Have you seen the new $20 bill? I’ve only seen it in photographs on television and on the Internet, but it’s certainly different from what Americans are accustomed to spending. In addition to a few subtle new graphic elements, the new twenty is distinguished by its color — along with the familiar black and green inks, the new note incorporates shades of peach and blue as background colors.

Until now, American currency has been rather unique in the world, in that all our bills are the same color, size, and general design. In most other countries, different denominations of money are printed in different colors and are often different sizes and configurations. If you’ve ever traveled abroad, you know how much easier it is to distinguish one bill from another when the various values are represented with distinctive hues and markings.

At the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, paper currency was unknown. Coins were the common form of money, and possessed intrinsic value — that is, a coin usually contained gold or silver that was worth the value represented by the coin. Jesus on occasion employed this money to teach spiritual lessons. He used a denarius imprinted with the likeness of Caesar to underscore the point, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:15-22, esp. verse 21). In another instance, the Lord miraculously placed a coin in the mouth of a fish to provide the means of payment for the annual temple tax (Matthew 17:24-27). And some of Jesus’ best-known parables, including the parable of the talents and the parable of the lost coin, used money as an essential element.

Whatever its color or form, money always seems to have the same effect on people — a powerful attraction. A wealthy young man declined to become a disciple of Jesus once Christ made clear to him what the cost would be (Matthew 19:16-22; Mark 10:17-22). When Jesus taught, “You cannot serve God and mammon” — the Aramaic figure for treasure or riches — we’re told that “the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him” (Luke 16:13-14). A Samaritan named Simon tried to bribe Peter and John into giving him the power to bestow miraculous gifts (Acts 8:18-19). Paul the apostle was kept in prison for two years by a governor named Felix, who hoped Paul would try to buy his freedom with money (Acts 24:25-27).

Certainly Paul’s inspired words are true: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1 Timothy 6:10). There are few evils some people won’t commit, given the opportunity to make large sums of money. One of Jesus’ closest associates, Judas Iscariot, sold Him into the hands of His enemies for thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15). Ananias and Sapphira lied to the apostles of Christ to cover their greed (Acts 5:1-11).

It’s easy, in the materialistic, substance-driven society in which we live, to fall into the trap of hunger for money. That hunger, if pursued, can, as Paul indicated, cause us to stray from the faith. It can lead us to abandon our morals, or principles, and our values. It can consume our thoughts to the exclusion of everything else, because “he who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; nor he who loves abundance, with increase” (Ecclesiastes 5:10).

We should remind ourselves continually that all the money in the world is not worth the price of a soul (Matthew 16:25-26), and that the genuine treasures that can be possessed have no monetary value but infinite spiritual worth. Our adversary will keep making money more attractive to trap us into lusting after it. Don’t take his bait.