Many a Christian are against any preaching that makes mention of prosperity. As a matter of fact, I did write an article about divine prosperity; and someone in her unscriptural zeal attacked and said; “The give to receive garbage gospel, is just that–garbage”.
I quickly made her understand that with such statement, she was inadvertently saying, Jesus preached garbage. Because the Lord did say, give and it shall be given unto you, good measure, shaken together shall men give unto your bosom.
For some of the commenters in that article, they daubed divine prosperity, which is one of the tenets of the New Covenant (Ezekiel 36:29-30), “The Gospel of Mammon”.
Hence, this article sets out to scripturally clarify the meaning of “Mammon of Unrighteousness” as used by our Lord Jesus in the bible. And also, this article seeks to point out, who and who is involved and can indulge in “The mammon of unrighteousness”.
What is the Mammon of Unrighteousness?
Before explaining the meaning of mammon of unrighteousness, let’s see where it was mentioned in the bible in the book of Luke 16:11&13:
“If therefore you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
The word mammon is from the Greek word “Mammonas” which means, confidence in wealth; or in one word, Avariciousness. In other words, it is the deification of wealth. It is the Love of money referred to by the Apostle Paul in 1Timothy 6:10.
Mammon is the idolatry of money. It is putting the desire for wealth, material or financial gain above God’s commandments. And it is not the vice of only the super-rich. Even the poor and middle class also indulge in it.
Many a believer and preachers, who accuse and condemn rich believers and prosperity preachers of mammonism, are even guiltier of unfaithfulness in the mammon of unrighteousness than they are.
How Do We Indulge in the Mammon of Unrighteousness?
I know with my last statement in the above paragraph, the very next question that comes to mind will be, how do we indulge in the mammon of unrighteousness?
Firstly, mammon has been defined as confidence in wealth and idolatry of money and material gain. We’ve also seen that this idolatry can easily be committed by putting financial and material gain before or above God’s instructions. Hence we indulge in the mammon of unrighteousness in the following ways:
- Mismanagement of church funds—including borrowing from tithe and offering without paying back
- Lying about our age to gain employment
- Refusing to pay our tithes and offerings
- Shutting up our bowel of love to a needy brother or sister—when we could be of help
- Closing our eyes to the glaring need in God’s house or for God’s work when we could contribute our own quota
- Lying in business in order to make sale or gain
- Using people to work so much and giving them so little. And even sometimes delaying their payments for our selfish reasons.
- Refusing to answer God’s ministerial call for the sake of business
- Use of unscriptural tactics to get money from members
- Refusing to marry the person God reveals to you because of financial status. And also trying to choose a spouse mainly because of financial status.
All these amongst so many other practices, are the ways many Christian indulge in the mammon of unrighteousness. And we really need to judge ourselves along this line and repent of our sins as quickly as possible.
The Lord multiply on us the grace to be faithful to him concerning money and material possessions in Jesus name.
