No man 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. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
The context here seems to imply that mammon is a competing deity. Not money, which would be out of context in this setting.
Christianity is a strictly monotheistic religion, so it is possible to interpret this verse as being a confirmation of Deuteronomy 6:4 "The LORD is our God, the LORD alone."
God alone!, and specially and definitively , no Mammon
Where do you get that Christianity is a strict monotheistic religion when it has 2 or 3 gods (not including the Devil). You really are a superficial thinker
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
No man 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. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
The context here seems to imply that mammon is a competing deity. Not money, which would be out of context in this setting.
That is too much of black&white thinking. Why would money be "out of context" here? Do you have any problem with the thought that you can serve money (directing all your thoughts and life goals at increasing your material fortune) without any religious connotation at all? You know, like the saying to follow a specific goal "religiously"? It just means that giving an inappropriate share of your thinking and effort to something and neglect more important things.
Of course, abstract concepts can be personified all the time. Just look at any medieval Christian church. The distinctions are fluid.
An archaeologist visits Butser Ancient Farm to make a bronze age axe head exactly the way Bronze Age man would have done so. Starting with copper and tin we see how an axe is made by heating the metal to 1000 degrees Centigrade and turning it into a red-hot liquid before cooling it in water. To finish the process the blade is fitted into a wooden handle. Flint and Bronze axes are then compared in order to explore the impact metal making had on people in Britain
Crafts people were commonly thought to be magicians.
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Hephaestus (/hɪˈfiːstəs/, /həˈfɛstəs/ or /hᵻˈfɛstəs/; eight spellings; Ancient Greek: Ἥφαιστος Hēphaistos) is the Greek god of blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes.[1] Hephaestus' Roman equivalent is Vulcan. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was the son of Zeus and Hera, the king and queen of the gods. In another version, he was Hera's parthenogenous child, rejected by his mother because of his deformity and thrown off of Mount Olympus and down to earth.[2]
As a smithing god, Hephaestus made all the weapons of the gods in Olympus. He served as the blacksmith of the gods, and was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centers of Greece, particularly Athens. The cult of Hephaestus was based in Lemnos.[1] Hephaestus' symbols are a smith's hammer, anvil, and a pair of tongs.
Hephaestus had his own palace on Olympus, containing his workshop with anvil and twenty bellows that worked at his bidding.[11] Hephaestus crafted much of the magnificent equipment of the gods, and almost any finely wrought metalwork imbued with powers that appears in Greek myth is said to have been forged by Hephaestus. He designed Hermes' winged helmet and sandals, the Aegis breastplate, Aphrodite's famed girdle, Agamemnon's staff of office,[12] Achilles' armor, Heracles' bronze clappers, Helios' chariot, the shoulder of Pelops, and Eros' bow and arrows. In later accounts, Hephaestus worked with the help of the chthonic Cyclopes—among them his assistants in the forge, Brontes, Steropes and Pyracmon.[13][14]
Hephaestus built automatons of metal to work for him. This included tripods that walked to and from Mount Olympus. He gave to the blinded Orion his apprentice Cedalion as a guide. In some versions of the myth[citation needed], Prometheus stole the fire that he gave to man from Hephaestus's forge. Hephaestus also created the gift that the gods gave to man, the woman Pandora and her pithos. Being a skilled blacksmith, Hephaestus created all the thrones in the Palace of Olympus.[13]
The Greek myths and the Homeric poems sanctified in stories that Hephaestus had a special power to produce motion.[15] He made the golden and silver lions and dogs at the entrance of the palace of Alkinoos in such a way that they could bite the invaders.[16] The Greeks maintained in their civilization an animistic idea that statues are in some sense alive. This kind of art and the animistic belief goes back to the Minoan period, when Daedalus, the builder of the labyrinth made images which moved of their own accord.[17] A statue of the god was somehow the god himself, and the image on a man's tomb indicated somehow his presence.[18]
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"