Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Timothy 6:17
Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded; nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;
17. them that are rich in this world ] Or more exactly in the present world, this being the peculiar phrase of these Epistles equivalent to the general ‘this world.’ So 2Ti 4:10, of Demas ‘having loved the present world;’ Tit 2:12, ‘live soberly in this present world.’ The word ‘world’ is literally ‘age,’ having original reference to time, and so denoting the physical, social, or spiritual state of things at the given time.
be not highminded ] Not as we now speak of a ‘noble highminded man,’ but as of ‘too high and mighty a bearing,’ cf. Psa 131:1, Prayer-Book, ‘Lord, I am not highminded: I have no proud looks.’ The compound verb occurs in N.T. only Rom 11:20, ‘Be not highminded, but fear;’ ‘do not, because of your Christian standing, assume a lofty superiority over your “broken” Jewish brother;’ and the phrase of which it is compounded only Rom 12:16, ‘Be of the same mind one toward another. Set not your mind on high things, but condescend to things that are lowly.’
nor trust in uncertain riches ] it is the same perfect as 1Ti 4:10 and 1Ti 5:5, and the substantive of character; R.V. accurately, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches.
in the living God ] The ms. authority is against the adjective here, and in favour of the preposition ‘upon’ rather than ‘in,’ but on God. ‘Living’ has come in from 1Ti 4:10, where (see note) it has its own appropriateness.
all things] Relative or rhetorical, not absolute; as 1Ti 6:10.
to enjoy ] Lit. ‘for enjoyment’; the word in N.T. recurs only Heb 11:25 of Moses at court, ‘to have enjoyment of sin for a season.’
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
17 19. A last direction. The Duties of the Rich
A postscript follows, with an omitted last word for the richer classes at Ephesus. The ‘special aspect’ under which the last warning about false teachers has been viewed by St Paul, and its reflexion in the last charge to Timothy, suggests a last addition to the pastoral directions. Men and women in their general religious duties, presbyters and deacons and deaconesses in their special offices, family ties and Church charity, the existing problem of slavery, have been provided for; but the needs of a life free to ‘enjoy the world’ through the possession of wealth have been as yet untouched. St Paul will add a word of practical guidance here after the grand climax of lofty praise. It is no forger’s hand here; but the natural abruptness of old age, and of a St Paul.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded – One of the evils to which they are particularly exposed. The idea is, that they should not value themselves on account of their wealth, or look down with pride and arrogance on their inferiors. They should not suppose that they are any better people or any nearer heaven, because they are wealthy. Property really makes no distinction in the great things that pertain to character and salvation, It does not necessarily make one wise, or learned, or great, or good. In all these things, the man who has not wealth may be vastly the superior of him who has; and for so slight and unimportant a distinction as gold can confer, no man should be proud. Besides, let such a man reflect that his property is the gift of God; that he is made rich because God has chosen to arrange things so that he should be; that it is not primarily owing to any skill or wisdom which he has; that his property only increases his responsibility, and that it must all soon be left, and he be as poor as the beggar that lies at his gate; and he will see ample reason why he should not be proud.
Nor trust in uncertain riches – Margin, The uncertainty of. The margin expresses the meaning of the Greek more accurately than the text, but the sense is not materially varied. Riches are uncertain because they may soon be taken away. No dependence can be placed on them in the emergencies of life. He who is rich today, has no security that he will be tomorrow; and if he shall be rich tomorrow, he has no certainty that his riches will meet his necessities then. A man whose house is in flames, or who is shipwrecked, or whose child lies dying, or who is himself in the agonizes of death, can derive no advantage from the fact that he is richer than other people; see notes on Luk 12:16-21. That against which Paul here directs Timothy to caution the rich, is that to which they are most exposed. A man who is rich, is very liable to trust in His riches, and to suppose that he needs nothing more; compare Luk 12:19. He feels that he is not dependent on his fellow-men, and he is very likely to feel that he is not dependent on God. It is for this cause that God has recorded so many solemn declarations in his word respecting the instability of riches (compare Pro 23:5), and that he is furnishing so many instructive lessons in his providence, showing how easily riches may suddenly vanish away.
But in the living God –
(1) He is able to supply all our needs, and to do for us what riches cannot do; and,
(2) He never changes, or leaves those who put their trust in him. He is able to meet our needs if in the flames, or in a storm at sea, or when a friend dies, or when we lie down on a bed of death, or wherever we may be in the eternal world.
Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy – The meaning of this seems to be, that God permits us to enjoy everything. Everything in the works of creation and redemption he has given to man for his happiness, and he should therefore trust in him. He has not merely given wealth for the comfort of people, but he has given everything, and he on whom so many and so great blessings have been bestowed for his comfort, should trust in the great Benefactor himself, and not rely merely on one of his gifts; compare notes on 1Co 3:21-23.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Ti 6:17; 1Ti 6:19
Charge them that are rich in this world.
The perils and possibilities of the rich
I. The dangers of the rich are manifold, but only two or three are suggested here.
1. The danger of self-conceit is hinted at in the words, Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded. The vulgar boasting of wealth, and the ostentatious display of it, are indications of this. Again, the self-sufficiency that leads a successful man to attribute all his gains to his own shrewdness and diligence, and to speak contemptuously of those who never get on in the world, as if God had nothing to do with his physical energy and mental calibre, with the education and training of his youth, or with the unexpected opportunities of his manhood, is another sign of high-mindedness. The pride which refuses to associate with those whose income is smaller, and which will hold aloof from intelligent and religious men and women, in order to cultivate acquaintance with those whose minds are shallow, but whose establishments are costly, and whose influence in the money market is great.
2. Another danger threatening rich men is that of trusting to uncertain riches. It is on this evanescence that Paul lays stress when he speaks of the folly of trusting to them. He hints at the conquest of this by exercising confidence in the living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy. The remembrance of the fact that God gave you money adds sacredness to it, a sense of responsibility in the use of it, and arouses the gratitude and praise which are His due.
II. The opportunities of the rich are as noteworthy as their dangers.
1. They can do good to others, and many a noble institution has its source in the generous and wise gifts of those whom God has prospered. But besides this–
2. They can do noble things. The words used by Paul, which are both rendered good (in the R.V. as well as the A.V.), have not the same meaning in Greek. They would be better translated, Charge them that they do good, and that they be rich in noble deeds. The latter word used by Paul signifies what is honourable and lovely in itself. It fell from the lips of our Lord when He described Marys act of devotion. Rich men can afford to make wise and noble experiments in philanthropy and in Christian enterprise.
III. The recompense of the rich who are thus faithful is not obscurely taught in the words which describe them as laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. Of course, Paul does not mean that they gain eternal life by their good works. No one insists more strongly than he does on the fact that salvation is the gift of sovereign grace to the sinful and undeserving. But from its nature this grace becomes a talent, with which we are to do service for God. And since the nature of the future recompense is found in the development of life, all that makes that life more full of possibility and of result lays up in store a good foundation against the time to come. The fact is, that the connection between this life and that is far closer than many imagine it to be. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)
Trust in God, and not in riches
1. To trust in riches, is to trust in what we may never acquire; to trust in God, is to trust in Him whom we may always depend on finding.
2. To trust in riches, is to trust in what cannot avail us in the various calamities which occur in the course of human life; to trust in God, is to trust in One who will always be with us in all our straits and trials.
3. To trust in riches, is to trust in what cannot meet the wants of the heart, if it is found; to trust in God, is to trust in One who can fully supply all our need.
4. To trust in riches, is to trust in what we may be deprived of in a moment, or may gradually lose; to trust in God, is to trust in One whom we can never be deprived of, and never shall lose.
5. To trust in riches, is to trust in what we must all part with at last; to trust in God, is to trust in One who will be ours for ever.
6. Many and great are the blessings of every kind which this trust in God, rather than in riches, will secure to us.
(1) It will teach us to moderate our desires after riches, and to be less eager than we often are in the pursuit of them.
(2) It will show us how we may mingle the right pursuit of temporal things with that supreme regard to spiritual things which their paramount importance entitles them to.
(3) It will enable us, when worldly losses come, to bear up patiently and hopefully under them, and to hear the voice of God speaking to us in them.
(4) It will teach us the responsibility which is always connected with the possession of any portion of earthly things, and remind us of the account which we must give to God for the way we have used them. (Alex. Reid.)
Human affections raised, not destroyed, by the gospel
The apostle sets before us, in the text, two applications of the same human affection. He bids us not to trust in uncertain riches, but to trust in the living God. He assumes that this trusting impulse exists, and he would not destroy but reform it. He would exhibit the true and eternal object for a tendency in itself indestructible; and would intimate that there is pre pared for the just desires of the soul a sphere of being, adequate to these desires, and from which the present detains us, only as the counterfeit and mockery of it! On the one hand uncertain riches; on the other the parallel announcement, that God giveth us richly all things to enjoy. And thus the Spirit, that spoke in the exhortation of Paul, instructs in the great truth, that the faculties of men are themselves a mechanism for eternity; that it is not they–it is not Love, and Reliance, and Hope, and Desire–but their habitual objects, that man must toil to change. On this important matter, then, I shall first endeavour briefly to engage your attention, and I shall then attempt to illustrate the melancholy extent of the actual perversion of our nature, by showing how, even in their wanderings, these affections betray the higher purpose for which they were primarily intended, and how–more especially in the instance noted in the text, the trust in riches man still unconsciously invests with the very attributes of perfect felicity,, of heaven, and of God, the earthly idol to which he sacrifices both! There are those, then, who speak with solemn and prophetic truth of the change which comes over the aspect of the human soul, when, for the first time, awaking to righteousness, it is introduced (while yet in the world of time) into the eternal world, and becomes cognizant of the glories, till then unseen, that surround the throne of God and the Lamb. But when, from the dignity and circumstances of the change, men pass to define its natured there is often, it seems to me, much inaccuracy and some imprudence in their statements. We find it sometimes described as if no one element of human nature were to remain in the regenerate spirit. The declaration that a new heart is bestowed is taken in almost the fulness of a literal acceptation. All the old machinery of humanity is discarded; the works are, as it were, taken out of the case of the instrument, and a totally new organization of passions and affections provided. The spiritual renewal is thus falsely, I think, and dangerously, made to consist, not in setting our emancipated affections upon things above–not in the privilege of having the whole body, and soul, and spirit preserved blameless until the coming of Christ, but in the acquisition of some indescribable affections (if such they may be called), which, though they be named love and desire, are no longer human love and human desire, but differing almost as much, it would seem, from these affections as they are in our hearts, as love and hate differ from each other! Hence that mystic and dangerous mode of representation too common among a large class of teachers, which would exalt the love to God, for example, beyond all human conception, not merely in the dignity of its object (in which, I need not say, no language could overstate it), but even in the very nature of the feeling; as if the love of a devoted friend was one thing and intelligible, but the love to God quite another affection, and all but incomprehensible! The error of all such cases is the same–the notion that in the work of renewal new faculties are given us, instead of a new direction to the old ones; the notion that God annihilates human nature when He only perfects it; to destroy the channels themselves, instead of cleansing their polluted streams, and then replenishing them for ever with the waters of Paradise! As long as men conceived that the religious affections are in their essence wholly different from every other affection, they will inevitably conclude that the training and discipline for them must be itself equally different. So far for the general principle involved in the particular exhortation of the apostle, the principle that the same affections which cling to the lowly earth are those which must struggle, under celestial guidance, to find their rest in God. Trust not in riches, but [trust] in the living God! Blessed invitation I How it exalts, even while it reproves, our fettered nature! Trust, yes, trust with a devotedness such as the wildest frenzy of avarice has never exhibited! Trust, and fear not! It is among the noblest energies of your being–it was never given in vain. Trust, but trust in the living God! Preserve unbroken every element of your affections; they are all alike the property of heaven. Be ambitious, but ambitious of the eternal heritage, Labour after knowledge, but let it be the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ! Be it ours to find in the new world unveiled in the gospel the true materials of these holy desires, and so to train them while on earth for the society of heaven. I have but this moment glanced at a topic which might well demand deeper and fuller illustration. I mean the change which the fact of the incarnation of God most rightfully make in all that concerns the laws and regulation of the human affections. For, after all, these affections do, doubtless, strive, in the first instance, towards human objects; human themselves, they naturally cling to the human outside and beyond them. Ever since God became incarnate, this tendency precludes not their direct passage to heaven; nay, it quickens and guides it. It would have been little short of miracle, that even the most pious should maintain the state of perpetual contemplative affection towards the awful essence of the unmingled God. But when that God became man this difficulty was removed. The direct pathway to heaven was opened to the human heart. And the more you regard the passage, the more will you perceive that such views as those I have sketched were, in substance, the views which occupied the inspired teacher. His whole object is manifestly to contrast the two rivals for the human heart, the worlds visible and invisible; and hence it is that the text before us is the natural sequel to the preceding verse, where the glory of the eternal God is unveiled in all its majesty as the object which is to fix the affections of man. There is, proclaims St. Paul (1Ti 6:15), a blessed and only Potentate, who is hereafter to determine, in His own time (as it is emphatically called), the appearing of Christ Jesus in glory. This Being demands, as His inalienable right, all the energies of all the affections; for no inferior claimant can interfere with Him, who is King of kings and Lord of lords. Then comes the exhortation. Seeing that such a privilege as this is ours (1Ti 6:17), charge them that are rich in this world, that they interpose not a veil between themselves and this Father of their spirits, or suffer the clouds and vapours of earth to sully or eclipse the beams of this eternal sun. Charge them, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy! Our earthly objects of pursuit are themselves clad by hope with colours that rightfully belong only to their celestial rivals; our ordinary earthly longings themselves strain after a really heavenly happiness, while they miss so miserably the way to reach it; that, in other words, in the treasuries of heaven are laid up all that you truly covet, even while, by a wretched illusion, you labour after their mockeries on earth! Surely, if this can be proved, no conceivable argument can more powerfully demonstrate how we are made for religion, and can only find our true rest there! Now the truth is, so wholly are we framed for the eternal world, that we must make a heaven of earth before we can fully enjoy it. God has so inwoven, in the innermost texture of our nature, the title and testimonies of the immortal state for which He made us, that, mingled with the perishable elements of earth, it is, even now, for ever around us; it rises in all our dreams, it colours all our thoughts, it haunts us with longings we cannot repel; in our very vices it reveals itself, for they cannot charm us till they have more or less counterfeited it. There are aspirations turned astray, that, even in their distortion, attest their origin and purpose, There are warped, and crippled, and polluted hopes, that, even from their dungeon of flesh, still cry to heaven. In the spirit of these convictions, turn again to the text. To whom does the apostle enjoin the exhortation? To them that are rich in this world. What does he here assume? He assumes the existence of wealth, and, involved in that existence, the desire to attain it, which is the necessary motive for its accumulation. He assumes that there resides in the heart of man the desire to build up around it the means of perpetual enjoyment, to secure to itself the materials of happiness–of happiness, for such is the specific essence of moneyed wealth, that may be independent of the moment, and which (as it were, condensed in its representative) may be preserved for a period indefinitely future. But what terms, save these, shall we employ, when we would depict the heaven of the Scripture revelation? What characters are these but the very properties of Gods eternal world? And so far is it not manifest that the votary of earthly wealth does in fact, with all the energies of his nature, strain after that very security of unchangeable bliss which we preach; but, mistaking the illusory phantom, weds his whole soul to the fictitious heaven, which the powers of evil have clothed in colours stolen from the skies? The delusion produces its own delusive results. But these also are but the shadowy copies of a bright and holy reality. Every attribute of the eager candidate for earthly happiness and security is but the poor semblance of the very state the Christian already possesses or anticipates. The rich are first warned of the peril of what is here called high-mindedness; a word whose happy ambiguity perfectly corresponds to my argument. But as there is a worldly and Satanic high-mindedness, so is this, as before, but the counterfeit presentment of a high-mindedness God-given and celestial. Laying deep its foundations in self-abasement, the doctrine of faith alone bestows the blessed confidence, without which the Christian may be the inconsolable penitent, the mortified ascetic, the prostrate trembler before an offended God; but without which he is, nevertheless, but half a Christian. The happy confidence of the children of God is an element which, though false teaching may exaggerate, no true teaching will ever discard. It is not for nothing that he is bid to rest upon the Rock of Ages, and to anticipate upon earth the repose of immortality. Here, then, is the high-mindedness of the Christian; here is the truth to match that worldly falsehood, that high-mindedness base and debasing; here is the bright, unchanging fire, which the votary of this world would rake among the dust and ashes of earth to enkindle! Once more, the rich in this world is warned, not merely of the peril of self-exaltation, but also of that of unbounded trust in the fleeting riches he accumulates. The contrast I need not here insist on. We have already noticed it, and the apostle himself has expressly enforced it. The living God and His liberal graces arise to claim the homage of the trusting heart. The dependent on riches makes them his god, in making them the object of his dependence. Heaven is here again defrauded of its own, and all the charms of the Divine character, the charms that fix and fascinate the adoring believer in Christ–its abiding permanence, its just sovereignty, its fixed security, its unshaken falthfulness–all are torn from the throne of God to clothe the idol of the worshipper of wealth! (W. A. Butler.)
The duties of the rich
Every condition of life hath its peculiar dangers to be avoided and duties to be done, but none hath dangers more threatening or duties more important than that of the rich and great: whose situation, notwithstanding, is seldom considered by those who are in it as having anything to be feared; and is generally imagined by others to comprehend almost everything that is to be wished. To be thus environed with temptations, and probably sensible of none of them, is a most pitiable condition. Now the peculiar dangers of the rich and great arises either from the eminence of their station or the abundance of their wealth: and therefore the text points a caution against each. But I shall be able at present to treat only of the first: which is, that they be not high-minded. Every superiority of every sort, which men only imagine themselves possessed of, is too liable to be over-rated and improperly used. But superior fortune and condition are advantages so visible to all eyes, create such dependences, and give such influence, that it is no wonder if they tempt to uncommon haughtiness. Now undoubtedly distinguished rank is entitled to distinguished regard; and the good order of society very much depends on keeping up that regard; and therefore the great should in a proper manner be much more careful to keep it up than many of them are. But when they nurse up the consciousness of their own superiority into a contemptuous neglect of others and insolent expectations of unfit submissions from them, they have great need to be reminded that respect is paid to wealth and birth because the common good requires it, not because the persons who receive it are always worthy of it; but their dishonourable behaviour will be the more conspicuous for their honourable station. And even supposing them guilty of nothing else to lessen the esteem they claim, yet claiming too much of it, or too openly, will frustrate their intention most effectually. For neither equals nor inferiors will suffer near so much to be extorted from them as they would have bestowed most freely on their own accord. But one sort of condescension to inferiors may be of peculiar advantage; I mean listening to useful information and advice from them, things which the great are very apt to think themselves above, when every one else sees they have much need of them. Neither affluence nor high rank by any means imply superiority of judgment. But if humility in the great could be no ether way beneficial to them, yet avoiding the guilt of so injurious a behaviour as indulging a proud spirit prompts them to, is surely a motive important enough. Thus too many treat their tenants hardly, or permit them to be so treated. Another sort of persons, for whom superiors too commonly will not vouchsafe to have the consideration that they ought, are those who come to them upon business. Obliging such to an unreasonable attendance, making them wait long, and it may be return often, is a very provoking and a very injurious kind of stateliness. But there is another fault still worse frequently joined with this; deeming it beneath their notice whether such of their inferiors as have just and reasonable demands upon them are paid when they ought. Another very blameable and very pernicious instance of high-mindedness in the great is imagining the management of their families an attention too low for them. Even that of their children they very commonly despise to an astonishing degree. Or if they have humility enough to inspect some part of their education, it is usually the outward and showy but less material part. Now proceed to the latter, trusting in uncertain riches: which phrase comprehends placing the happiness of life either in wealth itself or in those pleasures and amusements which it is commonly made the instrument of procuring. The prohibition therefore of doing this extends to regulate the acquisition, the possession, and use of a great fortune; and to go through the subject fully, each of these points must be considered.
1. The acquisition. In speculation it seems hardly to be expected that any one who is once master of enough to answer his real and reasonable wants should feel any desire almost, on his own account, of having more: that he should take much pains about is very wonderful; and that he should do anything wrong for it quite unaccountable. No temptation is a warrant for doing wrong; but to do wrong without anything that deserves the name of a temptation is exceedingly bad. And it cannes be nature, but merely an absurd habit wilfully indulged, that tempts men to accumulate what they have no need of. But though riches alone render eagerness for more very blameable and unbecoming, yet greatness added to them doubles the fault. For exalted rank absolutely calls for the exercise of honourable disinterestedness.
2. Concerning the possession of it. Now keeping a heap of wealth merely for the sake of keeping it is an apparent absurdity. Keeping it merely for the repute of having it is a very low inducement. And if laying up against future accidents be pretended, a moderate store will suffice for a reasonable security, and nothing can secure us absolutely. Indeed the larger the fortune, the more room for accidents in one part or another of it; and the loss of a small part will be as grievous to a heart set upon riches as that of a larger to another man. Besides, whoever lives only to the purpose of saving and accumulating will be tempted by this ruling passion to a sinful neglect of the poor and the worthy among his friends and dependants, perhaps among his relations and very children. But besides the sins which may be committed in the getting or keeping of wealth, there are–
3. Others, committed too frequently in using it; which persons of superior fortune and rank must be charged to avoid, and which undoubtedly the text comprehends. For putting their trust in riches is just as much the description of those who place the happiness of life in the enjoyment of large estates as those who place it in the possession of them. Some trust in their riches so very inconsiderately that they trust there will never be an end of them, let them be squandered as extravagantly as they will. So they set out with gratifying themselves in everything. Others, if they do not dissipate their estates in so wild a manner, yet use them principally to minister to their sensuality and debauchery; vices which men of superior fortune somehow imagine they have a sort of right to be guilty of. Another very bad use of wealth, in which too many seem to place no small part of their happiness, is that of gaming. But supposing wealth be neither spent in this nor any of the gross vices mentioned before, yet if it be employed in ministering to a course of more decent and refined luxury, or in supporting such a pomp of life as nourishes vanity and pride, or in filling so much time with unprofitable entertainment, that little room is left in the mind for objects of importance: these things also the rich and great must be charged to amend.
I proceed to the duties of which he enjoins they shall be peculiarly reminded.
1. The first is, to trust in the living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy. After warning them against placing their happiness in the pre-eminences, the possessions or pleasures of this world, it was very natural to direct them where they should place it: for somewhere-we must. And his precept carries the proof of its own fitness along with it. For the living God must have the greatest power to reward our trust, and He who giveth us all things richly to enjoy hath shown Himself to have the greatest will also. Some persons, it may be, when they are pressed upon the subject, will plead that they are by no means without inward regard to God; though they cannot say they give much outward demonstration of it in acts of worship. But supposing them sincere, what reason can there be why respect to God should not be paid outwardly when respect to every superior besides is? But it is possible for us to keep up a sufficient possession of religion to secure both public order and domestic tranquility, yet by no means have a sufficient sense of it for obtaining eternal life; and what will the former avail us without the latter? We should all, therefore, learn to live more to our Maker; to imprint on our hearts and exert in our whole behaviour a stronger sense of His present providence and future rewards. It would be a direction, a security, an improvement, a comfort to us beyond expression.
2. The second duty prescribed in the text as peculiarly necessary for the rich and great is that they do good, that they be rich in good works. If men of rank and fortune observe duly the preceding part of the apostles charge, they will easily be induced to observe the concluding one. If they are neither so high-minded as to neglect and despise their fellow-creatures, nor so selfish as to trust in uncertain riches, in the acquisition, the possession, or voluptuous enjoyment of them, for their happiness, but expect it only from their acceptance with the living God; they will naturally imitate Him whom they desire to please, particularly in His beneficence, the most amiable of all His perfections. And it is not by their wealth only that they are able and therefore called to do good, but by their whole behaviour. But still, though almsgiving is by no means the whole of beneficence, yet it is an essential part in those whom God hath qualified for it. And He hath given them all things richly and in plenty, not merely for themselves to enjoy in the vulgar sense, but that others may enjoy a due share of them and they the pleasure of imparting it; the worthiest and highest enjoyment of wealth that can be. But, in general, that both our charity and our generosity should bear some decent and liberal proportion to our abilities, and the rich in this world be rich in good works also. Nor is it sufficient for the rich to give plentifully, but they must do it on every fit occasion speedily; be ready to distribute and not stay till the circumstances of the poor are beyond recovery or their spirits broken under the weight of their misfortunes, but make haste to help them and, as far as possible, prevent distress. (T. Seeker.)
God the giver of wealth
A good example of liberality was given by Mr. Thornton, of Clapham, a noble-hearted Christian merchant. One morning, when he had received news of a failure that involved him in a loss of no less than a hundred thousand pounds, a minister from the country called at his countinghouse to ask a subscription for an important object. Hearing that Mr. Thornton had suffered that loss, he apologized for having called. But Mr. Thornton took him kindly by the hand: My dear sir, the wealth I have is not mine, but the Lords. It may be that He is going to take it out of my hands and give it to another; and if so, this is a good reason why I should make a good use of what is left. He then doubled the subscription he had formerly intended to give.
That they do good.—
Live for some purpose
Live for some purpose in the world. Act your part well. Fill up the measure of duty to others. Conduct yourselves so that you shall be missed with sorrow when you are gone. Multitudes of our species are living in such a selfish manner that they are not likely to be remembered after their disappearance. They leave behind them scarcely any traces of their existence, but are forgotten almost as though they had never been. They are, while they live, like one pebble lying unobserved amongst a million on the shore; and when they die, they are like that same pebble thrown into the sea, which just ruffles the surface, sinks, and is forgotten, without being missed from the beach. They are neither regretted by the rich, wanted by the poor, nor celebrated by the learned. Who has been the better for their life? Who has been the worse for their death? Whose tears have they dried up? whose wants supplied? whose miseries have they healed? Who would unbar the gate of life to re-admit them to existence? or what face would greet them back again to our world with a smile? Wretched, unproductive mode of existence! Selfishness is its own curse; it is a starving vice. The man who does no good gets none. He is like the heath in the desert, neither yielding fruit nor seeing when good cometh–a stunted, dwarfish, miserable shrub. (J. A. James.)
The opportunity of doing good
We shall then know better than we do now know that every soul on its way to eternity has its appointed times and seasons of good, which, if they be allowed to pass away shall never, never return again. Though the person be not lost, yet the innocence, the heroism, the saintliness, may be. We must, therefore, lose no opportunity of doing good to the souls and bodies of those whom Gods good providence has put under our care, because if we miss it by our own fault, it may never again be allowed to us; the persons whom God intended us to profit may be taken out of our reach, may be taken into another world before they come in our way again. (John Keble.)
Doing good
An eminent surgeon, who was also an eminent Christian, visited a lady who was a professed believer in Christ, but who, like some ladies I have heard of, was frequently troubled with imaginary diseases. The good doctor was frequently called in, until at last he said to her, Madam, I will give you a prescription which I am certain will make a healthy woman of you, if you will follow it. Sir, she said, I shall be so glad to have good health that I will be sure to follow it. Madam, I will send you the prescription this evening. When it arrived it consisted of these words, Do good to somebody. She roused herself to relieve a poor neighbour, and then sought out others who needed her help, and the Christian woman, who had been so constantly desponding and nervous, became a healthy, cheerful woman, for she had an object to live for, and found joy in doing good to others. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 17. Charge them that are rich] He had before, in 1Ti 6:9-10, given them a very awful lesson concerning their obtaining riches; and now he gives them one equally so concerning their use of them.
That they be not high-minded] That they do not value themselves on account of their wealth, for this adds nothing to mind or moral worth.
Nor trust in uncertain riches] . The uncertainty of riches; things which are never at a stay, are ever changing, and seldom continue long with one proprietor; therefore, as well as on many other accounts, they are not to be trusted in: they cannot give happiness, because they are not fixed and permanent; neither can they meet the wishes of an immortal spirit; but in the living God, who is the unchangeable fountain of perfection.
Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy] Who not only has all good, but dispenses it liberally for the supply of the wants of all his creatures; and he does not give merely what is necessary, but he gives what tends to render life comfortable. The comforts of life come from God, as well as the necessaries. He not only gives us a bare subsistence, but he gives us enjoyments. Were it not for the oppression and rapine of wicked men, every situation and state in life would be comparatively comfortable. God gives liberally; man divides it badly.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Charge them that are rich in this world: those that are rich in grace, and the good things of another life, need not this charge; but there are divers at Ephesus who have great estates in goods, or houses, or lands, and but poor in gracious habits, charge them.
That they be not highminded; that their riches do not lift them up into a high conceit or opinion of themselves, which worldly riches often do.
Nor trust in uncertain riches; and that they repose no confidence in them, making them their strong city, Pro 10:15, as if they could secure them from evil, or make them happy.
But in the living God; but let them repose their trust in God, who hath life in himself, giveth life unto all other things, and liveth for ever.
Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; and is he who gives us all we have, though it be bought with our penny.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17. Resuming the subject fromabove, 1Ti 6:5; 1Ti 6:10.The immortality of God, alone rich in glory, and of His peoplethrough Him, is opposed to the lust of money (compare 1Ti6:14-16). From speaking of the desire to be rich, he herepasses to those who are rich: (1) What ought to be theirdisposition; (2) What use they ought to make of their riches, and,(3) The consequences of their so using them.
rich in this worldcontrastedwith the riches of the future kingdom to be the portion of believersat Christ’s “appearing,” 1Ti6:14.
high-mindedoften thecharacter of the rich (see Ro12:16).
trustGreek, “tohave their trust resting.”
in . . . inrather,”upon . . . upon,” as the oldest manuscripts.
uncertain richesratheras Greek, “the uncertainty of riches.” Theywho rest their trust on riches, rest trust on uncertaintyitself (Pr 23:5). Now theybelong to one person, now to another, and that which has many mastersis possessed by none [THEODORET].
living GodThe bestmanuscripts and versions omit “living.” He who trusts inriches transfers to them the duty he owes to God [CALVIN].
who givethGreek,“affordeth.”
all things richlytemporaland eternal, for the body and for the soul. In order to be trulyrich, seek to be blessed of, and in, God (Pro 10:22;2Pe 1:3).
to enjoyGreek,“for enjoyment.” Not that the heart may cleave to them asits idol and trust (1Ti 4:3).Enjoyment consists in giving, not in holding fast.Non-employment should be far removed, as from man, so from hisresources (Jas 5:2; Jas 5:3)[BENGEL].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Charge them that are rich in this world,…. Or in the things of this world. The Arabic version reads, “in this present world”: in distinction from the world to come: some are poor in this world, and rich in another; others are rich in this world, and poor, and wretched, and miserable in the world to come: some are rich in both worlds, and such were at least some of those the apostle here refers to, who were members of the church at Ephesus, which was a rich city, and some rich men in it were called by the grace of God; and to distinguish these from others, who, though poor in this world, were rich in grace and in spiritual gifts, he so calls them; as well as to observe that their riches were like the world they were in, deceitful, empty, unsatisfying, and perishing: these the apostle would have not only spoke to, instructed, exhorted, and entreated, but strictly charged and commanded, without paying any regard to their worldly grandeur and riches,
that they be not high minded; the Ethiopic version reads, “that they be not lifted up in this world”; with their wealth and worldly substance, and look down from the height of their honour and riches with contempt upon the poor, entertaining high thoughts of themselves, as if their bodies were of another matter and make, when they have all one Maker, are of one blood, and of the earth, earthly, and must return to it; or as if their souls were more large and capacious, and they were wiser and more knowing, whereas riches are not always to men of understanding, a fool may be rich, and a wise man poor; or as if they were the peculiar favourites of heaven, when, for the most part, God chooses and calls the poor of this world; or as if others were unworthy of their looks, company, and conversation. Riches produce pride; rich men are apt to be proud of themselves, and despise others; and therefore this evil is taken notice of, as what they are to be cautioned against, and charged to the contrary:
nor trust in uncertain riches; or “in the uncertainty of riches”; they are here today, and gone tomorrow; no man that is possessed of them can be sure of them a moment; they make themselves wings and flee away; he that gives them, can take them away at pleasure: and there are various ways by which they are suddenly, and at once taken from the owners of them; as by loss in trade, by shipwreck, by inundations, by fire, by thieves, c, and yet men are apt to promise themselves a continuance of them, and to have their dependence upon them, and place their trust and confidence in them, yea, even good men and that very much to the neglect of, and disregard to the providence of God, which is always best and safest in every circumstance and station of life to depend upon, as follows:
but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; almost every word carries in it an argument or reason why he should be trusted, because he is God, and not a creature; the “living” God, who has life in himself, essentially and originally; is the author, giver, and maintainer of life in others; and who always is, ever continues unchangeably the same: and “giveth all things”; every good gift comes from him; all the gifts of nature, and bounties of Providence; and as he gives, he can take away, and therefore should be only regarded; and he gives all things “richly”, largely, and plenteously; what is necessary and convenient, and abundantly more than men deserve: and that “to enjoy”; not to lay up, but to use for support, refreshment, and pleasure, though not to abuse.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
In this present world ( ). “In the now age,” in contrast with the future.
That they be not high-minded ( ). Present active infinitive with negative in indirect command after , “not to be high-minded.” Only instance of the word save some MSS. of Ro 11:20 (for ) and a scholion on Pindar.
Have their hope set (). Perfect active infinitive of .
On the uncertainty of riches ( ). Literary Koine word (), only here in N.T. A “vigorous oxymoron” (White). Cf. Ro 6:4. Riches have wings.
But on God (‘ ). He alone is stable, not wealth.
Richly all things to enjoy ( ). “A lavish emphasis to the generosity of God” (Parry). is old word from , to enjoy, in N.T. only here and Heb 11:25.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Them that are rich in this world [ ] . forming one conception. Chrysostom says :; “Rich in this world, for others are rich in the world to come.” Comp. Luk 16:25. Plousiov rich, by Paul only metaphorically. See 2Co 8:9; Eph 2:4. The phrase oJ nun aijwn the now age, only here and Tit 2:19, the usual expression being oJ aijwn ou=tov this age or world, which is not found in Pastorals.
Be not highminded [ ] . The verb N. T. o. o LXX, o Class. Comp. Rom 11:20; Rom 12:16.
Uncertain riches [ ] . A rendering which weakens the sense by withdrawing the emphasis from the thought of uncertainty. Rend. the uncertainty of riches. For a similar construction see Rom 6:4. Adhlothv uncertainty, N. T. o. o LXX Originally obscurity. Ploutov wealth, frequent in Paul, but never in the material sense. The play upon the word rich in this and the next verse will be noticed.
To enjoy [ ] . Lit. for enjoyment. Only here and Heb 11:25. See 3 Macc. 7 16. In class. occasionally, but the verb ajpolauein to have enjoyment or benefit is common. A contrast is implied between being highminded on account of wealth – cherishing and worshipping it – and rightly enjoying it. The true character of such enjoyment is shown in the next verse.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Charge them that are rich in this world” (tois plousiois en to nun aioni parangelle) “The rich ones in the now and continuing age, charge thou;” Even those redeemed, who are rich, are charged to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, Jas 2:5.
2) “That they be not highminded” (me hupselophronein) “Not to be highminded;” because of material wealth, a serious temptation, to be proud, arrogant, with superiorosity, Mar 10:23-27.
3) “Nor trust in uncertain riches” (mede elpikenai epi ploutou adeloteti) “Nor to have (their) hope set or fixed on the uncertainty or instability of riches;” 1Jn 2:17; Job 31:24-28.
4) “But in the living God” (alla epi theo) “But in or upon the (true) God,” the living one, Pro 3:3-5; Pro 11:28. The uncertainty and insecurity of earthly riches is contrasted with the eternal, all-sufficient God.
5) “Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy” (to parechonti emin panta plousios eis apolausin) “The one offering to us all kinds of things richly for enjoyment,” Jas 1:17; Act 17:28.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
17 Command (or charge) those who are rich There being many among Christians who were poor and in a mean condition, it is probable that they were despised (as usually happens) by the rich; and especially this might be common at Ephesus, which was a wealthy city; for in such cities, for the most part, pride is more extensively prevalent. And hence we infer how dangerous is a great abundance of riches. Nor are there wanting good reasons why Paul addresses so severe an admonition to the rich; but it is for the purpose of remedying faults which almost always follow riches in the same manner as the shadow follows the body; and that through the depravity of our natural disposition, for out of the gifts of God we always draw an occasion for sinning.
That they be not haughty, nor hope in the uncertainty of riches He expressly mentions two things against which rich men ought to be on their guard, pride and deceitful hope, of which the former springs from the latter. Accordingly, Paul appears to have added, in the same place, “nor hope in the uncertainty of riches,” in order to point out the source of all pride. For whence comes it, that rich men grow insolent, and take extreme delight in despising others, but because they imagine that they are supremely happy? Vain confidence goes first, and then arrogance follows.
Rich in this world When Paul wishes to correct those faults, he first speaks contemptuously of riches; for the phrase, in this world, is intended to lower them in our esteem. All that is in the world has the taste of its nature; so that it is fading, and quickly passes away. The uncertainty and vanity of the hope that is placed in riches are shewn by him from this consideration, that the possession of them is so transitory that it is like a thing unknown; for, while we think that we hold them, they slip out of our hands in a moment. How foolish is it, therefore, to place our hope in them!
But in the living God He who understands this will find no difficulty in withdrawing his hope from riches; for, if it is God alone who supplies us with everything for the necessary purposes of life, we transfer to riches what is this prerogative, when we place hope in them. Now observe that there is an implied contrast, when he affirms that God giveth abundantly to all. The meaning is, that, although we have a full and overflowing abundance of all things, yet we have nothing but from the blessing of God alone; for it is that blessing alone which imparts to us all that is needful.
Hence it follows, that they are egregiously mistaken, who rely on riches, and do not depend entirely on the blessing of God, in which consists a sufficiency of food and of everything else. Hence also we conclude, that we are forbidden to trust in riches, not only because they belong to the use of mortal life, but likewise because they are nothing but smoke; for we are fed, not by bread only, but by the blessing of God. (Deu 8:3.) (133)
When he says πλουσίως εἰς ἀπόλαυσιν, abundantly for enjoyment, he describes how kind God is to us, and even to all men, and to the brute beasts; for his kindness extends far and wide beyond our necessity. (Psa 36:6.)
(133) “It will be useless to say to us, What are the riches of this world? We see that there is no certainty of them. What are honors? They are but smoke. What is even this life? It is but a dream. There is but a turn of the hand, and we become dust and ashes. It will be useless to argue with us on these grounds. All this will serve no purpose, till God has been presented to our minds, till it has been demonstrated to us that we must direct all our affections and confidence to him alone. And that is the reason why all the fine remonstrances urged by the philosophers had no effect. For they spoke of the frailty of this earthly life and the uncertain condition of men. They showed that it was vain to think of finding happiness in our possessions, in our lordships, or in anything else. They showed that it is delusive to think of having anything here below on which we might vaunt ourselves. Those great philosophers knew nothing about God, yet being convinced by experience, discussed and argued ably on these subjects. But still they did no good, because they did not seek the true remedy, to fix the hearts of men on God, and to inform them, that it is He alone in whom they can find contentment, and till we have come to this, we shall always be involved in many perplexities.” — Fr. Ser.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
1Ti. 6:17. Nor trust in uncertain riches.R.V. nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches. Perhaps they would say riches were not uncertain. But the moralists do not agree with the Northern Farmer. Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.On Gods giving see St. Jamess words (1Ti. 1:5.) But this marks the end of that giving for enjoyment.
1Ti. 6:19. Laying up in store for themselves.Lit. Treasuring away for themselves. The similarity of this verse to Tob. 4:9 is too close to allow us to say it was not in St. Pauls thoughts. A good foundation against the time to come.Not simply against the decrepitude of old age, for which in some respects money is a defence, but against that day when money and its owners shall fail (Luk. 16:9).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.1Ti. 6:17-19
The True Use of Riches
I. Is not to trust in them but in God the Giver of all things (1Ti. 6:17).Riches are given for use, not for storage. The moment we begin to selfishly store them, we begin to trust in them. Money is a circulating medium, and its true value is in its wise and judicious circulation. Our use of money is part of our education in life, and needs as much care and thought as the business that produces it. God only, and not wealth, maintains the world: riches not properly used only make people proud and lazy. The Greeks spoke of Plutus, the god of riches, as a fickle divinity, representing him as blind, to intimate that he distributes his favours indiscriminately; as lame, to denote the slowness with which he approaches; and winged, to imply the velocity with which he flies away. Wealth is but one of Gods gifts: to trust in it is to trust in the creature rather than the Creator. To trust in riches is committing ourselves to a great uncertainty.
II. To distribute them with a liberal and cheerful benevolence (1Ti. 6:18).To lavish wealth on personal luxuries is to abuse it and ourselves. On the statue of Joseph Brotherton is the inscription, A mans riches consist not in the amount of his wealth, but in the fewness of his wants. Zeno, the philosopher, remonstrating with certain of his pupils for their extravagance, they excused themselves by saying that they were rich enough to indulge in extravagance. Would you, said he, excuse a cook who should over-salt his meat because he had a superabundance of salt? Wealth is kept sweet and sound by liberal distribution. The rich man is a steward of Gods gifts, and will have to give an account of the use he has made of his wealth. The noblest use of money is to do good to others, and to help to extend the kingdom of Christ. It is better to be rich in good works than in good investments.
III. Will be rewarded with eternal felicity (1Ti. 6:19).To spend life in getting and keeping money is to be poor indeed; to spend it in a liberal use of our means in the cause of God is to be enriched with eternal lifewhich is life indeed. There is truth and instruction in the inscription on an Italian tombstone, What I gave away I saved; what I spent I used; what I kept I lost. Giving to the Lord, says one, is but transporting our goods to a higher floor. The Princess Eugenie, sister to the King of Sweden, once sold her diamonds to raise funds to complete a hospital. When the building was completed, she visited the hospital, and standing beside a suffering inmate who thanked her with tears of gratitude, she exclaimed, Ah, now I see my diamonds again!
Lessons.
1. Riches are a great responsibility.
2. A liberal hand creates many a cheerful heart.
3. Earthly wealth may be transformed into heavenly riches.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1Ti. 6:17. Human Affections raised, not destroyed, by the Gospel.
I. The same affections which cling to the lowly earth are those which must struggle, under celestial guidance, to find their rest in God.
II. The glory of the eternal God is unveiled in all its majesty as the object which is to fix the affections of man.
III. In the treasuries of heaven are laid up all that you truly covet, even while you labour after their mockeries on earth.
IV. Every attribute of the eager candidate for earthly happiness and security is but the poor semblance of the very state the Christian already possesses or anticipates.A. Butler.
1Ti. 6:18-19. Good Works.
I. Good works are not grounds of acceptance.
1. The true and only ground of a sinners reconciliation with God is the atonement of Christ and Gods free grace.
2. Good works are not preparations for our acceptance.
II. Good works are measures of reward.
1. Gods own glory is promoted by them.
2. They are disciplinary, and constitute the most effective means of religious improvement.
3. They comprehend all the acts by which misery can be redressed, happiness increased, and souls saved.Olin.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
3.
FAITHFUL MINISTRY 1Ti. 6:17-21 a
Text 6:1721a
17 Charge them that are rich in this present world, that they be not highminded, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy: 18 that they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to communicate; 19 laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on the life which is life indeed. 20 O Timothy, guard that which is committed unto thee, turning away from the profane babblings and oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called; 21 which some professing have erred concerning the faith.
Thought Questions 6:1721a
260.
How would Timothy carry out the injunction of Paul as in 1Ti. 6:17?
261.
In what town were these rich people living?
262.
Why would rich folk be especially tempted to be high minded?
263.
Specify their hope in richesshow how deceptive it is.
264.
Show in particular, the uncertainty of riches.
265.
How would Timothy know that these rich folk were fulfilling his word?
266.
Does Paul say in 1Ti. 6:17 b that God created all things for mans enjoyment? How does this affect pride and materialism?
267.
The rich are to be rich in good worksisnt this the responsibility of all? Why specify the rich?
268.
Meaning of ready to distribute, willing to communicate,
269.
Can money be used to lay up a good foundation for heaven?
270.
Is Paul saying that however good life might be here, it can not compare with the life to come? How does this relate to earthly treasure?
271.
What was Timothy to guard?
272.
How was Timothy to guard it?
273.
Was the deposit with Timothy or Christ?
274.
What were the profane babblings?
275.
What is the knowledge of 1Ti. 6:20?
276.
There is a false knowledge and a true knowledgeexplain the difference.
277.
Some professing themselves to be wise become foolswhat particular false knowledge was before Pauls mind in 1Ti. 6:21 a?
Paraphrase 6:1721 a
17 Though riches often prove a great snare to the possessors, they may be retained innocently. Therefore, charge the rich in the present world, to beware of pride, and of seeking their happiness from riches, the possession of which is so uncertain: But to trust in God, who ever liveth to make them happy, and who supplieth to us plentifully all things really necessary for enjoyment.
18 And instead of employing their riches merely in gratifying their senses, rather to use them in doing good works, and to be rich in those lovely works whereby the happiness of society is promoted: To be ready to distribute a part of their riches to the poor, communicative of their time and pains for advancing the interests of truth and virtue in the world;
19 Providing for themselves, not money, which can be of no use to them in the other world, but what is infinitely better, a good foundation to stand on in the day of judgment, that they may lay hold on the prize of eternal life.
20 O Timothy, preserve the doctrine committed in trust to thee, avoiding the impious, noisy, senseless talking of the Judaizers, and the oppositions to the gospels, founded on wrong interpretations of the Jewish scriptures, which they dignify with the appellation of knowledge; but it is falsely so named.
21 Which knowledge of the scriptures, some teachers professing, have erred with respect to the true Christian faith. But may the grace of God be with thee, to preserve thee from error. Amen.
Comment 6:1721 a
1Ti. 6:17. There are those who wish they were richwith such we have already dealt (Cf. 1Ti. 6:9-10). Then there are those few who are blessed with material possessions. It is with such persons we are concerned. The gospel has a direct and personal application to every life. To the rich there are certain and particular temptations to avoid. Timothy is to speak with a good deal of urgency to these folk, about the temptation to look down on their less fortunate brothers. They might remember the one who though He was rich, yet for their sakes He became poor. Or the words of our Lord to the rich young ruler. There is a second temptation of special concern. Do not set your hopes on riches and what they can do. How easy it is for money to fail. Set your hope on God who never fails. There is a play on words in the last half of this verse, Notice that Paul includes himself and all other Christians, in the thought that God has made us rich. All things are of God. We are rich because God has so blessed usnaught have we gotten but what we received-grace has bestowed it since we believed. What a blessed truth to know that all good things were given for our enjoyment. This surely contradicts the thought that there is evil in matter. God intended our enjoyment of all material possessions, within the framework of His Will.
1Ti. 6:18. The positive advantages of wealth are outlined in this verse. To whom much is given much is requiredeven in the material realm. Notice the four ways to enjoy riches: (1) To do goodi.e. to find some area where help is needed, and supply the need. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God. (2) Be rich in good works. This would seem to be but an emphasis of the former admonition. It suggests that the satisfaction and pleasure of the rich, will be found in work for Christ through their riches, instead of in the bank account. (3) Be ready to share well and generously with othersfind the real meaning of it is more blessed to give than to receive. This is easily said by those who have but littlebut it was originally said by Him who possessed all things (Act. 20:35). (4) Be ready to associate closely with those who have lessfeel a real partnership with every other Christianrich or poor. How pointed and pertinent these words are for the wealthy in Ephesus, and in all other places,
1Ti. 6:19. The words of our Lord come immediately to mind upon reading this verse. Paul suggests that the rich can use their money and influence in such a manner as to lay up for themselves a warm welcome into heaven, This is just what Jesus meant when He saidmake to yourselves friends of the unrighteous mammon, that when it shall fail they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles (Cf. Luk. 16:9). Our money can and should be used to win soulswhen it is, then the souls won who have gone on before will be waiting to welcome us into life which is life indeed, An awareness of this truth on the part of the rich, becomes within their consciousness and before God, a good foundation for appearing before God on judgment,
1Ti. 6:20. In one verse we have the summation of the whole letter. God and Paul have made an investment in Timothythey expect returns on their investment. To Timothy was entrusted the gospelby this we mean, that which Paul has written in this letter and all the words of every inspired writer. To guard it, Timothy was not to simply keep it buried in his heart and home, but to keep it like a banker who keeps a great deposit of money. Thus it would not only be intact, but would be used and increased to the owners advantage.
Positive instructions as to just how such a guarding is done, are found in the latter half of 1Ti. 6:20. The same instructions with which Paul opened the letter (Cf. 1Ti. 1:4-6) are given to close it. Paul asks Timothy to shun, to ignore, to turn away from all such empty chatter as that which he hears from certain law teachers. To argue with such persons is to give dignity to their teaching, which it does not deserve. Such false teachers imagine themselves to be full of knowledge, when they are only puffed up with their own ego. If God did not reveal the information in the body of truth called the faith (which we know now as the New Testament), then such information is to be treated as profane or unclean. One guards the truth by turning away from all insipid ranting.
1Ti. 6:21. Regardless of how ridiculous the teaching might be, there are always some who will follow it. When such persons leave the faith for empty babblings, they do so professing to have some new and better light. They are actually in darkness and have missed the mark.
Fact Questions 6:1721a
191.
There are two groups associated with richesname them.
192.
What is the meaning of the expression high minded? How can we avoid this temptation?
193.
Explain the play on words in 1Ti. 6:17.
194.
God has given us richly all things to enjoyhow do we fulfill this purpose of God?
195.
What is meant by telling the rich to do good?
196.
The rich are to be rich in good worksspecify two or three good works in which they could be rich.
197.
Explain; ready to distribute, willing to communicate.
198.
Show how Luk. 16:9 and 1Ti. 6:19 discuss the same subject.
199.
What deposit did God and Paul have in Timothy?
200.
Just how was Timothy to guard the deposit?
201.
What was the knowledge which is falsely so called?
202.
Give the meaning of the expression: erred concerning the faith.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(17) Charge them that are rich.Paul had traced up the error of the false teachersagainst whose work and influence he had so earnestly warned Timothyto covetousness, to an unholy love of money; he then spoke of this unhappy covetousnessthis greed of gain, this wish to be richas the root of every evil. From this fatal snare he warned the man of God to flee, bidding him take courage in the high service to which he was dedicated, and to be fearless of all consequences, for he served the King of kings. But in the congregations of Ephesus there were many, owing to birth or to other circumstances, already rich and powerful, already in the possession of gold and rank, in varied degrees. Before closing the letter to the chief pastor, Timothy, he must add a word of encouragement and also of special warning to these. Above all things he would have no mistake as to his meaning: the wish to be rich was a sure root of error and of evil, but the being rich was a very different thing; this class was surrounded, indeed, with special perils, but still, even as rich they might serve God faithfully. So in his charge to them he commands them not to strip themselves of their wealth, but to use it wisely, generously.
In this world.The Greek word rendered world signifies, in its literal sense, age, and includes the period which closes with the second coming of the Lord. Now, as St; Paul had just made a reference to the probable speedy coming of the Lord in judgment in Timothys lifetime, the words the rich in this world have a special signification. Very fleeting indeed will be those riches of which their possessors were so foolishly proud [be not high-minded, St. Paul urges]; these riches were a possession always terminable with lifepossibly, let them bear in mind, much sooner.
Nor trust in uncertain riches.The literal translation of the Greek here is more forciblenor trust in the uncertainty of riches. Uncertaintyfor (1) the very duration of life, even for a day, is uncertain; and (2) the numberless accidents of lifein war, for instance, and commerceare perpetually reminding us of the shifting nature of these earthly possessions.
But in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.The Greek word rendered living does not occur in the more ancient authorities. Its removal from the text in nowise alters the sense of the passage. The rich should set their affections and place their trust, not in these uncertain riches, but in God, the bestower of them, who wills, too, that His creatures should find pleasure in these His giftsgiven to us to enjoy.
This is another of the many sayings of the old man St. Paul, in which he urges on the people of God, that their kind Master in heaven not only allows men reasonable pleasures and gratifications, but even Himself abundantly provides such for them.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
17. Charge Again this solemn word, full of admonition to Timothy and to the rich whom he is to address.
In this world Who may be millionaires here, and miserable paupers in the world to come.
Uncertain The wings with which riches fly away have long lived in proverb, and are so verified in experience as not likely soon to die out.
The living God As your riches are a dead god.
Richly The apostle repeats in spiritual connexion the words of wealth, rich in good works. Laying up (Greek, treasuring) in store.
Richly enjoy Literally, affording to us richly all things for enjoyment. It is better to have the permanent divine source of wealth than the transient wealth itself.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Charge those who are rich in this present world, that they be not highminded, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy,’
As Timothy has received a solemn charge, so must he give a solemn charge to others. He is to charge the rich Christians, that is, those who have more than a basic standard of living, not to be highminded (a word seemingly invented by Paul and first used in Rom 11:20). That is, they are not to be haughty and above themselves. They are not to see themselves as somehow made superior because of heir wealth. Nor are they to set their hopes on their riches, for their riches are uncertain. A few moths, a bit of rust, and they are gone (Compare Mat 6:19). They are rather to set their hopes on God Who is the source of all true riches. And the truth is that He is generous, and abundantly pours out His riches on all, for He is the One Who has provided us with all things so that we might enjoy them (compare 1Ti 4:4). We should note here that God is not saying that He has given rich people their riches so that they can enjoy them. Rather He is saying that, as the Creator, He has given the world to all of us, and He has given us all that is in it for us to enjoy. The corollary is that we should ensure that ALL enjoy it, not just ourselves. We should be as richly generous as He is.
This is the very opposite of the aim of the ascetic. He is not out to enjoy God’s goodness, or to see others enjoy God’s goodness. He is concerned only with betterment for himself. Therefore he fails to thank God for all His goodness, for he rejects it as not being for him. His interest is in self-gain, even if it is on a ‘spiritual’ level. He is seeking to buy God’s grace for himself.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Charge Given To Timothy Is Now To Be Applied To All Who Are Men of Substance, For They Were The Ones Most In Danger Of Forgetting It ( 1Ti 6:17-19 ).
We are reminded here of the rich young ruler. Most people envied him, but Jesus sighed over him. For he went away without hope because of his great possessions (Mar 10:17-22). So are all rich people to beware, for unless they control their riches and use them wisely they will follow the rich young ruler. Rather then they are to use them to lay up treasure above, laying a good foundation so that they too may lay hold on eternal life (compare 1Ti 6:12).
Analysis.
Charge those who are rich in this present world, that they be not highminded (1Ti 6:17 a).
Nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy (1Ti 6:17 b).
That they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to communicate (1Ti 6:18).
Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come (1Ti 6:19 a).
That they may lay hold on the life which is life indeed (1Ti 6:19 b).
Note that in ‘a’ the rich are not to have their minds fixed on their own importance, but in the parallel are to ensure that the lay hold on life that is truly life. In ‘b’ they are not to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but in the parallel are to lay up a good foundation for the time to come. Centrally in ‘c’ is the description of how that is to be done.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Paul’s Instructions Regarding the Rich In 1Ti 6:17-19 Paul gives Timothy instructions regarding another difficult issue to deal with in the local congregation, and that is the role of the rich.
1Ti 6:17 Comments God gives us daily blessings, and material prosperity so that we will be happy. When I take my family on a vacation, I want them to enjoy what I am giving them. I want them to also have an attitude of gratitude. If they are fighting and complaining while we are on vacation, I feel disappointed. I feel that I have wasted my time and money because they are not enjoying what I am giving to them.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Final Admonitions and Conclusion. 1Ti 6:17-21
v. 17. Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;
v. 18. that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;
v. 19. laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
v. 20. O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called;
v. 21. which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee! Amen. The admonition which Timothy is to address to the rich people of the world is by no means a mere postscript, but shows the application of the doctrinal exposition in the early part of this chapter. Of the desire to get rich quickly and its dangerous consequences the apostle had treated; to the rich themselves he says: Those that are rich in this present world-period charge not to be proud-minded, not to have their hope rest on the uncertainty of riches, but upon the living God, who offers everything to us richly for enjoyment. St. Paul speaks of the rich in this present period of the world, of men that are wealthy in the goods pertaining to this temporal life. These goods are for the moment only, they are transitory, they are vain. For that reason the wealthy people should not be supercilious, proud-minded, a vice to which they are peculiarly addicted. In reality, they have nothing to be proud of, for their possessions arc merely entrusted to them by God for a season, and they are transitory and evanescent. How foolish for them to indulge in sinful pride! Another thought brought out by the apostle is this, that the wealthy should not rest their hope on the uncertainty of their wealth. The riches of this present world are an uncertain quantity, subject to rapid change, gained today, lost tomorrow. To place one’s hope and confidence in wealth is to place it on an uncertain, deceitful foundation. Instead, the rich people should let their hope rest in God, who is not a dead idol like the money which these people adore, but is the living God, the God and Fountain of life. He it is that offers and provides us with all that we need in this life, and in rich measure at that. As a rule, we receive far more than we actually and absolutely need and can use; we are able not only to satisfy our immediate wants, but also to enjoy the gifts of God in quantities above our actual needs. How foolish, then, for men to put their trust in riches!
Instead of this the apostle admonishes that the rich of this world prove themselves faithful stewards of the gifts entrusted to their care: TO do good, to be rich in good works, to be liberal, ready to share, laying down for themselves a good foundation for the future, that they may take hold on the real life. The apostle uses synonymous expressions in order to emphasize his point. The rich people, as stewards of God’s gifts to them, should be ready with the proper conduct toward men in all circumstances of life. They will therefore excel, be especially rich, in good works which map be done with the aid of money and earthly goods: that is a wealth which far surpasses that of mere money. They should be liberal, generous, where the need is shown to exist; they should be cheerfully willing to be of service to their neighbor at all times In this way they will gather for themselves true treasures, such as have a lasting value, beyond the transitoriness of this present age and world, Luk 16:9; Luk 6:35; Pro 19:17. Every gift that comes from a heart full of true love, all assistance that flows from real interest in our neighbor’s welfare, is a jewel in the eyes of God. He, therefore, that has many deeds of true kindness to his credit will have a large treasure standing in his name. a capital bearing interest in the best sense of the word. On the Great Day, when the Lord will render to every man his account, He mill pay interest of mercy to him that was rich in good works, and he will be able to lay hold on eternal life. 11-hat an inducement to us to trust in Him as our faithful and gracious God, to fear, lore, and trust in Him, to show Him our gratitude by never forgetting or forsaking our neighbor in any case of real want!
The apostle cannot close without addressing a most urgent and cordial call to his pupil: O Timothy, guard what is entrusted to thee, strictly avoiding profane and vain disputations and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge. Timothy had been entrusted with the precious gift of the Gospel and its pure proclamation; he had, indeed, been charged to preach it in its full power and purity. As a faithful guardian he should now watch over this treasure lest it become contaminated in the interest of false unionism or weak compliance with liberalism. To do this, Timothy was to avoid the profane and senseless disputings and babblings of which Paul had spoken in the body of his letter, chap. 1:4; 4:7. Such empty word-quarrels and vain talk as that which was indulged in by the false teachers invariably degrades the truth of salvation and profanes the holy name of God and Christ. And in this case they were not satisfied with such an attitude, but actually had the temerity to come out with contradictions of the truth. These stilted arguments and the system based upon them they called true knowledge. But it was not even a good imitation; it was abominable philosophy, without proper understanding and discrimination. In the case of such people the apostle’s advice teaches the only correct attitude, namely, that of aloofness; the best plan is to ignore them entirely. State the truth of Scriptures briefly, succinctly, clearly, and do not begin to argue a philosophy falsely so-called.
How necessary such a warning is at all times appears from the apostle’s remark: Which some professing have gone astray concerning the faith. There is always danger that shallow natures may be influenced by the show of wisdom presented by teachers of the class described by the apostle. Some there are to whom the soundness of the old catechism-truths does not appeal, who have ears itching for something new all the time. But it is dangerous to listen to the arguments of the errorists, to heed their plausible speculations. A person indulging in this pastime will quickly find himself on the way to eternal damnation. The faith that saves clings entirely and alone to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, and to His redemption. All other understanding in the field of religion is secondary and, if combined with human speculations, dangerous.
Paul’s final greeting to Timothy and also to the congregation in his charge was: Grace with you! If the grace, the unmerited favor of God the Father, in His Son Jesus Christ, is in and with the Christians, then they are in need of no other spiritual gift; for this grace assures them of the fullness of heavenly bliss and glory, world without end. Amen.
Summary
The apostle gives rules of conduct for slaves, warns against covetousness, and shows the advantages of contentment, urges Timothy to give a good account of himself as a soldier of Christ, includes a charge to the rich, and closes with a final admonition to firmness and a personal greeting.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
1Ti 6:17. As the apostle had given directions concerning some of the Judaizing Christians, who attempted to enrich themselves bypreaching the gospel in a dishonest manner, he here gives directions concerning such Christians as were already possessed of riches; namely, that they should not be proud and selfish, but pious and humble towards God; generous, and readyto do good to their fellow-creatures; that, when they had done with all the possessions and concerns of the present life, they might have satisfaction in the review, and be blessed with greater and more durable possessions, 1Ti 6:17-19. And that he might leave Timothy with the strongest impressions of the folly and wickedness of the Judaizing Christians, he concludes as he had begun, with charging him to adhere to the true and simple Christian doctrine, and to reject all Jewish mixtures, 1Ti 6:20-21. Some would read the beginning of the present verse, Charge them that are rich, not to be high-minded in this world,but to trust in the living God, &c. thus preserving the opposition between the two parts of the sentence. See 1Co 3:18.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Ti 6:17 . The apostle might have stopped at 1Ti 6:16 ; but, glancing back to 1Ti 6:9 ff., he adds another injunction in regard to the rich. [209]
] Chrysostom: . Still we cannot press the contrast so far as to make the earthly riches necessarily exclude the heavenly (wealth in God, Luk 12:21 ).
] only here and at Rom 11:20 (Rom 12:16 : ): “exalt themselves haughtily over others because of their possessions.”
] ( . .), from , which is equivalent to “not manifest, hidden,” is properly “hiddenness,” then “ uncertainty .” The word indicates that it is uncertain whether or not riches continue to him who possesses them (comp. 1Co 9:26 : ). Instead of the substantive, we might have had the adjective: (Luther: “on uncertain riches”); still the form of expression here makes the idea of uncertainty more prominent (see Winer, p. 221 [E. T. p. 296]), and that is all the more appropriate here that it points out more forcibly the folly of the hope. Hofmann explains unsuitably by “hiddenness,” in the sense of “the rich man having put his riches safely away,” as if riches would be put safely away by being hidden.
] The construction of with is in the N. T. the more uncommon one, but comp. Eph 1:12 ; 1Co 15:19 .
The truth that all hope must rest on God is confirmed by adding the words: ( i.e. all that we possess) ] (comp. 1Ti 4:3 : ) is not added by way of opposition to a wrong abstinence, but in opposition to the and . The apostle means to say that God does not give us earthly blessings that we may possess them and be proud over them, but that we may enjoy them, according to His will, and therefore use them rightly.
[209] “There Paul had spoken of the dangers of those who wish to become rich; now he turns to those who are rich” (van Oosterzee).
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 2239
THE TRUE USE OF RICHES
1Ti 6:17-19. Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
TO inculcate duties, is no less the office of a pious minister, than to establish principles: nor should he shew less zeal in the one than in the other. Our Lord commanded his Apostles to enforce the observance of what men ought to do, as well as the reception of what they ought to believe [Note: Mat 28:19-20.]: and St. Paul, whose zeal was so conspicuous in establishing the doctrines of the Gospel, evinces in every epistle not a whit less zeal to bring men under the influence of its precepts. He even descends to particularize all the duties pertaining to the different relations of life, as of husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, rulers and subjects; and he solemnly enjoined Timothy and Titus to do the same in their respective ministrations. Nay more, he charged them to speak on these subjects with all authority [Note: ver. 13, 14.]; and to press them on the attention of every distinct class of hearers, so that each might fulfil the duties which pertained more immediately to himself. The rich were not in this respect to be overlooked, any more than the poor; nor were they to be addressed with less authority than the poor. Timothy, though quite a young minister, was to consider himself as speaking in the name and with the authority of Almighty God; and was not merely to exhort, but to charge, the richest and most powerful of his flock, and most solemnly to enjoin on them a conscientious use of their wealth, for the honour of God, and for the benefit of mankind.
In the charge which Timothy was to give to the rich, we see,
I.
The temptations which they are to avoid
To fix the standard, and to draw an exact line between those who are rich in this world, and those who are not, is no easy task: because what would be wealth to a peasant would be poverty to a man whose rank and station in life called for a more enlarged expenditure. But we shall mark the character with sufficient precision, if we say, that the rich in this world are those who possess already, or are able by their different vocations to obtain, what is sufficient for their support in that rank of life wherein Divine Providence has placed them: for all persons so circumstanced have it in their power, by frugality and self-denial, to appropriate a portion of their income to the uses that are here specified.
But to persons so circumstanced many temptations will arise. They will in particular find occasion to guard against,
1.
Pride
[If from any source whatever a man have acquired an increase of wealth, and especially if he have acquired it by his own skill or industry, he immediately conceives himself entitled to a greater measure of respect and honour from all around him. He seems by that circumstance to have attained somewhat of intrinsic worth and excellence; never reflecting, that, as a horse is not a whit better for the trappings with which he is decorated, so neither is a man for the splendour with which he is encompassed. Even good King Hezekiah was led away with this folly, when the Babylonish ambassadors came to visit him: and the judgments inflicted on him on account of it, sufficiently shew how hateful it is in the sight of God.
Yet, such is the infirmity of human nature, that a man of this description is ready to arrogate also to himself some superior value even before God. He is now no longer to be addressed with all that plainness and fidelity which he admitted when in a lower station. Because he is full, he is ready to deny the authority of God, and to say, Who is the Lord [Note: Pro 30:9.]? or, if he pay attention to the outward observances of religion, he does It, not because they are due from him, but because he thinks it right to set a good example to others; just as if the duties incumbent on others did not attach equally to himself. A remarkable instance of such folly and impiety may be seen in King Uzziah [Note: 2Ki 20:12-18 and 2Ch 32:25-26.]; who, because he had greatly increased in military power, conceived himself authorized to invade the priestly office [Note: 2Ch 26:16.]. But all such high thoughts of ourselves are most offensive to God: and therefore we solemnly caution all of you against admitting them into your minds; and charge the rich in particular, that they be not high-minded.]
2.
Creature-confidence
[It is exceeding difficult to possess riches, and not to trust in them for some measure of security or happiness; for both of which we ought to trust in God alone. Our Lord intimates this: for, when his Disciples expressed their wonder at that saying of our Lord, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! he immediately explained himself, by saying, How hardly shall they that trust in riches enter into the kingdom of God: by which he would have them to understand, that very few could possess them without trusting in them [Note: Mar 10:23-24.]. The rich mans wealth is his strong city, says Solomon [Note: Pro 10:15.]: he fancies himself encompassed with that which will protect him from evil, and secure to him the possession of present good. But this is greatly to dishonour God. He has given us all that we possess: he has given it to be enjoyed, yea, and richly to be enjoyed: but he never gave it to be trusted in: he never designed that men should rest in the gifts, and forget the Giver; or fix on senseless vanities the regards which are due only to the living God. To them belongs nothing but uncertainty: they cannot be depended on for one moment: they may, even whilst we think ourselves most secure of their continuance, make themselves wings, and fly away. Or, if they be not removed from us, we may in an instant be removed from them by Him who said to the rich man, Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee. Let me then guard you all against making gold your hope, or saying to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence; for it is a grievous impiety in the sight of God, and an iniquity to be punished by the judge [Note: Job 31:24-25; Job 31:28.].]
Wealth is given for far other purposes than these; as will be seen, whilst I point out to the possessors of it,
II.
The duties they are to perform
To be dispensed in acts of benevolence is the true use of wealth
[Nothing is given to us for ourselves alone. As the sun in the firmament possesses not its light and heat for its own aggrandizement, but for the benefit of the whole creation, so all that we possess is for the good of those who lie within the sphere of our influence. It is a talent committed to us by Almighty God, who will call us to an account for the improvement we make of it. He permits us, as we have before said, richly to enjoy whatever he has bestowed upon us: but our richest enjoyment of it should be in the exercise of Christian benevolence. We should do good with it: we should be rich in good works; accounting ourselves rich, not in proportion to what we can amass or spend upon ourselves, but in proportion to the good which we are thereby qualified to dispense, and the benefits which we are enabled by it to confer upon the Church and on the world around us. Nor should our wealth be disposed of in this way grudgingly, or of necessity; we should be ready to distribute, and willing to communicate; precisely as one member of our body would be to administer to any other that needed its assistance. These are the dispositions which the rich are to cultivate, and these the works in which they are to abound.]
Nor is this less their interest than it is their duty
[By such acts as these we lay up in store for ourselves a good foundation against the time to come, and eventually lay hold on eternal life. In hoarding up money, we lay it up for others (not by any means knowing who shall actually inherit it): hut by dispersing it in acts of piety and beneficence, we store it up for ourselves, rendering that a firm foundation, which was in itself uncertain; and that eternally permanent, which was in itself confined to this present world. If the present enjoyment alone were considered, this mode of disposing of it would be our truest wisdom, since there is an infinitely richer zest arising from the exercise of love to God and of benevolence to man, than from all the selfish gratifications that wealth can ever purchase. But besides the present satisfaction arising from these sources, there is a full confidence in the soul that God himself will minister to our necessities in the time of need [Note: Psa 41:1-3.], and an assured hope of his approbation in the day that he shall judge the world. Not that there is any thing meritorious in works of charity, or that they shall go before us to procure for us an entrance into heaven: but they will follow us [Note: Rev 14:13.] as evidences of our faith and love, and be brought forth before the universe for special approbation and reward. God has pledged himself, that what we give to the poor he will regard as lent to him, and that he will repay it again [Note: Pro 19:17.]; not even a cup of cold water being forgotten, but every the smallest act of kindness being recompensed at the resurrection of the just [Note: Luk 14:14.].]
Such then being the duty of the rich in relation to their wealth, I come, in conclusion, to address to them a solemn charge respecting it
Brethren, if I were addressing you as persons ignorant of Christ and of his salvation, I should, notwithstanding I come as an ambassador from God himself, and speak to you in Christs stead, be satisfied with the language of entreaty; and should beseech you, in Christs stead, to be reconciled to God. But since ye profess to have believed in Christ, you acknowledge your obligation to fulfil his will: and therefore, instead of beseeching you to make this use of your property, I solemnly charge you, or, as the word is elsewhere translated, command you [Note: 1Ti 4:11.], to comply with his injunctions in respect to these things.
1.
If you would approve yourselves upright before God, fulfil ye this duty
[Guard against the snares of wealth. Mark the operation and effect of riches upon your mind. See whether they produce a haughtiness of spirit, or a complacency of mind, as if they could afford you any substantial comfort: and beg of God that you may, to your latest hour, be as lowly as the poorest of men, and as dependent upon your God as are the ravens, which subsist by his providence from day to day. Remember, that God is a jealous God; and that a departure from this line of conduct will subject you to his heavy displeasure [Note: Mar 10:23-24.].
God in having imparted more liberally to you than to others, has conferred on you the distinguished honour of being his almoners: yea, if I may so speak, of being in his place to your more necessitous fellow-creatures: and by your cheerful execution of your trust he will judge of your love to him: for if you see your brother have need, and shut up your bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in you? Be then like the Saviour himself, who went about doing good: and let it be the joy of your heart so to minister of your abundance to the poor, that every ear which hears you may bless you, and every eye that beholds you may bear witness to you [Note: Job 29:11-13.]. If you be essentially defective in this duty, you are destitute of pure and undefiled religion [Note: Jam 1:27.].]
2.
If you would be accepted of God in the eternal world, be obedient to this command
[It is remarkable, that in the account which our Lord has given us of the day of judgment, the discharge or neglect of this duty are the prominent grounds of the sentence that shall be passed on the whole race of mankind. Doubtless there will be many other subjects of inquiry: but still the peculiar stress laid on the offices of love sufficiently prove, that whatever else may be brought forward, these must occupy the most distinguished place [Note: Mat 25:34-46.] Make then to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that when ye fail, and go hence, ye may be received into everlasting habitations [Note: Luk 16:9.]. Lay up treasures in heaven, where the bags will never wax. old, and where neither rust can corrupt, nor thieves break through to steal [Note: Luk 12:33.]. The harvestman scatters, in order to a future harvest: do ye the same: and know, that, if you sow bountifully, you shall reap bountifully: but, if you cast your seed with a niggard hand, your harvest will be proportionably small and scanty [Note: 2Co 9:6.]. In a word, if you are rich in this world, endeavour to be rich towards God [Note: Luk 12:21.]; and so act, that God himself may bear this testimony to you in the day of judgment; he hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever; and his horn shall be exalted with honour [Note: Psa 112:9. with 2Co 9:9.].
END OF VOL. XVIII.
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
(17) Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; (18) That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; (19) Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. (20) O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: (21) Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.
These are all most beautiful, and highly interesting recommendations, to the faithful discharge of the several relative obligations, which arise out of the diversities of life. But they are too plain to need a Comment. And where grace is began in the heart, divine teaching both dictates and gives ability to the performance. Here, indeed, lies the great beauty of all Gospel truths, that in all cases where God the Spirit hath quickened to a new and spiritual life, there will be a quickening also, and a strength imparted to the performance. Blessedly the Apostle hath shown this, when drawing the carnal state of an unawakened nature, and the blessed effects which follow being taken out of it. If so be, (saith Paul,) ye have heard Christ, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: that ye put of concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness. Eph 4:21-24 . It were unnecessary to offer any observations upon the Apostle’s conclusion of grace. Everything that is truly blessed is contained in it, as it relates to all the Persons of the Godhead, in their joint love and favor to the Church. So Paul prays, and then closeth his Epistle with Amen.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;
Ver. 17. That they be not highminded ] The devil will easily blow up his blab, if we watch not. Should the ant think herself some great business, because gotten upon her hillock? or the sumpter horse, because laden with treasure? Should the Egyptian ass think himself worshipful for bearing the golden Isis upon his back? And yet so it happens in common experience. Many men’s good and their blood rise together; their hearts are lifted up with their estates, as a boat that riseth with the rising of the water. Every grain of riches hath a vermin of pride and ambition in it. Magna cognatio ut rei, sic et nominis, divitiis et vitiis.
In uncertain riches ] Riches were never true to any that trusted to them. Vitrea est fortuna: cum splendet, frangitur. Riches, as glass, are bright but brittle. (Mimus.) Some render it the unevidence of riches ( ); and indeed they do not evidence God’s special love; they are blessings of his left hand, of his footstool, bona scabelli. “Not many rich,” &c.
Who giveth us all things richly to enjoy ] Thus riches cannot do for us. The covetous enjoy nothing, nor the sick, nor the discontented, nor any else, unless with riches God gives us himself. Our God should therefore be trusted, because he Isa 1:1-31 . A living God. 2. A giving God. The Athenians made their gods standing with their hands upwards, as if they were more willing to receive than to give. (Archaeol. Attic. xlvi.) But our God openeth his hand, and lets fall his blessing upon everything living, and holds it a more blessed thing “to give than to receive,”Act 20:35Act 20:35 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
17 19 .] Precepts for the rich . Not a supplement to the Epistle, as commonly regarded: the occurrence of a doxology is no sufficient ground for supposing that the Apostle intended to close with it: cf. ch. 1Ti 1:17 . Rather, the subject is resumed from 1Ti 6:6-10 . We may perhaps make an inference as to the late date of the Epistle, from the existence of wealthy members in the Ephesian church.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
17 .] To those who are rich in this present world (no before ., because – – – – is the designation of the persons spoken of. Had there been a distinction such as Chrys. brings out, ( , . Thdrt.), the would have been more naturally prefixed. Such a distinction would besides have been improbable, as drawing a line between the two characters, which it is the object of the exhortation to keep united in the same persons. See the distinction in Luk 12:21 ) give in charge not to be high-minded ( , , , , , Chrys.), nor to place their hope (i.e. to have hoped, and continue to be hoping: see on ch. 1Ti 4:10 ) on the uncertainty (reff.) of riches (not = , but far more forcible, hyperbolically representing the hope as reposed on the very quality in riches which least justified it. On the sense, Thdrt. says, , , . An uncertain author, in the Anthology, having complained of the fickleness of Fortune, says, ), but in (see var. readd.: no distinction of meaning need be sought between and : see Winer, edn. 6, 50. 2) God (‘transfertur Ejus officium ad divitias, si spes in iis locatur,’ Calv.), who affordeth us all things richly ( of a nobler and higher kind is included in His bounty: that which is a bane and snare in its worldly sense, will be far better attained in the course of his abundant mercies to them who hope in Him. And even those who would be wealthy without Him are in fact only made rich by His bountiful hand: ‘alias nemo foret ,’ Beng.) for enjoyment (for the purpose of enjoying: cf. ch. 1Ti 4:3 , . The term , the reaping enjoyment from, and so having done with (cf. &c), forms a contrast to , in which riches are not the subject of , but are looked on as a reliance for the future); to do good (ref.: ‘to practise benevolence,’ as Conyb.), to be rich in good works (honourable deeds: is good towards another, good in itself, noble, honourable), to be free-givers, ready-contributors (Chrys. takes for affable, communicative, , , : so also Thdrt.: ( .) . But it seems much better to take it of communicating their substance, as the verb in Gal 6:6 , and in Heb 13:16 , where it is coupled with ), ( by this means ) (‘therefrom,’ implied in the ) laying up for themselves as a treasure (hoarding up, not uncertain treasure for the life here, but a substantial pledge of that real and endless life which shall be hereafter. So that there is no difficulty whatever in the conjunction of , and no need for the conjectures (Le Clerc) or (! Lamb-Bos). For the expression, cf. ch. 1Ti 3:13 ) a good foundation (reff., and Luk 6:48 ) for the future (belongs to ), that (in order that, as always: not the mere result of the preceding: ‘as it were,’ says De W., ‘setting foot on this foundation,’ or firm ground) they may lay hold of ( 1Ti 6:12 ) that which is really (reff.) life (not merely the goods of this life, but the possession and substance of that other, which, as full of joy and everlasting, is the only true life).
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
1Ti 6:17 . : It is the present contrast, not that between riches in this world and riches in the world to come (as Chrys.), that the apostle has in mind. Those who have money may, as well as those “that are poor as to the world,” be “rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom, etc.” (Jas 2:5 ). The passage indicates that the Church had affected Society more widely in Ephesus than it had at Corinth when St. Paul wrote, “Not many mighty, not many noble, are called” (1Co 1:26 ). It is to be observed that the expression is only found in N.T. in the Pastoral Epistles (see reff.). is the expression elsewhere in N.T. (Mat 12:32 ; Luk 16:8 ; Luk 20:34 ; Rom 12:2 ; 1Co 1:20 ; 1Co 2:6 (bis), 1Co 2:8 , 1Co 3:18 ; 2Co 4:4 ; Eph 1:21 ). Both represent the Rabbinic , the present age, as contrasted with , the age to come. St. Paul also has in 1Co 3:19 ; 1Co 5:10 ; 1Co 7:31 , and in Rom 3:26 ; Rom 8:18 ; Rom 11:5 , 2Co 8:14 . See Dean Armitage Robinson’s note on Eph 1:21 . It does not follow that because these are renderings of the same Hebrew expression, they meant the same to a Greek ear. In the three places in which occurs it has a definite material physical sense; whereas has a more notional ethical force.
: have their hope set on . See note on 1Ti 4:10 . For the thought compare Job 31:24 , Psa 49:6 ; Psa 52:7 , Pro 11:28 , Mar 10:24 .
. : This vigorous oxymoron is not quite parallel in form to , Rom 6:4 , as Ell. suggests. There is a further definition of the , the prominent notion. This is a rhetorical intensifying of riches which are uncertain ; is the prominent word. “When the genitive stands before the governing noun, it is emphatic” (Winer-Moulton, Gram . p. 240). For the thought cf. Pro 23:5 ; Pro 27:24 .
: God who cannot change, who abides faithful, is contrasted with the uncertainty of riches which are unreal.
. : cf. Act 14:17 .
: This is a greater concession to the sensuous view of life than the of 1Ti 4:3 . It approaches the declaration of the Preacher that for a man to “eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labour is from the hand of God” (Ecc 2:24 ), “the gift of God” (Ecc 3:13 ; Ecc 5:19 ). No good purpose is served by pretending that God did not intend us to enjoy the pleasurable sensations of physical life. After all, things that have been enjoyed have served their purpose; they have “perished,” yet “with the using” (Col 2:22 ). Obviously, they cannot take God’s place as an object of hope.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 1Ti 6:17-19
17Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. 18Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, 19storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.
1Ti 6:17-19 One wonders if 1Ti 6:17-19 were an after-thought or if Paul received more information about the house churches in Ephesus. It is also possible that Paul wrote 1Ti 6:17-21 himself, as he regularly closed his letters (cf. 2Th 3:17-18).
1Ti 6:17 “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited” As 1Ti 6:9 warns about an evil desire for money, 1Ti 6:17 warns those who have money against putting their faith in it and not in Christ (cf. Mat 6:19-21; Mat 13:22; Mat 19:23-30; Jas 1:9-11; Jas 5:1-6).
SPECIAL TOPIC: THIS AGE AND THE AGE TO COME
“or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches” This is a perfect active infinitive. Humans tend to trust in their resources, not God’s resources (cf. 1Ti 4:10; 1Ti 5:5). Some of Jesus’ strongest words were directed at the wealthy (cf. Luk 18:18-30).
“but in God” There are several variants.
1. on God , F, G
2. on (the) God MSS A, I, P
3. on God living MS D*
4. on (the) God (the) living MS D2
The UBS4 gives option #1 an “A” rating. The descriptive form is taken from 1Ti 4:10.
1Ti 6:18 “Instruct them” Here are Paul’s threefold guidelines for those who have worldly goods.
1. continue doing good (cf. 1Ti 5:10; 2Ti 2:21; 2Ti 3:17; Tit 3:1; Tit 3:8; Tit 3:14)
2. be ready to share
3. be generous (cf. 2 Corinthians 8-9)
1Ti 6:19 This verse reminds one of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, especially chapter 6 (cf. Luk 12:15). It uses two metaphors: (1) storing up true riches and (2) building a sure and strong foundation. The wise use of wealth does both! By them believers take hold of true life (i.e., eternal life, cf. 1Ti 6:12).
NASB”life indeed”
NKJV”eternal life”
NRSV”the life that really is life”
TEV”the life which is true life”
NJB”the only like that is real”
The variety of the English translations involves the choice of
1. onts MSS , A, D*, F, G
2. ainiou MS D2
3. both minuscules 69, 296, 467, and 1175 (these copyists must have had Greek manuscripts that had both options)
The UBS4 gives option #1 and “A” rating.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
in. App-104.
this = the present.
world. App-129.,
highminded. Greek. hupselophroneo. Only here and Rom 11:20.
nor. Greek. mede
trust = set their hope.
in = upon. App-104.
uncertain = the uncertainty of. (Greek. adelotes. Only here.
in. The texts read App-104.
the living. The texts omit,
giveth = providoth. See 1Ti 1:4 (minister).
richly. See Col 3:16.
to enjoy = for (App-104.)
enjoyment. Greek. apelausis. Here and Heb 11:25.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
17-19.] Precepts for the rich. Not a supplement to the Epistle, as commonly regarded: the occurrence of a doxology is no sufficient ground for supposing that the Apostle intended to close with it: cf. ch. 1Ti 1:17. Rather, the subject is resumed from 1Ti 6:6-10. We may perhaps make an inference as to the late date of the Epistle, from the existence of wealthy members in the Ephesian church.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Ti 6:17. , the rich) There were many rich men at Ephesus. This forms the Appendix (the Postscript) of the epistle, which is of great importance.-, to have trust) This bad trust, which nerves the grasp with which they cling to riches, checks the enjoyment (), which Paul presently mentions.-, uncertain) [lit. the uncertainty of riches]. We ought for this reason not to trust in wealth, because it is most uncertain, as regards the time to come ( , 1Ti 6:19).- , upon, or in God) Al. Aug. 6, Boerner. Clar. Colb. 7, even more than these have . So the antithesis is more expressly marked to the words, . Trust, when leaning upon God, is strong. The common reading has , subjoining , taken from ch. 1Ti 4:10, as I think; for Al. Boern. Colb. 7, Rae. 2, Aeth. Lat. in M.S., Reutling, Gildas, Haimo, have not .[54]-, richly) otherwise no one would be , rich.- , to enjoy) Enjoyment consists in giving, not in holding fast. Inactivity (i.e. the state of non-employment) should be far removed, as from man, so also from his resources: Jam 5:2-3.
[54] is the reading of Lachm., with AD() corrected, G Orig. 1, 709b cod. Tisch., with less authority, viz. f Vulg. Orig. cod., and Rec. Text, reads . These latter, except Vulg. (best MSS.), add to ; and so also D() and both Syr. Versions. But AG Orig. cod., g Vulg.(Amiat.) Memph. and Theb. omit .-ED.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Ti 6:17
Charge them that are rich in this present world, that they be not high-minded, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches,-Paul had already given fearful warning against anxiety for riches and the improper means of obtaining them. Here he gives an earnest and solemn lesson as to how those who possessed riches should use them. He tells Timothy to charge them to be not uplifted with pride on account of riches-that riches are uncertain. They take wings and fly away; they do not bring the happiness they promise. One must not trust them for true good.
but on God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;-No more distinct promise of earthly good was ever made to Jews than this promise to Christians. The same promise is made distinctly to the faithful Christians at Philippi: And my God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory. (Php 4:19.) Some erroneously claim that under the law of Moses temporal blessings alone were promised, and under the law of Christ only spiritual blessings. Under Christ the promise of temporal blessings has not been withdrawn. They are as great as under Judaism, but under Christ the spiritual blessings have been added. Hence, Christ says: I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my sake, and for the gospels sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, . . . and in the world to come eternal life. (Mar 10:29-30.)
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Charge: 1Ti 6:13, 1Ti 1:3, 1Ti 5:21
rich: Gen 13:2, Job 1:1-3, Mat 19:23, Mat 27:57, Luk 19:2, Luk 19:9, Luk 19:10
that they: Deu 6:10-12, Deu 8:17, Deu 33:15, 2Ch 26:16, 2Ch 32:25, 2Ch 32:26, Psa 10:3, Psa 10:4, Psa 73:5-9, Pro 30:9, Jer 2:31, Eze 16:49, Eze 16:50, Eze 16:56, Dan 4:30, Dan 5:19-23, Hos 13:6, Hab 1:15, Hab 1:16, Rom 11:20, Jam 1:9, Jam 1:10, Rev 18:6, Rev 18:7
trust: Job 31:24, Job 31:25, Psa 52:7, Psa 62:10, Pro 11:28, Jer 9:23, Jer 9:24, Mar 10:24, Luk 12:15-21, Eph 5:5
uncertain riches: Gr. the uncertainty of riches, Pro 23:5, Pro 27:24, Ecc 5:13, Ecc 5:14
but: Psa 62:8, Psa 84:11, Psa 84:12, Psa 118:8, Psa 118:9, Jer 17:7, Jer 17:8
the living: 1Ti 3:15, 1Ti 4:10, 1Th 1:9
who: Psa 104:28, Mat 6:32, Act 14:27, Act 17:25
richly: Ecc 5:18, Ecc 5:19, Col 3:16, Tit 3:6,*marg.
Reciprocal: Gen 1:29 – I have Gen 2:16 – thou mayest freely eat Exo 6:13 – General Lev 8:35 – keep Lev 26:5 – eat your Num 21:18 – princes Deu 1:16 – charged Deu 17:17 – neither shall he Deu 26:11 – rejoice Deu 28:47 – General Deu 33:14 – the precious Jdg 18:10 – where there 1Ch 29:22 – eat and drink 2Ch 32:29 – God Neh 3:5 – their nobles Neh 8:10 – Go your way Est 4:8 – to charge Est 5:11 – the glory Job 42:12 – So Psa 49:6 – trust Psa 65:9 – thou preparest Psa 103:5 – satisfieth Psa 104:24 – the earth Psa 119:36 – and not to Pro 8:18 – durable Pro 10:15 – rich Pro 28:11 – rich Ecc 2:24 – nothing Ecc 6:8 – the poor Ecc 7:11 – good with an inheritance Ecc 8:15 – Then I Ecc 10:19 – but Jer 10:10 – the living Jer 48:7 – because Jer 49:4 – trusted Eze 28:5 – and thine Hos 12:8 – Yet Joe 2:26 – ye shall Mat 5:42 – General Mat 6:19 – General Mat 6:20 – General Mat 6:24 – mammon Mat 13:22 – the deceitfulness Mat 19:21 – go Mat 25:16 – went Mat 25:35 – I was an Mar 4:19 – the deceitfulness Mar 10:21 – treasure Luk 6:24 – woe Luk 8:14 – and are Luk 12:17 – shall Luk 12:19 – Soul Luk 12:33 – provide Luk 16:9 – Make Luk 19:8 – Behold Act 14:17 – filling Rom 2:4 – riches Rom 11:9 – their table 1Co 7:31 – use 1Co 10:26 – General 2Co 9:11 – enriched Gal 6:10 – do good Phi 4:19 – according 1Th 2:11 – charged 1Th 5:27 – I charge 1Ti 5:7 – General 2Ti 3:4 – highminded 1Jo 3:17 – whoso
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
GOD OR MAMMON?
Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.
1Ti 6:17
In other words, the Apostle is emphasising the teaching of our Lord, Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
I. The choice.Riches, which are indeed uncertain; or the living God, Who not only abideth for ever but giveth us richly all things to enjoy? You have to make the choiceriches, the world, or God? Can there be a doubt? Yet there are thousands who, in their lust after wealth, forget Him by Whom alone they live, and move, and have their being.
II. The pursuit of wealth.The love of money is eating like a canker into the life of the nation. The office-boy who steals half a crown from his employer that he may back a horse is affected by the mad craze to get rich, just as much as the man who gambles on the Stock Exchange in securities (!) which he thinks will yield a high rate of interest. The love of money, no matter in what way it is fostered, means deathspiritual death.
III. The life of faith.The poor person who trusts in the living God is in an infinitely better position than the millionaire who trusts in his riches. The one has treasure in heaven which can never disappoint; the other may lose his all by a single turn in the money market. Which life will you choose? The life of faith, with its positive assurance for the life which now is as well as for that which is to come; or the life which has its affections and its interests centred in the things which are uncertain and pass away even ere we have time to enjoy them?
Illustration
The votary of earthly wealth does, in fact, with all the energies of his nature, strain after that very security of unchangeable bliss which we preach; but, mistaking the illusory phantom, weds his whole soul to the fictitious heaven, which the powers of evil have clothed in colours stolen from the skies. The soul made for heaven is lost among heavens shadows upon earth; it feigns the heaven it cannot find, and casts around the miserable companions of its exile, the attributes that belong to the God it was born to adore.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
1Ti 6:17. The rich are not criticized for being rich, nor told they must dis-pose of their wealth. A man can ue rich and at the same time be a good man (Luk 23:50-51). The rich were charged not to be highminded (proud) over their possessions, nor to put their trust in them. Jesus taught the same thing on the subject (Mar 10:24). Riches are called uncertain because there are so many things that can happen, often beyond the control of the owner, that can cause them to be lost (Pro 23:4-5). If a man’s trust for the future is based on earthly riches, such a hope will be disappointed if the wealth is lost. The trust that never can bring a disappointment, is that which is based on God, for he is living (always), hence the hope that is in Him is bound to be sure. A logical reason for the surety of such a hope is in the fact that all good things come from Him (Jas 1:17).
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Ti 6:17. Charge them that are rich in this world. It is quite after St. Pauls manner to return in this way to the subject from which he had been led away by the train of thought that issued in a doxology. Before, he had spoken of those who set their hearts on becoming rich. Now, he deals with those whom he finds rich by inheritance or otherwise.
High-minded. The state of one who forms great and ambitious schemes in which be himself is the centre.
Nor trust in uncertain riches. Better, nor to fix their hope on the un-certainty of riches.
In God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. If we seek for riches, God gives richly; but that which He gives brings with it no cares and sorrows, like earthly wealth, but tends, whether it be outward or inward good, to direct and immediate enjoyment.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Our apostle having in a very solemn manner exhorted Timothy to avoid that dangerous sin of covetousness himself, in the foregoing verses he doth in these verses require him to lay the same charge upon others, particularly upon worldly rich men; Charge them that are rich.
Observe here, 1. Timothy’s duty, not barely to exhort and teach, but to charge and command. True, the ministers of Christ are servants to their people; but servants to their souls, not to their wills, much less to their lusts: there is an authority in our office, which empowers us to command for God, as well as to entreat.
Observe, 2. The subject of this Charge: them that are rich in this world.
Mark, no man is forbidden to be rich, nor yet to use such lawful means by which, through God’s blessing thereupon, man may be rich; but rich men need a charge; they want plain dealing from ministers, because they meet with so little of it from other men; for some flatter them, others fear them: God’s ministers ought surely to deal fairly with them.
Observe, 3. The charge itself; and this is set down negatively, and affirmatively, both, twofold.
1. The negative matter of the charge, That they be not high-minded; pride of heart, and haughtiness of mind and spirit, is one special sin which great men are subject to.
When God lifts them up by his providence, they lift themselves up by pride: there is a secret malignity in riches when they meet with men’s corruptions, to lift them above their due region: though neither the wiser, the holier, the nearer heaven, for all their wealth, nay, perhaps a great deal nearer hell for the abuse of it, yet still the rich think high, look big, breathe scorn, talk with disdain, forgetting that God gives them riches to exalt him, and not themselves.
Next part of the negative charge is, That they trust not in uncertain riches; intimating that creature-confidence, or making an idol or wealth, is the dreadful bane and ruin of rich men; their actions say to the gold, Thou art my hope, and to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence; but the vanity and sinfulness of this appears by the apostle’s calling them uncertain riches; uncertain in their abode and continuances with us, uncertain in their promises and pretences to us: we expect more from them than ever we find in them.
Observe, 4. The positive part of the charge;
1. To trust in God, the living God, a bountiful God; he giveth riches; they buy, they do not give, he giveth all things; all the wealth in the world cannot give a mouthful of air or ray of light if God withholds it. God is the giver of all: he giveth richly all things; the most miserable man cannot number the rich mercies which he doth receive; and he giveth all things richly to enjoy: that is, he gives an heart to take and taste the comfort of what he gives; he gives not only possessions, but fruition. Riches can do none of these things; why then should we trust in uncertain riches and not in the living God?
Observe, 5. Another duty exhorted to; and that is, to imitate God in the works of bounty; to do good. Rich men are to make their wealth the materials of good works; nay, they must not only do good works, but be rich in good works; as their estate is plentiful, so must their charity be proportionable: they must do it copiously, be rich in good works; they must do it cheerfully, ready to distribute, without grudging, and without delay; they must do it diffusively, willing to communicate, that is, to do as much good to the community as possibly they can, upon principles of Christianity also.
Observe, 6. The encouragements given to this duty.
1. Thus to lay out is to lay up, and that as in a treasury; it is like scattering of seed, in order to an increase and harvest.
2. Thus to lay out upon others, is to lay up for themselves; they have the comfort here, and the reward hereafter.
3. It is to lay up for themselves a foundation; not by way of merit towards God, but by way of evidence in regard of ourselves; a testimony of our reconciliation to, and acceptance with, God.
4. It is a good foundation for the time to come: all our glory, wealth, and substance, is no durable foundation; here to-day, and gone to-morrow; but good works are a bank in heaven: all is deposited in a safe hand that we lay out for God.
5. It shall be rewarded with eternal life; Laying up for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
Now from the whole learn, 1. That the wisdom of God has seen fit to make a great distinction between men in this world; some are poor, others rich, as God sees best for both.
Learn, 2. That some are rich who are not rich in this world; rich in faith, heirs of a kingdom, yet wandering in deserts, dens, and caves.
3. That there are many who are only rich in this world; look beyond the grave, and they are poor men, miserable men, having great possessions in this world, but no provisions for the next.
Learn, 4. That the great design which all men, especially rich men, should pursue and prosecute in this life, is, how they may in this life secure and lay hold of eternal life: blessed be God, it may be laid hold upon; it is worth laying hold upon; it is life, it is eternal life.
Quest. But how should we lay hold upon eternal life?
Ans. 1. In our judgments; by having them convinced of the transcendant excellency of it, and by having them approve of the strictest conditions upon which it is tendered.
2. In our affections; by strong and vehement desires after eternal life.
3. In our endeavours; by a diligent use of all means in order to the obtaining of it, and particularly by doing good, by being rich in good works, by being ready to distribute, and willing to communicate: for hereby shall we lay up for ourselves a good foundation against the time to come, and at length lay hold of eternal life.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Instructions for the Rich Paul gave the young preacher special instructions to pass on to the rich. First, they should not be overly proud of their wealth because riches are temporary and can disappear in short order ( Mat 6:19-21 ). Second, they should place their trust in God who is actually the source of all that we have ( Act 17:24-26 ). It is a temptation for the rich to believe they have earned all they have, but Paul makes it clear God is the source of our blessings ( 1Ti 6:17 ; compare Php 4:19 ; Mar 10:29-30 ).
Christians, especially rich ones, are to be ready to do good when the opportunity presents itself ( Gal 6:9-10 ). The greatest happiness comes not in material wealth but in being rich in doing good for others. Rich Christians should be anxious to distribute to the needs of those around them and even to send, or communicate, to those missionaries or others in need far away. Instead of hoarding up physical wealth, they should focus on doing good deeds that will in effect be laying up a foundation for them in eternity. Eternal life
is the true and lasting life ( 1Ti 6:18-19 ).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
1Ti 6:17-19. What follows seems to be a kind of postscript. Charge them that are rich in this world Rich in such beggarly riches as this world affords. For the clause, , seems evidently to be added to extenuate the value of riches, which extend only to this transitory and precarious world, and cannot attend us into the other; nor, if they did, could at all influence our happiness there; that they be not high-minded That they do not think better of themselves on account of their money, or any thing it can purchase. But, alas! who regards this advice? Nor trust in uncertain riches Which they may lose in an hour, either for happiness or defence. Those who place their happiness in the enjoyment of sensual pleasure, or in the possession of the conveniences and elegancies of life, naturally trust to their riches for their happiness, because by their money they can procure these things; and thus they become dead to all sense of their dependance on God and his providence for their happiness. But in the living God All the rest is dead clay; who giveth us As it were, holding them out in his hand; richly Freely, plentifully; all things Which we have; to enjoy As his gift, in him and for him. When we use them thus, we do indeed enjoy all things. That they do good Make this their daily employ; that they be rich That they abound; in good works To their utmost ability; ready to distribute Singly, to particular persons; willing to communicate To join in all public works of benevolence and beneficence. These advices clearly show that there was not, at this time, a community of goods among Christians in general: for in that case there could have been no room for the exhortation here given, and the distinction on which it is founded. Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation Hereby manifesting the truth of their faith in Christ, and in the promises of his gospel, and the genuineness of their love to God and mankind, and thereby proving that they are united to Christ, and made heirs through him of the heavenly inheritance; and, by bringing forth these fruits of righteousness, obtain for themselves, from the free mercy of God in Christ, an everlasting and abundant reward; that they may lay hold on eternal life This cannot be done by alms-deeds, or any good works that we can perform; which are all so defective, that they have need of a pardon, instead of being sufficient to procure for us eternal life. They, however, when performed, as here directed, both manifest the reality of our grace, and come up for a memorial before God, Act 10:4; and while they are, through Christ Jesus, to the praise and glory of God, (Php 1:11,) shall assuredly meet with an ample recompense from Him who is not unfaithful to forget that work and labour of love which his children thus show to his name, Heb 6:10; Gal 6:9.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
(c) 1Ti 6:17-19. The True Conception of Riches.Though God gives good things for our enjoyment, wealth is too uncertain a foundation on which to rest our hope. By good works rich men should lay up a foundation for the future (Mat 6:20, Luk 16:9), secure on which they may gain that life which is more than mere existence (Luk 12:15; Luk 12:21).
(d) 1Ti 6:20 f. Final Charge.A forceful reiteration of the epistles main message. Timothy must (a) guard the evangelical doctrine (cf. 2Ti 1:12; 2Ti 1:14), the true antidote to error; (b) reject the unholy vain-talking (1Ti 1:6, 2Ti 2:16) and endless contrasts of decisions, founded on endless distinctions (Hort), on which the errorists, falsely claiming to possess the true knowledge, prided themselves (1Ti 1:3-11*).
1Ti 6:20. oppositions: there is no allusion to Marcions Book of Oppositions; see Hort, Judaistic Christianity, pp. 138ff.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
CHAPTER 31
THERE IS A SURE THING!
You might want to read 1Ti 6:17-19.
This is supposedly a true story, though I don’t know the family personally.
Aunt “Emma” was married to a tightwad who was also a little strange. He made a good salary, but they lived frugally because he insisted on putting 20 percent of his paycheck under the mattress. (The man didn’t trust banks.) The money, he said, was going to come in handy in their old age.
When “Uncle Ollie” was 60, he was stricken with cancer. Toward the end, he made Aunt Em promise, in the presence of his brothers, that she would put the money he had stashed away in his coffin so he could buy his way into heaven if he had to.
They all knew he was a little odd, but this was clearly a crazy request. Aunt Em did promise, however, and assured Uncle Ollie’s brothers that she was a woman of her word and would do as he asked.
The following morning she took the money (about $26,000) to the bank and deposited it. She then wrote a check and put it in the casket four days later.
When preparing this study I tried to think of a rich Christian person that lived this life. Actually I thought of several that trusted God, but only a few that were rich in good works and none that were ready to distribute or willing to communicate.
I assume that the last two items might be done on a personal and private basis and these works might not be known to the public.
However!
I know a number of unsaved people that don’t know God, but follow His principles. They have some sense of a higher power and realize their riches are because of their being blessed by a higher power. A couple come to mind – now I realize these folks are not believers but they give and use their riches as if they knew this passage. Paul Neuman has given millions away over the years. He has companies which turn all profits over to charity. Oprah Winfrey also contributes liberally.
I used to know a rich man personally that also was constantly giving of his blessings. He was my employer in Denver years ago. He would give me car loads of stereos and televisions that did not work so that I could fix them, sell them and make a little money on the side. When he found we were having our last son he offered us a crib and baby clothing. When our car broke down he loaned us one of the company trucks. He worked with me on my schedule so that I could continue in college. He instituted a profit-sharing program for the employees. I told him I would not be there for more than a year so didn’t need to sign it – he told me to sign it anyway – just in case. As it turned out I was there several years and when we moved it resulted in a couple thousand dollars for us to resettle with.
He was most kind to his workers. One time the tube company he purchased television tubes from had a special – buy so many tubes and get a free battery operated soldering iron. He liked the soldering iron and ordered enough tubes so that everyone in the shop – about eight of us – could have a free soldering iron. We had tubes stored all over the place for weeks.
We will look at TRUST IN GOD in verse seventeen, GIVE TO GOD in verse eighteen, and BUILD FOR GOD in verse nineteen.
It is of interest to me that many in the lost world live their lives as if they knew this portion of Scripture.
I. TRUST IN GOD
1Ti 6:17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;
The thought of high-mindedness reminds me of a small farming community in mid Nebraska. The community was poor but close knit and friendly. In the fifties a large corporation built a factory in town. The coming of this boon to town, made many of the townsfolks became quite rich.
It was easy for newcomers to town to notice the snobbery and unkindness of many of the towns folks. It was not a pleasant town to live in if you were an outsider. The riches had changed the people drastically.
The term high-minded is used in Rom 11:20-21. “Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear: 21 For if God spared not the natural branches, [take heed] lest he also spare not thee.”
High-minded seems possibly to speak to pride and self assurance. Don’t be rich and proud and don’t be rich and confident in self.
Barnes said “The idea is, that they should not value themselves on account of their wealth, or look down with pride and arrogance on their inferiors. They should not suppose that they are any better men, or any nearer heaven, because they are wealthy. Property really makes no distinction in the great things that pertain to character and salvation. It does not necessarily make one wise, or learned, or great, or good. In all these things the man who has not wealth may be vastly the superior of him who has; and for so slight and unimportant a distinction as gold can confer, no man should be proud.”
What a contrast – trust in uncertain riches or trust in the living God! No contest in any thinking persons mind! However, since Paul made the statement there must be some that have a problem in that area.
I think the most profound illustration of this business of riches being uncertain, is to be seen in Bill Gates the head of Microsoft. In the early part of 2000 when the stock market took its little stumbles, Bill Gates literally lost Billions of dollars in one day. THAT IS UNCERTAINTY OF RICHES!
Paul returns to his previous thought. Charge them – the rich in the world that they have a duty before God to use His riches that He has given them to do good with the material blessings.
Not only do good with their riches, but don’t get a big head about the riches, nor their good works, AND certainly don’t trust in those riches.
Some might get the idea that the rich are really getting it here, but the poor ought to be very careful as they can be high-minded of their poorness and need to be on guard as well.
(See also Jam 5:1-3; Pro 23:4-5; Mat 6:19-20)
“Giveth us richly all things to enjoy;” Enjoy it. That which He gives – don’t feel guilty about having things. Enjoy them, use them and share them!
This thought of enjoy is of interest. There have been times that I have not enjoyed things that God has given, but rather felt guilty about.
We at one time while in Bible college needed a car. We had eight hundred dollars and no more. We took a bus to a car lot and looked at the total junk that they offered for that price. As we were leaving the lot we stopped to admire a very nice looking Plymouth Sport Fury convertible. We were dreaming about what it would be like to own something like that. The salesman came up to us and asked if we would be interested in the car. I laughed and told him all we had was the eight hundred. He said he would speak to his boss. He returned and offered the car to us for the money we had. It was November and they knew they wouldn’t sell the car over the winter and did not want it in their inventory so were offering it to us.
We drove it home hardly believing that God had given us this fabulous car for so little. The problem came when we would have missionaries over for lunch and have to explain how poor Bible college students could afford a Sport Fury.
Many were blessed as we always were quick to share the account of what God had done.
II. GIVE TO GOD
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
6:17 {11} Charge them that are rich in {g} this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the {h} living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;
(11) He adds as an overabundance as it were a sharp admonition to the rich, that they mainly take heed of two evils, that is, of pride, and deceitful hope, against which he sets three excellent virtues, hope in the living God, liberality towards their neighbour, and gentle conditions.
(g) In things pertaining to this life, with whom those men are compared who are rich in good works.
(h) Who alone is, and that everlasting: for he sets the frail nature of riches against God.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
D. The wealthy 6:17-19
Paul had not finished all he wanted to say about money, so he returned to that subject briefly with a word of instruction for the wealthy Ephesian believers. He gave these directions to balance what he had said earlier in this epistle (in 1Ti 6:9-11).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
He had previously instructed those who thought of themselves as not having wealth. Now he addressed those who had it and knew it. The Greek word plousioi, meaning "the wealthy," refers to the materially rich, particularly those who did not need to work for a living. [Note: Knight, The Pastoral . . ., p. 272.] Two attitudes often mislead the rich. One is the idea that greater monetary wealth indicates greater personal value or worth. The other is the notion that riches guarantee power and security. Paul warned against both of these conclusions. God will determine our future, not our present financial resources. Rich people should put their hope in the Giver rather than in His gifts (cf. 1Ti 4:10; 1Ti 5:5). God controls these resources. If he has given them to us, we can enjoy His gifts unselfishly. We can take pleasure in the fact that they free us from certain temptations (cf. Pro 30:7-9) and enable us to help others.
"The reason everything may be enjoyed lies in the recognition that everything, including one’s wealth, is a gift, the expression of God’s gracious generosity." [Note: Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy . . ., p. 157.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
elete_me 1Ti 6:17-19
Chapter 17
THE GAIN OF A LOVE OF GODLINESS, AND THE UNGODLINESS OF A LOVE OF GAIN. – 1Ti 6:5-7; 1Ti 6:17-19
IT is evident that the subject of avarice is much in the Apostles mind during the writing of the last portion of this Epistle. He comes upon it here in connection with the teachers of false doctrine, and speaks strongly on the subject. Then he writes what appears to be a solemn conclusion to the letter (1Ti 6:11-16). And then, as if he was oppressed by the danger of large possessions as promoting an avaricious spirit, he charges Timothy to warn the wealthy against the folly and wickedness of selfish hoarding. He, as it were, reopens his letter in order to add this charge, and then writes a second conclusion. He cannot feel happy until he has driven home this lesson about the right way of making gain, and the right way of laying up treasure. It is such a common heresy, and such a fatal one, to believe that gold is wealth, and that wealth is the chief good.
“Wranglings of men corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth.” That is how St. Paul describes the “dissidence of dissent,” as it was known to him by grievous experience. There were men who had once been in possession of a sound mind, whereby to recognize and grasp the truth; and they had grasped the truth, and for a time retained it. But they had “given heed to seducing spirits,” and had allowed themselves to be robbed of both these treasures, – not only the truth, but the mental power of appreciating the truth. And what had they in the place of what they had lost? Incessant contentions among themselves. Having lost the truth, they had no longer any center of agreement. Error is manifold and its paths are labyrinthine. When two minds desert the truth there is no reason why they should remain in harmony any more; and each has a right to believe that his own substitute for the truth is the only one worth considering. As proof that their soundness of mind is gone, and that they are far away from the truth, St. Paul states the fact that they suppose that godliness is a way of gain.
It is well known that the scholars whose labors during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries produced at last the Authorized Version, were not masters of the force of the Greek article. Its uses had not yet been analyzed in the thorough way in which they have been analyzed in the present century. Perhaps the text before us is the most remarkable among the numerous errors which are the result of this imperfect knowledge. It seems so strange that those who perpetrated it were not puzzled by their own mistake, and that their perplexity did not put them right. What kind of people could they have been who “supposed that gain was godliness?” Did such an idea ever before enter the head of any person? And if it did, could he have retained it? People have devoted their whole souls to gain, and have worshipped it as if it were Divine. But no man ever yet believed, or acted as if he believed, that gain was godliness. To make money-getting a substitute for religion, in allowing it to become the one absorbing occupation of mind and body, is one thing-to believe it to be religion is quite another.
But what St. Paul says of the opinions of these perverted men is exactly the converse of this: not that they supposed “gain to be godliness,” but that they supposed “godliness to be a means of gain.” They considered godliness, or rather the “form of godliness” which was all that they really possessed, to be a profitable investment. Christianity to them was a “profession” in the mercantile sense, and a profession that paid: and they embarked upon it, just as they would upon any other speculation which offered equally good hopes of being remunerative.
The Apostle takes up this perverted and mean view of religion, and shows that in a higher sense it is perfectly true. Just as Caiaphas; while meaning to express a base and cold-blooded policy of expediency, had given utterance to a profound truth about Christ, so these false teachers had got hold of principles which could be formulated so as to express a profound truth about Christs religion. There is a very real sense in which godliness (genuine godliness and not the mere externals of it) is even in this world a fruitful source of gain. Honesty, so long as it be not practiced merely as a policy, is the best policy. “Righteousness exalteth a nation”: it invariably pays in the long run. And so “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” They suppose that godliness is a good investment:-in quite a different sense from that which they have in their minds, it really is so. And the reason of this is manifest.
It has already been shown that “godliness is profitable for all things.” It makes a man a better master, a better servant, a better citizen, and both in mind and body a healthier and therefore a stronger man. Above all it makes him a happier man; for it gives him that which is the foundation of all happiness in this life, and the foretaste of happiness in the world to come, – a good conscience. A possession of such value as this cannot be otherwise than great gain: especially if it be united, as it probably will be united, with contentment. It is in the nature of the godly man to be content with what God has given him. But godliness and contentment are not identical; and therefore, in order to make his meaning quite clear the Apostle says not merely “godliness,” but “godliness with contentment.” Either of these qualities far exceeds in value the profitable investment which the false teachers saw in the profession of godliness. They found that it paid; that it had a tendency to advance their wordly interests. But, after all, even mere worldly wealth does not consist in the abundance of the things which a man possesses. That man is well off who has as much as he wants; and that man is rich who has more than he wants. Wealth cannot be measured by any absolute standard. We cannot name an income to rise above which is riches, and to fall below which is poverty. Nor is it enough to take into account the unavoidable calls which are made upon the mans purse, in order to know whether he is well off or not: we must also know something of his desires. When all legitimate claims have been discharged, is he satisfied with what remains for his own use? Is he contented? If he is, then he is indeed well to do. If he is not, then the chief element of wealth is still lacking to him.
The Apostle goes on to enforce the truth of the statement that even in this world godliness with contentment is a most valuable possession, far superior to a large income: and to urge that, even from the point of view of earthly prosperity and happiness, those people make a fatal mistake who devote themselves to the accumulation of wealth, without placing any check upon their growing and tormenting desires, and without knowing how to make a good use of the wealth which they are accumulating. With a view to enforce all this he repeats two well-known and indisputable propositions: “We brought nothing into the world” and “We can carry nothing out.” As to the words which connect these two propositions in the original Greek, there seems to be some primitive error which we cannot now correct with any certainty. We are not sure whether one proposition is given as a reason for accepting the other, and, if so, which is premise and which is conclusion. But this is of no moment. Each statement singly has been abundantly proved by the experience of mankind, and no one would be likely to dispute either. One of the earliest books ill human literature has them as its opening moral. “Naked came I out of my mothers womb, and naked shall I return thither,” are Jobs words in the day of his utter ruin; and they have been assented to by millions of hearts ever since.
“We brought nothing into the world.” What right then have we to be discontented with what has since been given to us? “We can take nothing out.” What folly, therefore, to spend all our time in amassing wealth, which at the time of our departure we shall be obliged to leave behind us! There is the case against avarice in a nutshell. Never contented. Never knowing what it is to rest and be thankful.
Always nervously anxious about the preservation of what has been gained, and laboriously toiling in order to augment it. What a contrast to the godly man, who has found true independence in a trustful dependence upon the God Whom he serves! Godliness with contentment is indeed great gain.
There is perhaps no more striking example of the incorrigible perversity of human nature than the fact that, in spite of all experience to the contrary, generation after generation continues to look upon mere wealth as the thing best worth striving after. Century after century we find men telling us, often with much emphasis and bitterness, that great possessions are an imposture, that they promise happiness and never give it. And yet those very men continue to devote their whole energies to the retention and increase of their possessions: or, if they do not, they hardly ever succeed in convincing others that happiness is not to be found in such things. If they could succeed, there would be far more contented, and therefore far more happy people in the world than can be found at present. It is chiefly the desire for greater temporal advantages than we have at present that makes us discontented. We should be a long way on the road to contentment, if we could thoroughly convince ourselves that what are commonly called temporal advantages such as large possessions, rank, power, honors, and the like-are on the whole not advantages; that they more often detract from this worlds joys than augment them, while they are always a serious danger, and sometimes a grievous impediment, in reference to the joys of the world to come.
What man of wealth and position does not feel day by day the worries and anxieties and obligations which his riches and rank impose upon him? Does he not often wish that he could retire to some cottage and there live quietly on a few hundreds a year, and sometimes even seriously think of doing it. But at other times he fancies that his unrest and disquiet are owing to his not having enough. If he could only have some thousands a year added to his present income, then he would cease to be anxious about the future; he could afford to lose some and still have sufficient. If he could only attain to a higher position in society, then he would feel secure from detraction or serious downfall; he would be able to treat with unconcerned neglect the criticisms which are now such a source of annoyance to him. And in most cases this latter view prevails. What determines his conduct is not the well-grounded suspicion that he already has more than is good for him; that it is his abundance which is destroying his peace of mind; but a baseless conviction that an increase of the gifts of this world will win for him the happiness that he has failed to secure. The experience of the past rarely destroys this fallacy. He knows that his enjoyment of life has not increased with his fortune. Perhaps he can see clearly that he was a happier man when he possessed much less. But, nevertheless, he still cherishes the belief that with a few things more he would be contented, and for those few things more he continues to slave. There is no man in this world that has not found out over and over again that success, even the most complete success, in the attainment of any worldly desire, however innocent or laudable, does not bring the permanent satisfaction which was anticipated.
Sooner or later the feeling of satiety, and therefore of disappointment, must set in. And of all the countless thousands who have had this experience, how few there are who have been able to draw the right conclusion, and to act upon it!
And when we take into account the difficulties and dangers which a large increase in the things of this world places in the way of our advance towards moral and spiritual perfection, we have a still stronger case against the fallacy that increase of wealth brings an increase in well-being. The care of the things which we possess takes up thought and time, which could be far more happily employed on nobler objects; and it leads us gradually into the practical conviction that these nobler objects, which have so continually to be neglected in order to make room for other cares, are really of less importance. It is impossible to go on ignoring the claims which intellectual and spiritual exercises have upon our attention without becoming less alive to those claims. We become, not contented, but self-sufficient in the worst sense. We acquiesce in the low and narrow aims which a devotion to worldly advancement has imposed upon us. We habitually act as if there were no other life but this one; and consequently we cease to take much interest in the other life beyond the grave; while even as regards the things of this world our interests become confined to those objects which can gratify our absorbing desire for financial prosperity.
Nor does the mischief done to our best moral and spiritual interests end here; especially if we are what the world calls successful. The man who steadily devotes himself to the advancement of his worldly position, and who succeeds in a very marked way in raising himself, is likely to acquire in the process a kind of brutal self-confidence, very detrimental to his character. He started with nothing, and he now has a fortune. He was once a shop-boy, and he is now a country gentleman. And he has done it all by his own shrewdness, energy, and perseverance. The result is that he makes no account of Providence, and very little of the far greater merits of less conspicuously successful men. A contempt for men and things that would have given him a higher view of this life, and some idea of a better life, is the penalty which he pays for his disastrous prosperity.
But his case is one of the most hopeless, whose desire for worldly advantages has settled down into a mere love of money. The worldly man, whose leading ambition is to rise to a more prominent place in society, to outshine his neighbors in the appointments of his house and in the splendor of his entertainments, to be of importance on all public occasions, and the like, is morally in a far less desperate condition than the miser. There is no vice more deadening to every noble and tender feeling than avarice. It is capable of extinguishing all mercy, all pity, all natural affection. It can make the claims of the suffering and sorrowful, even when they are combined with those of an old friend, or a wife, or a child, fall on deaf ears. It can banish from the heart not only all love, but all shame and self-respect. What does the miser care for the execrations of outraged society, so long as he can keep his gold? There is no heartless or mean act, and very often no deed of fraud or violence, from which he will shrink in order to augment or preserve his hoards. Assuredly the Apostle is right when he calls the love of money a “root of all kinds of evil.” There is no iniquity to which it does not form one of the nearest roads. Every criminal who wants an accomplice can have the avaricious man as his helper, if he only bids high enough.
And note that, unlike almost every other vice, it never loses its hold: its deadly grip is never for an instant relaxed. The selfish man can at a crisis become self-sacrificing, at any rate for a time. The sensualist has his moments when his nobler nature gets the better of his passions, and he spares those whom he thought to make his victims. The drunkard can sometimes be lured by affection or innocent enjoyments to forego the gratification of his craving. And there are times when even pride, that watchful and subtle foe, sleeps at its post and suffers humble thoughts to enter. But the demon avarice never slumbers, and is never off its guard. When it has once taken full possession of a mans heart, neither love, nor pity, nor shame, can ever surprise it into an act of generosity. We all of us have our impulses; and however little we may act upon them, we are conscious that some of our impulses are generous. Some of the worst of us could lay claim to as much as that. But the misers nature is poisoned at its very source. Even his impulses are tainted. Sights and sounds which make other hardened sinners at least wish to help, if only to relieve their own distress at such pitiful things, make him instinctively tighten his purse-strings. Gold is his god; and there is no god who exacts from his worshippers such undivided and unceasing devotion. Family, friends, country, comfort, health, and honor must all be sacrificed at its shrine. Certainly the lust for gold is one of those “foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition.”
In wealthy Ephesus, with its abundant commerce, the desire to be rich was a common passion; and St. Paul feared-perhaps he knew-that in the Church in Ephesus the mischief was present and increasing. Hence this earnest reiteration of strong warnings against it. Hence the reopening of the letter in order to tell Timothy to charge the rich not to be self-confident and arrogant, not to trust in the wealth which may fail them, but in the God Who cannot do so; and to remind them that the only way to make riches secure is to give them to God and to His work. The wealthy heathen in Ephesus were accustomed to deposit their treasures with “the great goddess Diana,” whose temple was both a sanctuary and a bank. Let Christian merchants deposit theirs with God by being “rich in good works”; so that when He called them to Himself, they might receive their own with usury, and “lay hold on the life which is life indeed.”