Love of Money

“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. 1 Timothy 6:10

            This verse is so well known in our culture. This is one of those that those in the church have heard over and over, and even those outside the church have heard it. They may not know it comes from the Bible, but they’ve at least known that someone somewhere said it. And it’s an important one. First, I want to talk about how it’s often misquoted. What we usually hear is “Money is the root of all evil.” In other words, money is bad. In fact, it’s so bad that everything else bad comes from it. That’s not what scripture says. God is not telling us that money in itself is evil. Money is, well, just money. It’s a thing. An inanimate object. It has zero power in and of itself for good or evil. I once read a novel about groups of people who were in a race to find a treasure trove of money that had been hidden hundreds of years earlier. What they found was a stash of shells. Those shells had been used as money in an earlier culture but had no value in today’s economy.

            What has power is our attitude toward this thing called money. This includes our attitude towards possessions. “The love of money” could also have been translated as “greed.” In other words, this is talking about an attitude of wanting more stuff, more things. That can be in the form of money, or the things that money can buy. The difficulty is that we need certain things. For example, we need food to survive. But we don’t need the best food of the highest quality prepared in the way we prefer with the tastiest seasonings. Does that mean that eating good food is evil? Of course not. Again, it’s our attitude. Do we insist on only eating the best foods? Or are we thankful for any food that fuels our bodies and keeps us healthy? When it comes to money, we do need a certain amount of money to buy the necessities of life. But then we need to define what’s a necessity. I find that as I go through life, more and more things become “necessary” in my mind. I sometimes stop and ask myself, “Is this thing necessary to sustain life?” When seen through that lens, it’s amazing how much of what we have is unnecessary.

            There are reasons to have things beyond just sustaining life and I don’t believe that God is opposed to that. For example, I’m typing this on a laptop. Necessary to sustain life? No. Useful in my everyday life? Yes. A blessing from God? Most definitely. Next to me is a table that I cherish! Again, it’s not a necessity, but it’s very useful. In addition, it has a lot of meaning for me because if its background. Having that table is another blessing from God.

            The real question we need to ask ourselves is why we want something, whether it’s money or some other possession. Is it for personal gain, or for a status symbol, or out of fear that God won’t provide? Any of these are attitudes that do not honor God and will only lead us further and further into sinful thoughts and attitudes. However, if we use our money and possessions to help others, that honors God. If we see everything we have as a gift from God (which it is), the God is praised. If we know that God will always provide for all our needs, just as He has promised, then He will be glorified. The bottom line is, where is our focus? Are we focusing on what we want or what others will think? Or are we focused on God and His gifts and provisions? If we focus on God, money loses its power to control our emotions and lead us into sin. Instead, it becomes a method of glorifying God and growing closer to Him.