The God Called Money: Idolatry's Ancient Claim on Modern Hearts

The Pitch Deck Promise

I sat in a sleek conference room not long ago, watching a startup founder present to potential investors. The slides were beautiful. The projections hockey-sticked upward in that familiar arc every venture capitalist wants to see. The language was intoxicating: disruption, scalability, exponential growth, exit strategy. The founder spoke with genuine passion about changing the world, about solving real problems, about making people's lives better.

But here is what struck me. As the presentation wore on, the vocabulary shifted. The mission receded. The metrics took over. Revenue projections. Valuation multiples. Market capture. The conversation became, quite explicitly, about one thing: wealth creation. Not for customers. Not even primarily for employees. For investors. For founders. For the chosen few who got in early enough to ride the rocket ship to liquidity.

To be sure, there is nothing inherently wrong with building a profitable business or seeking fair compensation for value created. The question is not whether wealth is evil. The question is what happens when wealth becomes the organizing principle of our lives, the measure by which we calculate worth, the source to which we look for security. The question is what we worship.

Because that startup pitch deck, for all its Silicon Valley novelty, was rehearsing a script as old as human civilization itself. It was the promise that financial abundance will solve the fundamental problems of human existence. That if we can just accumulate enough, we will finally be secure, finally be significant, finally be satisfied. This is not entrepreneurship. This is liturgy. And the god being worshiped has an ancient name: Mammon.

The Root Rebellion

Here is something the biblical narrative insists upon from its opening chapters: the fundamental human problem is not ignorance or poverty or social injustice, as real as those are. The fundamental human problem is idolatry. It is the primal rebellion of taking something created and worshiping it as though it were the Creator. It is the misdirection of our deepest allegiance, the offering of our hearts to something that cannot save us, cannot satisfy us, and will ultimately dehumanize us.

The pattern appears immediately after Eden's fracture. When Cain brought his offering, something had already shifted in his heart. His worship was compromised. His allegiance divided. And the result was not merely bad religion but catastrophic violence. The prophet's insight holds: we become like what we worship. When we bow before lifeless things, we become less alive ourselves. When we serve gods that cannot speak, we lose our own voices. When we trust in wealth that rusts and thieves break in to steal, our souls rust with it.

Of course, one can understand the appeal. Who among us has not felt the pull toward security that wealth seems to promise? Who has not imagined that if we could just reach the next level of income, the next threshold of savings, we would finally breathe easier, sleep better, worry less? The desire for stability is not wicked. But here is the problem. When that desire becomes ultimate, when financial security displaces trust in the living God (YHWH) as our refuge and strength, we have crossed from prudence into idolatry.

The prophetic writers understood this with laser clarity. Idolatry is not simply a religious error. It is a comprehensive corruption that warps the individual mind and heart while simultaneously poisoning the social fabric. The person who worships wealth becomes arrogant, complacent, falsely secure. The society that worships wealth creates systems of oppression, structures that extract from the vulnerable and concentrate resources in the hands of the powerful. This is not accidental. This is what happens when created things are elevated to the place only the Creator should occupy.

The Story We Cannot Stop Telling

Walk backward through Israel's story and you will find this pattern repeating like a tragic refrain. The golden calf at Sinai, that abomination forged from earrings while Moses was on the mountain receiving the Torah, what was it but an attempt to create a god we could control? A deity who would bless our projects rather than call us to his mission? The people wanted visible proof, tangible security, a god who fit their expectations. They got a lifeless statue that required their worship but could give nothing in return.

The prophets thundered against this betrayal in every generation. Listen to Amos in the eighth century before the common era, his words still scorching after nearly three millennia. "They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed" (Amos 2:6-7). This is not merely social commentary. This is theological diagnosis. Economic injustice is the inevitable fruit of idolatry. When we serve Mammon, we cannot simultaneously serve Alohim. When wealth becomes god, people become commodities.

Micah pressed the point with devastating clarity. "What does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). Notice the order. Justice and mercy flow from walking with Alohim. When that walking relationship is replaced with worship of wealth, justice and mercy evaporate. The prophet was not being naive about economics. He was insisting that economics cannot be divorced from theology. How we handle money reveals what we worship.

And then came Jesus (YHWShA).

The Teacher Who Named the God

Here is what strikes me as remarkable about the public teaching ministry of Jesus. He spoke about money more than he spoke about almost anything else. More than heaven. More than hell. More than sexual ethics. More than religious ritual. He was relentless on this point, returning to it again and again with a variety of images, stories, and direct confrontations. Why? Because he understood what we constantly forget. Money is not neutral. It is not merely a tool we use. It is a power that seeks to use us.

"No one can serve two masters," he said in the Sermon on the Mount. "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). Notice that Jesus did not say it is difficult to serve both. He said it is impossible. This is not a warning about divided loyalty. This is a statement about metaphysical reality. Mammon is not a metaphor. It is a spiritual power that demands absolute allegiance and tolerates no rivals.

The rich young ruler came running to Jesus, earnest and sincere, asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus looked at him, loved him, and named the god that held him captive. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me" (Mark 10:21). The young man went away grieving, for he had great wealth. Jesus was not being arbitrary. He was performing spiritual surgery, exposing the idolatry that prevented the man from entering the kingdom. His possessions possessed him.

But then there is Zacchaeus. Same fundamental problem (wealth had become ultimate) but different ending. When the reality of Jesus's presence broke through, when the kingdom became more real than the fortune, Zacchaeus stood up and made an astonishing declaration. "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount" (Luke 19:8). Jesus responded with joy. "Today salvation has come to this house." This is what freedom from Mammon looks like. Not poverty for its own sake. But wealth dethroned, resources redirected, generosity unleashed.

That's the point. Jesus was not anti-wealth because wealth is inherently evil. He was anti-idolatry because idolatry is inherently dehumanizing. And in first-century Palestine, as in twenty-first century Silicon Valley, wealth was the most seductive idol, the most plausible god, the most dangerous rival to the kingdom of heaven.

The Mechanics of Enslavement

Now, let us examine how this spiritual power actually operates. Because it is not enough to say "idolatry is bad." We must understand the mechanics of how the love of money corrupts the human heart and warps the human community.

It begins internally, in what the biblical writers call the mind or heart. When hope and security become centered on financial abundance rather than on the living Alohim, a slow rot begins. The mind becomes darkened. Moral judgment becomes compromised. Priorities shift in ways so subtle we rarely notice them happening. We tell ourselves we are being prudent, responsible, wise. We are simply planning for the future, protecting our families, building something lasting. And perhaps we are. But we might also be building an altar.

Here is how you know. Ask yourself: What keeps you awake at night? Is it concern for the vulnerable, grief over injustice, longing to see the kingdom come? Or is it portfolio performance, market volatility, the next funding round, the possibility that you might not hit your financial targets? Your anxiety reveals your allegiance.

The corruption produces predictable fruit. Arrogance (the assumption that wealth reflects merit, that we deserve what we have earned). Complacency (the dulling of spiritual hunger as material comfort increases). False security (the illusion that we have built something immune to catastrophe). Paul names this explicitly: "Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction" (1 Timothy 6:9). This is not metaphor. This is observable reality. Show me someone whose identity is wrapped up in their net worth, and I will show you someone on the road to spiritual destruction.

But the damage is not merely individual. It is corporate, systemic, structural. When a society worships Mammon, its institutions reflect that worship. Economic systems become mechanisms for extraction rather than flourishing. Labor becomes commodity. People become resources to be optimized. The vulnerable are crushed under the wheels of productivity and growth. This is not an unfortunate side effect. This is the inevitable result of idolatry writ large.

I have watched this in the startup world. There is often genuine desire to solve real problems, to create value, to build something meaningful. But the venture capital model exerts a gravitational pull. The need for exponential returns. The pressure to scale at all costs. The requirement to achieve liquidity for investors. These forces shape decisions in profound ways. Features that might serve the poor get deprioritized because the poor do not have purchasing power. Business models that might promote human flourishing get abandoned because they cannot generate venture-scale returns. The mission gets absorbed into the metrics. And Mammon wins again.

The Ancient Alternative

But the biblical story does not end with diagnosis. It offers a radically different vision, one that Israel was meant to embody and that Jesus came to inaugurate fully. This is the vision of Jubilee.

Every fifty years, according to the Torah, Israel was to proclaim a year of Jubilee. Debts were to be forgiven. Land was to be returned to its original families. Economic inequalities were to be reset. The system was to be rebooted. Now, we have precious little historical evidence that Israel ever actually practiced this. But that is not the point. The point is that the vision itself reveals something essential about the character of Alohim and the nature of his kingdom. Wealth accumulation is not the ultimate good. Relationship is. Community is. Justice is. Generosity is.

The prophets kept hammering this home. True worship, they insisted, looks like caring for widows and orphans, seeking justice for the oppressed, sharing bread with the hungry. "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen," asks Isaiah, "to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter?" (Isaiah 58:6-7). Worship and economics are inseparable. When they split apart, both become corrupted.

The early church grasped this with astonishing clarity. Look at Acts 2 and 4. "All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need" (Acts 2:44-45). "There were no needy persons among them" (Acts 4:34). This was not enforced communism. This was voluntary, Spirit-empowered generosity flowing from resurrection faith. They had encountered the risen Jesus. They knew that death had been defeated. They knew that the kingdom was breaking in. And in light of that reality, clinging to possessions made no sense. Sharing became the most natural thing in the world.

Here is what I am suggesting. Freedom from Mammon is not achieved through mere willpower or ethical resolve. It is achieved through a more powerful worship, a more compelling allegiance, a more satisfying treasure. When the kingdom of heaven becomes more real to us than the kingdoms of this world, when resurrection hope becomes more certain than retirement accounts, when the presence of Alohim becomes more secure than financial security, then and only then can we use wealth without being used by it.

This is not anti-capitalist rhetoric. This is not pro-socialist propaganda. The kingdom of heaven transcends those categories entirely. Both unfettered capitalism and state socialism can become idolatrous. Both can elevate economic systems to ultimate status. Both can promise what only Alohim can deliver. The question is not which economic model we adopt. The question is what we worship.

Learning to See the Chains

I remember a conversation with a founder who had just closed a significant funding round. He was exhausted, relieved, and strangely melancholy. "I thought this would feel different," he said. "I thought reaching this milestone would make everything easier. But now the pressure is worse. The investors expect a return. The team expects growth. I'm not building the company I imagined anymore. I'm servicing expectations."

That is Mammon speaking. That is the god who promises freedom and delivers slavery. That is the power that Jesus named and confronted and ultimately defeated on the cross.

Because here is the gospel truth: Jesus did not come merely to give us better principles for money management. He came to break the power of all the gods that hold us captive. Including Mammon. Especially Mammon. His death and resurrection were not just about securing our entrance to heaven someday. They were about liberating us from the powers that enslave us right now.

Paul understood this profoundly. "You were bought at a price," he writes. "Do not become slaves of human beings" (1 Corinthians 7:23). We have been purchased from the slave market of idolatry. We belong to another master now. One who does not extract from us but pours himself out for us. One who does not demand our productivity but offers us rest. One who does not measure our worth by our wealth but declares us beloved before we have accomplished anything at all.

This is what makes Kingdom economics possible. Not guilt-driven austerity. Not ascetic withdrawal. But joyful, Spirit-empowered generosity that flows from knowing we are held by something more secure than any bank account could ever be.

The City Where Money Has No Temple

The vision at the end of Revelation is telling. John sees a new heaven and a new earth, the New Jerusalem descending like a bride. And in that city, there is no temple. Why? Because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple (Revelation 21:22). The separation is over. The dwelling of Alohim is with humanity. Heaven and earth have been joined at last.

And here is what else John sees: a river flowing from the throne, and on each side of the river, the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and its leaves for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:1-2). This is Eden restored and perfected. This is Jubilee made permanent. This is an economy of abundance where needs are met not through extraction and accumulation but through the endless generosity of Alohim himself.

In that city, Mammon has no power. In that city, wealth has been dethroned. In that city, the only treasure that matters is being in the presence of the One who is himself the source of every good gift.

And the invitation, astonishingly, is to begin living that reality now. Not perfectly. Not completely. But genuinely. In communities where generosity is normal, where sharing is expected, where the vulnerable are protected and the powerful held accountable. In relationships where we speak truth about money rather than hiding it in shame and secrecy. In practices of radical trust where we give away more than feels prudent because we serve a God who can be trusted to provide.

This is not naivete. This is not financial irresponsibility. This is resurrection faith being worked out in the most practical of spheres: how we earn, how we spend, how we save, how we give.

The Question That Remains

So here is where we land. The proliferation of wealth and the worship of money is not a new problem. It is the ancient idolatry in modern clothes. It is Mammon making the same promises he has always made: security, significance, satisfaction. And it is the same lie it has always been.

The biblical narrative offers a radically different story. One where the living Alohim pursues us in love, breaks the power of the gods that enslave us, and invites us into an economy of grace where generosity flows from gratitude and sharing flows from abundance.

You may find, as I have, that recognizing Mammon's voice is the first step toward freedom. That naming the idolatry is half the battle. That choosing to trust Alohim with your resources, your security, your future is terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.

The startup world taught me this: exponential growth is intoxicating until you realize it is unsustainable. At some point, you must decide what you are actually building and for whom. At some point, you must choose your master.

The invitation stands. Not to poverty for its own sake. Not to careless irresponsibility with resources. But to freedom. Real freedom. The kind that comes when Mammon is dethroned and Jesus is recognized as Lord over every square inch of our lives, including our bank accounts.

And perhaps, in a world so captivated by wealth and so enslaved by financial anxiety, that invitation is precisely what we need to hear again. The God who became poor that we might become rich is still speaking. Still calling. Still offering a better story, a truer treasure, a more secure foundation.

The question is whether we will listen.