We are examining the Sermon on the Mount, divided into 23 sections.
Jesus the Messiah now addresses people's relationship with money.
Everything here below depends on our perspective. The had a very human outlook, which made them particularly interested in earthly treasures. The religious leaders of the time thought God materially blessed those who served him faithfully, and they regarded their accumulation of wealth as a sign of God's approval.
Jesus the Messiah analyses this way of thinking and explains God's position. He shows that there are two types of treasure: the first is material, consisting of this world's riches, and the second is spiritual.
Spiritual treasure consists in accumulating riches in heaven through the disciple's work to spread God's kingdom. This wealth, invisible in our world, has no value here below, unlike gold and silver. Yet in heaven, or in God's kingdom, gold and silver will be useless, while spiritual treasure will prove to be the only wealth.
Jesus the Messiah therefore confronts the reader with a choice, specifying that it is impossible to serve both God and Mammon (money). One must choose between these two treasures, aware of this truth: ‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.’
Accumulating earthly riches is incompatible with being a disciple, since it is impossible to serve God and Mammon (a word derived from the Aramaic term ‘mamora’, meaning wealth). Wealth demonstrates success and blessing in human eyes, but for God it is proof of eternal perdition. Thus, the person who is poor here below is actually rich in God's eyes once they become a disciple.
This concerns dedication to acquiring ever more possessions rather than wealth in itself. Nevertheless, according to Jesus the Messiah, wealth is an obstacle to entering God's kingdom (Matthew 19.24; Mark 10.25; Luke 18.25).
Although Luke does not address this exact theme in his account of the Sermon on the Mount, he returns to it at other times (Luke 12.33-34; Luke 11.34-36; Luke 16.13).