The Hard Sayings: Matthew 6:24

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Matthew 6:24 is from the Sermon on the Mount. At this point in the Sermon, Jesus changed from addressing an individual to addressing his crowd and changes his topic. This suggests someone calling out a question about slavery.

Here is a modern Biblical translation of Matthew 6:24

NIV:  No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You can not serve both God and money.

The words in boldface are explained in this article. Of course, many of you know that Jesus didn’t say “money.” We will get to what he said, mammon, and how his listeners heard it later in this article.

The Greek word translated as “can” means “has the power.” It is the active verb in the first and last sentences. This verse is all about our limited power and abilities. The verb translated as “serve” is an infinitive. Our ability “to serve” is subject to our limited power. Jesus doesn’t use the common Greek word usually translated as “serve” in the Bible. The verb here means “to slave.”

The repeated terms “the one” and “the other” mean "the primary" and "the secondary." They made it clear to his listeners that he was talking about what they put first and second, not just about their actual masters. Jesus them to introduce several Greek terms of opposing meanings. The implication is that we can work for many people and things, but that we must make a choice about our highest value. From this devotion, all other values are born.

Psychological Alternatives

The either/or statement forming the second sentence refers to a pair of opposing alternatives. These two alternatives are about the different types of human motivations that drive our actions.

Our first choice is between what we “hate” and what we “love.” What makes this entertaining is that Jesus reversed the expected order. He first says “the one,” which is the number “one,” which his listeners would expect to describe our primary choice. He then goes on to say that this primary choice is “hated.” The Greek word translated as “hate” is less about emotion than it is a negative preference. So, Jesus said that for some of us our primary choice, the expected one, is not what we prefer (see this article).

The “other” has a negative connotation in Greek because it means “different” and “odd.” But, if we hate our primary choice, we “love” what is different. In the Bible, there are two different Greek words translated as “love” (see this article). The one Jesus used here means “caring.” So, we care more for what is different than our primary choice. This is the psychology of revolution and discovery.

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