Lux Lucet

Money, so they say, is the root of all evil today.

– Pink Floyd

An email came to my inbox recently claiming that people who hold to the Scriptures think “money is the root of all evil.” The notion that the Bible teaches money is evil is quite common. Pink Floyd referenced this idea in their hit “Money,” and people often repeat this idea in everyday conversation.

But as is the case with other popular ideas ascribed to the Bible – for example, most Americans mistakenly think “God helps those who help themselves” is a Bible verse; and how many times have you heard someone take Jesus’ words “Judge not” as a general prohibition against making necessary ethical distinctions? – this one is also wide of the mark. And it is wide of the mark in at least two ways. First, the quote itself is not accurate. And second, when the quote is presented accurately, the true meaning of this verse is seen to be quite different from what is in the popular mind.

The actual quote is found in 1 Timothy 6:18 and reads, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (New King James). The language of the Authorized Version is “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” When comparing either of these two translations with the popular version of the quote, it becomes readily apparent that the big difference is that the Bible identifies, not money itself, but the love of money as the root of all sorts of evil.

When we say that money is the root of all evil, we erroneously ascribe evil to an inanimate object which has no capacity either for good or for evil. As the psalmist says of idols made of silver and gold, “They have mouths but they do not speak.” Jeremiah wrote about such idols too, saying of them, “Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor can they do any good.” So it is not the physical material that is the problem, it is the evil heart of man.

Commenting on Paul’s statement about the love of money, John Gill understood the love of money to mean “an immoderate insatiable desire after it, and an inordinate love of it, which is here meant, such as is properly idolatry.”

Gordon Clark points out that the love of money is not, as some might be tempted to think, limited only to the wealthy, or absent only among the poor. He wrote “[S]ome poor people and some wealthy people fall under Paul’s condemnation; but other poor people and other wealthy people do not.”

What Paul is condemning in this passage is not money itself, but what the Bible elsewhere calls mammon, which is simply money worshipped. Jesus explicitly tells us that that “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Note well, he doesn’t say you ought not serve God and mammon, but rather you cannot do it.

It is important for Christians to keep in mind the distinction between money and mammon. Scripture commands us to work with our hands and earn an honest living by which we can provide for our families, ourselves and have something to give to the church. And seeking to earn an honest living is not the worship of money, but its lawful use. The great danger is falling into the trap of desiring money more than righteousness. In either case, whether we use money lawfully or worship it, the physical object remains the same. The distinction between money and mammon is made in our hearts.

Incidentally, this same confusion, the idea that objects can in and of themselves be evil, is seen in various political debates. In particular, it is found in the calls for various types of gun control. It’s as if opponents of the Fourth Amendment believe that guns themselves are evil rather than the people who use them to commit crimes. To this fatuous argument guns rights groups have wisely replied, “Guns don’t kill people; People kill people.” In other words, the evil is not in the thing itself, but in the person using it.

There is another aspect of the Greek in this passage that’s worth noting. The English words “the love of money” translate a single Greek word, philargyria, which itself is a compound word, combining the Greek terms for love and for silver. In Greek, as in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the words for silver and for money were the same. In essence, silver and money were the same thing in the minds of the people.

This contrasts very favorably with how most people think today in the developed world, who have been trained from their youth up to accept the lie that central bank issued fiat currency is money, when more properly fiat currency, which can easily be debased by central bankers and politicians, is really a money substitute, and not money itself.