Love of Money is the Root of all Evil

Today I read 1 Timothy 6 where Paul closes his epistle to Timothy. In this chapter, Paul teaches Timothy that the love of money is the root of all evil. I remember when I was little I misunderstood and thought that money was the root of all evil and I was real confused how little slips of paper or numbers on a screen can be the root of all evil. It wasn't until later that I realized that money is just a means to an end, economy if you will, and that it is the love of money that is the root of all evil.

The love of money is at it's center greed and covetousness. We want what others have, what we assume is the good life. It is the love of money that causes all the great evils in the world. Murder for hire, prostitution/erotic dancing, pornography, alcohol production, tobacco farming, illegal drugs. Each of these destroys lives, some in a very physical sense, others in a far worse spiritual sense. And all are done because people love money and will do quite literally anything for it. I once heard the statement that everyone has a price, and for most people I think that is true. Their integrity is so low, that it can be bought. From what I understand, there are whole websites devoted to seeing how much money it takes the average woman to take her clothes off and be put onto the internet for the whole world to see. From what I have heard sadly all too few of them it is not much money at all. Dozens upon dozens of movies all focus on the gangster lifestyle where money is everything and if someone owes you money you destroy their belongings or kill their family members. All the worst evils in the world all done because someone wants more money.

Now, in our society money is what we use to further our economy so money is necessary and to that end we have an established societal norm that for goods and services rendered, money will be paid. This is colloquially known as work. When we have performed an agreed upon service, our employer pays us accordingly. The problem comes when we get greedy. It never fails to amaze me the greed of some of these big corporations and the people at the top. I honestly don't see why anyone in this country needs to earn more than at the most $500,000 per year. Anything more than that is just greedy. That much money will earn all the comfort of life and then some. And yet we have people earning in the millions and millions of dollars each and every year when that money could be put back into their company to improve production, or even better, pay their employees a little more.

I could probably go on for quite a lot longer on how correct Paul is but frankly, I would honestly just be repeating myself. I have always been satisfied with what was enough for me and my family to live comfortably and pay all of our debts. I don't need to be rich and I'm not sure I would know what to do with myself if I did. In the end what is important to me is spending time with my family, not how much money I earned. That is how I spend my time and I don't care how important my job title is, nothing will ever come in the way of my family and family time. Until tomorrow.