The Christian Life
"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
1 Timothy 6:10
No man has ever stood up in a prayer meeting and confessed the love of money. Adultery is confessed. Drunkenness is confessed. Anger and pride and lying are confessed. But not this one — and not because it is rare. It is confessed by nobody because it is recognised by nobody, and it is recognised by nobody because it is the one sin that wears the clothing of prudence.
The drunkard knows he is a drunkard. The covetous man believes he is careful with his affairs.
Begin with the phrase itself, because God attached a word to money that He attached to almost nothing else.
Lucre simply means gain or profit — a neutral word. But four times in the pastoral epistles the Holy Ghost adds an adjective, and the adjective is filthy. Not unwise gain. Not excessive gain. Filthy lucre — money taken in a way that leaves a stain on the man who takes it.
"Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous." (1 Timothy 3:3)
Notice what is being said and what is not. God is not calling money filthy. He made silver and gold, He filled the earth with them, and Scripture is full of wealthy men He blessed. The filth is not in the metal. It is in a certain relation to the metal — in the reaching, the wanting, the willingness to bend for it.
And He evidently regarded the danger as severe, because He wrote the warning into the qualifications for church office four separate times in the space of a few chapters. A book that mentions a danger four times in that compass is not warning about something occasional.
The most famous sentence on this subject is also the most frequently mangled, usually by people defending themselves.
"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." (1 Timothy 6:10)
It does not say money is the root of all evil. It says the love of money is. That distinction is real and it must be kept — but it is very often kept for the wrong reason, as a way of closing the conversation rather than opening it.
Because look what the verse actually claims, and it is far more alarming than the misquotation.
It names an affection, not an amount. A man may love money and possess very little of it. A poor man consumed with wanting is as guilty as a rich man consumed with keeping — sometimes more so, because his poverty disguises the sin from everyone, including himself.
It says the love of money is a root. Not one evil among many, but the thing other evils grow out of. Trace the sins in your newspaper and see how many run back to this: the theft, the fraud, the betrayal, the abandoned family, the covered-up crime, the war. Pull the plant up and there is money in the soil more often than not.
It says some have erred from the faith over it. Not backslidden in some vague way — wandered away from the faith itself. This is not a minor fault in an otherwise sound man. It has taken men out.
And it says they pierced themselves through. Not that they were pierced. The wound was self-inflicted, and the image is of a man running himself onto a spike while chasing something, and finding the spike was in the thing he was chasing.
The apostle Paul goes further elsewhere, and the equation he makes is one of the most startling in the New Testament.
Writing to the Colossians, he lists the things a believer is to put to death — fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness — and then he adds three words to that last item and to no other on the list: which is idolatry.
Weigh that. The covetous man is an idolater. Not like an idolater. Not somewhat similar to one. Is one.
Why would God say it so bluntly? Because an idol is not principally a carved thing. An idol is whatever a man trusts for security, consults before he acts, sacrifices for, and feels safe because he has. And there is a very ordinary object that occupies exactly that place in the average heart, and it is not made of wood.
Test it honestly. What do you consult before a major decision? What makes you feel safe when you think about next year? What would frighten you most to lose? What have you sacrificed time, sleep, health and family for? If the same answer keeps arriving, you have located something, and Scripture has already given it a name.
The apostle says the same to the Ephesians: no covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. He will not soften it, and neither should we.
The Lord Jesus Christ set the two side by side and made a statement that most people quietly refuse to believe.
He said that no man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other — and then He named the rival directly: ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Read the verb carefully. He did not say should not. He did not say it was difficult, or unwise, or a matter requiring balance. He said cannot. It is a statement about what is possible, not about what is advisable.
And He gave the reason in the same breath, which is that the two make incompatible demands. One will eventually require of you what the other forbids — a decision at work, a matter of honesty, a Sunday, a person you could help at cost to yourself — and in that moment the question of who your master is will be settled by what you do, not by what you believe about yourself.
He also gave the diagnostic, and it is the clearest sentence on the subject in the Bible: where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Note the order. He does not say the heart leads and the money follows. He says the money goes first and the heart follows it. Which means a man can find out where his heart actually is by examining where his money actually goes — a test available to anyone with a bank statement and a willingness to look.
Scripture does not leave this abstract. It gives names, and the list is grim reading.
Achan saw a Babylonish garment, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold, coveted them, took them and hid them in his tent. Thirty-six men died at Ai because of it. His whole household perished with him. He had one moment of wanting, and it cost more lives than he could count.
Balaam was a true prophet who would not curse what God had blessed — and who kept going back to ask again, because the fee was still on the table. He found a way in the end. Both Peter and Jude use his name as the byword for a preacher for hire.
Gehazi stood beside Elisha and watched a prophet refuse Naaman's payment for a miracle. And then he ran after the man, invented a story about visitors needing provision, and took the silver and the garments. He went in to his master afterwards and lied about where he had been. He walked out a leper, white as snow, and the leprosy of Naaman was fastened on him and on his seed for ever.
Judas carried the bag for three years and helped himself out of it. When he finally sold the Son of God, the price was thirty pieces of silver — the compensation the law set for a gored slave. He did not defect over doctrine. He went for money, and the sum was insulting.
Ananias and Sapphira sold a possession, kept back part of the price, and laid the rest at the apostles' feet as though it were the whole. Nobody had compelled them to sell or to give. The sin was not the withholding; it was the pretence of a generosity they had not performed — filthy lucre wearing the appearance of devotion. They both died that day, in front of the church.
Simon saw the power of God and reached for his purse, offering money for the gift of the Holy Ghost. The answer he received should be read by anyone who has ever thought of the things of God as purchasable: thy money perish with thee.
And Demas — the saddest of them, because we know so little. He had been a fellow labourer, named in the greetings of the epistles alongside Luke. Then one line, near the end: Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. No scandal, no heresy, no confrontation. He simply preferred what was here, and walked out of the record.
Look at the list again. A soldier, a prophet, a servant of a prophet, an apostle, a married couple in a good church, a new convert, and a faithful worker. There is no category of person this sin cannot reach.
The Lord Jesus Christ told a story about a farmer, and it is worth noticing what the man's sin was not.
He was not a thief. He had not defrauded anybody. His ground brought forth plentifully — the wealth was honestly come by, and God had given the increase. He was, by every visible measure, a successful and prudent man.
His plan was equally reasonable: pull down the barns, build bigger ones, store the crop, and then take his ease. Any financial adviser would have approved it. Most Christians would have called it wisdom.
And God said to him: Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
Two things convict him, and neither is the money.
He had no room in his plan for God, and none for anybody else. Read his speech and count the pronouns — my fruits, my barns, my goods, my soul. He is talking to himself about himself, and there is no other person in the paragraph.
And he had built for a future he did not own. The verdict fell not on his profits but on his assumption that there would be a next year to enjoy them in.
God does not call many men fools in Scripture. He calls this one, and He does it over a barn.
There is a man in the Gospels who came to Christ with the best question anybody ever asked, and left worse than he came.
He was young, wealthy, morally upright and religiously serious. He ran to Christ — ran — and knelt in the road, and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life. Scripture says something about that meeting that is said of almost no one else: that the Lord Jesus Christ, beholding him, loved him.
And then He named the one thing. Sell what thou hast, give to the poor, and come and follow me.
He went away grieved, for he had great possessions. And that is the last we hear of him.
The command was not a general rule for every disciple — Scripture nowhere requires all believers to divest. It was a scalpel, applied to one man, at the exact point where his real god was. The Lord did not ask him to give up his morality or his religion, because those were not his rivals. He asked for the money, because that was.
And afterwards came the sentence that astonished the disciples: how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God. They were astonished because they had assumed, as most people still do, that wealth was a mark of God's favour and would make salvation easier. He told them it makes it harder — and then said the thing that saves the passage from despair: with men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.
Here is the practical difficulty, and it is why this article exists.
Every other sin has a moment when the conscience objects. This one does not, because it never presents itself as sin. It arrives dressed as responsibility.
You are not being covetous; you are being prudent. You are not greedy; you are providing for your family — and Scripture does say a man who fails to do so is worse than an infidel, so the verse is right there to hand. You are not refusing to give; you are being a good steward. You are not afraid; you are being realistic about the times.
Every one of those is a genuine virtue, and every one of them can be worn as a costume by the thing this article is about. That is what makes it so difficult. Nobody rehearses greed in the mirror. It simply grows, quietly, wearing the face of good sense, until a man who once gave freely finds that he cannot any more and has excellent reasons why.
There is a second reason it hides. It is graded against neighbours. Nearly everybody, at every income, can name someone with more, and while that comparison is available the word greedy always seems to describe somebody else. Move to a wealthier street and you will feel poorer without losing a penny — which tells you the measure was never the money.
The gravest form of this sin is not a man quietly loving money. It is men who have built the love of money into a system of teaching and sold it as the gospel.
The apostle Paul described them exactly. He speaks of men of corrupt minds, destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness. And his instruction about them is not to debate them. It is a command:
"Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself." (1 Timothy 6:5)
You will know the teaching by what it promises and by which direction the money runs. God is presented as a mechanism: give, and He is obliged to repay you multiplied. Faith is redefined as certainty that you will receive material things. Poverty is treated as evidence of unbelief, and sickness as a failure of confession. And the seed is sown, always, from the congregation toward the platform.
Set that beside the apostle Peter's description of false teachers, who through covetousness with feigned words make merchandise of you. Merchandise — the people as stock, the flock as revenue. It is one of the ugliest phrases in Scripture, and it was written about ministers.
And notice who is hurt. This teaching is pressed hardest on those with least: the sick, the desperate, the elderly, the immigrant, the widow. It does not merely take their money. It teaches them that when the healing does not come and the money does not multiply, the fault is their own faith — so they are robbed twice, and taught to blame themselves for the second theft.
An article like this can be misread into an error of its own, so let the other side be stated as plainly.
Scripture nowhere teaches that poverty is holiness. Abraham was rich. Job was rich before his trial and richer after it. Joseph of Arimathaea was a rich man and buried the Lord in his own new tomb. Lydia's business funded a church. There is no virtue in being poor as such, and a man is not more spiritual for having less.
It nowhere condemns saving. Proverbs commends the ant for laying up in summer, and calls the man who fails to provide for his household worse than an unbeliever. Prudence is a duty, not a compromise.
It nowhere condemns enjoying what God gives. The apostle Paul told Timothy to charge the rich not to be highminded nor to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God — who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. That last clause is in the same sentence as the warning.
And it nowhere makes wealth a sin to be repented of. The rich are commanded to be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate. They are not told to become poor; they are told what to do with what they have.
The question Scripture presses is never how much. It is always who owns whom.
Against all of it stands one of the quietest and most subversive sentences the apostle Paul ever wrote.
"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content." (1 Timothy 6:6-8)
He uses the language of the market and turns it inside out. They are hunting gain — so he tells them where the gain actually is, and it is not in the pile.
We brought nothing in. Everything you own arrived after you did, and was given.
We can carry nothing out. Not one item. Every estate is a temporary arrangement awaiting redistribution, and every man reading this will hand back the lot.
Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content. That is a startlingly short list, and it is not an instruction to abandon everything above it. It is the setting of a floor — the point below which a Christian is entitled to be anxious, and above which he is not.
And notice that contentment is presented as the gain, not the sacrifice. The man who has learned it has obtained something the wealthy frequently never obtain, which is the ability to stop. He is out of the race, and he did not have to win it to leave.
Not a rule to keep, but questions to sit with honestly.
Where does the money actually go? Not where you intend it to go. Look at last year. That is the location of your heart, on His authority and not mine.
What would frighten you most to lose? If the answer is a number rather than a person, you have your diagnosis.
Could you give it away? Pick a real sum, one that would be felt. If the thought produces genuine distress, the thing is not in your hand; you are in its.
Has your giving risen with your income? Almost always it does not. As earnings rise the amount often stays where it was, which means the proportion has been quietly falling for years while the man believes himself generous.
Would you say the same hard things if it cost you? Ministers must ask this of a salary. Everybody must ask it of a job, a client, a customer, a family member with an estate.
And who knows what you earn and what you give? Secrecy has legitimate uses. But total darkness around money is where this sin lives most comfortably.
Resolutions will not touch this. A man cannot decide to stop loving something; he can only come to love something else more, and that is not achieved by effort.
Which is why the remedy Scripture gives is not a budget but a Person — and a transaction that ran the opposite direction to every one described above. Every man on that grim list took money and lost his soul. Christ gave up everything He had and bought souls with it.
He who was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich. And the price of a soul was not silver at all:
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31)
It is offered without price, which is itself the answer to the whole subject. The one thing worth more than everything you own cannot be bought, and is given away.
Return to the phrase the apostle used, because it is the mercy hidden in the warning.
He does not say the covetous were punished. He says they pierced themselves through with many sorrows. The damage is not chiefly a sentence God imposes later. It is what the thing does to a man while he still has it — the sleep it costs, the friendships it spoils, the children who had a provider and not a father, the marriage conducted around a business, the old man surrounded by what he gathered and unable to say what it was for.
Nobody sets out for that. Every one of them thought he was being sensible.
So examine it now, while it is still an examination and not a wreckage. And if you find the thing has a grip on you, say so plainly to God, who already knows the figure and has been waiting to be asked.
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)
"But godliness with contentment is great gain."1 Timothy 6:6
Our gracious heavenly Father, we come before Thy throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Thy presence.
We thank Thee for Thy beloved Son, and for **Him** who, being rich, for our sakes became poor. We praise Thee for Thy preserved Word, which declareth **"The love of money is the root of all evil"** (1 Timothy 6:10), and which cannot be broken.
We confess before Thee of the grip that money has taken upon hearts that call **Thee** Lord. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for Thou art faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
We beseech Thee for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Thy Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Thy Son before this day is done.
Strengthen Thy people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to loose every reader from a hold he has never admitted to having, for Thy glory and not for ours.
We pray all of this to Thee, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?
You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin — but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.
If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words — but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:
Dear Holy and Almighty God, I come to Thee just as I am. I confess that I am a sinner. I have broken Thy law, I have gone my own way, and I deserve the judgment and the everlasting fire that my sin has earned. I cannot save myself, and I bring Thee nothing.
I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is Thy Son; that He loved me and died on the cross in my place, shedding His precious blood for my sins; that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day.
Here and now I turn from my sin, and I trust Him alone — not my works, not my religion, not my goodness — to save me. Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive my sin, and be my Saviour from this moment and for ever.
In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).
3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.
4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved — you already are — but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.
5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).