Dazzled by Dollars

“not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money” (1Tim 3:3)

Crack open a fisherman’s tackle box and you’ll see the shiny lures. Silvery spoons. Sparkly spinners. You see, certain fish are so excited when they see such razzle dazzle that they’ll chomp down without at first sight. Let’s face it, some folks are the same way. Dangle some cash in front of them and they’ll take the bait every time. 

Paul tells Timothy these are exactly the kind of leaders Jesus is NOT looking for. An overseer is “not a lover of money” (v3). You can’t be all about the God and His people and all about Benjamins at the same time. Sadly too many con artists see the local church not as a shimmering city on a hill but a shiny source of quick cash. 

The apostle writes to Tim with specific instructions to get the Ephesian church back on track. A posse of spiritual hucksters have done major damage to the congregation (1Tim 1:3-7). With knuckleheads like Hymenaeus and Alexander now out of the picture (1Tim 1:20), there’s a leadership void. Paul tells Pastor Tim to find men he calls overseers. These are godly men with spotless reps (1Tim 3:1-7). Among the list of qualities they must have, these leaders must love God and people and use money, not the other way around. 

Paul drops one Greek word, aphilarguros, which the ESV translates “not a lover of money” (v3). It describes someone who’s not greedy, not money hungry on one hand while also being liberal and generous with their resources on the other. The term is actually a compound word. It literally means “not (a-) loving (-phil-) silver or shiny things (-arguros).” An overseer can’t be a lover of shiny things.  There’s too much at stake. He must remember that what God offers through His Son is much more valuable than an earthly treasure chest. An elder can’t be dazzled by dollars.

The writer of Hebrews uses the same word as he cautions every believer. “Keep your life free from the love of money (Gr. aphilarguros), and be content with what you have, for He has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Heb 13:8). This is a clear and present danger for all leaders. Paul tells Titus how elders can’t be “greedy for gain” (Titus 1:7). Likewise, a deacons is “not a lover of money” (1Tim 3:8). Paul’s good buddy Peter instructs that an elder must “shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly” (1Pet 5:2). A leader in the church must have their priorities in order. Love God. Love people. Use money to do it.

The man from Tarsus didn’t just talk the talk, he walked the walk. Paul reminded the Ephesian elders how he “coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel” (Acts 20:33). His goal was to give away the free gift of the Gospel totally free of charge (1Cor 9:18). The apostle went out of his way in order to keep from being a financial drain on the Corinthian church (2Cor 11:9). When his team rolled into Thessalonica, they clearly weren’t in it for the cash (1Th 2:5). Paul went above and beyond. He didn’t want anyone to accuse him of having the gift of a profit.

This isn’t limited to just apostles, pastors, elders, overseers, and deacons. Jesus makes it clear in His most talked sermon, “You cannot serve both God and money” (Mt 6:24). His good friend John warns, “Do not love the world or the things in the world” (1Jn 2:15). If you’re scoring at home, “things in the world” would include cold, hard cash. And then there’s probably the most famous and most misquoted verse on greed in the entire Bible. “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (1Tim 6:10). It DOESN’T say money is the cause of evil, but the LOVE of money. 

So don’t make the mistake of thinking money itself is wicked. Being rich doesn’t mean you’re headed to hell. There are a lot of godly rich folks throughout the Bible. Folks like Abraham, Job, David, Solomon, and Joseph of Arimathea all had sweet portfolios and all loved God. As we said before, the important thing is use money to love people not vice versa. 

Avoiding greedy leaders is important for Ephesian church specifically and every other local church in general. Looking to make a fast buck in ministry is a sure sign of a religious con artist. Paul tells Titus, “They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain, what they ought not to teach” (Titus 1:11). These spiritual hucksters “in their greed they will exploit you with false words” (2Pet 2:3). Jesus’ kid brother Jude warns how they “abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error” and become prophets for profit (Jude 11). False teachers love shiny things. Things like cold, hard cash.

An overseer can’t be lured by money. He’s not a guy who can be tempted by straight cash, homey. These leaders know God dropped a price far beyond big bucks to pay our ransom, “not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ” (1Pet 1:18-19). An elder can’t be dazzled by dollars.

Horny Hot Air

“For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error” (v18).

The marketers of Madison Avenue aren’t the first ones to know that sex sells. Two thousand years before, a team of false teachers leveraged the libido in order to infiltrate local churches and tear them apart from the inside out. These hucksters may be full of hot air but they hide their lack of facts with lots of sex. And they set their sites on low hanging fruit. They target the weak and the vulnerable.

The Apostle Peter pulls no punches in the second chapter of his second letter. He spills a whole lot of ink sounding the alarm about a posse of spiritual snake oil salesmen that are destroying churches in Asia Minor (2:1-3). And he makes it VERY clear that they may pretend to talk all about God but they’re really all about sex. Let’s face it. Most translations pretty things up in the Bible. But Pete does his best to expose these sexual predators for what they really are. “Many will follow their sensuality” (2:2). He compares them to what was going down in the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (2:6-7). He warns of “those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion” (2:10). “They have eyes full of adultery” (2:14). And now he lets us know who their targeting for their sexual advances.

In case you glossed over his warning that the false teachers “are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm” (2:17), Pete bluntly accuses them of being full of hot air. They’re “speaking loud boasts of folly” (v18). He uses the Greek word huperogkos, which means of something of excessive size, overgrown and swollen. Think of a balloon that’s being overfilled. Stretching. Creaking. Groaning. It’s gonna blow!!! These knuckleheads are pretentious gas bags. They’re full of themselves. The apostle describes their teaching as “folly” (Gr. mataiotes). It can mean something devoid of truth and nonsense. But it also describes perversity and depravity. Their message is bloated with filth. When you hear crap like this, Pete says run far and run fast! When it explodes, it’s going to be nasty.

These horny con artists are looking for an easy mark. They’re not only out to make a quick buck (2:15), they’re trying to hop in the sack. Pete writes that “they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error” (v18). The former fisherman reaches into his tackle box and pulls out an angling term (Gr. deleazo). It means to bait, catch with bait, allure and deceive. These false teachers know how to bait the hook. He dropped the same word a couple of verses back. “They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice (Gr. deleazo) unsteady souls” (2:14). Jesus’ kid brother James also talked about how we often take the bait of our own sinful impulses. “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed (Gr. deleazo) by his own desire” (James 1:14). 

Their bait is sex. “Sensual passions of the flesh” (v18). The original language uses the term aselgeia. Maybe I’m overstating it. Maybe I’m just wanting to talk dirty in the guise of talking about the Bible. Well, this Greek word means living without any moral restraint, especially when it comes to outrageous sexual behavior. They’re promoting a promiscuous sexuality. Lustful indulgence. Life with no moral seat beat. If it feels good, do it…especially when it comes to sex. They don’t use truth but titillation. These hucksters appeal to our libido. They know that sex sells. Pete already warned us that they’re looking to bed married women (2:14).

The false teachers have very specific prey in their sites. “Those who are barely escaping from those who live in error” (v18). The false teachers look for the weak and vulnerable. They target those teetering on the edge. Folks with broken marriages. The lonely. The guilty. Low hanging fruit. They’re not looking to sway the leaders. That’s too hard. They won’t budge. But there are people who will fall for their sexual sell. The weak.  

The false teachers know that sex sells. Even in church. ESPECIALLY in church! Can we be painfully honest? Too many times, the subject of sex is taboo within the local church. But we must remember that it is a fabulous gift from our Creator. Sex was His idea! It was our sin that jacked up this beautiful present from God. He designed us for sexual intimacy within marriage. Anything other than that corrupts and kills. One thing we can do is talk about God’s purpose and intention for sex. Openly. Honestly. If He can include an entire book of the Bible about it (yeah, I’m talking about the Song of Songs!), then we had better talk about it. Because if we don’t, false teachers are going to use it against God’s people.