Matthew 6:24 No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stick by one and look down on the other. You cannot serve God and money.

News flash: “You cannot serve God and money.” There is only one God. As we sing in the Adon Olam (Siddur hymn titled “Lord of the Universe”) “He is ‘one’ and there is no ‘two.'” It’s okay to have money (I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, and I’ve decided that I like rich better), but not to serve money. What or Whom we serve is either our lord or our Lord. The Bible never identifies money as a problem, it identifies the love of money as a problem. It says, 1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil – some, longing for it, have gone astray from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Many translations end Matthew 6:24 with “mammon” from the Greek mamwnas (phonetic spelling: mam-mo-nas) taken from an Aramaic word meaning riches, money, possessions, and property. In general, we are warned not to allow the cares and concerns of this world to encroach on our love for God. In the parable of the sower, the one whose seed is cast among thorns is so described. Mark 4:19 but the worries of the world, the seduction of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

In Matthew 6:24 then, Yeshua is effectively building on the message of the previous verses as he warns us have only God as the object of our devotion. In those verses (Matthew 6:22,23) there is the single eye and the bad eye. Message received … let’s keep our eyes on God as the object of our love and devotion and receive His blessing.