Greg on Nostr: Today is the feast of Saint Luke, physician and writer of *The Gospel According to ...

Today is the feast of Saint Luke, physician and writer of *The Gospel According to Luke* and *The Acts of the Apostles* in the New Testament. Today I read this passage from Luke's gospel:

"And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations.

“He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Luke 16:9-13)

Jesus calls money "unrighteous mammon", associating it with a pagan god called Mammon. He wants us to be generous with our money, using it to make friends who will welcome us into eternal life. Greed can keep us out of heaven. Generosity not only frees us from earthly cares that weigh us down, but the money we give away can help others who may become our friends for eternity.

What caught my attention and made me think of posting this on Nostr is that Jesus says, "so that when it [money] fails..." Jesus is telling us that money will fail. Is he talking about the failure of fiat? Not necessarily, because the people of his day did not use fiat money, but he may have had future fiat money in mind. The truth is, for many people, their money fails in one way or another during their lifetime, but for all of us, our money fails us at our death. Whatever comes after death, our money won't go with us, even Bitcoin.