In 1 Timothy 6:3–10, Paul warns about controversy, discontentment, and the danger of loving money. Today we wrestle with what that means in a world filled with online outrage, suspicion, wealth, and endless distractions. Money itself isn’t the problem—our relationship to it is. Wealth can be a tremendous blessing when we understand it as something God has entrusted to us, but it becomes dangerous when it becomes our master. The question is ultimately about our first love: What are we really serving? Because we cannot serve both God and wealth—or God and anything else that takes first place in our lives.
Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.
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Good morning. Good to be with you on this Thursday morning. I hope you’re well today and that your week is going wonderfully.
It’s good to be with you as we continue studying Paul’s first letter to his mentee, Timothy.
Yesterday, we talked about slavery, and I really appreciated some of the conversations I was able to have with friends who watch these reflections or listen to the podcast. I hope this is a useful exercise for us—to take Scripture seriously while still wrestling with it.
Because it’s in the wrestling that we grow.
I think about one of my favorite passages in the Bible, in Genesis 32, when Jacob wrestles with God. I love that passage because, for me, faith sometimes does feel like hand-to-hand combat with God.
As I’ve shared with you before, I don’t have the gift of faith in quite the same way my wife does. My wife just has faith. She just naturally believes. I would give anything sometimes to have the kind of faith she has.
For me, it’s often intellectual wrestling—with myself and with God. So I’ve always identified a little bit with Jacob wrestling with God.
And I don’t want you to feel discouraged if, when you read the Bible, there’s some wrestling sometimes.
That’s not a bad thing.
It doesn’t mean you don’t have faith. It doesn’t mean you don’t believe the Bible. It doesn’t mean you don’t trust Jesus.
Sometimes we wrestle with these things.
And that’s okay.
Today is another passage where Paul gets all up in our business.
We’re in 1 Timothy 6, verses 3 through 10. Paul talks about those who teach things contrary to the sound words of Jesus. He describes people who have a craving for controversy and disputes about words, and he says that from these things come envy, dissension, slander, suspicion, and constant wrangling.
And then he talks about godliness and contentment.
He says that if we brought nothing into the world, we can take nothing out of it. If we have food and clothing, we can be content with these things.
And then he gets to verse 10:
“The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”
You’ve probably heard that verse ten thousand times.
So let’s put it in context.
First, I think yesterday’s conversation about slavery helps us with something. For me, studying Scripture is always about looking at the principles Scripture teaches and then asking how we apply those principles to our daily lives.
The words matter.
But the words are pointing us toward something bigger.
So listen to what Paul says about controversy and think about the world we live in today.
He talks about people who have a morbid craving for controversy and disputes about words. From that come envy, dissension, slander, suspicion, and wrangling.
Does that not sound like the world we live in?
Does it not?
We live in a world full of controversy.
Envy. Dissension. Slander. Suspicion.
And I think so much of this is amplified by the controversies we consume on the internet. Our conspiracies and controversies often paint our enemies in the worst possible light. They encourage us to assume the worst about other people, to debase them, and to think less of them.
And Paul says, “Don’t do that.”
Don’t go there.
Don’t develop a morbid craving for controversy.
If we have a morbid craving for controversy, I think we need to check our walk with God and make sure we are walking in accordance with what Paul calls the sound words of Jesus.
When I read that passage, I thought, “Huh. That sounds a lot like the world we live in today, doesn’t it?”
But then let’s talk about this phrase: “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”
Paul is talking about something very specific here.
And this is another place where I don’t want us to nuance ourselves into hell.
Jesus has some very clear teachings about the dangers of wealth.
He says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. He tells the rich young ruler to sell what he has and give to the poor.
But we also see people of significant means following Jesus.
Joseph of Arimathea, for example, provided a tomb for Jesus. That would have been an act of significant generosity. We see the woman who pours expensive ointment on Jesus.
There are people of wealth throughout Scripture who follow Jesus.
And we see this in the Methodist movement as well.
In the early days of Wesley’s movement, people were organized into class meetings. Sometimes the leaders of those class meetings were among the wealthier people in the community. Part of their responsibility was to help care for those who could not afford the small cost of participating.
Wesley certainly had plenty to say about wealthy people who claimed to be Christians but weren’t living faithfully. But there were wealthy Methodists.
So I don’t want us to simply say, “Well, Jesus wants everybody to give everything they have away.”
I think what Jesus wants is for us to be willing to give everything we have away.
There’s a difference.
Because when we’re willing to give everything away, our wealth no longer becomes an anchor to our souls.
It becomes a tool.
Resources, wealth, and money can be a great blessing.
I have seen it with my own two eyes in ministry.
I’ve seen people who have means care for others and do incredible things for others. I’ve seen it here in Starkville. I’ve seen it in Madison, in Pearl, in Ripley, in Choctaw County, and in the Delta.
I’ve seen it over and over and over again.
And I could tell you stories of people who have given in ways that almost nobody would ever see or know about. And they would probably come beat me up today if I told you what they did.
But I’ve seen it.
And these are people with means.
They understand that the means they have been given are meant to be a blessing to others.
That’s the warning Paul is giving here.
Especially for Christians—and especially for Christian leaders—we cannot give away our integrity, our soul, or who we are in the pursuit of wealth.
That’s the danger.
And that’s why Paul talks about the love of money.
Because what did Jesus say?
We cannot serve both God and wealth.
We can serve God and have wealth.
But if we serve God and have wealth, we understand that the wealth we have is simply a tool God has given us to support ministry, to care for others, and to build up the body of Christ.
We cannot serve God and wealth.
We can only serve God.
And by the way, that fills in the blank for anything else.
We cannot serve both God and SEC football.
We cannot serve both God and our hobbies.
We cannot serve both God and school.
We cannot serve both God and our careers.
We cannot serve both God and anything else.
But we can serve God and enjoy SEC football.
We can serve God and have hobbies.
We can serve God and be a good student.
We can serve God and have a good career.
Those things can become tools that help us grow closer to God, love God more, and serve others.
It’s about your first love.
And if your first love is anything other than Jesus, you’re going to be in trouble.
That’s what Paul is talking about.
He’s talking about people who are willing to sell their souls, their integrity, their very being, in pursuit of something as temporary as wealth.
You know, I’ve heard the old saying that some people are so poor, all they have is money.
And there’s another old joke about a man who dies and tells his family, “When I die, I want you to put all my money and all my gold in my casket.”
So he dies, and he gets to heaven with a wheelbarrow full of gold.
He gets to the gates, and Peter says, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
And the man says, “Thanks, Peter. But there’s one thing I wanted to know. Could I bring this wheelbarrow in with me?”
Peter looks confused.
“I guess.”
The man says, “Oh, good! I wanted to bring this with me.”
And Peter says, “But I don’t understand. Why would you want to bring a wheelbarrow full of gold into heaven?”
Because remember what Revelation says about the streets of heaven being paved with gold?
The point is that gold is the most valuable thing we can imagine here.
But in heaven, it’s asphalt.
It’s what you walk on.
It’s pavement.
So we can have wealth. We can have positions. We can have success. And most of us in the West have far more resources than most people throughout human history ever had.
But we can’t serve those things.
We can only serve God.
And then we can use whatever God has given us as a tool to serve him.
So the question today is simple:
What is your first love?
What is the thing you are ultimately serving?
Because if your first love is Jesus, everything else can find its proper place.
Hope this is helpful.
I hope you have a great rest of your day, and we’ll pick up tomorrow with verse 11 of chapter 6.
Thanks. See you.