The phrase Matthew effect begins, as many durable phrases do, in Scripture and then wanders into the secular city. Its name comes from the Gospel of Matthew—most often 13:12 or 25:29—where the line about “to everyone who has, more will be given” appears in a theological drama about hearing, stewardship, responsibility, and judgment. In that setting, “having” is not a stock portfolio. It is a matter of response to revelation, of what one does with what one has been 25 . Modern social science, however, borrowed the line as a label, not as doctrine. Since Robert K. Merton’s 1968 essay, the Matthew effect has described a cumulative-advantage process: citations, wealth attracts returns, early success attracts further opportunity, disadvantage compounds in the opposite direction. The concept is 28 26 attracts 27 early and structural, concerned with institutions, incentives, and feedback loops. So the origin and the meaning are related but not identical. The origin is 29 language; the meaning is sociological analysis. One is a theological warning about moral response. The other is a descriptive account of how inequality reproduces itself. Same words, different grammar of truth.