men. But justification is not man's work; it is God's. What human law lets a man judge his own case?
The words "God knows your hearts" move the case into another court. There motives count, not just actions.
Another light falls on human actions and motives. In the end a standard other than man's will weigh them. The judgment of our fellow men is one thing; the judgment of God is another. So a work was going on, and is still going on, because God will have reality.
People whom God has justified do not need to build a reputation. Yet the pull of what men think never quite lets go.
Not so those who are justified before God by faith. Such people do not justify themselves before men any more than before God. They do it only when they let nature work and slip from their own ground of faith. Even so, they are not free from the snare of covetousness. As far as men's thoughts sway them, they lie open to it.
The Lord does not say "inferior." He says "abomination." Human nature has no presentable side to offer God.
The best the flesh can offer to God is no more acceptable than the worst. "What is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15) is a hard lesson to learn.
We use those same false scales on other people. God calls the scales themselves an abomination.
The moral sense, the natural conscience, self-righteousness, the laws of society, and the judgments of men supply us with false weights and measures. We carry them around with us more than we realise. But they are an abomination (Deuteronomy 25:16). In our thinking, the way of the prostitute and the tax collector is worse than the easy, respectable course of the world. If we had the balances of the sanctuary, we would weigh things differently.
Once you accept the verse, popular agreement stops being evidence that a path is right.
People all around us will tell us what we must do and not do here among men. What suits man is their standard and measure. But the child of God walks straight on and pays no attention to what they say. What suits God is His standard and measure. They have the way marked out as plainly as can be, and it looks reasonable and satisfying. But that means nothing to someone who walks by faith. He knows that whatever everyone agrees is the right way must be wrong (Luke 16:15); that is the broad way.
The verse takes away prosperity as proof of God's favour. What it clears the ground for is a door anyone may enter.
Prosperity was no test of divine favour. What is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. Since John, the kingdom of God is preached. So pressing into it is now an urgent matter, and that for "everyone," because grace opens the door to anyone.
- Measure — Two scales exist. Men weigh by what shows; God weighs the heart, and His verdict is the one that stands.
- Mockery — The Pharisees laughed because they read wealth as God's approval. Their own greed became their proof of it.
- Manufacture — Self-justification puts a man in the judge's seat over his own case. But justification is God's work, not man's.
- Abomination — Not just weak but detestable. The best the flesh offers God is no better than the worst.
- Open Door — Prosperity proves nothing, so standing counts for nothing. Grace lets anyone press into the kingdom.