FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY
(I Tim. 6:9-10)
Overview of I Tim. 4:1-6:10
4:1-2 How False Teaching Enters the Church
4:3-5 Common Grace
4:6 Word of God in Life of the Believer
4:7a Godliness – Divine / Human Role
4:7b Train Yourself to be Godly
4:7c Spiritual Disciplines (The Word of God)
4:7d Spiritual Disciplines (Devotions, Worship)
4.7e Spiritual Disciplines (Church Attendance, Journaling, Practicing Presence of God)
4:8-9 Why Godliness Has Great Value
4:10 Putting Our Hope in the Living God
4:12 Setting an Example for Believers
4:13 What a Christian Worship Service Looked Like in the First Century
4:14 Neglecting the Spiritual Gift God has Given Us
4:15-16 Getting Home Before Dark
5:1-2 So, How Should We Describe the Church?
5:3-16 God’s Tilt Towards the Disenfranchised
5:3-16 Sorting Out those Worthy of Relief – A Biblical Approach to Social Welfare
5:3-16 The Biblical Rationale for Providing for Relatives
5:5-16 The Tale of Two Widows – A Biblical Approach to Pleasure
5:9-10 The Good Works of a New Testament Woman
5:11-14 The Younger Widows – Breaking Celibacy Vows
5:11-14 The Younger Widows – Gossiping False Teaching
5:15 Satan’s Effort to Keep Jesus from Fulfilling His Mission
5:17-18 Honoring the Work of Elders
5:19-20 How NT Church Discipline Illustrates Cultural Formation
5:21 Partiality – A Christian Problem?
5:22-24 Selecting Church Leadership
5:23 The Christian’s Use and Abuse of Alcoholic Beverages
6:1 Honoring God’s Name
6:1-2 A What In Christianity Undermined Slavery?
6:1-2 B The Evangelical Awakening and Abolition of Slavery
6:1-2 C Masters and Slaves / Employers and Employees
6:3-5 Why Do Some Christians Become False Teachers?
6:6-8 Christian Contentment
6:9-10 For the Love of Money
6But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. 8But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs (I Tim. 6:6-10).
INTRODUCTION:
1. The remainder of this letter has Paul issuing five charges:
a. To False Teachers (3-5)
b. To the Christian Poor (6-10)
c. To the ‘man of God’(11-16)
d. To the Christian Rich (17-19)
e. To Timothy (20-21)
2. The charge to the Christian poor – I Tim. 6:6-10:
* These verses contain principles of universal significance.
a. The Contented Poor (6-8)
b. The Covetous Poor (9-10)
I THE PROVERB – “THE LOVE OF MONEY, A ROOT OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL.”
10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
I Tim 6:10 – For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil (NIV). For the love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil (NLT); For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil (NASB); For the love of money is the root of all evils (RSV); For the love of money is the root of all evil (Webster); For the love of money is [the] root of every evil (Darby); for a root of all the evils is the love of money (Young); For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil (ASV); For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil (HNV); 10Lust for money brings trouble and nothing but trouble (The Message); 10The love of money causes all kinds of trouble (Contemporary English Version).
John MacArthur writes: The phrase “the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil,” is the theme of this section. Everything else is an exposition of the significance of that statement.” (MacArthur, 257).
“It is the nature of proverbs to be brief, particular expressions of a truth, often imprecise, and for effect, often overstated. Thus, Paul’s point is not theological precision on the relationship of greed to all other sins” (Gordon Fee, 145).
There were several proverbs similar to this that were often quoted in Greek antiquity, e.g: “The love of money is the mother-city of all evil.” “Love of money is the metropolis of all evils” (Democritus). “The love of money is the mother of all evils” (Phocylides). “The love of money which is the starting-place of the greatest transgressions of the law” (Philo). “The belly’s pleasure is the beginning and root of all evil” (Athenaeus).
Three things to note when analyzing this verse-proverb:
1. The problem is not money but the “love of money.”
2. The “love of money” is not “the” one and only root of evil, but only “a” root of evil.
3. Money or the love of it is not the root of “all evil” in the singular, as a composite whole, but rather a root of “all kinds of evil” in the plural.
The New Testament does not support loving money as the sole source of evil (Guthrie).
“Like a gun, there is nothing inherently wrong with money. But like a gun, money can be used for good and evil purposes. Thus, the issue is not money, but one’s attitude toward it” (MacArthur, pg. 249).
QUESTION: What do we mean when we speak about ‘the love of money?’
Does it mean that the goal of our lives, our sole passion and purpose is to amass wealth, to pursue money? Or does it mean that we have an inordinate focus on money … money is very important, too important to us in relationship to other matters?
QUESTION: How could we tell if a person or we ourselves “love money?”
II. THE NEGATIVE RESULTS OF “THE LOVE OF MONEY”
9People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs (I Tim. 6:6-10).
QUESTION: What are some of the evils ‘the love of money’ give birth to, produces, according to our text?
Answer: Temptation and a trap; foolish and harmful desires; ruin and destruction; wander from the faith; pierced with many griefs.
I Tim. 6:9 refers to the “trap” you can fall into if you love money. In I Tim. 3:7 Paul says that an elder must have a good reputation with outsiders so that he will not fall into the devil’s trap.
John Stott refers to money as a drug and covetousness as drug addiction.
Avarice leads to selfishness, to violence and even murder. Greed lies behind marriages of convenience, perversions of justice, drug-pushing, pornography sales, blackmail, the exploitation of the weak, the neglect of good causes, and the betrayal of friends (Stott, 153).
Desire for wealth is a personal monster that can plunge men to ruin and destruction.
The word “plunge” is as if to drown. In fact plunge is from buthizo which means “to sink,” “submerge,” or “drag to the bottom.” The pursuit of riches ultimately drowns men.
ILLUSTRATION: Steven Spielburg film, “Into the West.” Key character has a nice family, warm home and adequate livelihood. He and his cousin become partners in the California gold rush. They discover a large gold-nugget weighing may 25-50 lbs. They cover it up, take it home and start discussing shares. Finally one passes out from drink only to discover that the other has carried off the large gold nugget. There is the chase through the woods, a gun shot and wound. The thief gets to a canoe and starts paddling down the river. The rival swims out, catches a rope and holds the canoe back. The thief beats him off with a paddle and he drowns. The thief stands up in the canoe, loses his balance and drowns in the river because the weight of th gold in the backpack keeps him from being able to swim to the shore. discover gold and immediately start fighting over dividing it. One runs off with the rock that contains the gold. They get to the river and both drown, one drowns while trying to take the gold out of his backpack. In this case their ‘love of money’ plunged to their death by drowning … to ruin and destruction.
The text says that the love of money causes people to wander from the faith. “Fueled by greed, the opponents of Paul ‘lost their way,’ which is a sobering illustration of how riches can drive a wedge between the believer and God” (Towner, 140).
“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money (Mt. 6:24).
Lovers of money …. Pierced with griefs …
They have pierced themselves through with many griefs. OR “They have spiked themselves on many a painful thorn” (REB).
QUESTION: What are some of the griefs or thorns that the covetous bring on themselves?
Worry? Remorse? Pangs of a disregarded conscience? The discovery that materialism can never satisfy the human spirit? Final despair?
ILLUSTRATION: The movie Citizen Kane, became a wealthy, powerful, celebrated industrialist but at his death the only thing he thought about were his few moments of pure joy as a child when he had a sled in the snow somewhere in Colorado. At the end of the movie you see that sled burning in a bonfire.
ILLUSTRATION: The Pearl, The, short story by John Steinbeck, published in 1947. It is a parable about a Mexican Indian pearl diver named Kino who finds a valuable pearl and is transformed by the evil it attracts. Kino sees the pearl as his opportunity for a better life. When the townsfolk of La Paz learn of Kino’s find, he is immediately set upon by the greedy priest, doctor, and businessmen. Kino’s home and canoe are destroyed, and he flees with his wife, Juana, and their infant son, Coyotito. After attackers kill Coyotito, Kino returns to La Paz with Juana and throws the pearl back into the ocean. Thereafter the couple’s tragedy is legendary in the town.
III. BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF EVILS GENERATED BY THE LOVE OF MONEY.
QUESTION: Can you think of any Old Testament stories that illustrate disasters that can strike a person who is covetous, who has a love for money?
THE STORY OF ACHAN: Read the pink hi-lited verses in Joshua 6 and 7. Focus on Joshua 7:20 (saw, coveted, took) and 7:24-25 (whole family and all belongings stoned and burned).
THE STORY OF GEHAZI: Choose three individuals to play Naaman, Elisha and Gehazi and then have them read the narration of I Samuel 5:15-27.
THE STORY OF JUDAS:
But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it (John 12:4-6).
Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the Feast, or to give something to the poor (John 13:29).
And [Judas] asked, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty silver coins (Mt. 26:15).
So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself (Mt. 27:5).
SO WHAT????
1. Are we unwittingly a person who could be classed as a “lover of money?”
2. Are we aware of the evils and griefs that are generated by an inordinate love of money?
3. How loosely do we hold our money? How much of our peace of mind about the future is related to our personal wealth?]
ILLUSTRATION: Read the quote from CT Studd by Norman Grubb in MacArthur (pg. 258). Note 1 British Pound in 1870 probably equaled $100 US dollars today.