Your Relationship With Money Is Spiritual Warfare

After more than 30 years of working with churches on generosity, I’ve had a lot of conversations about money. With pastors, with elders, with high-capacity donors, with people who are deeply committed to their faith. And here’s what I can tell you: almost none of them -- including some of the most biblically literate leaders I know -- have ever thought about their relationship with money the way Jesus actually describes it.

That’s not a criticism. It’s an observation. And it’s one I find worth sitting with, because the framework Jesus uses is not subtle. It’s just unfamiliar.

Let me show you what I mean.

Jesus, throughout his ministry, rarely if ever repeats himself verbatim. His parables shift. His illustrations vary by audience. He is the most contextually intelligent teacher who ever lived. But there is one statement -- exactly one -- that he delivers with identical words in two completely different contexts, to two completely different audiences.

Both times, he is talking about money.

“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 Mammon.”

Matthew 6:24 · The Sermon on the Mount | Luke 16:13 · The Parable of the Shrewd Manager

The Sermon on the Mount. The parable of the shrewd manager. Two entirely different moments. Same words, exact. Jesus almost never does this -- and when he does, it’s worth asking why.

The Word Most Translations Get Wrong

Here’s where it gets important. Many modern translations render the final word of that passage as simply “money.” And I understand why -- it’s accessible, it’s plain, it communicates. But something significant gets lost in that translation choice.

The word Jesus uses is Mammon.

Mammon is not a financial term. It is a deistic term -- a word that assigns to money the character and standing of a god. A power. A rival deity with its own claim on the human soul. Jesus doesn’t reach for this kind of language anywhere else in his teaching. He reserves deistic language for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

WORTH NOTING

This is the only place in all of recorded Scripture where Jesus applies a god-like designation to something other than the persons of the Trinity. He doesn’t use this kind of language about ambition, or status, or power, or pride. He uses it about money. That’s not an accident. That’s a theological statement.

When Jesus says you cannot serve both God and Mammon, he isn’t delivering a financial planning principle. He is naming a rival god. He is telling us plainly: there is a throne in your financial life, and something is sitting on it. The question is whether it’s the one true God -- or Mammon.

Two Altars

The framework Jesus sets up here is one I keep coming back to: two altars.

There is the altar of the one true God -- the place of surrender, of trust, of genuine worship. The place where we bring our whole lives, including our resources, and hold them open before a Father who provides.

And then there’s the altar of Mammon. It doesn’t present itself as an altar. It presents itself as a bank account, a retirement fund, a safety margin, a well-built financial plan. It feels like a friend in your pocket -- neutral, helpful, always available. Nobody would call it a god. Nobody uses that word.

But Jesus does. And the fact that we don’t is exactly what makes the altar of Mammon so effective.

The enemy doesn’t need to win the dramatic battles if he can quietly win the ordinary ones -- in the budget, in the wallet, in the things we hold tightest when we’re afraid.

Nobody kneels before a checking account. Nobody burns incense to a portfolio. The worship of Mammon is quieter than that. It lives in what we trust when we’re anxious, in what we protect at all costs, in what we find hardest to release, in the deep background assumption that more will finally make us secure. The altar of Mammon is built not from stone but from fear -- and it gets built one small decision at a time.

If There Are Two Altars, There’s Only One Word for This

When Jesus frames our relationship with money as a contest between two masters -- two competing lords with opposite claims on our loyalty -- he is using the language of warfare. Not tension. Not preference. Not a values tradeoff. Warfare.

When the battle is over the allegiance of a human soul, when it is a contest between the living God and a rival power for the devotion of a heart -- what else do you call that?

Spiritual warfare.

In 30 years of consulting with churches, I have sat with pastors who have well-developed theologies of spiritual warfare -- who preach it, teach it, take it seriously -- and who have never once connected it to their congregation’s relationship with money. I have talked with some of the most spiritually mature leaders I know, and this framing is new to virtually every one of them.

We tend to locate spiritual warfare in the dramatic: in addiction, in overt temptation, in obvious crisis. Jesus locates it in the ordinary. In the daily posture of a heart that either trusts God with its resources -- or quietly doesn’t.

The enemy has always been more strategic than we give him credit for. Why fight for a soul in the spectacular when you can win it in the mundane?

So What Do We Do With This?

I’m not raising this to generate guilt. Jesus didn’t repeat himself across two passages to condemn anyone -- he did it to clarify something his followers were missing. Because you cannot fight a battle you don’t know you’re in.

For pastors and church leaders, this reframes the entire conversation around generosity. Generosity isn’t primarily a financial discipleship issue -- although it is that. It isn’t primarily a giving strategy -- although strategy matters. At the deepest level, generosity is a spiritual warfare response. It is one of the most direct ways a person declares which altar they’re standing at.

When someone moves from fearful hoarding to open-handed generosity, something spiritual happens. When a congregation begins to hold its resources with trust rather than anxiety, the culture shifts -- not just financially, but spiritually.

That’s why, at Generis, we’ve always said that what looks like a giving problem is almost always a discipleship problem. And what looks like a discipleship problem is, more often than we recognize, a spiritual warfare problem.

For individuals, the invitation is simpler: look honestly at your relationship with money. Not as a budget question -- as a worship question. Ask yourself where you run when you’re afraid. Ask what you hold tightest. Ask what it would mean to genuinely stand at the altar of the one true God with your finances open in front of you.

Jesus reserved his only verbatim repetition for this. He said it twice because he knew we’d need to hear it twice. The pull of Mammon is real. Its altar is always open. And the battle is already underway -- whether we’ve named it that or not.

The question is simply whether we know it.

As always, I'm happy to talk further. Feel free to reach me at jim@generis.com, or join me every two weeks on the Next Sunday podcast.

About the Author

Jim Sheppard is the Chairman and Principal of Generis, a consulting firm that helps churches, Christian schools, and faith-based organizations accelerate generosity toward their God-inspired vision.

With more than 30 years of experience guiding leaders and congregations, Jim is a trusted voice in stewardship, generosity, and organizational health.

This blog post originally appeared on Church Leader Insider. For more information or to subscribe to Church Leader Insider, click HERE.