Such a familiar verse. I Timothy 6:10 - For the love of money is the root of all evil and some, by longing for it, have wandered from the faith and have pierced themselves with many a pang
Direct. Sobering. Unsettling. Intended to make us examine our own hearts.
Let’s unpack it….
First of all, note that some translations seem to soften the blow a bit by saying that the love of money is A root of all sorts of evil. I believethe original KJV is the most accurate but nonetheless, it is a sobering truth. What does any of it mean? How could loving money be the source of evil such as gossip or violence or anger? Let’s examine it together…
Notice that Scripture doesn’t say that having money is the issue. It’s LOVING money. This means that we cannot look at an amount of money and conclude that there is a love of money. We have a tendency to consider opulent lifestyles like billionaire CEOs or Middle Eastern sultans as hearts that love money. But that would be deceitful. Folks with lots of money and folks with no money can have a heart that loves money.
Money is just a means of exchange. Money is exchanged for what we value. That can be spreading the Gospel or purchasing cars. Money can be used to decrease our fears, send a message of our importance to others, and make us feel comfortable. Or it can be used to bear the burdens of others instead.
When we love money, it means that we prize and long for what it can be exchanged. It means we admire (love) what money has bought others and we want that for ourselves. Whether we have much of it or not, we place our confidence in hoping that money will be what gives us security, significance, value. In other words, money stands for what we can get from man as opposed to what we can get from God.
Therefore, this kind of heart - a heart that places confidence in what money can do for us instead of treasuring Christ - is not a heart of faith. Anything that is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23) and from this kind of heart, comes evil. ALL evil. This kind of heart causes us to wander away from the faith - notice the wording here. It implies not only a rejection or abandonment of faith but also a subtle departure. Think about that for a moment. This should sober us to realize that a heart that values what money can get us can manifest itself as a serial killer as well as a seemingly upright law-abiding citizen whose heart does not belong to Jesus. Loving money lures us away from loving God and that results in all evil.
The result of loving money is that we don’t get what we were after in the first place. Instead of security or significance or comfort or pleasure, we get sorrow. Pierced with many a pang. That is a picture of pain and alot of it! Believing that money will deliver on what it promises leads not only to disappointment but also disaster.
So now that we’ve unpacked the meaning of this verse, how do we apply it? How can we avoid having a heart that loves money? How can we have a heart of faith, one that treasures God?
One of the preceding verses in this passage clues us in. Verse 6. Contentment. That is what will sever us from loving money and free us to love God.
OK, sounds great. But how can we have contentment??????
The apostle Paul told us that he LEARNED the secret of being content(Philippians 4:11) . Which means it didn’t come naturally! That’s a relief :) If he could learn it, so can we.
We will only be truly content with what we have when we know that we have Him. When we are assured of His love and generous care for us. When we place our confidence and our faith in knowing Him. When we are not alarmed or dismayed by whatever happens to us because WE TRUST HIM.
And such faith comes from hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17).
We need to saturate our hearts with the truth of God. We need to speak this truth over and over to ourselves and others. We need to surround ourselves with people pursuing this same contentment (whether they HAVE money or not) and we need to ask our gracious, generous, loving Heavenly Father to enable us to KNOW HIM. And when we increase in KNOWING HIM, we need to remind ourselves over and over and over what He has said and done for us.
This is how we keep our hearts free from loving money. This is how we avoid many many many sorrows.