The love of money is a root of all
kinds of evils.
1
Timothy 6:10
We turn from Jesus’ most well-known comments about money to something even more famous and controversial written by
one of his early disciples, St Paul. In his first letter to his protégé,
Timothy, who was overseeing the church in Ephesus, Paul warns against
materialism.
Now there is great gain in godliness
with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take
anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will
be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare,
into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and
destruction.
For the love of money is a root of
all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away
from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
1 Timothy 6:6-10
Older Bibles translate the key phrase
as, ‘The love of money is the root of all evil’. Both the traditional and
modern versions are legitimate translations of the Greek original but they say
quite different things. The traditional translation says, in effect, that the
love of money is the root (the one and only root) of all evil; the modern
translation says that it is a root (but not the only root) of various kinds of
evils but not all kinds.
The phrase ‘all kinds of’ is never
used in a literal sense because the word ‘all’ is not inclusive: it does not
mean ‘every’, as it usually does, but ‘many’. If we say that a shop sells all
kinds of sweets, we do not mean that it sells every variety made, only that it
sells lots of different kinds.
Was Paul warning Timothy that people
who desire to be rich risk getting into all sorts of trouble and distress, but
leaving open the possibility there are other evils with different roots? Or was
he was warning him of a still greater danger, that by their love of money they shared
the same ambition that lies at the very origin of evil?
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Copyright © All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre &
Church and Philip Evans 2012.
Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry
of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
These Advent Reflections do not teach personal finance
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