“For the love of money is the 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” (1Tim 6:10).
Anyone with a green thumb (Confession time: I am NOT one of them!) will tell you about the dangers of root rot. It’s a condition found in both indoor and outdoor plants. Rotten roots affect and infect the entire plant. Trunk. Branches. Leaves. Fruit. Root rot is both untreatable and fatal. Curiously, it’s caused by overwatering. Think about that. What kills the plant is actually something that should be good for it.
Did you know that you and I can suffer from a form of root rot? It doesn’t come from standing out in the rain or taking long showers. If you’re like me, your parents were loud and clear that both of these are bad. No, human root rot is caused by a passion for cash. An obsession for possession. Greed. Or in the words of Paul, “For the love of money is the 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” (v10). Just like in plants, rotten roots affect our entire being. It causes all sorts of problems. It leads me further and further away from Jesus. What kills us is actually something that can be good for us. The sad part is, we do it to ourselves. It’s a self-obsession that results in a self-inflected wound. The love of money is human root rot.
Paul’s words in this verse are often misquoted. Well, not so much misquoted and incompletely quoted. You’ve heard folks say, “Money is the root of all evil.” Money by itself isn’t evil. According to Moses, wealth is a gift from God (Dt 8:18). He blesses us to be a blessing to others. It’s the LOVE of it that gets us in big trouble. Things get WAY out of whack when we use people to love money. We’re to use our money to love people. Jesus went out of His way to say we’re not worship wealth. “You cannot serve both God and money” (Mt 6:24). Gold makes a terrible god.
What you and I see in English as “the love of money” (v10) is actually just one word in the original language (Gr. philarguria). This compound term literally means “brother (phil-) of the shiny (-arguria)” or “lover of the silver.” It describes greed and avarice. If it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that bling, that’s a sure sign that you’ve got a bad case of human root rot.
We see a slightly different form of the word a few other times in the NT. Jesus tells His crew that it’s impossible to serve both God and money, “the Pharisees, who were lovers of money (Gr. philarguros)” made fun of Him (Lk 16:13-14). In his followup letter to Tim, the apostle warns that just before Jesus returns for His encore, folks will become “lovers of self, lovers of money (Gr. philarguros), proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy” (2Tim 3:2). Looks like Christ will make His second coming during an election year. But I digress. Earlier in this letter, Paul uses a negative form of the word to tell Tim how an overseer must not be greedy and “not a lover of money (Gr. aphilarguros)” (1Tim 3:3).
Did you know there’s something MUCH more valuable out there than straight cash, homey. Relax, this isn’t an infomercial pitching precious metals like gold or silver. The apostle Christ called Rocky says our Savior paid something much more costly for our sin. “You were not ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1Pet 1:18-19). When it comes to currency, there’s nothing more costly. Our salvation may be a free gift we could never earn or buy (Eph 2:8-9) but it is ridiculously expensive. It cost Jesus everything.
Just as too much water causes serious problems for a plant, greed is the “root of all kinds of evils” for you and me (v10). Paul puts on his horticultural hat and uses the Greek word rhiza, which describes the underground part of a plant. It’s the structure of vegetation we can’t see that is its lifeline. The roots suck up water and nutrients from the soil to interact with the sunlight captured by the leaves. Don’t worry. This won’t be on the final. When Jesus cursed a fruitless tree, the disciples couldn’t believe their own eyes when they saw later how “the fig tree withered away to its roots (Gr. rhiza)” (Mk 11:20).
But the term also symbolically describes the cause, reason, origin, or source of a something. It’s the problem behind the problem. The disease causing the symptoms. The writer of Hebrews says anytime we fail to appreciate God’s descending one-way love, we provide just the right kind of soil where a “root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble” (Heb 12:15). When my heart turns greedy and ungrateful, it results in “all kinds of evil” in my life (v10). I can either treat the symptoms or pull the real problem out by the root.
If I don’t deal with the real cause, this bad root causes bad fruit. Paul tells the Galatians all about what the putrid produce of root rot. “Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Gal 5:19-21). But when God’s Spirit goes to work, He produces a bumper crop of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Gal 5:22-23). The grace of Jesus and His Holy Spirit are the remedy for human root rot.
How bad will this root rot? According to Paul, “It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (v10). Some folks become so fixated on cash that they lose their way. Their chase of money leads them a long way from the Lord. Does that mean people can actually lose their salvation? Say it ain’t so! Well, this obsession with money reveals that God had never saved them in the first place. Or they could be followers of Jesus who get so distracted by the dollars that they take a long and painful detour in their journey. Don’t believe that’s possible? You may want to have a little chat with someone who’s earned the nickname of the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32).
Not only have some people “wandered away from the faith” (v10), but they suffer from self-inflicted wounds. They have “pierced themselves with many pangs” (v10). Today we worry about people who harm themselves through cutting, picking, and suicide. The love of money results in self-mutilation. When we worship our bank account over Christ, our biggest enemy is the person in the bathroom mirror. Nobody else. I’m not saying the Evil One won’t bait the hook. But he can’t make you take the bait.
A couple of thousand years later, a group called The O’Jays sang a little ditty about human root rot called “For the Love of Money.” It’s an incredibly catchy tune about a terribly terminal condition. Get your groove on and sing along with them…
Money, money, money, money, money.
Some people got to have it.
Some people really need it.
Listen to me y’all, do things,
do things, do bad things with it.
You wanna do things, do things,
do things, good things with it.
For the love of money,
people will lie, Lord, they will cheat.
For the love of money,
people don’t care who they hurt or beat.
For the love of money,
a woman will sell her precious body
for a small piece of paper.
It carries a lot of weight.
Call it lean, mean, mean green almighty dollar.
Listen to Paul. Listen to The O’Jays. Avoid human root rot.
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