The Love of Money
Welcome to day 87. Today’s reading is 1 Timothy 6:3 – 6:21
Read the Bible passage here or listen to the audio file below.
Listen to the audio of Tony Plews’ reflection on Rhema’s site.
From Tony Plews, New Zealand Director of LeaDev-Langham…
It’s no accident that Paul links false teachers and teaching – and the ambitions and aberrations of wealth and chasing after it.
The first and fundamental false teaching is that “godliness is a means to financial gain.” [v5]. God does NOT desire, want or will all His people to be wealthy, and He does NOT promise wealth to those who strive to live godly lives. In some cases it is quite the opposite that faithfulness to Christ and the gospel can involve huge sacrifice at every level, including financial.
Most promoters of false teachings are themselves greedy for financial gain. The false teaching about wealth is part of their cover and justification for their own obsessions and lavish lifestyles.
Let’s notice that Paul does NOT say that there is anything evil about money or wealth as such! This is a very common misunderstanding and leads to the more common mis-quoting that money is the root of all evil. NOT SO! The LOVE OF MONEY is the root of all kinds of evils. [v10].
We see the evils of avarice and greed for financial gain in the multitude of get-rich-quick schemes, multi-level marketing pyramids, and many other rip-offs, which are so often promoted in Christian circles – often by leaders and preachers. The net result is nearly always financial ruin and destruction, and disappointment for many gullible followers.
The fundamental reason why this happens so often is false teaching; being robbed of the truth that true godliness is found in contentment with what we have, and not having the internal spam and virus filters to recognize and reject evil, falsehood and greed.
I know, it’s hard for all of us living in this affluent, consumerist, pleasure seeking, self-centred society to resist the addictive and anaesthetic effect of the wealth drug. The only way is to again take seriously the true teaching of Jesus himself that the essence of true discipleship includes self denial [Mark 8:34].
Tony
Filed under: Week 18 - Tony Plews
