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Friday, July 27, 2018

NON-MORAL MONEY AND LOVE OF IT

NON-MORAL MONEY AND LOVE OF IT  


"The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" 1 Tim. 6:10


Not money, but the love of it. Money is not a root of evil. Neither is it a root of good. It is NON-MORAL. It may be the greatest curse that can come into a human life. It may be the instrument of untold good. Much depends upon the use of it. Everything depends ultimately upon the attitude of the soul toward it. Where we have three words in this statement, "love of money," the Greek has but one and perhaps the word in our common speech which best convey the thought is the word "avarice." It is not covetousness. That is also a root of evil, but it is not the same thing exactly as avarice! COVETOUSNESS is a desire to gain possession of money, or indeed anything. AVARICE is love-of-money, for itself. It is often the low motive of covetousness; but there may be covetousness from other motives. Love of money is just that, the love of it that hoards and holds. It is indeed a root of all kinds of evil. It dries up the springs of compassion in the soul. It lowers the whole standard of morality. It is the inspiration of all the basest things, even covetousness; for if there may be covetousness without love-of-money, there is never love-of-money without covetousness. Yet how insidious a peril this is! It is sometimes created by prosperity and the consequent possession of money. It is often powerfully present in lives which are devoid of wealth. It is wholly material, the result of a wrong conception of life, due to forgetfulness of the fact that "a man's life consists...not in the abundance of the things which he possesses." (Luke 12:15) And how have many been taught to gather possessions to make one happy and satisfied but that end never comes through this avenue; just one more dollar, just another possession.

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