Why Matthew 6:24 is the Best Money Spell | Magic Tips from a Christian Witch
- Sara Raztresen
- May 13
- 8 min read
It's a timely reminder, after all: we can't serve two masters. Right?
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"A Christian Witch? Impossible! You can't serve two masters! It says so in the Bible!"
Hmm.
You know, it really is funny every time someone comes into the Christian Witch scene and starts saying "You can't serve two masters" to us—especially given that's only a part of the verse. It's a common platitude you'll hear people say, likely because they've heard it said in a worship song or heard their priests or pastors throw it out there. Not many people actively read the Bible these days (or, apparently, remember what's in it).
The Full Matthew 6:24 Verse and Its Context
That's a real shame, though, because if we look at the entire verse they're quoting, not just the part folks like to throw at us like darts, we see that Matthew 6:24 says in full:
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.
And that's a big deal. The word for money there is mammon, which, in Hebrew, became a euphemism to mean greed or obsession with wealth. It's a word that is speculated to come from an old god of surrounding cultures there, which, by context of how the word warped here in this verse, suggests it was a god prayed to for wealth and security. Some people will use this fact to say that Jesus was talking about paganism and witchcraft and whatever, but... we know that's not the case because we know that's not how language and metaphor work over time. There would be no reason for Jesus to randomly start going off about pagan gods, especially when we look at what Jesus was talking about literally three seconds before it:
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
and what He was talking about directly after, throughout the rest of the chapter:
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Jesus does mention "pagans" there (though that's usually translated as "Gentile," which just means anyone who isn't Jewish), but it's not because of their religion or their gods. It's because of how they concern themselves with the here and now, the present, as if that's all that matters. In fact, many Roman officials would try to persuade Christians to sacrifice to the old gods (and thus avoid being put to death) exactly through that: by saying "look how beautiful the world is! look at your family, your house, your wife/child/etc.! Don't you want to keep these things? Don't you want to make them happy?" But for the early Christians, who were given a promise of something much better than this world in Heaven, it rarely worked.
Plainly put, though, this whole section is Jesus warning the Apostles away from caring about money, and about material things in general. So, knowing that... why, and more importantly how, do I use it in a money spell?
How to Use Matthew 6:24 in a Money Spell
Well, precisely because it's about not focusing on money. Every month I do my money spells, I do a prayer of gratitude for the previous month's prosperity (and my general prosperity, about everything from my home to the birds outside to my friends and all that) from the prayer book Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle by Ted Loder. (It's cute; it's a lot like poetry with the way Loder writes his prayers.) I feel like there's no better way to start a spell asking for something than by recognizing what one has already received; after all, imagine if you kept doing favors for someone and they never said thank you, but they were always quick to ask you for another? That would get old quick, I'd imagine. It's important to recognize the places God has shown up in my life, and I give thanks often: when I feel the sun on my face on a beautiful day, when I have a delicious meal, when I look at my little pigeon Bilok while he's all cute and comfy in his nest box. There are a million and two reasons to give thanks, but in a formal ritual setting when I'm about to ask God for help?
Yeah. Recognizing the fact that He's helped me continuously and being grateful for it is honestly the least I could do.
Afterwards, I take the ingredients I've chosen for my money bowl (which is just a bowl I add little bits to each month over the course of the year and set on a high shelf in my house, so it can act like essentially a big magnet for luck, prosperity, and opportunity) and I invoke the ingredients. What that means to me is that I nudge their spirits, wake them up, and ask them to pray for and with me, just as I might ask a Saint or an angel to pray for/with me. Each item, like each Saint, has its own special talents: onions for protection and money, dill for wealth and good communication, cinnamon for passion and luck. With them by my side, we pool our prayers together and offer them up to God in exchange for His attention and His help. I end this portion by asking God directly to financially sustain my house, and I recite Matthew 6:24-34, which I already showed you.
This does two things:
Reminds me that God already knows what I need and will see to it that I have it, so there's no reason for me to worry about finances in the first place. The language Jesus uses, how He describes how God arrays the flowers and feeds the birds who don't do any of the worrying and rushing around that we do for these things, reminds me that God also will sustain me in kind and help me figure out what I need to do, just as He programmed the birds and flowers to know what to do.
Reminds me that money isn't everything, and that obscene wealth is not my goal. I'm not doing money spells to watch number go up in my bank account. I'm not doing this for the sake of hoarding resources. I'm recommitting the energy and thanking my God for giving me what I need to live comfortably and free my mind of those stresses, so that I can continue doing the work He has me doing in this world and stay humble at the same time.
When we're talking about God, that's important. He's not a spiritual vending machine where you put energy in and get item out, no matter what you're asking for. He's a Father, and He wants to see that we're keeping on the straight and narrow: that we aren't being like those folks who get so blinded by our need and anxiety for the material that we forget the spiritual. It's through these money spells that I actually have become insanely rich, not because I'm suddenly a millionaire, but because I realize just how much wealth I already have that this culture we live in would have us overlook: the wealth of living in nature, of having friends and family that love me and that I love, of having a warm home and a full fridge and the means to travel, celebrate, feast, read, play, draw, etc.
And upon reflecting on all of this and realizing this in my money spell, as well as asking God to sustain my house so I can continue on this journey and channeling His might down through me so I might properly channel it into miracle and release it into the world in a way that, you know, won't blow up cities like God's raw power can do, I then close my money spells with recitations from the Episcopal Book of Common prayer for other people: for the poor and unemployed, for the oppressed, the victims of injustice, for our environment and its stewards, so that those who are not as unfortunate as I am are in my mind. They remind me that things could be a lot worse, and they remind me that there's work to do. They also have me asking God to bring His help to them, because they shouldn't be forgotten just because I'm comfortable. We should all be comfortable! There's no reason this world couldn't provide for everyone, if only we were good enough to properly share our resources with each other!
So despite this verse actually being very anti-wealth focus, I find that it's because of that, that it makes the best centerpiece for my money spells as a Christian Witch. How about that?
Sara Raztresen is a Slovene-American writer, screenwriter, and Christian witch. Her fantasy works draw heavily on the wisdom she gathers from her own personal and spiritual experience, and her spiritual practice borrows much of the whimsy and wonder that modern society has relegated to fairy-and-folktale. Her goal is to help people regain their spiritual footing and discover God through a new (yet old) lens of mysticism.
That was beautiful. Thank you for sharing this. I have a picture of a crow in my office with this verse written on it.