Jesus does not give an indication how one stores up treasures in heaven or what they consist of; he does indicate that it is a matter of the proper orientation of one’s heart. The real question is whether God or riches rules a person’s heart, and behind Jesus’ words stands the demand for singleness of devotion. Good News Translation reverses the order of the two Greek clauses by translating “For your heart will always be where your riches are.” The same order is followed by Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch.

Heart here refers to your concerns, interests, your feelings about things. The idea, then, is that you devote time and concern to the things that are valuable to you. Thus the verse can be rendered “For your devotion will be to what is valuable to you,” “Make the things in heaven the ones you value, because the thing you always think of is the place where your valuables are,” or “Because if the things of greatest value to you are the things of God, then those are what you will always be concerned with.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .