The root of all evil?

This week's devotions in the print version of ec are all about our desire to find meaning in the pursuit of more—more stuff, fame, success, whatever. Often, in today's world, we try to find contentment in more money. But as believers, what should our attitude be toward money? Is it really the root of all evil? 


Awhile back, we asked Dave Ramsey the same question. Here's his answer: 

It is impossible to get out of high school today without knowing what an amoeba is, but few high school seniors know how to keep a checkbook balanced. We are taught virtually nothing about
the real world of money. I am not talking about money on Wall Street—I’m talking about money on your street. You haven’t been taught basic principles of managing and making financial decisions on your own.

Consequently, many young adults end up graduating from high school or college and getting a place of their own. Without knowing what a lease is, they sign one. Many of us don’t have knowledge of cars and car financing, but we buy one and sign the loan papers. We don’t have knowledge of the implications of credit cards and high interest rates, but we get a 5 percent approved card in the first two years out of high school, and we use it. It was all so innocent and happened so slowly that the monster in the closet was not noticeable.

I want to help you recognize the importance of money before it’s too late. First, money is active. Finance and money are always moving. Time, interest rates, amounts, cash flows, inflation, and risk all intermingle to create a current that never stops. If you took $10,000 and buried it in the backyard for 10 years, will it buy as much when you dig it up as it will now? Obviously not, since the iPod® you can buy today will be worth nothing in 10 years. We must learn that the current flow of the mathematical process is always affecting our money. It never stops.

The way we use money is like a beautiful thoroughbred horse—very powerful and always in action, but unless this horse is trained when very young, it will be an out-of-control, dangerous animal when it grows up.

The point is this: you must gain control over your money, or the lack of it, it will control you forever. If you don’t take action continually on your money, it will take action on you. Finance is not passive. It requires you to take the initiative to control it.

Second, money is amoral. Money has no morals. It’s neither good nor bad. First Timothy 6:10 does not say, “Money is the root of all evil.” What it does say is that “the love of money is the root of all evil. ”
Money in and of itself has no more moral quality than a brick. So just because you are poor does not mean that you are good or spiritually superior; neither does it mean that you are bad or spiritually inferior. On the other hand, having wealth does not mean that you are inherently good or spiritually superior, nor does it mean that you are a crook or bad person or spiritually inferior. The way you act through your money or your lack of it will show whether you are good or evil, but the money itself is neither.

Money does not decide your value. Be careful of a society that assigns value to a person based upon its wrong view of collecting “stuff.” Your value as a human being, as a person, is not based on your ability to collect “stuff.” If you have jumped on this train of thought, you will be derailed.

Money is “active” in the philosophical realm as well. When your priorities get off track, money will take command instantly because of its active principle. I love the old adage “Measure your wealth not by the things you have, but by the things for which you would not take money.”

When we forget that our money is not our creator and believe instead that we are supposed to create with it, we wreak havoc in our lives. Our forefathers may not have intended this, but they put a reminder on our currency to avoid “stuffitis”: In God We Trust. Please notice it does not say In Stuff We Trust. We must keep money and our handling of it in the proper perspective. We must not treat it carelessly, for this collecting of “stuff” is only a game.

Money is simply a nonentity that must be manipulated. The better we are at manipulating it, the more of it we will control. Until we take this active and amoral view of money, it will continue to have the upper hand in every part of our lives.

Reprinted from ec magazine, June 2008, pg. 44-45.