📖 Biblical Definition
Mammon is the Aramaic word for wealth — used by Christ to name money treated as a rival deity. "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13). Mammon is not money simply; it is money with claims of devotion — money positioned to receive trust, obedience, and worship that belong to God alone. Christ names it as a personal master, not a neutral tool — a god in the soul’s pantheon. The household chooses daily which master it serves. The Christian uses money; he does not serve it.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
(Aramaic.) Wealth treated as a rival deity; money positioned to receive devotion.
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Christ's usage personifies wealth as a competing master, requiring exclusive choice. The point is not that money is evil but that the love of money is idolatrous (1 Tim 6:10).
Modern application: career, security, comfort, status — each can be the contemporary form of mammon when given the devotion God claims.
📖 Key Scripture
Matthew 6:24 — "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
Luke 16:13 — "Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
Luke 16:9 — "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness."
1 Timothy 6:10 — "For the love of money is the root of all evil."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Modern Christianity often domesticates mammon into ‘money management’; Christ named it a rival master.
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Christ's phrasing is exclusive: cannot serve two masters. Not difficult; impossible. The household must choose, and the choice is daily.
Mammon's seduction is its visibility. Money produces immediate, tangible results; God's providence often arrives unseen. Faith chooses the unseen Master over the visible god.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Aramaic mamona.
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Aramaic mamona — wealth, riches; preserved in the Greek of Christ's sayings.
Usage
"Cannot serve two masters — not difficult, impossible."
"Mammon's seduction is its visibility."
"The household chooses daily which master."