‘No One Can Worship Two Lords’ (Matt 6:24a): Freeing the Logion from the Imagery of Slavery

The imagery of human slavery is often taken for granted when interpreting Matt 6:24, probably because of the presence of the noun "slave" in the Lukan version of the logion (Luke 16:13). Considering the cultic aspect of the verb δουλεύω in biblical Greek however, the meaning of the first part of the saying could be "no one can worship two lords" and the metaphor of a slave with two human masters would thus be unnecessary for its interpretation.