money and property seen as usable resources: what a person has on hand to spend or hand over
The noun is built on the ordinary Greek verb for putting something to use (χράω), so at root it names a thing that is good for something. Older Greek writers used the singular for any matter or affair at all, and the plural for goods, land, and cash together. By the first century the plural had narrowed to money and to the holdings that money stands for, and that narrowed use is the only one the New Testament has.
The seven uses fall along a simple line: what somebody has, and what somebody hands over.
- In the Gospels it names holdings, the estate of a person described as having them or as leaning on them for security.
- In Acts it names cash in motion: the price Barnabas got for his field, the payment Simon pushed at the apostles, the bribe Felix kept hoping for.
The word itself passes no verdict on the money. It does not claim abundance, which is the work of a different word for riches (πλοῦτος); it does not point at the metal in the coin, which is silver (ἀργύριον); and it does not treat wealth as a rival master, which is what "mammon" (μαμμωνᾶς) does. Peter uses two of these in one breath in Acts 8:20, calling Simon's silver cursed because he thought the gift of God could be got with money. What this word does say is that the goods in question are at somebody's disposal, which is why every New Testament use stands at a moment of decision: hold them, hand them over, or try to buy with them something that was never for sale.