You Cannot Serve God and Money

Wealth and responsibility — The danger of attachment to money — Zacchaeus — The rich man and Lazarus — The parable of the talents — Responsible use of possessions — Economic inequality in the Spiritist view — True property — Detachment and inheritance.

Salvation of the rich

1. Jesus teaches that no one can fully serve two masters when they demand opposite directions. The phrase “you cannot serve God and Mammon” warns against making money and wealth the center of life. (Luke 16:13)

2. A rich young man asked Jesus what he should do to attain eternal life. Jesus recalled commandments such as not killing, stealing, betraying, or lying, honoring father and mother, and loving one's neighbor.

The young man said he already followed these commandments. Jesus then invited him to detach himself from his possessions, help the poor, and follow him. The young man went away sad because he possessed great wealth. Jesus uses an extreme image — the camel and the eye of a needle — to show how attachment to wealth can make spiritual development difficult. (Matthew 19:16-24; Mark 10:17-25; Luke 18:18-25)

Beware of excessive attachment to money

3. When someone asks Jesus to settle an inheritance dispute, he uses the occasion to warn that life should not be measured by the amount of possessions accumulated. He then tells the story of a man whose harvest was so great that he decided to build larger barns to store everything.

The man imagined that, with many goods stored away, he could simply rest and enjoy life for many years. The parable reminds us that death can come sooner than expected and asks: who will keep what was accumulated?

Jesus concludes that accumulating only for oneself is not the same as being “rich toward God.” The spiritual value of possessions would lie in how we use them, not merely in how much we own. (Luke 12:13-21)

Jesus at the house of Zacchaeus

4. Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector and wealthy man, wanted to see Jesus. Because he was short and the crowd blocked his view, he climbed a tree. Jesus called him and said he would stay at his house. The action drew criticism because many people viewed Zacchaeus negatively.

Note from the previous edition: there is a translation discussion about the image of a “camel” passing through the eye of a needle because similar ancient words can also be associated with “rope.” The general meaning remains one of extreme difficulty.

Zacchaeus then says that he will give half of his possessions to the poor and repay four times as much to anyone he has wronged. Jesus presents this concrete change of conduct as a sign of transformation. Wealth is not condemned simply for existing; the focus is on how it was obtained and used. (Luke 19:1-10)

Parable of the rich man

5. Jesus tells the story of a very rich man who lived in luxury while Lazarus, a poor and sick man, remained at his gate longing even for scraps of food. After both die, the situation is reversed in the story: Lazarus finds comfort and the rich man faces suffering.

The rich man asks for relief and is reminded that during life he had possessions in abundance while Lazarus lived in extreme hardship. The parable does not simply condemn having resources; it denounces the indifference of someone who lives in comfort while ignoring a person in need at their own door.

The rich man then asks that his brothers be warned so that they do not repeat the same path. The answer is that they already have enough moral teachings to choose differently.

The conclusion is that someone determined to ignore those teachings might not change even after witnessing an extraordinary event. (Luke 16:19-31)

Luke 16:19-31

Parable of the talents

6. In the parable of the talents, a man preparing for a journey gives different amounts to three servants according to each one's capacity. Two use what they receive and produce new results; the third, afraid, buries what was entrusted to him.

When the master returns, he praises the servant who turned five talents into ten and recognizes his responsible use of what had been entrusted to him.

The same happens with the one who received two talents and produced two more. The initial amount was different, but the principle is the same: each person is responsible for how they use the opportunities they receive.

The servant who received one talent returns exactly the same amount, explaining that he was afraid and preferred to hide it. The master criticizes the lack of initiative: what was entrusted remained unproductive.

Kardec uses the parable as a symbol of responsibility for what we receive — money, intelligence, influence, knowledge, or any ability. The problem is not receiving different amounts, but failing to use what we have to produce some good. (Matthew 25:14-30)

Responsible use of wealth

7. If wealth were by itself a condemnation, God would be giving some people an unavoidable instrument of ruin. Kardec rejects this interpretation. For him, wealth is a difficult trial because it increases possibilities, temptations, and responsibilities, but it also increases the capacity to do good.

Wealth can strongly stimulate pride, selfishness, and a life centered on material pleasures. Someone who moves from severe poverty to wealth may quickly forget their former condition, the people who shared it, and those who helped them, becoming insensitive or selfish.

But making life more difficult is not the same as making moral progress impossible. Wealth can become a means of doing good in the hands of someone who knows how to use it responsibly, just as a potentially harmful substance may have a useful purpose when used with care and discernment.

When Jesus told the young man, “Give up your possessions and follow me,” Kardec does not understand this as an absolute rule requiring every person to abandon everything they own. The point would be to show that attachment to earthly possessions can become an obstacle to spiritual progress.

The young man believed he was acting correctly because he observed certain commandments, but he withdrew when asked to detach himself from his possessions. His desire for eternal life did not extend to that sacrifice. Jesus' proposal exposed the limit of his commitment. He might have been considered an honest man by society — not deliberately harming others, honoring his parents, and avoiding obvious wrongdoing — but Kardec says his charity had not yet reached personal detachment.

Thus, the work connects the episode with the principle “outside charity there is no salvation.” Taken rigidly, however, the command to abandon all wealth would lead to the absurd idea that all possessions and the work that creates them should disappear.

Kardec rejects that consequence because it would contradict what he calls the law of progress.

If wealth is connected with many evils, the work says the problem is not the resource itself but the harmful use people make of it. Like other human capacities, money can be used either destructively or constructively.

Even when wealth does not directly create moral progress, Kardec sees it as an important instrument of intellectual and material development. Human beings work to improve living conditions, production, infrastructure, and exchanges among communities.

Relations among peoples become necessary as regions exchange what they produce. Transportation and communication help make these exchanges possible.

Large undertakings require knowledge, materials, organization, and resources. Kardec links economic activity with scientific and intellectual development and argues that material progress can later create conditions for broader moral understanding.

Inequality of wealth

8. Kardec asks why people do not all possess equal wealth. His nineteenth-century answer begins by emphasizing differences in ability, work, saving, and foresight. Today we know that economic inequality is also shaped by inheritance, access to education and health, discrimination, social structures, public policy, historical conditions, luck, and many factors beyond individual effort.

The original text argues that simply dividing all wealth equally once would not permanently eliminate inequality because people have different circumstances, choices, opportunities, and needs. A modern reading should not use this argument to deny the importance of fair institutions, social protections, or policies that reduce extreme inequality.

Kardec also argues that resources concentrated in some places can finance large projects and economic development. The useful moral question is not whether inequality should be accepted without criticism, but how resources and institutions can serve collective well-being.

Within the Spiritist framework, free will is presented as a means by which people learn through their choices. Moral value would come from voluntarily choosing good rather than being mechanically forced toward it.

Wealth is then described as a moral test and also as a means of action. The original explanation assumes that different people would experience wealth at different times and even in different incarnations. This belongs to the Doctrine and should not be used to justify preventable deprivation in the present.

In the nineteenth-century Spiritist explanation, wealth and poverty could alternate across different existences, offering different experiences and responsibilities. Poverty would be a trial of endurance and wealth a trial in the responsible use of resources. This is a doctrinal interpretation, not a justification for social inequality or a reason to blame poor people for their condition.

Kardec tries to answer why some people use wealth selfishly while others live without necessities. His answer relies on the plurality of existences. Today, this belief should not be used to naturalize poverty, exploitation, or inequality that can and should be confronted through concrete social choices.

Those with few resources do not need to see their condition as a sign of inferiority; those with much should not treat wealth as proof of superiority. The message locates the moral problem in selfishness and pride and states that external laws, although necessary, do not replace transformation of values and social responsibility.

The more charity guides people and institutions, the less room there will be for abuses connected with money and power.

Instructions from the Spirits

True property

Pascal - Geneva, 1860

9. Pascal asks: what is truly ours if everything belonging to the body is left behind at death? In the spiritual view of the message, the most lasting possessions are knowledge, developed intelligence, and moral qualities.

These values would be part of the Spirit itself and could not be taken away by financial loss, social change, or death. The image of preparing luggage for a journey represents choosing what will actually be useful in the next stage.

On arrival in the spiritual world, according to the message, titles and property would not define anyone's condition. What would matter is what the person built inwardly and the good they accomplished.

A worker could be spiritually “richer” than a prince. Places in the spiritual world would not be bought with money; the metaphor states that true wealth is formed by qualities of the heart.

Spiritual wealth therefore does not depend on a bank account. It would be connected with what a person became and how they treated others.

M., Protective Spirit - Brussels, 1861

10. The message describes material possessions as resources temporarily administered by us. Even what seems completely secure can be lost through circumstances beyond our control.

Wealth acquired honestly has a different moral history from wealth built by harming people. Work and effort deserve recognition, but they do not remove responsibility for how resources are obtained and used.

Earning money honestly may result from dedication, but using everything only to feed pride, display, and personal pleasure wastes part of the moral opportunity created by those resources.

The message summarizes: the effort to acquire wealth is not enough; what we do afterward with what we gained also matters.

Use of wealth

Cheverus - Bordeaux, 1861

11. Cheverus addresses those who have made money an absolute priority. The moral question is: what have you done with the resources under your responsibility?

The proposed criterion is love of neighbor. Resources can finance food, housing, education, health, work, culture, and countless actions that concretely improve other people's lives.

Charity is not merely distributing what remains after a life of excess. It also requires intelligence: understanding the need, not humiliating the recipient, and, when possible, acting on the causes that keep the person in that situation.

Money is not the only shareable resource. Knowledge, guidance, employment opportunities, education, and affection can also produce autonomy and lasting change.

A Protective Spirit - Kraków, 1861

12. The message criticizes situations in which almost all the energy of life is spent only on increasing material comfort while very little time is devoted to moral development and human relationships.

Working hard can be necessary and honorable. The warning is different: when accumulation continues indefinitely after needs are met, it is worth asking whether the effort still answers a real need or only fear, comparison, vanity, and the desire to possess more.

In the religious view of the message, dedicating one's whole existence to the body and possessions while abandoning solidarity and moral growth reverses priorities between what is temporary and what would accompany the Spirit.

Money should serve life; life should not become a slave to money.

Fénelon - Algiers, 1860

13. Fénelon presents the wealthy person as an administrator of resources that bring responsibility. Using everything only for personal satisfaction would waste an opportunity; using resources to improve other people's lives turns wealth into an instrument of good.

Direct giving is important for relieving hunger, cold, and lack of housing. The message also values preventing poverty through opportunities for decent work and other conditions that increase autonomy.

Work should not be used to humiliate people who need help or as an excuse to deny immediate assistance. The preserved idea is that large resources can create employment, training, and development when managed with social responsibility.

The parable of the talents returns as a comparison: wealth kept only for accumulation is a capacity left unused. When it produces well-being and opportunity, the resource fulfills a broader social and moral role.

The message recognizes that modern forms of work and production have expanded the ways resources can be used for collective good. Emergency assistance remains necessary, but decent employment and fair pay can offer autonomy and reduce dependence.

Detachment from earthly possessions

Lacordaire - Constantine, 1863

14. Lacordaire calls attention to excessive attachment to possessions. The problem is not owning things but allowing the desire to possess to occupy all the space that should also belong to affection, conscience, and other values of life.

It is natural to feel satisfaction over an achievement gained through honest work. The question is whether wealth, once achieved, brought freedom or merely created a new fear of losing it and a permanent need to accumulate more.

Between greed and waste there is balance. Charity does not require destroying one's own assets or living irresponsibly; it requires learning to use resources without selfishness, including for the benefit of those in need.

The message uses the image that we are administrators rather than absolute owners: one day we will leave body, money, and objects behind. This awareness should reduce attachment and increase willingness to share what exceeds our needs.

Comparing wealth to a loan, the message asks how we use what we temporarily received. The purpose of the metaphor is to create responsibility, not guilt for possessing resources.

The greater the economic capacity, the greater the possible impact of choices. Resources can support only private consumption or also education, work, care, culture, health, and countless forms of collective benefit.

It is easy to give positive names to our own choices. Saving can be prudence or excessive fear; generosity can be true sharing or mere display. Conscience needs to examine both intention and real effects.

Saving resources for one's children can be responsible. But it is also worth examining when legitimate concern for family becomes an excuse for limitless accumulation while serious needs exist nearby.

Teaching children only to protect family wealth can strengthen selfishness. More important than leaving possessions alone is transmitting education, responsibility, and the ability to use what they have for the common good as well.

Someone who personally experienced the effort needed to achieve stability may develop greater understanding for those facing difficulties. This experience can make charity more conscious and less distant.

The opposite may also occur: a person may use their own story of overcoming difficulty to conclude that everyone who did not obtain the same result simply failed to try hard enough. This comparison ignores differences in opportunity, health, context, and social conditions.

The phrase “do what I did” can hide pride when it disregards different circumstances. Recognizing one's own work does not require denying the help, opportunities, or factors beyond one's control that also contributed.

Detachment does not mean spending irresponsibly either. Waste and display are still forms of being trapped by money, only in another way. Responsible generosity seeks balance among personal needs, commitments, and the ability to share.

To detach is to recognize the relative value of wealth: use it well while it exists and do not build your entire identity around it. If a loss occurs, faith can help a person go through the change without believing that everything that gave life meaning has disappeared.

The message offers trust in God in the face of loss, but this does not mean passivity. We can seek new solutions, rebuild life, and look for support while preserving the idea that there are values greater than property.

Jesus does not teach that everyone should abandon their possessions and choose misery. Detachment is not voluntary destitution. Having resources can create responsibility and opportunities to do good when they are managed with balance.

Automatically rejecting resources because they are considered spiritually dangerous can also mean avoiding the responsibility of administering them. The challenge is to possess without being possessed by what one has.

Learn to live without wealth when it is absent, use it usefully when it is available, and know how to give up part of it when a real need requires it. Contentment reduces slavery to constant comparison.

Those with few resources do not need to envy those with much; those with much should not forget the responsibility attached to their possessions. The message treats wealth as a temporary resource that should also be justified by the way it benefits other lives.

In the religious language of the message, sharing with those in need is a way of returning to God part of what we receive from life.

Saint Louis - Paris, 1860

15. If possessions are viewed as temporary administration, is it still legitimate to leave them to descendants? Saint Louis answers yes. A person may legally transfer their property and organize an inheritance. The fact that everything is temporary does not remove this family responsibility.

An inheritance, however, does not turn wealth into eternal possession or guarantee that it will remain in the family forever. The teaching is to manage assets with balance during life and pass them on responsibly, without making them the only value left to one's children.