Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Sunday, July 28, 2019
GOD 'AND' MAMMON
"LOVING GOD AND MAMMON"
Wealth and power prove potency.
Wisdom and knowledge are virtue.
Rarely are wealth, power, wisdom and knowledge vested in a person.
The Bible says Solomon was such.
Ancient history says 'pharaoh' was.
It is hard to have man made riches and divine virtues at the same time.
This dilemma confronts me, you, all of us humans daily. Riches versus virtue seed society's philosophies, religions, sciences, literature, arts.
"Loving God and Mammon" is how the crushingly curious choices are foisted upon us in Bible scriptures.
Matthew 6:24 New King James Version (NKJV)
You Cannot Serve God and Riches
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and [a]mammon."
At the same exact time we hear:
“But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly in this manner? For all things come from Thee, and from Thine own have we given Thee." 1 Chronicles 29:14
Therefore the choice between God and Mammon, the Old and New Testaments, is a false dichotomy. In God there are no dichotomies. All things come from God, riches and poverty, power-impotency; life and death; knowledge and wisdom; evil, good; today, tomorrow, me, you.
Amen.