O'Donoghue MTh_Thesis-FinalCopy.pdf - South African Theological ...

7.2.1 Money as a Rival GodWhen Jesus addressed the issue of material wealth in Matthew, the literary analysisdid not show that Jesus was referring to money explicitly. However, in Jesusaddressing the relationship between His disciples and material wealth it was notedthat money was implied. Further, this point was strengthened in chapter two when itwas concluded that Jesus’ historical context was monetised. Money was changinghands. And as shown, by way of example, basic money principles like supply anddemand were in place.Thus money was considered in Jesus time as a form of wealth. Of pertinence to theexegesis of the passage, money was a measure of wealth in Jesus’ day and is stillvery much a measure of wealth today. Further, money is used to purchase basicnecessities used in this modern day survival. This last point is worth noting as it wasshown in the literary analysis that the kind of worry Jesus addressed, was the kindthat stems from anxiety related to human survival.A synthesis of the findings shows that there are two aspects of money as a rival godworth noting. Firstly, while this thesis examined a debate from scholars as to whetheror not mammon should be considered the personal name for a pagan god of wealth,the literary analysis did show that regardless of where one stands on the issuemoney was definitely presented as a rival god to the disciples’ Heavenly Father.In the literary examination of the three sayings found in Matthew 6:19-24, it wasconcluded that money can challenge for a disciples allegiance that should belong toGod. I.e. money becomes a rival to God. In fact it was concluded that the languagesuggested that there were disciples who were prioritising accumulation of wealthover and above service to God. Something Jesus was commanding them to stopdoing. Although only the “two kinds of treasure” metaphor went as far as to personifymoney as rival God, all three dealt with the issue of allegiance to God.That the literary analysis portrayed Jesus as expecting disciples to stop prioritising91