The verse falls like a hammer in the middle of Paul’s pastoral counsel: “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10).
A line often quoted, rarely understood in its full freight, and frequently misused as if it declared money itself—the physical tokens of trade, the minted coins and paper bills, the digital ledger entries—to be the enemy of holiness. But the text does not say money is evil. It says the love of money is the root from which all kinds of evil may grow, a crooked seed that can sprout serpents in the human heart if planted in soil watered with obsession.
One must pause here, for love is not a trivial word in Scripture. Love is covenantal, orienting, consuming. Love defines what we worship, what we sacrifice for, what we protect with zeal. To love money is not merely to want a paycheck or pursue provision for family—it is to bend one’s affections toward accumulation, to tether one’s identity to the weight of one’s wallet, to let currency colonize the soul. It is to look at gold and see god.
And yet, money itself is neutral, a tool, a means of exchange. It is like fire—capable of warming a home or burning it down, depending on the hands that hold it. In the ancient world, as in ours, commerce was the bloodstream of survival. Paul was not naïve; he stitched tents for his bread. Jesus spoke in parables of talents, wages, coins, and investments. Nowhere is wealth itself condemned, but everywhere the danger of devotion to it is laid bare.
The verse is therefore less about economics and more about eros. It is about the magnetic pull of mammon on the human psyche, how desire can distort into desperation, how the glitter of gain can glare so bright it blinds us to the eternal light. The evil springs not from the possession of money, but from the idolatry of money, from making it the measuring rod of worth, the altar before which all else bows.
I have known this temptation in my own bones. There were seasons where ambition whispered louder than prayer, when the chase for numbers in an account felt more urgent than the pursuit of virtue. And in those moments, I saw how love of money does not simply sit harmless in the soul; it warps the vision, corrodes compassion, replaces people with profit margins. I was not less human but hollowed by it, and I understood viscerally why Paul warned young Timothy with such gravity.
Consider the cultural landscape we inhabit: billboards and algorithms that sing hymns to luxury, influencers who canonize consumerism as if salvation lies in shopping carts. Here the love of money is not an abstract danger but the daily liturgy of modernity. It tells us subtly and insistently that more is never enough, that our dignity hangs on digits, that life’s meaning is measured in square footage, horsepower, and followers. The machine does not merely offer wealth; it demands worship.
And yet—here lies the paradox—the same money, rightly stewarded, can become a vessel for extraordinary good. With it, the poor are clothed, the hungry fed, the gospel proclaimed across oceans, the oppressed given relief. Money funds mission, fuels innovation, builds hospitals, sustains churches. Wealth need not corrupt; it can consecrate when held with humility and aimed at higher ends. The apostle’s warning, then, is not to flee from prosperity but to free our hearts from its mastery.
Think of it as chains. Money in your hand is a key, unlocking possibilities. Money in your heart is a shackle, binding you to insatiable hunger. The same metal that forges freedom can forge bondage depending on its placement. When Paul says it is the root of all kinds of evil, he does not exaggerate. Trace back greed, exploitation, betrayal, oppression—so often, beneath the rot you find the roots sunk deep into mammon. The betrayals of Judas, the corruption of kings, the sweatshops of today—money worship winds like a black vine through human history.
Yet we must also remember the counter-testimonies. Abraham was wealthy, yet called a friend of God. Job was rich, stripped bare, then richer again, yet counted righteous. Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, bankrolled the early church. These lives testify that wealth itself does not exile one from holiness; it is the love, the lust, the loyalty to it that enslaves. It is when money becomes master that man becomes miserable.
There is something gritty and raw about Paul’s pastoral warning. He had seen firsthand the shipwreck of faith among those who pierced themselves with many griefs for the sake of gain. He had felt the bruises of persecution, the hunger of scarcity, and still he wrote not in bitterness but in clarity: to love money is to wound oneself, to stab the spirit with invisible daggers. It is not only an external evil; it is an internal self-betrayal.
But let us be clear—Paul does not call for ascetic hatred of wealth or a romanticization of poverty. The Christian is not commanded to despise bread or to glorify starvation. Rather, the Christian is called to a radical reorientation: seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you. Money becomes subordinate, servant, not sovereign. It is useful but not ultimate, desirable but not divine.
The practical challenge is perennial: how to handle money without loving it, how to work diligently, save wisely, invest shrewdly, and even build empires without bowing to mammon. The capitalist arena does not inherently corrupt; it offers opportunity for creativity, exchange, and growth. The corruption enters when profit eclipses principle, when gain becomes god. Here, the Christian capitalist must walk a razor’s edge—building boldly but bowing only to Christ.
I confess there is something exhilarating in that tension. To operate in the marketplace with vigor, to create value, to generate wealth, while refusing to let it define or enslave—this is not compromise but calling. For money can be a weapon in the hands of the righteous, a hammer to build rather than destroy, a current to carry mercy across deserts of need. To shun money altogether is cowardice; to worship it is idolatry. The middle road—stewardship—is the narrow way of discipleship.
In a sense, Paul’s verse is a mirror. When we read it, we see not coins but ourselves, the tangled loyalties of our own hearts, the subterranean roots that either dig deep into God or sink into greed. It forces us to ask: what do I truly love? Where is my treasure? For where my treasure is, there will my heart be also.
The meaning of 1 Timothy 6:10, then, is not merely historical or theological—it is diagnostic. It lays bare the human soul in every age, exposes our idols, warns of ruin, and whispers of freedom. It reminds us that money is a marvelous servant but a merciless master, that it can either be the soil for flourishing or the swamp for decay.
At its core, this verse is a call to love rightly. To love God above gold, to love neighbor above net worth, to love truth above transaction. The love of money breeds evil because it misdirects love itself. But when love is ordered, when money serves rather than rules, evil withers and good multiplies.
I return to Paul’s words often, because they are as necessary now as they were in Ephesus. The marketplace is louder, the temptations flashier, but the root remains the same. And if the root is wrong, the fruit will rot. Yet if the root is Christ, even gold can be redeemed.
In the end, the verse does not bind us in fear but frees us in wisdom. It reminds us that true wealth is never counted in coins but in character, never measured in mansions but in mercy, never stacked in stocks but in souls. To know this is to be rich indeed.
That, perhaps, is the meaning of 1 Timothy 6:10—not a condemnation of money, but a consecration of love, a warning to guard our hearts, and an invitation to live free in a world enslaved. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, but the love of God uproots every chain.
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