Money: The Kingdom Perspective
6:19-24
Having taught us to pray for our physical needs and to be dependent on God to provide for us, Jesus now goes further to explain these things in this passage.
His first command is to not lay up treasures on earth for ourselves. He pointed out that earthly treasures are subject to loss. While today our treasures might be bank accounts or stocks and bonds, then wealth was largely in multiple items of clothing and food stocks in Israel.
Here are some examples. In Luke 12:13-21, Jesus told a parable about a man who had a great harvest and planned to build bigger barns to store his crops. His wealth was in his crops. But, then, God said he would die that night and his stuff would belong to others. We often call this the parable of the rich fool.
The point is, you cannot take it with you when you die and you do not know when life will end.
Reaching back in time, we remember the story of Namaan. He offered payment to Elisha for his healing. Elisha refused, but his servant took two changes of clothing and some other things. (2 Kings 5) Namaan’s wealth was in clothing and gold.
In Jesus’ time and place, clothes were made mostly of wool. They were very subject to being eaten by moths. You may have found little holes in a wool garment before if moths got into your closet.
Rust could be any kind of corrosion or disease. They can kill crops. I had an uncle who tried farming beans and was wiped out by “bean rust”.
In addition to natural causes, treasures are also lost to thieves. They could dig in through mud walls and steal things, or break through doors while the family was out. Today, house burglaries are so common many of us have alarm systems.
We also have identity theft and hacking from modern thieves. There is investment fraud.
All of these things point to the transitory nature of wealth and the fact that it is not as secure as we often assume it is.
In contrast, Jesus said to lay up treasures in heaven. (20) Those treasures are protected and not subject to the disasters of earthly treasures.
But an additional reason, and the greatest reason, for this command is that our heart will be directed to where our treasure is. (19)
Here is an example. Take a person who has never read a stock market report in their lives. They buy some stock. Now they check the market every day. The price of the stock becomes a huge issue for them. If it is up, they are happy; down and they are anxious.
I once had a church member and friend who had become rich tell me that most people did not understand how much of a burden it was to have a lot of money. I replied that it was only a burden if you let it be. She was shocked and asked me to explain.
So I said, you could take all that money and put it in savings accounts or other investments and forget about it. It is a burden for you because you believe you have to work constantly to make the most money out of the money you have. You could just leave it alone.
She thought about that for a minute and said “I can’t do that”. Despite being wealthy, she was unhappy and burdened. Her heart had turned to her treasures on earth and she lost the joy of heaven.
This proves the truth of Ecclesiastes 6:10, which says “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this is vanity.”
This principle is easily applied to those who are wealthy. It is easily applied to anyone but ourselves. But people of all economic levels can be fixated on money and possessions. And that fixation is a spiritual cancer. We call it “materialism”. That is what verses 22-23 are about.
When you first read these verses it seems like a jarring iteration to the flow of the passage. But it’s not. It is an illustration and a metaphor.
The metaphor concerns light. “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness.”
The eye is the lamp of the body in the sense that it enables the body to find its way. It lights your way. A blind person stumbles around in the dark, a sighted person is able to navigate the way.
It provides the orientation and the distancing, the direction for the person’s body. It is about focus. When you walk, you should focus on what is in front of you, your path. If you look around, you may stumble over what you should have seen in front of you.
So, having an eye that is good suggests singleness of a good purpose and direction.
Light in the Bible is often a metaphor for the knowledge of God. For example, John wrote: “In him (Jesus) was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:4-5) And the psalmist wrote: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path”. (Psalm 119:105)
Where a person looks, what he takes in determines his direction in life. The whole body here is an Aramaic expression for your self. The eye lets in light. And if the eye is good, it determines you yourself the direction in which you are going.
Here the idea is again, unswerving loyalty to the values of God’s kingdom.
To have a bad eye, in contrast, means an eye that is focused on the wrong things, even evil things. They distract you from the treasures of heaven.
Verses 22-23 therefore restate the truth of the previous paragraph, that the way people handle their finances affects every other part of their lives, either for good or for bad”.
The idea here is a sense of single-minded purpose, undivided loyalty to God. The emphasis is on the focus and fidelity of your heart and mind. Jesus is not highlighting money or property but rather the need for total commitment to God and the cause of his kingdom. Wealth is simply one example of a rival for the devotion of your heart.
That, then, is why Jesus says bluntly in verse 24 “no man can serve two masters. He will love only one and be devoted to it. You cannot serve both God and money.
If the goal of your life is single-minded devotion to Jesus, neither possessions nor poverty will have any appreciable influence on your happiness.
So, how do we lay up treasure that will last, treasures in heaven? We pursue those virtues already set forth in the Beatitudes, the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, and other teachings of Jesus.
We seek holiness, obedience to God’s commandments, winning people to Christ, and making disciples. It includes investing your life in what God is doing, which cannot be lost”
Invest in your relationship with Jesus: in knowing and loving him more intimately and enjoying his knowledge and love for you. Invest in other people.
