Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Timothy 6:10
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
10. the love of money ] One word in the original, occurring only here and belonging to the later Greek; the adjective in Luk 16:14, ‘the Pharisees, who were covetous,’ R.V. ‘lovers of money,’ and so 2Ti 3:2. ‘It differs from the ordinary word for covetousness (e.g. Col 3:5) (which does not occur in these Epistles) in denoting rather avarice, a love of money already gained, than an active grasping after more.’ Trench’s N. T. Synonyms, 24.
the root of all evil ] It has been much questioned whether we are to translate this admitted predicate ‘a root’ or ‘the root.’ On the general grammatical question, such passages as 1Co 11:3, ‘the head of the woman is (the) man,’ make ‘the root,’ quite correct; if with R.V. we render ‘a root,’ it lays a stress on there being other roots, which is beside the point: the stress surely is on the ‘all,’ interpreted however in that rhetorical sense, if it may be so called, which is common in N. T. as elsewhere (cf. 1Ti 6:17), and is well given in R.V. We may translate the root of all kinds of evil. For this use of the plural we may compare ‘supplies of food,’ 1Ti 6:8.
which while some coveted after ] ‘Which (love-of-money) some reaching after,’ R.V. keeping to the root-notion of the participle. The verb (and its noun) occur four times in N. T. and in each place the Revisers give a different version, 1Ti 3:1 and Heb 11:16 in a good sense; here and Rom 1:27 in a bad sense. ‘Desire,’ a colourless word, would fit everywhere, but is weak. Bp Wordsworth ingeniously explains the seemingly incongruous desire for the love-of-money thus: ‘riches were a proof of divine approbation: love of wealth was a love of God’s favour: thus they sanctified avarice.’ But the relative is only formally, logically, in agreement with the abstract. ‘love-of-money:’ all readers of A.V. or R.V. would refer the ‘which’ to the real antecedent in sense, ‘money,’ and would be virtually right.
have erred from the faith ] R.V. is justified in rendering have been led astray. The Greek aorist ‘merely represents the action of having occurred, as filling a point of past time’ (Winer, iii., xl. 45, a). When it stands by itself, as here, with no qualifying word, this force is represented by the English perfect, as giving just in our idiom the past verbal idea merely, with no further stress or point, cf. Ellicott on 1Th 2:16. The word occurs in N.T. again only in Mar 13:32, ‘that they may lead astray, if possible, the elect.’ ‘The faith’ as in 1Ti 1:19, where see note.
pierced themselves through ] Lat. transfigo; only here in N.T.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For the love of money is the root of all evil – That is, of all kinds of evil. This is evidently not to be understood as literally true, for there are evils which cannot, be traced to the love of money – the evils growing out of ambition, and intemperance, and debasing lusts, and of the hatred of God and of goodness. The expression here is evidently a popular saying – all sorts of evils grow out of the love of money. Similar expressions often occur in the classic writers; see Wetstein, in loc, and numerous examples quoted by Priceaus. Of the truth of this, no one can doubt. No small part of the crimes of the world can be traced to the love of gold. But it deserves to be remarked here, that the apostle does not say that money is the root of all evil, or that it is an evil at all. It is the love of it which is the source of evil.
Which while some coveted after – That is, some who were professing Christians. The apostle is doubtless referring to persons whose history was known to Timothy, and warning him, and teaching him to warn others, by their example.
They have erred from the faith – Margin, been seduced. The Greek is, they have been led astray from; that is, they have been so deceived as to depart from the faith. The notion of deception or delusion is in the word, and the sense is, that, deceived by the promises held out by the prospect of wealth, they have apostatized from the faith. It is not implied of necessity that they were ever real Christians. They have been led off from truth and duty, and from all the hopes and joys which religion would have imparted.
And pierced themselves through with many sorrows – With such sorrows as remorse, and painful reflections on their folly, and the apprehension of future wrath. Too late they see that they have thrown away the hopes of religion for that which is at best unworthy the pursuit of an immortal mind; which leads them on to a life of wickedness; which fails of imparting what it promised when its pursuit is successful, and which, in the great majority of instances, disappoints its votaries in respect to its attainment. The word rendered pierced themselves through – periepeiran – occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, and is a word whose force and emphasis cannot be well expressed in a translation. It is from peiro, and is made more emphatic by the addition of the preposition peri. The word peiro, means, properly, to pierce through from one end to another, and is applied to meat that is pierced through by the spit when it is to be roasted (Passow); then it means to pierce through and through. The addition of the preposition peri to the word, conveys the idea of doing this all round; of piercing everywhere. It was not a single thrust which was made, but they are gashed all round with penetrating wounds. Such is the effect on those who cast off religion for the sake of gold. None can avoid these consequences who do this. Every man is in the hands of a holy and just God, and sooner or later he must feel the effects of his sin and folly.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 10. The love of money is the root of all evil] Perhaps it would be better to translate , of all these evils; i.e. the evils enumerated above; for it cannot be true that the love of money is the root of all evil, it certainly was not the root whence the transgression of Adam sprang, but it is the root whence all the evils mentioned in the preceding verse spring. This text has been often very incautiously quoted; for how often do we hear,” The Scripture says, Money is the root of all evil!” No, the Scripture says no such thing. Money is the root of no evil, nor is it an evil of any kind; but the love of it is the root of all the evils mentioned here.
While some coveted after] . Insatiably desiring.
Have erred from the faith] . Have totally erred-have made a most fatal and ruinous departure from the religion of Christ.
And pierced themselves through with many sorrows.] The word signifies to be transfixed in every part; and is an allusion to one of those snares, , mentioned 1Ti 6:9, where a hole is dug in the earth, and filled full of sharp stakes, and, being slightly covered over with turf, is not perceived; and whatever steps on it falls in, and is pierced through and through with these sharp stakes, the , the many torments, mentioned by the apostle. See note on 1Ti 6:9.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
For the love of money is the root of all evil; money itself is not evil, but the immoderate love of it, whether discerned in an over eager desire after it, or an excessive delight in it, is the cause of much evil, both of sin and punishment.
Which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith; which money while some too greedily thirsted after, (for though the article be feminine and cannot grammatically agree with , which is neuter, yet that doth agree with it as to the sense, being understood in , with which the subjunctive article grammatically agreeth),
they have erred, or been seduced, from the faith, that is, the doctrine of the gospel, or profession of Christianity.
And pierced themselves through with many sorrows; and exposed themselves to a great many sorrows, which have pierccd their very souls, such as cares, troubles for the loss of their estates, &c.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. the love of moneynot themoney itself, but the love of itthe wishing to be rich(1Ti 6:9) “is aroot (ELLICOTT andMIDDLETON: not as EnglishVersion, ‘the root’) of all evils.” (So theGreek plural). The wealthiest may be rich not in a bad sense;the poorest may covet to be so (Ps62:10). Love of money is not the sole root of evils, butit is a leading “root of bitterness” (Heb12:15), for “it destroys faith, the root of all that isgood” [BENGEL]; itsoffshoots are “temptation, a snare, lusts, destruction,perdition.”
coveted afterlustedafter.
erred fromliterally,”have been made to err from the faith” (1Ti 1:19;1Ti 4:1).
pierced (Lu2:35).
with . . . sorrows“pains”:”thorns” of the parable (Mt13:22) which choke the word of “faith.” “Theprosperity of fools destroys them” (Pr1:32). BENGEL andWIESINGER make them thegnawings of conscience, producing remorse for wealth badly acquired;the harbingers of the future “perdition” (1Ti6:9).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For the love of money is the root of all evil,…. Of all the evils before mentioned, and of others; not money itself, as silver and gold, which are God’s creatures, and his gifts, and may be used to, and answer many good purposes; but the love of it, and not any love of it; for there may be a lawful love of it, and desire after it, so far as it is requisite to the necessaries of life, to answer the calls of Providence, the duties we owe to God and men, to serve the interest of Christ, and do good to fellow creatures and fellow Christians: but it is an immoderate insatiable desire after it, and an inordinate love of it, which is here meant, such as is properly idolatry: as when a man loves it, not only besides, but above God; serves it as if it was God, and places his trust and confidence in it, independent of God, and his providence; such love of it is the source and spring of all iniquity, as above; it was the sin of Judas, and the root of all his iniquity. The phrase is Jewish. So idolatry is said to be , “the root of all iniquities” q; see Heb 12:15
which while some coveted after; in a greedy and insatiable way:
they have erred from the faith; the doctrine of faith. Observing that the professors of it are generally poor, they have declined that path, and have not so much as heard the word; and if they have heard and embraced it, yet when persecution arises because of it, they drop their profession of it; or else their minds are so filled with worldly cares, and deceitful riches, that the word is choked, and becomes unprofitable, and by and by, Demas like, they forsake it, having loved this present world.
And pierced themselves through with many sorrows; riches are therefore fitly compared to thorns, which give great trouble and uneasiness, both in getting and keeping them; and oftentimes the reflection upon the unlawful ways and means made use of to obtain them, gives very pungent pain and distress; see Job 20:15. The apostle seem to allude to the Hebrew word , used for a covetous man, which signifies one that pierces, cuts, and wounds, as such an one does both himself and others.
q R. David Kimchi in Isa. xxvii. 9.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The love of money ( ). Vulgate, avaritia. Common word (from , 2Ti 3:12, and that from , ), only here in N.T. Refers to verse 9 ( ).
A root of all kinds of evil ( ). A root (). Old word, common in literal (Mt 3:10) and metaphorical sense (Ro 11:11-18). Field (Ot. Norv.) argues for “the root” as the idea of this predicate without saying that it is the only root. Undoubtedly a proverb that Paul here quotes, attributed to Bion and to Democritus ( ), where “metropolis” takes the place of “root.” Surely men today need no proof of the fact that men and women will commit any sin or crime for money.
Reaching after (). Present middle participle of (see 3:1) with genitive (which).
Have been led astray (). First aorist passive indicative of , old compound verb, in N.T. only here and Mr 13:22.
Have pierced themselves through ( ). First aorist active (with reflexive pronoun) of late compound , only here in N.T. Perfective use of (around, completely to pierce).
With many sorrows ( ). Instrumental case of (consuming, eating grief). In N.T. only here and Ro 9:2.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Love of money [] . N. T. o. See 4 Macc. 1 26. Rare in Class.
The root [] . Better, a root. It is not the only root. In Paul only metaphorically. See Rom 11:16, 17, 18.
Coveted after [] . See on ch. 1ti 3:1. The figure is faulty, since filarguria is itself a desire.
Have erred [] . More correctly, have been led astray. o P. Pierced through [] . N. T. o o LXX
Sorrows [] . See on Rom 9:2.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “For the love of money” (gar e philarguria) “For the impulsive affections of money,” the passion itself. Men are avaricious from the desire to say, “This is mine.” Such tends to idolatry from which Christians are taught to f lee, 1Co 10:14; Jas 4:7.
2) “Is the root of all evil:” (ripa panton ton kakon estin) “A root-cause of all kinds of evils (it is),” meanness and covert dishonesty. Annanias and Sapphira found it didn’t pay, Act 5:1-11.
3) “Which while some coveted after” (es tines oregomenoi) “Which some hankering after, of their own volition, desires,” reaching or stretching after, pursuing, exerting all energy to get and hold gain for its pleasure. Judas did, Mat 26:14-15; Mat 27:5; Act 1:18.
4) “They have erred from the faith” (apeplanthesan apo tes pisteos) “Wandered or strayed away from the faith; the system of Christian truth:” having been tempted away from conduct within the body of Christian truth, as a sheep with head down keeps nipping grass- -going on heedless to the shepherd’s voice.
5) “And pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” (kai heautous periepeiran oudunais pollais) “Even pierced themselves around (bit by bit) by or with many pains,” or disillusionments, like mirages of the desert, Jos 7:24-26; 2Ki 5:25-27. Note Achan and Gehazi learned it didn’t pay.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
10 For the root of all evils is avarice (124) There is no necessity for being too scrupulous in comparing other vices with this. It is certain that ambition and pride often produce worse fruits than covetousness does; and yet ambition does not proceed from covetousness. The same thing may be said of the sins forbidden by the seventh commandment. But Paul’s intention was not to include under covetousness every kind of vices that can be named. What then? He simply meant, that innumerable evils arise from it; just as we are in the habit of saying, when we speak of discord, or gluttony, or drunkenness, or any other vice of that kind, that there is no evil which it does not produce. And, indeed, we may most truly affirm, as to the base desire of gain, that there is no kind of evils that is not copiously produced by it every day; such as innumerable frauds, falsehoods, perjury, cheating, robbery, cruelty, corruption in judicature, quarrels, hatred, poisonings, murders; and, in short, almost every sort of crime.
Statements of this nature occur everywhere in heathen writers; and, therefore, it is improper that those persons who would applaud Horace or Ovid, when speaking in that manner, should complain of Paul as having used extravagant language. I wish it were not proved by daily experience, that this is a plain description of facts as they really are. But let us remember that the same crimes which spring from avarice, may also arise, as they undoubtedly do arise, either from ambition, or from envy, or from other sinful dispositions.
Which some eagerly desiring The Greek word ὀρεγόμενοι is overstrained, when the Apostle says that avarice is “eagerly desired;” but it does not obscure the sense. He affirms that the most aggravated of all evils springs from avarice — revolting from the faith; for they who are diseased with this disease are found to degenerate gradually, till they entirely renounce the faith. Hence those sorrows, which he mentions; by which term I understand frightful torments of conscience, which are wont to befall men past all hope; though God has other methods of trying covetous men, by making them their own tormentors.
(124) “ C’est avarice, ou, convoitise des richesses.” — “Is avarice, or, an eager desire of riches.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(10) For the love of money is the root of all evil.Some would water down this strong expression by translating the Greek words by a root of all evil, instead of the root, making this alteration on the ground of the article not being prefixed to the Greek word rendered root. This change, however, grammatically is unnecessary, as the article disappears before the predicate, in accordance with the well-known rule respecting subject and predicate.
St. Paul had just written (1Ti. 6:9) of men being plunged into destruction and perditionthe awful consequence of yielding to those lusts into which the fatal love of riches had guided them; he now sums up the teaching contained in these words by pithily remarking. Yes, for the love of money is the root of all evil, meaning thereby, not that every evil necessarily must come from love of money, but that there is no conceivable evil which can happen to the sons and daughters of men which may not spring from covetousnessa love of gold and wealth.
Which while some coveted after.There is a slight irregularity in the image here, but the sense of the expression is perfectly clear. It is, of course, not the love of money, strictly speaking, which some have coveted after, but the money itself. The thought in the writers mind probably wasThe man coveting gold longs for opportunities in which his covetousness (love of money) may find a field for exercise. Such inaccuracies in language are not uncommon in St. Pauls writings, as, for instance, Rom. 8:24, where he writes of hope that is seen.
They have erred from the faith.Better rendered, they have wandered away from the faith. This vivid picture of some who had, for sake of a little gold, given up their first lovetheir faithwas evidently drawn by St. Paul from life. There were some in that well-known congregation at Ephesus, once faithful, now wanderers from the flock, over whom St. Paul mourned.
And pierced themselves through with many sorrows.The language and the thoughts of Psa. 16:4 were in St. Pauls mind when he wrote these wordsTheir sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another (god). The many sorrows here are, no doubt, the gnawings of conscience, which must ever and anon harass and perplex the man or woman who, for covetousness sake, has deserted the old paths, and has wandered away from the old loved communion of Christ.
The imagery used in this tenth verse seems to be that of a man who wanders from the straight, direct path of life, to gather some poisonous, fair-seeming root growing at a distance from the right road on which he was travelling. He wanders away and plucks it; and now that he has it in his hands he finds himself pierced and wounded with its unsuspected thorns.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
10. The root No definite article; a root, or a source.
All evil Evil of every sort; of total amount.
Erred from the faith Often has the Christian man apostatized by becoming rich. Sometimes he abandons the Church, gives up all profession, and becomes professedly profane. Sometimes he stays in the Church; yet only to dishonour religion by persistent frauds. But St. Paul is here specifying Christian teachers who abandon the truth in order to propagate a false yet remunerative doctrine; a doctrine which gives freer license to immorality, and so attracts adherents and pay.
Pierced themselves through As with a dagger, with many arrows, or pangs; the pangs being either the dagger itself, or its agonizing accompaniments. These piercing pangs are the penalties of conscience; the deep assurance of guilt and forewarning of retribution, which, forgotten in the eagerness of the pursuit and the flush of enjoyment, return at their own time.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.’
For the love of money (not money itself which is simply a tool) is a root which produces all kinds of evil; greed, covetousness, envy, deceit, disregard for others, the argument that all is fair in business, the scheming of schemes to get money out of others, self-accumulation, and so on, with the result that the hunger for true righteousness and godly living disappears. They often do not realise what is happening but soon gold has become their god. And they often even try to justify their greed by claiming that it is God-provided. Thus they float along enjoying their riches and leave the world to fend for itself. Not for them teaching about widows, and the needy and care for one another and laying up treasure in Heaven. To them God is the treasure chest on which they draw for their own indulgence, the hole in the wall into which they feed their pin number, not the One Whom they seek to please by following the teaching of Jesus. They are takers and not givers. And they fashion their teachings to suit.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
1Ti 6:10. Havepierced themselves through, &c. “Have felt long and incurable pains, by the numerous wounds they have given to their own consciences, as it were, on every side.” The original word is very emphatical, and properly signifies, “They have stabbed themselves, as it were, from head to feet, so as to be all covered with wounds.” And this indeed happily expresses the innumerable outrages done to conscience by those madmen, who have taken up the fatal resolution, that they will at all adventures be rich.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Ti 6:10 gives a reason for the thought in 1Ti 6:9 .
] It is to be observed that Paul does not mean to say, whence all whatever proceed, but what proceeds from . Hence there is no article with . Hence, too, de Wette’s correcting remark, that ambition, too, may entirely destroy man, does not affect the author of the epistle.
By may be understood both physical and moral evils (wickedness); here the latter idea is uppermost (otherwise in Polycarp, Ephesians 4 : ). only here in the N. T. (Jer 8:10 , LXX.).
] does not mean deditum esse, but it is to be acknowledged that the manner of connection is not exact, since , as de Wette rightly says, is itself an . Hofmann’s interpretation is artificial. He makes denote here “the grasping of a man after something out of his way,” and “the thing after which he reaches sideways is said to be the plant which afterwards proves to be to him a root of all evils,” so that does not refer to , but to .
] The reason of this is the inner connection between faith and blessedness. The denial of the one necessarily implies the denial of the other. The aorist passive has a neuter sense; Luther rightly: “have gone astray from the faith.” The compound only here and at Mar 13:22 ; the added serves to intensify the meaning.
] . . “pierce through,” not “sting all round, wound in every part” (Matthies). The , here regarded as a sword with which they have pierced themselves through, are not the outward pains which they have drawn on themselves by avarice, but the stings of conscience (“the precursors of the future ,” Wiesinger) which they have prepared for themselves by apostasy from the faith. To this his own experience the apostle here directs attention, that he may thereby present more vividly the destructiveness of the .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
Ver. 10. For the love of money ] Phocylides saith the same, . Covetousness is the mother of all mischief. Bion called it the metropolis of misdemeanor. Timon, the proper element of evils. There are those who draw it through all the commandments, and demonstrate it to be a breach of all.
The root of all evil ] As there is life in the root when there is no sap in the branches; so covetousness often liveth when other vices die and decay, as in old men, who because they are likely to leave the world, spit on their hands and take better hold.
They have erred from the faith ] Selling themselves to the devil, as Judas, Ahab, that pope for seven years’ enjoyment of the popedom.
And pierced themselves through ] Undique transfixerunt, They have galled and gored themselves. The covetous man hath his name in Hebrew of a word that signifieth sometimes to pierce or wound,Psa 10:3Psa 10:3 ; cf. Joe 2:8 . He that will be rich takes no more rest than one upon a rack or bed of thorns; when he graspeth earthly things most greedily, he embraceth nothing but smoke, which wringeth tears from his eyes, and vanisheth into nothing. Three vultures he hath always feeding upon his heart, care in getting, fear in keeping, grief in spending and parting with that which he hath; so that he is in hell beforehand.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
10 .] For the love of money is the (not ‘ a ,’ as Huther, Conyb., and Ellicott, after Middleton. A word like , a recognized part of a plant, does not require an article when placed as here in an emphatic position: we might have , or : cf. 1Co 11:3 (which, notwithstanding what Ellic. has alleged against it, still appears to me to be strictly in point to shew that for which it is here adduced), , , . Here in the first clause it is requisite to throw into emphasis: but had the arrangement been the same as that of the others, we should have read (not .) : but no one would therefore have thought of rendering ‘ a head’) root of all evils (not, is the only root whence all evils spring: but is the root whence all (manner of evils may and as matter of fact do arise. So that De W.’s objections to the sentiment have no force: for neither does it follow (1) that the covetous man cannot possibly retain any virtuous disposition, nor (2) that there may not be other roots of evil besides covetousness: neither of these matters being in the Apostle’s view. So Diogenes Laert. vit. Diogen. (vi. 50), : and Philo de judice 3, vol. ii. p. 346, calls it . See other examples in Wetst.): after which ( , see below) some lusting (the method of expression, if strictly judged, is somewhat incorrect: for is of itself a desire or , and men cannot be properly said after it, but after its object . Such inaccuracies are, however, often found in language, and we have examples of them in St. Paul elsewhere: e.g. , Rom 8:24 , , Act 24:15 ) wandered away from the faith (ch. 1Ti 1:19 ; 1Ti 4:1 ), and pierced themselves through (not all round’ or ‘all over,’ as Beza, Elsner, al.: the refers to the thing pierced surrounding the instrument piercing : so . , Plut. Galb. 27: see Palm and Rost, and Suicer, sub voce) with many pains (the being regarded as the weapons. , , , . . Chrys.).
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
1Ti 6:10 . , . . .: The root of all evils . The R.V., a root of all kinds of evil is not satisfactory. The position of in the sentence shows that it is emphatic. Field ( in loc .) cites similar examples of the absence of the article collected by Wetstein from Athenus, vii. p. 280 A ( ), and Diog. Lrt. vi. 50; and adds five others from his own observation. It is, besides, unreasonable in the highest degree to expect that on the ground of his inspiration, St. Paul’s ethical statements in a letter should be expressed with the precision of a text book. When one is dealing with a degrading vice of any kind, the interests of virtue are not served by qualified assertions.
: avaritia ( [299] ) rather than cupiditas ( [300] , [301] , Vulg.). The use of this word supports the exposition given above of 1Ti 6:9 . Love of money, meanness and covert dishonesty where money is concerned, is the basest species of the genus .
[299] Cod. Frisingensis
[300] The Latin text of Codex Claromontanus (sc. vi.), a Grco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.
[301] Speculum
: In sense the relative refers to , understood out of , with which it agrees in grammar. The meaning is clear enough; but the expression of it is inaccurate. This occurs when a man’s power of grammatical expression cannot keep pace with his thought. Alf. cites as parallels, Rom 8:24 , , and Act 24:15 , .
: See note on ch. 1Ti 1:3 .
: reaching after (R.V.) expresses the most defensible aspect of coveting (A.V.).
: peregrinati sunt ( [302] ) erraverunt ( [303] , Vulg.). The faith is a very practical matter. Have been led astray (R.V.) continues the description of the man who allows himself to be the passive subject of temptation. Chrys. illustrates the use of this word here from an absent-minded man’s passing his destination without knowing it.
[302] Cod. Frisingensis
[303] The Latin text of Codex Claromontanus (sc. vi.), a Grco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.
: inseruerunt se . The force of in this compound is intensive, as in , , , , .
: There is a touch of pity in this clause, so poignantly descriptive of a worldling’s disillusionment.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
love of money. Greek. philarguria. Only here. Compare 2Ti 3:2.
the = a.
all, &c. = all the evils.
evil. App-128.
some. App-124.
coveted after. See 1Ti 3:1.
have erred = were seduced. Greek. apoplanao. Only here and Mar 13:22.
faith. App-160.
pierced . . . through. Greek. peripeiro. Only here.
with = by. Dative case.
sorrows = pangs. Greek. odune. Only here and Rom 9:3.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
10.] For the love of money is the (not a, as Huther, Conyb., and Ellicott, after Middleton. A word like , a recognized part of a plant, does not require an article when placed as here in an emphatic position: we might have , or : cf. 1Co 11:3 (which, notwithstanding what Ellic. has alleged against it, still appears to me to be strictly in point to shew that for which it is here adduced), , , . Here in the first clause it is requisite to throw into emphasis: but had the arrangement been the same as that of the others, we should have read (not .) : but no one would therefore have thought of rendering a head) root of all evils (not, is the only root whence all evils spring: but is the root whence all (manner of evils may and as matter of fact do arise. So that De W.s objections to the sentiment have no force: for neither does it follow (1) that the covetous man cannot possibly retain any virtuous disposition,-nor (2) that there may not be other roots of evil besides covetousness: neither of these matters being in the Apostles view. So Diogenes Laert. vit. Diogen. (vi. 50), : and Philo de judice 3, vol. ii. p. 346, calls it . See other examples in Wetst.): after which (, see below) some lusting (the method of expression, if strictly judged, is somewhat incorrect: for is of itself a desire or , and men cannot be properly said after it, but after its object . Such inaccuracies are, however, often found in language, and we have examples of them in St. Paul elsewhere: e.g. , Rom 8:24,- , Act 24:15) wandered away from the faith (ch. 1Ti 1:19; 1Ti 4:1), and pierced themselves through (not all round or all over, as Beza, Elsner, al.: the refers to the thing pierced surrounding the instrument piercing: so . , Plut. Galb. 27: see Palm and Rost, and Suicer, sub voce) with many pains (the being regarded as the weapons. – , , , . . Chrys.).
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Ti 6:10. , of all evils) For it destroys faith, the root of all that is good: at first sight, the love of money seems to take away the nutriment or food that supports many crimes, as luxury, wantonness, etc.; but it is in reality the root of all evils. All evils in 1Ti 6:9 are comprehended under temptation, a snare, lusts, destruction, perdition; although the article does not precisely relate to those evils, but is added to , according to custom, for the purpose of amplifying or heightening the effect, without its relative power.-, the love of money) When money is loved for itself, it is not used for procuring food and raiment.-) , viz. .-) some: the Ephesians, ch. 1Ti 5:15.-, having coveted) ch. 1Ti 3:1, note [having grasped at].- , with many sorrows) of the conscience, producing remorse for property badly acquired; also of the mind, urging to the laying up of more. The remedy of these sorrows is faith.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Ti 6:10
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil:-An inordinate desire of earthly things or of what belongs to our neighbor. Covetousness is a vice that becomes stronger in old age when other vices are weakened; it can never be satisfied; it renders men the abhorrence of God, cruel, oppressive, and unjust toward neighbors; and betrays the man into sins and miseries unnumbered.
which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith,-Some had been so deceived as to depart from the faith or living according to the requirements of God. [The one who covets gold longs for opportunities in which his love of money finds a field for exercise.]
and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.-They have overwhelmed themselves with many sorrows and afflictions. [The reference here is most likely to the many pains, agonies, troubles attending money seeking, the pangs of conscience, the miseries of unsatisfied greed, and the conscious failure of attaining lifes best end.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The Love of Money
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.1Ti 6:10.
It is with no uncertain voice that Scripture speaks of the sin of avarice. There, as in these words of St. Paul, or as in those of Christ our Lord, Take heed and beware of covetousness, we are warned with all plainness of speech against it; even as we are again and again reminded of other sins and further dangers which this sin draws after it. Nor is the warning of Scripture given by earnest words only; it is given also by terrible examples. What a dread procession of souls, which, losing heaven, very often did not win that earth for which they were content to lose it, is made there to pass before us: Achan, who thought to enrich himself with that wedge of gold and that Babylonish garment, and for whom that wedge of gold served but as it were to cleave his soul asunder, while that Babylonish garment proved to him no better than a winding sheet: Gehazi, with two talents of silver and the five changes of raiment, which he obtained by a lie from NaamanGehazi who did not take account of the garment which he should never change, of that robe of leprosy which should cling to him and to his children for ever: and Balaam, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but who took no gain of money, though he had made shipwreck of all in order that he might take it. There, too, is the betrayer, who purchased the field of blood with the reward of iniquity, being himself the first to handsel that field with his own. These are but a few of the beacon lights which in Scripture have been kindled towards us from the rocks and quicksands on which so many have perished.
The Apostles warning is a solemn one, and the words of the text are indeed terrible words. They set before us what may be the perilous results to a Christian man of his giving way to the desire and determination to be rich. They are spoken of Christiansfor some of the evils enumerated could occur only in the case of such.
In Brailsfords book, The Spiritual Sense in Sacred Legend, we are told that Noah had a vision of coming calamity and that he and Methuselah went to Enoch for an explanation. Enoch detailed the sins that had deserved the flood, and among others mentioned the forging into weapons of war of the metals which had been discovered, and the moulding of them into coinage, and the finding of jewels and polishing them, from pride and luxury. We are told later that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, but it is strange to hear that the prolific root was planted so early.1 [Note: Archibald Alexander.]
I
The Love of Money
1. The love of money, says the Apostle, is a root of all kinds of evil. That is to say, a germ of all evil lies in one with the love of money, and there is no kind of evil to which a man may not be led through an absorbing greed for gold. It is a root sin, for it leads to care, fear, malice, deceit, oppression, envy, bribery, perjury, contentiousness. It is of course not the only root sin. Pride and lust, the world and the flesh, are roots of evil quite as really as the love of money, and have their own evil offshoots as well. But there is no evil, St. Paul would say, which may not spring from avarice.
For money, men, alike rich and poor, have been ready to make all their lives a lie to themselves and a fraud upon their neighbours. For gold men have betrayed their country, their friends, their God, their immortal souls. For gold they steal, and rob, and break open houses, and commit assaults and murders, and become the terrors and scourges of society. For gold men forge and cheat and start bubble companies and tamper with securities, and snatch the support of the widow, and steal the bread of the fatherless. For gold they live by trades and manufactures which are the curse and destruction of mankind. For gold they involve whole countries in the horrors and crimes of war. For gold they soil the honour of their sons, and sell their daughters into gilded misery, and poison the world with stagnant gossip, and stab noble reputations in the dark. For gold they defraud the hireling of his wages, and grind the faces of the poor, and wring the means of personal luxury from rotting houses or infamous pursuits. Gold corrupts trades and professions into that commercial standard which is often little better than systematized dishonesty. Gold can condemn the innocent and shield the guilty.
Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Clothe it with rags, a tiny straw will pierce it.
Look into the history of any civilized nation, analyse with reference to this one cause of crime and misery the lives and thoughts of their nobles, priests, merchants, and men of luxurious life. The sin of the whole world is essentially the sin of Judas. Men do not disbelieve in Christ, but they sell Him.1 [Note: F. W. Farrar, Social and Present-Day Questions, 110.]
Twenty-fifth of ninth month, 1764.At our Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia this day, John Smith of Marlborough, aged upwards of eighty years, a faithful minister, though not eloquent, stood up in our meeting of ministers and elders and, appearing to be under a great exercise of spirit, informed Friends in substance as follows: That he had been a member of our Society upwards of sixty years, and he well remembered that, in those early times, Friends were a plain, lowly-minded people, and that there was much tenderness and contrition in their meetings. That, at twenty years from that time, the Society, increasing in wealth, and in some degree conforming to the fashions of the world, true humility was less apparent, and their meetings in general were not so lively and edifying. That at the end of forty years many of them were grown very rich, and many of the Society made a specious appearance in the world: that wearing fine costly garments, and using silver and other watches, became customary with them, their sons, and their daughters. These marks of outward wealth and greatness appeared on some in our meetings of ministers and elders; and, as such things became more prevalent, so the powerful overshadowings of the Holy Ghost were less manifest in the Society. That there had been a continued increase in such ways of life, even until the present time; and that the weakness which hath now overspread the Society and the barrenness manifest among us is matter of much sorrow.
Friends were incited to constancy in supporting the testimony of truth, and reminded of the necessity which the disciples of Christ are under to attend principally to His business as He is pleased to open it to us, and to be particularly careful to have our minds redeemed from the love of wealth, and our outward affairs in as little room as may be, that no temporal concerns may entangle our affections or hinder us from diligently following the dictates of truth in labouring to promote the pure spirit of meekness and heavenly-mindedness amongst the children of men.1 [Note: The Journal of John Woolman.]
Silver and gold! The snowdrop white
And yellow-blossomed aconite,
Waking from winters slumber cold,
Their hoarded treasures now unfold,
And scatter them to left and right.
Ah, with how much more rare delight
Upon my sense their colours smite
Than if my fingers were to hold
Silver and gold.
They bear the superscription bright
Of the great King of love and might,
Who stamped such beauty there of old
That men might learn, as ages rolled,
To trust in God, nor worship quite
Silver and gold.2 [Note: Richard Wilton.]
2. We must remember that it is love of money the Apostle condemns, not money itself. For although avarice is a sin, although the love of money for its own sake is the parent of innumerable evils, yet money, in itself and for the good that we can do with iteither for ourselves, or for those who are immediately dependent on us, or for an ever-widening circle, in proportion as we have the wealth and the opportunitymoney thus viewed is not a bad thing but a good thing, and men who daily give the sweat of their brow or the force of their brains to obtain it, and to obtain more of it than they are getting at present, are, generally speaking, not only committing no sin, but simply doing their duty. Their honest industry and application to business is only praiseworthy in Gods sight.
Everyone of us who turns to the pages of the New Testament is constantly brought face to face with the fact that all through Christ regards money as a sacred trust. The accent of Christ is always upon stewardship. He never condemns private property; He assumes it. Indeed, He goes so far as to recognize the duty of accumulation. The man with whom He quarrels is the man who puts his talent in the earth, and does not entrust it to the bank where it may bear its reasonable interest. He recognizes that money is, as the writer of the Ecclesiastes says, a defence; and he recognizes at the same time that what it is to the individual or to the society, or to the nations, depends upon the character that is behind it, and the use that is made of these tremendous responsibilities.1 [Note: C. Silvester Horne.]
He never disparaged wealth, or slighted the qualities by which it is acquired. He did not tell men that it is a sin to make money, or to take pleasure in making it. He knew how strong a force wealth exerts; how it fascinates and enthralls; how the passion for it, if left uncontrolled, takes possession of a mans whole being. To expel an instinct so deeply rooted in human nature is impossible; the attempt to expel it savours of Manicheism. But, though not expelled, the instinct may be held in check; and if so restrained, it can be only by some force of even greater power. Such a force, such a motive, Christian faith and Christian loyalty can supply. The man who consecrates the hours of business as truly as the hours of prayer, who carries on his secular calling as the servant of Christ, is safeguarded against the incitements to evil that beset other men; and there is no sure defence beside this. For such a victory over impulse from within and temptation from without, it is useless to rely on a negative and prohibitive code; even positive law is not enough; a man must have that personal devotion which brings with it the strength and the inspiration that enable him to keep the law.2 [Note: Life of R. W. Dale of Birmingham, by his Son, 145.]
II
The Lover of Money
1. The text gives us a life-like portrait of the avaricious and covetous man. There are two phrases in which his primary features are described. He loves money; he reaches out after it. He is possessed by a fierce and burning passion for wealth. He loves money as some folk love their children. He loves money as some saints love their God. It glows and burns within him, a hot, fierce, insatiable affection. To craving he adds determination. To the ardour of desire he engages the energy of his will. The executive forces of his life are all enlisted in the gratification of the one passion, in the tireless pursuit of wealth. He reaches after it!that is a tremendous, living word; it is pregnant with the profoundest significance. There is all the suggestiveness about it of trembling strain. It is the reaching out of the racer who is nearly at the goal. Every muscle on the stretch! He reaches out after it! Such is the portrait of the man described in the text. He burns with the passion for money. The energy of his life is engaged to satisfy the craving. All the powers of body and mind and soul are reaching after it, if, perchance, the coveted inheritance may be gained.
A great living physician told me how once he was attending the death-bed of a rich man who seemed as if he could not die; for, with aimless and nervous restlessness, his hands kept moving and opening and shutting over the counterpane. What is the matter? asked the physician. I know, answered the son for his speechless father. Every night, before he went to sleep, my father liked to feel and handle some of his bank-notes. The son slipped a 10 note into the old mans hand, and, feeling, handling, and clutching it, he died. Ah me! that 10 note grasped in his trembling handhow much would it avail him before the awful bar of God? Yet how many men die, and have nothing better to show to God than that!1 [Note: F. W. Farrar, Social and Present-Day Questions, 113.]
2. Notice that this money-lover is not necessarily a rich man. When we speak of the dangers of covetousness, the great mass of persons who are not rich are apt to think that the warning applies only to the wealthy. It is a great mistake. The old woman who hoards her few shillings and tells lies about them in a back street, the needy clerk secretly longing for the death of some one who may leave him 20, the mechanic fraudulently trying to make bad work pass for good, the begging-letter impostor, the hulking idler, the anarchist indulging in senseless ravings to persuade men that luck will come to them by the ruin of tens of thousands more worthy than themselvesall these are as ardent money lovers and money seekers as the man who greedily accumulates his millions.
Have not men, shut up in solitary imprisonment, found an interest in marking the moments by straight strokes of a certain length on the wall, until the growth of the sum of straight strokes, arranged in triangles, has become a mastering purpose? Do we not wile away moments of inanity or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial movement or sound, until the repetition has bred a want, which is incipient habit? That will help us to understand how the love of accumulating money grows an absorbing passion in men whose imaginations, even in the very beginning of their hoard, showed them no purpose beyond it.1 [Note: George Eliot, Silas Marner.]
That silver mine of Demas was a mine for pilgrims, and, as this, it still stands here unexhausted by the side of the way The abounding ambition among us, after all, is not that we may be wise, and not that we may be good, but that we may be rich. Professing Christians beyond reckoning, from motives more or less plausible, and sometimes in themselves even praiseworthy, have set their hearts upon wealth as their absorbing pursuit. Between this and the love of moneythe sacrificing of all that is spiritual, and of much that is moral, in presence of a likelihood of richly providing for ourselvesthere is only a narrow and precarious interval. The man that will be rich, whether or not he succeeds, is in peril of falling into the mean idolatry of covetousness as the years advance. It is a miserable probability. Our regrets would not waste themselves upon men of the By-ends stamp, to whom the mine of Demas is but a picturesque completion of all that they ever have been, or were ever likely to become. But our regrets must linger over the men who have tasted of better things, and are capable of nobler interests, yet have permitted themselves to be mocked into a keen-eyed scramble for the particles of silver which sparkle among the sinking rubbish of the worlds caverns, while the sun is shining on the neighbouring road that it may light them to the land of eternal wealth. Within our churches there are many, in all the stages of this temptation, and perhaps not witting of their personal peril, who would do well to take to heart this impressive picture which Bunyan draws of the fiendish showman and his treacherous show, so hard by the road to the heavenly City.2 [Note: J. A. Kerr Bain, The People of the Pilgrimage, ii. 379.]
III
The Fruit of the Love of Money
1. Wherever the consuming love of wealth is allowed to dwell, men become alienated from their God. They are led astray from the faith. That is always the first thing that happens. When we enter into sin it is always the most delicate things that are first destroyed. When a man begins to drink, to become a drunkard, he may go on for years and we see no witness of it in his face. The flesh may be the last thing to be touched; but we have a tremendously wide range in our endowments, and we go from flesh right up to the most delicate feelers that perceive God. And when men enter into sin, into any kind of unholy fellowship, the first thing to suffer is the most exquisite, the feeler after God. They are led astray from the faith. The first thing to go is spiritual sensitiveness. They come to have broken communion with God, and then an interrupted sense of the Lords presence, until at length God becomes an absentee; and as soon as ever men obtain an absentee God they enthrone something else in His place. When I enter into sin, the first thing to be consumed is the topmost part of my life. The first thing to go is not the basement; the first thing to go is the skylight. When I enter into sin it is not the kitchen in my life that is first destroyed, but the oratory, where I commune with my God. When this more delicate thing has been destroyed, I come to have broken and interrupted communion with my Lord, and then at length I cease to have communion at all.
In Southern France, where attar of roses is distilled, a very curious ailment imperils the workers. The very abundance of the rose-leaves induces a sort of sleeping sickness. And surely it is even so in the abundances that are sometimes given to man. They are prone to sink him into the sleep of spiritual forgetfulness. A mans devotion is apt to dwindle as he becomes more successful. Our piety does not keep pace with our purse. Absorption in bounty makes us forgetful of the Giver. We can be so concerned in the pasturage that the Shepherd is forgotten. Our very fulness is apt to become our foe. Our clearest visions are given us in the winter-time when nature is scanty and poor. The fulness of the leaf blocks the outlook and the distance is hid. And the summer-time of life, when leaves and flowers are plentiful, is apt to bring a veil. And the very plentifulness impedes our communion.1 [Note: J. H. Jowett, Things That Matter Most (1913), 34.]
2. With this loss of spiritual consciousness there comes a weaker faith. For what is faith? Faith is a mans inclination towards the Eternal. We do not give that as a definition; we give it as a description. Faith is a mans inclination towards the Eternal; faith is a mans pose towards the Infinite; faith is a mans receptiveness towards his God. A love of money annihilates that; the faculty shrivels up into a small self-dependence, and an uncertain waiting upon the ministry of chance. A lost consciousness of God, a weakened faith, and surely a dulled apprehension of immortality! He loses the very taste of the powers of the life to come. The hereafter has no existence as an efficient and operative factor in his life. He has no correspondences with the world to come; they are destroyed.
Does it matter what a man believes? It matters greatly in the shaping of his character if it be a living belief and not a mere tradition or convention. But it matters not less, perhaps more, whether he retains the believing spirit at all, an uncorrupted sense of the goodness and wonder and moral meaning of human experience, an upper realm of light and faith in some form or other, with an eye for some celestial truth and a heart prepared to trust and rejoice according to that truth. Is there any calamity more deadly than the decay and death of the very capacity of the heart for believing high things?1 [Note: R. E. Welsh, Man to Man, 221.]
Upon the white sea-sand
There sat a pilgrim band
Telling the losses that their lives had known,
While evening waned away
From breezy cliff and bay,
And the strong tides went out with weary moan.
There were who mourned their youth
With a most loving ruth,
For its brave hopes and memories ever green;
And one upon the West
Turned an eye that would not rest
For far-off hills whereon its joy had been.
Some talked of vanished gold,
Some of proud honours told,
Some spake of friends that were their trust no more;
And one of a green grave
Beside a foreign wave,
That made him sit so lonely on the shore.
But when their tales were done,
There spake among them one,
A stranger, seeming from all sorrow free:
Sad losses have ye met,
But mine is heavier yet,
For a believing heart hath gone from me.
Alas! these pilgrims said,
For the living and the dead,
For fortunes cruelty, for loves sure cross,
For the wrecks of land and sea!
But, howeer it came to thee,
Thine, stranger, is lifes last and heaviest loss,
For the believing heart has gone from thee
Ah, the believing heart has gone from thee.1 [Note: Frances Browne.]
3. Another result is that avarice issues in moral degeneracy of every kind. In one of Turners pictures, a great symbolic picture, he paints the demon of covetousness, and he puts him into the shape of a dragon. But Turner makes the back of that dragon wear the appearance of a glacier. It has all the suggestiveness of ice, the coldness of ice, without its fragility. Do you see the purpose of that? Wherever the demon of covetousness makes his abode, he freezes the genial currents of the soul. The suggestion of that glacier back is that, wherever the demon of covetousness exercises his tyranny, the moral sense begins to be petrified; the moral sense, which ought to be sensitive to even the faintest approaches of evil, becomes congealed into ice. The dragon congeals into hardness and benumbment something that ought to be soft and responsive. And then when a mans moral sense begins to be petrified he begins to engage in all manner of casuistry, excuses, pleas, reasons, equivocations, ambiguities. Why, a man frames for himself a new vocabulary, and in the soft and cushioned significance of his own language he finds his ease. And then out of the casuistry and equivocation there comes the whole black, hellish brood of falsehood, unfairness, injustice, and fraud.
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. Every criminal who wants an accomplice can have the avaricious man as his helper, if he only bids high enough.1 [Note: A. Plummer, The Pastoral Epistles, 196.]
Avarice is represented as an old woman with a veil over her forehead, and a bag of money in each hand. A figure very marvellous for power of expression. The throat is all made up of sinews with skinny channels deep between them, strained as by anxiety, and wasted by famine; the features hunger-bitten, the eyes hollow, the look glaring and intense, yet without the slightest caricature. Inscribed in the Renaissance copy Avaritia Impletor, Spensers Avarice (the vice) is much feebler than this; but the god Mammon and his kingdom have been described by him with his usual power. Note the position of the house of Richesse:
Betwixt them both was but a little stride,
That did the House of Richesse from Hell-mouth divide.
It is curious that most moralists confuse avarice with covetousness, although they are vices totally different in their operation on the human heart and on the frame of society. The love of money, the sin of Judas and Ananias, is indeed the root of all evil in the hardening of the heart; but covetousness, which is idolatry, the sin of Ahab, that is, the inordinate desire of some seen or recognized good,thus destroying peace of mind,is probably productive of much more misery in heart, and error in conduct, than avarice, itself, only covetousness is not so inconsistent with Christianity: for covetousness may partly proceed from vividness of the affections and hopes, as in David, and be consistent with much charity; not so avarice.2 [Note: Ruskin, Stones of Venice, ii. 90 (Works, x. 403).]
4. Last of all, the issues of this passion of greed are described in the concluding clause of the text in these words: And they have pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Avarice poisons the wells of joy. Those inner pools in the life, which ought to provide sweetness and rest, become ministers of bitterness and grief. The money-lover is pierced through and through with many sorrows. Dante in his great Vision of Hell, in the fourth circle of hell, comes upon the avaricious and the covetous, and he describes to us the punishment which is theirs. Then I beheld a crowd more dense than all, and on this side and on that with howling cries, each rolling with his chest a ponderous ball. In hell they rolled their ball with their chest, and met others who were rolling theirs, and they clashed and they turned, rolling their ball back, and turned again, and so on and so on in ever restless, unsatisfying movements. We do not know what awaits the ungodly in worlds to be, but we say that the avaricious man knows that kind of hell here and now. He rolls his ball in ever-shifting movement and never finds a rest. In the life of the money-lover there are restlessness, disappointment, the stingings of a low remorse, a painful sense of emptiness; the life is pierced through and through with many sorrows.
After all, what is wealth? My noble and severe parent had it in goodly quantity, but it cannot be said that it made him happy. He was far from being a happy man. And so it is with many people. I remember when I was a youth at L-chow that riches and promotions seemed as very gifts of the Celestial Regions. But I have found that neither great wealth nor distinguished decorations, nor both put together, will guarantee a man against unrest of mind or turmoil of soul. How great and honourable is the Peacocks Feather of the Throne, yet how much easier rests the head on goose feathers!1 [Note: Memoirs of Li Hung Chang, 210.]
Riches are truly thorns, as the Gospel teaches us. They prick us with a thousand troubles in acquiring them, with more cares in preserving them, and with yet more anxieties in spending them; and, most of all, with vexations in losing them. I know very well how to spend what I have; but if I had more I should be in difficulty as to what to do with it. Am I not happy to live like a child without care? Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. The more any one has to manage the longer the account he has to render. We must make use of this world as though we were making no use of it at all. We must possess riches as though we had them not, and deal with the things of earth like the dogs on the banks of the Nile, who, for fear of the crocodiles, lap up the water of the river as they run along its banks. If, as the wise man tells us, he that addeth knowledge addeth also labour, much more is this the case with the man who heaps up riches. He is like the giants in the fable who piled up mountains, and then buried themselves under them.1 [Note: The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales, 131.]
IV
Deliverance from the Love of Money
1. Let a greater love expel a less, a nobler affection supersede a meaner. Consider often the great things for which we were made, the unsearchable riches of which we have been made partakers in Christ; for covetousness, the desire of having, and of having ever more and more, sin as it is, is yet the degeneration of something which is not a sin. Man was made for the infinite, with infinite longings, infinite cravings and desires. He was intended to find the satisfaction of all these longings, all these desires, in God; ordained by the primal law of his creation to hunger and thirst for God, and to be satisfied only with Him. But averting himself from God, the hunger and the thirst still remain, the sense of emptiness, the yearning after something which he has not got, the desire of having, of filling that immense void within him; and now, because he has refused to fill it with the fulness of God, he seeks to fill it with the fulness of the creature, with ever more and more of this; which, however, do what he will, leaves him dissatisfied and yearning still; for none are truly filled save those whom God satisfies, and satisfies with Himself.
A person who made much profession of living a devout life, was overtaken by sudden misfortune, which deprived her of almost all her wealth and left her plunged in grief. Her distress of mind was so inconsolable that it led her to complain of the Providence of God, who appeared, she said, to have forgotten her. Blessed Francis, anxious to turn her thoughts from the contemplation of herself and of earthly things, to fix them on God, asked her if He was not more to her than anything; nay, if, in fact, God was not Himself everything to her; and if, having loved Him when He had given her many things, she was not now ready to love Him, though she received nothing from Him. She, however, replying that such language was more speculative than practical, and easier to speak than to carry into effect, he wound up by saying with St. Augustine: Too avaricious is that heart to which God does not suffice. Assuredly, he who is not satisfied with God is covetous indeed. This word covetous produced a powerful effect upon the heart of one who, in the days of her prosperity, had always hated avarice. It seemed as if suddenly the eyes of her soul were opened, and she saw how admirable, how infinitely worthy of love God ever remained, whether with those things she had possessed or without them. So, by degrees, she forgot herself and her crosses; grace prevailed, and she knew and confessed that God was all in all to her.1 [Note: The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales, 49.]
2. Let us share our money with others. The habit of large and liberal giving is a great remedy against covetousness. We do not mean lazy and promiscuous almsgiving, with no pains taken to know whether our gifts are well bestowedemptying our seedcorn out of the sacks mouth, instead of carefully scattering it with the hand; for this can do nothing except harm. What we mean is a wise and deliberate dedication to God of a portion of that which came from God. And this portion, if it is really to help us in mortifying the corrupt affection of covetousness, must not be a very small and niggardly one. It must not be that paltry residue which, in most cases, is all that is likely to remain, if indeed anything at all will remain, after every taste, every fancy, every desire of our hearts has been gratified.
Our charities, the offerings which we offer to God, too often cost us nothing, and therefore, as a consequence, they profit us nothing; they help us little or not at all in the way to heaven; nay, rather, in their littleness serve only as an acknowledgment that we recognize a duty which yet we are refusing to fulfil. Some perhaps will say, Better then to withhold this little, if it shall thus prove a witness against us. They may say this; but they cannot in their hearts believe that any true help is here. That help can lie only in so multiplying this little that it may witness not against us but for us; that, like the alms of Cornelius, which, as you will remember, were much alms, it may come up for a memorial before God.
On every coin in your possession you may read the letters D.G., by the grace of God. Every coin is yours as the gift of God; as much so as if He had literally placed it on your open palm. If our money is really His, by His gift originally to us, and by our subsequent dedication to Him, surely He ought to have a voice in its expenditure. And the concession of that right to Him would speedily make our consecration real. Though I do not plead that consecrated Christians should give all away, I do insist upon it, that they should regard all their money as Christs, and spend every penny of it beneath His direction, and in harmony with His will. Do not we use the bulk of our Lords money for ourselves, giving to Him and His work the chance coins which we may be able to spare, or the subscriptions which we are obliged to give, to maintain a character amongst our fellows?1 [Note: F. B. Meyer.]
Giving is an essential part of the Christian religion. This position needs no special argument. In support of it the whole New Testament cries aloud. The system of redemption is, from first to last, one prodigious process of gift. God loved the world, and gave His only-begotten Son. The Son loved us, and gave Himself to death for us all. This giving does not rest at the point of bounty, but passes on to that of inconceivable sacrifice. Every man on whose spirit the true light of redemption breaks, finds himself heir to a heritage of givings, which began on the eve of time, and will keep pace with the course of eternity. To giving he owes his all; in giving he sees the most substantial evidence he can offer, that he is a grateful debtor; and the self-sacrifice of Him in whom he trusts says, far more pathetically than words could say, It is more blessed to give than to receive.2 [Note: William Arthur.]
The Love of Money
Literature
Binney (T.), Money: A Popular Exposition, 78.
Brown (J. B.), Our Morals and Manners, 95.
Farrar (F. W.), Social and Present-Day Questions, 108.
Figgis (J. N.), Antichrist, 195.
Plummer (A.), The Pastoral Epistles (Expositors Bible), 188.
Trench (R. C.), Sermons New and Old, 60.
Christian World Pulpit, liv. 156 (A. Jenkinson); lxv. 81 (J. H. Jowett); lxvi. 213 (C. S. Horne); lxxv. 263 (A. W. Hutton).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
the love: Gen 34:23, Gen 34:24, Gen 38:16, Exo 23:7, Exo 23:8, Deu 16:19, Deu 23:4, Deu 23:5, Deu 23:18, Jdg 17:10, Jdg 17:11, Jdg 18:19, Jdg 18:20, Jdg 18:29-31, 2Sa 4:10, 2Sa 4:11, Pro 1:19, Isa 1:23, Isa 56:11, Jer 5:27, Jer 5:28, Eze 13:19, Eze 16:33, Eze 22:12, Mic 3:11, Mic 7:3, Mic 7:4, Mal 1:10, Mat 23:14, Act 1:16-19, Tit 1:11, Rev 18:13
coveted: 1Ti 6:21, 2Ti 4:10, Jud 1:11, Rev 2:14, Rev 2:15
erred: or, been seduced
and pierced: Gen 29:14, Gen 29:26, Gen 29:31-35, 2Ki 5:27, Psa 32:10, Pro 1:31, 2Pe 2:7, 2Pe 2:8
Reciprocal: Gen 29:27 – week Gen 34:27 – spoiled Num 22:7 – rewards of divination Num 22:19 – General Num 31:8 – Balaam Deu 5:21 – General Deu 7:25 – snared Jos 7:21 – I coveted Jos 7:24 – took Achan Jdg 16:5 – we will Jdg 16:18 – brought money 1Sa 8:3 – but turned 2Sa 16:3 – day 1Ki 2:40 – arose 1Ki 21:6 – Because 2Ch 16:4 – hearkened Job 27:8 – General Job 31:24 – General Psa 10:3 – whom Psa 119:36 – and not to Pro 1:13 – General Pro 21:6 – getting Pro 28:20 – but Ecc 5:10 – He that Ecc 5:13 – riches Jer 9:23 – rich Jer 22:17 – covetousness Eze 28:16 – the multitude Eze 33:31 – but their Hos 12:7 – the balances Mic 2:2 – they covet Mat 6:24 – mammon Mat 12:44 – he findeth Mat 13:22 – the care Mat 19:23 – That Mat 22:5 – one Mat 26:15 – What Mat 28:15 – they took Mar 4:7 – General Mar 4:19 – the deceitfulness Mar 10:22 – for Mar 14:11 – and promised Luk 8:14 – and are Luk 14:18 – I have Luk 16:9 – mammon Luk 18:24 – How Luk 22:5 – and covenanted Act 5:2 – kept Act 16:16 – which Act 16:19 – the hope Act 19:24 – brought Act 24:26 – hoped 1Co 5:11 – or covetous Eph 5:3 – covetousness Eph 5:5 – who is Phi 4:17 – because 1Ti 1:3 – charge 2Ti 2:18 – concerning 2Ti 2:26 – out Heb 12:1 – let us lay Heb 13:5 – conversation Jam 4:2 – lust Jam 5:1 – ye Jam 5:19 – err 1Pe 2:11 – war 1Jo 2:15 – Love not
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Ti 6:10. This verse is similar to the preceding one (which the reader should again see in connection with the present one). Love of money corresponds with “will be rich” in the other verse. And again, the love of money is where the sin comes in, not the mere possession of it. A man might have that love and yet never become rich because he is not a “financial success.” But the “eager desire” is there, and that is what leads him intO sin. By the same token, a man might possess money without having the love of it in the unfavorable sense used in this verse. (See again the case of Joseph in the preceding verse.) The root of all evil. The Englishman’s Greek New Testament renders this phrase, “a root of all evils,” and Thayer renders all evil, “all kinds of evil.” These renderings are correct from the very truth of the case. Love of money is not the root because there are many other motives for doing evil. On the other hand, there is no kind of evil that cannot be induced by the love of money, as well as by other unrighteous motives. The latter half of this verse is virtually the same in thought as that in the preceding verse; to err from the faith will bring to a guilty man the sorrow of perdition.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Ti 6:10. The root of all evil. Better a root. The Greek for root has no article. The thought implied is not that the love of money is the one source of evil, but that out of it, as out of other vices of character, every form of evil would naturally spring. The position of root, however, as in the parallel construction of 1Co 11:3, gives it almost the same force as the article would do.
Which. The antecedent to the relative is not money itself, but the love of money, the apostle not shrinking, here or elsewhere, from a seeming pleonasm.
Some… have erred. The use of the formula in these Epistles leads us to the belief that St. Paul was making, not a general indefinite statement, but one referring to persons whom he knew, and whom Timothy would know, though they remain unnamed. The Greek tense, aorist, not perfect, strengthens this conviction.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Here we have the nature of covetousness, the evil and sin of covetousness, and the mischief and hurt of it declared.
Observe, 1. The nature of it: it is an inordinate love of money, an insatiable desire after wealth.
Observe, 2. The evil and sinfulness of it: it is a root of sin, The root of all evil; the fruit of all sin grows from this root, distrustful care, tormenting fear, anger, malice, envy, deceit, oppression, bribery, perjury, vexatious lawsuits, and the like; nay, farther, covetousness is the root of heresy in judgment, as well as of iniquity in practice.
They have erred from the faith: that is, in point of doctrine, as well as in practice; it makes a man believe, as well as act, against the rule of faith, for filthy lucre.
Observe, 3. The mischief and hurt of covetousness declared: it pierces, it pierces through with sorrows, yea, with many sorrows.
But whom doth it pierce?
First, others; it pierces the poor, the needy, the widow, the fatherless, all that fall within the reach of its gripping hand; nay, it doth not spare its own master, or slave rather, but pierces him: They pierce themselves through, says the apostle, with many sorrows, with many more, and much worse sorrows, than they pierce others with.
Riches ill gotten, by covetousness or oppression, instead of making their owners heartily merry, make their consciences ache, and give them many a stitch in their side. None can tell what gall and wormwood springs from this bitter root, both to themselves and others: The love of money is the root of all evil; which while some covet after, they err from the faith, piercing themselves through with many sorrows. It is the root of all evil, of sin, and also of trouble and disquiet.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
1Ti 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
How might we pierce ourselves with riches?
1. Others constantly wanting your money and causing you turmoil. Quite a number of the lottery winners of recent days have been plagued by people wanting them to give them some of their winnings.
2. Taking care of your money. We have known older people that have had to plan their weeks activities around getting to the bank to take care of investments. Others constantly worry about their investments and whether they are being profitable or whether they are loosing money.
3. Worry about their money. Will they have enough to carry them through to their death. Will the stock market fall and leave them in financial trouble.
4. Trying to spend their money. After a point there is nothing to spend money on. You buy all you think you need, and then you have to go looking for things to buy. After a point you have bought so much that you need more room to store all of it.
I am told that Jackie Onasis had large warehouses to store the clothes and shoes that she no longer used.
5. Finding you can’t take it with you. What in the world will I do with all of it if I can’t take it with me. Who do I like enough to GIVE them all my money.
6. Worry about running out of money. Will all these millions be gone some day. Will I spend too much so that when I get old there won’t be any left for taking care of me?
7. Taking care of what you buy. Even in our little two bedroom house and small garage we have so much stuff that requires maintenance that I find I spend more and more time just taking care of what we have assembled. Of course if you have millions you could hire it done, but then calling repairmen would probably become a problem at some point in time.
8. Protecting your money and purchases. Where do I keep it? Where will it be safe? Will the bank really be a good place to keep it?
9. And last but not least how can I make all those payments to Uncle Sam, after all, we have to get that forty-five million in so they can advertize the new dollar coin!
I am sure if I were rich I would be able to find more ways in which I was piercing myself, but this will have to do from my present limited perspective.
III. CURE OF DESIRING RICHES
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and {d} pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
(d) Sorrow and grief do as it were pierce through the mind of man, and are the harvest and true fruits of covetousness.