We usually associate mammon with rich people, or the middle class and above. Today I will try to clarify this concept.
Let's start with a definition:
"
Mammon - a word derived from the Aramaic word ma`mon, meaning profit.
It is commonly associated with money and wealth. In Christian interpretation it is associated with mammon, temptation, a false source of security. In the Bible the reference is to the idol Mammon."
wikipedia
First of all, it is a word borrowed from Aramaic. Aramaic, on the other hand, comes not from the territory of Israel at that time, but from Syria. Aramaeans were descendants of the nomadic tribe of Ahlam. Displaced from Syria, they spread throughout the Middle East, where they dominated local peoples with their language.
It is said that Jesus Christ spoke this very language.
"The contemporary state of research does not give us certainty whether Jesus and his disciples used Aramaic or Hebrew on a daily basis[2]. The Aramaic spoken in Palestine had its dialects: Galilean and Judean. The differences resulted from the religious separation of Jews and Samaritans
Some passages of the Old Testament are written in Aramaic (Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; Dan 2:4b-7:28; Jer 10:11; Gen 31:47). In addition, Biblical Hebrew is characterized by a number of traces of Aramaic (at the orthographic, inflectional, grammatical or syntactic level)."
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C4%99zyk_aramejski
Mammon is a demon. It is interchangeably referred to as an idol.
Mammon (aram. ma`mon - profit, wealth) - in the Bible this Aramaic word meant idol of money.
This is described in the Gospel of Luke (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 in sympathy with the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve both God and mammon.
Mammon is also mentioned by Hugo von Hofmannsthal in his drama Jedermann (1911), in which he depicts him as the personification of money, acquired in a fraudulent manner. John Milton, on the other hand, in his poem Paradise Lost, which depicts the biblical vision of the fall of man, describes how Mammon taught people to tear open the womb of the earth in order to pluck treasures from it.
Mammon was imagined as a devil scattering coins (thus encouraging people to debauchery and entertainment) or a demon in the service of the devil - this is how he is described by the medieval magician and occultist Henry Cornelius Agrippa, who lived between 1486 and 1535. He was sometimes depicted as a golden idol and described as deceiving with the temptation of a life full of pleasure The tempter - those who allowed themselves to be deceived by him were to be left to their fate after death with no chance of salvation. Greedy people were contemptuously described as "servants of Mammon" or, especially during the Renaissance, as "lackeys of Mammon.
Mammon by Dictionary of Secret Knowledge Collina de Plancy.
Going back to Milton's work Paradise Lost. In it, Satan is depicted as a commander surrounded by his diabolical generals: Astarte, Osiris, Bellial, Dagon, and...Mammon.
The Lord Jesus suggested that it is possible to serve God, but it is impossible to serve God and the demon Mammon.
He said that you will love one but hate the other. According to the Lord Jesus, there is no half measure.
The Aramaic Mammon meaning "wealth" was adopted by the Assyrians from the Babylonians.
Babylon, on the other hand, was a city founded on a foundation of pride and arrogance. The prevailing attitude there was that God was unnecessary. You don't need God believe in wealth.
In biblical terms, mamomna is a spirit that bases its SECURITY on money. It does not matter whether you are rich or poor. The spirit of mammon can rule over poor people and people of average wealth.
All money in the world has a spirit in it. It is either the Spirit of God or the spirit of mamomn.
Money that is submitted to God and His purposes has the Spirit of God in it therefore it multiplies and cannot be consumed by locusts.
In the other direction, money that is not submitted to God has the spirit of mammon on it. This is why people try to use money to control or manipulate others.
Mammon is the spirit of the world, and that spirit is a liar.
Now the most important thing regardless of your material status. This is one of the criteria for having the spirit of mammon independent of your status:
People who are influenced by the spirit of Mammon tend to live in fear of their money.
Mammon generally aims to take the place of God; it wants to offer what God does: security, identity, independent power, freedom.
As usual the difference is in the approach. With God it is important the principle of sowing and reaping in mammon to be rich you have to lie, steal, cheat. In the system (world) football players sell games, some doctors sell themselves to pharmaceutical corporations, politicians to businessmen, officials to businessmen, etc. etc.
The Antichrist will dominate people precisely through Mamomna:
" He also causes everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, (17) and that no one may buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the animal or the number of its name. (18) This is where wisdom is needed. He that hath understanding, let him calculate the number of the beast; for it is the number of man. And his number is six hundred and sixty-six." Rev 13
The reason why we cannot serve God and Mammon is because the spirit of Mammon opposes the Spirit of God. Mammon says: take, benefit. God says to give. Mammon is selfish.
Mammon says: if you have the right credit card, the right clothes, the right car, live in the right neighborhood, meet the right influential people, you will be happy and fulfilled.
Mammon says: if you have more money, then you can help people.
Undoubtedly, such a spirit prevails in all financial pyramids. The author of the book on the basis of which I am writing this text wrote: The trap in these kinds of companies and scams is to tell people that if you were rich think how much you would help others. or how much your church would benefit and if you became a millionaire."
I know poor people who think this way and whose lives are a string of financial failures.
God can help people without using money.
The understanding of the money issue is misconceived in our culture.
The Bible says:
"the root of all evil is the love of money"
Note that it is not the money, but the love for it. Fear of losing them, making your happiness dependent on them.
Money is important because it clothes us, feeds us, and is essential for evangelism.
The spirit of mammon will keep you away from God's blessings.
The spirit of pride and the spirit of poverty.
The Spirit of Poverty.
It will cause you to be ashamed of God's blessings. . If you are a faithful and generous steward you are blessed.
The spirit of pride says: you have earned it, . You earned it with hard work, ingenuity, and talent, and therefore you should be proud of the blessings you have received. Wealth is the fruit of hard work."
God is not telling us that money will be important in heaven. He tells us something else:
(19) Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy them and where thieves dig them up and steal; (20) But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not dig up and steal. (21)For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (22) The light of the body is the eye. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be bright. (23) And if thine eye be diseased, thy whole body shall be dark. If the light that is in you is darkness, what darkness there will be! (24) No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will cling to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. (25) Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor mind your body, what ye shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body than clothing? Mt 6
Personally, I am quite a rich man, because through 4 years of blogging I have acquired many friends, brothers and sisters. Now I can go for tea to every region of Poland, and once I was even invited to Ireland, because:
"For where your treasure is - there will your heart be also:
I thank God for all my friendly brothers and sisters.
Warning. This text was about mammon and not financial blessing, although the two topics are complementary.
I wrote it based on the book, A Blessed Life, by Robert Morris.
I thank you Peter in the name of Jesus for this blog, for your posts and all those who write and translate texts here!
I share your opinion Grzesiek.
You are a family when you have one Father, Jesus Christ, and one Spirit, the Holy Spirit.
Such a family can be scattered around the world and still what Jesus said will come true: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love in you." (NBG JOHN 13:35)
My mother has worried about money all her life. It's never been easy, it's true, but she's focused on it constantly, or rather on the scarcity of it, living in constant fear of "what if we run out of money". It's no wonder that there are financial stumbles all the time. I, on the other hand, have never attached much importance to money, after all, material things have never been very important to me. Maybe it was also because I didn't have a home and family to support, or maybe it was because I always knew in my spirit that it wasn't something to strive for.
Recently I was talking to her, trying to explain some things and open her eyes, which ended up in an argument. Among other things, I talked about the Great Tribulation, where she said that God wouldn't help me then... I felt really sorry for her then. It seems to her that God is just something to make people feel better, but when it comes down to it we have to rely on ourselves because "it's all our psyche". Sad to say. Politically she is already largely aware, so at least that much, but she is very skeptical about spirituality and I can't explain certain things to her in any way.
My father died very early and left my mother with many children, who worked hard and never reached out for help.
I often heard her say "God will give a day and advice" or "God will give a child and on child" for bread, books was always there.
I don't know how she did it, but she made everyone's wedding work.
interesting approach. Such a book about finance in the Bible in one sentence
Izabella, my mother has quite a similar attitude and here we have to reach the heights of patience in conversations with them, showing by our attitude that we aim high and at the same time we are not beauties. I believe that in time they will really understand this. May it be so in the name of Jesus Christ.
Peter, my invitation to Ireland is still open, so if you feel like it, you are more than welcome to join me 🙂 I would love to meet you.
😉
Where exactly do you live? Maybe we could organize a meeting sometime. So far I don't know who else besides Magdalena lives here. I need to start something because I'm slowly growing moss like the local stones 😛
I live in Enniscorthy co. Wexford 🙂 .
That's about 150km away from me 🙂 When I sort out all the mess I'm in right now, we could think about something along the lines of a meet-up in my home backyard, like we have in Poland 🙂 🙂 I don't know.
good article and it gave me food for thought and illuminated my perception of money (sometimes wrong, unfortunately) and so it's time for a change 🙂 - it's time for a change
I think this is just a sketch of the problem. More essence is still missing.
Fear plays a big role in this.
fear of what you fear most
Exactly this fear and this seeming certainty that having money we are somehow secure and yes it is some form of security but it is rather superficial and the core is God and if we believe (and we do) then the fullness of faith excludes dependence on material things but in a human way simply money attracts and we must fight against it so that it does not attract too much.
Super comment, brother! You hit the nail on the head. May our loved ones also understand the superficial nature of this safeguard...I know how (at least in my mom's case) it would make a big difference....
You know, even though theoretically I struggle with it and not only with it, in practice it happens differently but I have noticed that the more I don't hold on tightly to my finances, work or some human dependencies the easier it is for me 🙂 That means God really helps but we have to give Him the reins and as Jesus said "don't worry too much about tomorrow ...". It doesn't mean just to ignore everything but not to act and not to hold on to what we have .The Lord will simply guide 🙂 .
I would also quote here the parable of the sower.
"And falling [seed] among the thorns happens to those who hear, and going through the cares and riches and pleasures of life are squeezed and do not bear fruit." (NBG Luke 8:14)
It follows that worries (mainly about money) are one of the evil one's methods of attack, so that, drowned out by them, we do not bear the fruit of God's Word.
Money is necessary anyway (even bills need to be paid somehow...), but you need to keep it in moderation :), because too much money can lead to "money madness" (and then a person becomes focused only on money... 🙁 ), and that's not the point, right?
🙂
The problem with money is that people are always short of it, which makes them go to amoral lengths to get it, and that without it, hardly anyone takes you seriously...