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Love of Money
Is Money The Root Of All
Evil?
Nanci
Flynn
“For the love of money is a
root of all kinds of evil.” (1 Timothy 6:10a NIV)
Many of us grew up hearing the admonition that money is
the root of all evil, but that is not really what scripture teaches us.
Money,
in and of itself, is neither evil nor good; it is only what happens with money
once it is in our hands that gives it qualities of either good or evil.
Money
can be many things, depending on how we relate to it.
Money
can be a tool, and it is a necessary tool for simply maintaining our daily
lives.
We
need money to put a roof over our heads so that we are safe, warm and dry.
Money
provides food to keep us alive so that we can continue to function and clothes
us so that we can function in a socially acceptable manner.
And
it takes money to keep us healthy so that we can continue to lead productive,
meaningful lives.
Sharing money.
Shared
money is an even more valuable tool, one that can change the world in many ways. By
sharing our money, we can feed hungry children who have never eaten a full
meal.
We
can create sources of clean water for people who die in great numbers from
drinking water that is polluted and poisoned with virulent diseases.
Sharing
our money can educate children, as well as adults, so that they have a fighting
chance at escaping the poverty that chokes the life out of much of the world.
Most
importantly, sharing our money can bring the message of God’s love and
salvation to a world that is dying in the dark because they haven’t gotten that
good news.
Closer
to home, sharing our money can help a neighbor who is in financial straits.
It
can keep the doors open on our churches, where the community can gather to find
the genuine, eternal wealth that is available to them in the kingdom of God.
Sharing
our money can create and maintain programs that give young people the chance to
spend their time in healthy socialization opportunities instead of being drawn
into harmful relationships and the dangerous activities that they can lead to.
Money
in the right hands is one of the most powerful tools God has for letting his
love for us all shine into the bleakest corners of our communities and of the
whole world, but money can be more than a tool.
Money
can be a toy that can bring pleasure to our lives in many ways. It can bring
comfort into our daily experience, so that we are not constantly consumed with
simply staying alive.
Money
can provide us with enjoyable activities as individuals and as families and
groups of friends.
It
can make it possible for us to experience the wonders that God and man both
have created in our own country and around the world, and it can enable us to
share those delights with others.
Money can also be a test.
Lacking
the funds necessary to maintain reasonable lives can severely test our faith
that our Heavenly Father will see to it that we have all that we truly need,
even when that does not include all that we want.
Needing
to earn money can test our ingenuity, our determination and even our humility
when we find it necessary to generate work for ourselves or we have to take a
job that feels like it is several steps back from where we rightfully could be
in our employment.
Being
financially unable to do and have many of the things we would like to do and
have for ourselves, as well as for sharing with others, can test our attitudes
and our willingness to live our lives realistically, if not ideally, without
falling headlong into resentment and rage over what we lack.
Ironically,
having an abundance of money can be an even more challenging test of the persons
that we truly are.
When
we can afford to do anything we want to do and to have anything we want to
have, we are faced with the choice of whether we use our money solely to
benefit ourselves or we use it to make the world a better place for others, as
well as for ourselves.
Having
significant wealth can open our eyes to the opportunities available to reach
out to others who need our help, or it can blind us to anything and everything
beyond our own ever-escalating desires for possessions, prestige and power,
thereby testing to the very limit the true nature of our character as human
beings.
What
money, in and of itself, is not and never can be is treasure. Far too many
people have died of bitter old age, surrounded by the opulence generated by
their wealth but hardened in their hearts by malignant desires that can never
be adequately fulfilled for more money and more of the possessions, power and
prestige attached to it.
Some
wealthy people, on the other hand, spend their whole lives in such fear of losing
their money that they live at near poverty levels of functioning, comforted and
sustained only by the number of digits that appear after the dollar signs on
their bank statements.
They
hold on so tight to the money they have that they don’t even benefit
themselves, much less other people that they could easily help.
Those
denizens of wealth and all of us who want to be like them are the people Paul
is talking about when he writes to Timothy about the problems associated with
money.
He goes on to teach this young pastor that “some
people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves
with many griefs.”
The
watered down version of Paul’s teaching, the false adage that ‘money is the
root of all evil’, misses his point altogether. It is not money itself, but the
love of money that is the problem.
To
love money, to put our trust in it to provide for us what we need and want is,
at the very least, an insult to our Father, who is the only rightful recipient
of our trust.
When
we fail to trust in God, we lose out on the opportunity to develop an
ever-deepening relationship with him as he proves, over and over again, that he
truly will provide for our needs and he really won’t ever leave us or forsake
us.
Putting
all our trust in money also leaves us perpetually on the brink of disaster,
since the least little thing, whether a misstep of our own or some factor
beyond our control, can easily wipe out our wealth in an instant, leaving us
with nothing at all, not even the comfort of leaning on the Father that we
could have trusted all along to protect our well being.
Paul
also did not say that money, or even the love of it, is the root of all evil.
There
are, sadly, a great many forms of evil at work in the world all around us that
have nothing at all to do with money.
What
he said is that the love of money can take root in our hearts and our minds so
that we become blinded by the possessions, prestige and power attached to it
and we make decisions that take us farther and farther away from God’s will and
out of his plan for our lives.
This
can be seen especially clearly in people who have lived much of their life with
little or no money available to them, then they suddenly have a great deal of
it in their hands, whether as the result of their own endeavors or from some
other source beyond them.
Far
too many of those situations, a person who was once kind and gentle and giving
quickly becomes someone who is greedy for more money and the material payoffs
it brings.
By
trusting the money that has landed in their hands, they readily slide into
deceitful behavior and dishonest decision making in their drive to get still
more money, and they often leave a trail of emotional destruction behind them
as they lose the qualities of character that had formed the basis of the
relationships they once maintained.
As
the root of their love of money takes hold and spreads throughout their life
experience, it grows into an ever expanding cloud of darkness that controls
their mind, their heart and even their spirit as they go about making their
daily decisions and their life plans.
That
is the warning that Paul has provided for us, and it is a warning that we would
be wise to heed, lest we find ourselves placing our trust in money instead of
in our Father’s loving provision, where we are well protected from the many
kinds of evil waiting to trap us in its destruction.
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Nanci Haigler Flynn was born in 1946 in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and grew up
in North Carolina and the Shenandoah Valley of western Virginia, where she and
her younger sister lived in an orphanage for three years after their mother
died in 1958. She is the mother of two sons in their 40s who are married to
lovely daughters of her heart and the grandmother of three precious little
girls and a little boy due in June, 2012, all of whom have encouraged and
supported her as she has pursued her education, her writing, and her online
ministries.
http://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/is-money-the-root-of-all-evil-a-bible-commentary/
http://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/is-money-the-root-of-all-evil-a-bible-commentary/
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