Money Is The Root Of All Evil

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. You might have heard people say this, money is the root of all evil. The quote actually is that the love of money is a root to all sorts of evil. A little different, and it makes a big difference. We're going to follow, as we read 1 Timothy 6 today, we're going to follow the outline that we have in the past, that is, what the Bible does not say, what the Bible actually does say, and why it's better. So now, let's read 1 Timothy 6. But godliness with contentment is great gain. 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 from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. All right. So what the Bible doesn't say, like I said it already, it doesn't say that money is the root of all evil. Nor does it say power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's not in the Bible either. Although we've used that, I remember hearing that from grade school on about America and why we formed a democracy and divided powers and all that stuff. The reality that the Bible would say is a little differently about both of those. The reality is that I am corrupt, and when you give me power, it makes it worse. But it doesn't change the fact that, first of all, human beings are corrupt, that human beings are broken, that we are a little twisted, that we'll use anything, whether it's power or money, and they both kind of are similar to some extent, for the sake of ourselves rather than for the sake of others and to God's glory. So the problem is not. We'd love to think, and I think that's why some people misquote it as money is the problem. Wouldn't it be nice if the problem was outside of myself? Wouldn't it be nice to say, no, it's power that's the problem, it's not me. Or money's the problem, it's not me. But it's really my relationship to money, my desire for more and more and more, my greed, my avarice, my use of it for my own self-glorification in one form or another. That's the big problem. The Bible, by the way, has a lot of good things to say about money. Because the Bible says a lot of good things about God's world and His creation, and it just so happens, even though it might be sort of a social construct, money is just basically materiality given or received in one form or another, in kind of a condensed form. It's just like the Bible says a lot of good things about work. Yeah, more than I want to admit. But from the beginning, it was one of the tasks given to Adam and Eve to cultivate. And so the Bible says a lot of good things about it. It doesn't despair over materiality at all, whether it's in the form of possessions or money, but it's the way that we use it. So you'll find amazing affirmation of material wealth throughout the Scriptures, and with it you'll find even that rich and faithful people in the Bible are highlighted at times, from Abraham to Job to Boaz to even King David. So you almost can see how capitalism is, to an extent, affirmed in the Bible, and yet at the same time, the Bible's so nuanced on all of this. There's amazing warnings about the accumulation of wealth and how money can lead to distortions in our lives. A perspective that almost fits an anti-capitalist viewpoint. So it's not just one-sided by any means. There are people in the Bible whose wealth actually did get in their way, like Solomon and Caiaphas and, yes, Judas, as we know. It isn't the amount of money. It doesn't have to necessarily inherently be the fact that money causes it, but we do see that that it can. On the other hand as well, even in this passage where Paul warns about the love of money or the desire to get rich as the goal of life being a trap, he also says this in 1 Timothy 6, 17, God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. I don't know, sometimes people look at that and they don't realize how positively affirming that is. God is the source of all wealth and goodness, and he gives it to us to what? Enjoy. Enjoy. You know, being a sourpuss Christian is not one of the fruits of the Spirit. You were not baptized in lemon juice. Being a miser is not lauded in the Bible. Being someone who might be frugal towards self a...