A homeless woman was struggling to walk along the sidewalk. “Do need a ride?” She hesitated. After a moment, she agreed. She knew the way and would tell me how to get there. We drove in awkward silence. I offered to buy her McDonalds, and she ordered $25 of food from the drive-thru. Fair enough, she actually ate it all. Her turn-by-turn instructions were decisive, but I started to doubt her orientation.

Matthew 6:19-24 frames life as a constrained maximization problem involving God and money. Which will be your constraint, and which will you maximize? No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. What does this mean? Jesus frames life as service to either God or money.

What is Marriage? Marriage is a formal means of combining two people’s finances and legal responsibilities, with built-in barriers to exiting that relationship. It is a service offered by the government and religious institutions to allow people to make binding commitments to each other that help to build trust. People make binding commitments that they cannot back out of to increase their credibility in many settings. It’s a general-purpose way to build trust.