Is Money the Root of All Evil
Four "Daydream Believers" inspire me to investigate this claim
The Backstory
Every afternoon, they received funny looks from everyone they met as they walked down the street. They were The Monkees, and people said they monkeyed around. They were very nice because they were too busy singing to put anybody down.
They just tried to be friendly, and they invited me every day (in syndication) to come and watch them sing and play. They were the young generation, and they had something to say.
Yes, they were The Monkees. I never knew where they’d be found. In every episode they challenged me to “get ready” because they may be coming to my town!
As an “only child,” I spent as much time as possible in front of the TV. I watched The Monkees during their first syndication run on ABC from 1972 to 1973. The show originally aired from 1966 to 1968. My seven- and eight-year-old self enjoyed this crazy quartet. I thought they were talented and funny, and I liked their music.
Micky was my favorite! He was the most outgoing and the craziest! He also played the drums, and (as a kid) I thought that was pretty cool (Allow me to date myself and use a phrase like “pretty cool”).
The Monkees lived in a two-story beach house. I’m unsure how many of the 58 episodes (2 seasons) involved scenes filmed inside their house. Occasionally, I would see a cross-stitch like the one below in a frame on a wall on their first level.
My Background
I grew up in a conservative Christian home, so I thought I had heard that saying before at church. (This was the same church where I was afraid to go to a birthday party for Jesus at Christmas because I was afraid he was physically going to be there.)
A couple of years after watching The Monkees’ TV show, I learned the cross-stitch is a loose quote from 1 Timothy 6:10 from the Holy Bible. The King James Bible states the phrase this way:
For the love of money is the root of all evil.
This verse states that "money" isn't the root of all evil. The "love" of money is the root of all evil. I understand that "money" can't be the root of all evil. Money is just a thing, a tool, an object.
If money were the root of all evil, it would have intrinsic power like Thor's Mjolnir [hammer] (which contains the raw power of thunder and lightning). Thankfully, money's only power is the power people give it, which is where the problem lies. One of my favorite Bible versions is The New Living Translation.
Here's 1 Timothy 6:10 from that translation:
For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
The love of money causes some insatiable greed. "All kinds of evil" includes lying, stealing, murder, and the other seven of the ten commandments. But this love can also cause people to put their trust in money instead of their higher power (mine is the God of the Bible).
Money is a marvelous tool to use for our betterment. But to place one's trust in money is very unwise. There's a story (parable) in the Bible (and you don't have to believe the Bible is true to appreciate this story) that Jesus shares, as recorded in Luke 12:16-21.
A rich man has a good problem. His fertile farmland produces more crops than he can store. Instead of keeping what he needed and selling the rest or giving the excess away to help others, he decides to tear down his current barns and build bigger ones. Then, he begins to think about his future.
"And I'll sit back and say to myself, 'My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now, take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!'" Luke 12:19 NLT
What he didn't know was he was going to die that very same night! Jesus challenged the crowd gathered around Him to guard against every kind of greed. He reminded them that their lives are not measured by how much they own.
The Question
The farmer in this parable displays selfish greed. Accumulating wealth was his main focus in life, strictly for his own benefit. The question that begs to be asked from this story is: how much do I love money? How much do you love money?
When we love money so much that this "love" causes us to make immoral or unethical decisions, that is bad.
I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too. --Steve Martin
If our love for money causes us to lie, cheat, or steal, that's bad. If our love for money causes us to ignore the needs of those around us, that's bad. If our love of money causes us to make the pursuit of money the focus of our lives, that's also bad!
It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good, too, to check-up once in a while and make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy. --George Lorimer
Consider this article your challenge to regularly give yourself a money check-up to ensure you haven’t lost the things money can’t buy. Stay tuned for practical tips after you have self-diagnosed from your check-up!
I was brought up to think that rich people were bad, and money was bad. But money isn't good or bad, it's what you do with it that counts and whether it changes you into a bad person. I'm very keen on money because it gives me choices and allows me to help my family.
I loved the Monkees too and Micky was my favorite :-)
I still have a Monkees LP somewhere!
I also love Star Trek (the Kirk era is what I fondly remember) and though I don't dress up, as a Trekkie, I did dress up as Poison Ivy at Armageddon (NZ's Comicon) and get a photo with Captain Jack Harkness (bit of a mix there lol).
A fine treatment of an often misapplied scrap of Scripture! Most thinking people realize the distinction between the object itself and loving the object, but there are lots of us who hear only the words "money" and "evil," and draw the wrong conclusion. // As for me, I watched things like Star Trek and Rat Patrol. lol