Is the Love of Money Really the Root of All Evil?

First Published on 26th of September, 2021 by Patrick Carpen.

One Sunday evening, as I was coming home from church, several thoughts crossed my mind. I wouldn’t say that I was exactly “dwindling in unbelief,” but I was having one of those “dealing with doubt” moments. At that time, I was reflecting on how some believers in Christ seemed to have failed where disbelievers or those of other religions seemed to have succeeded, and cases where non-Christians seemed to be living richer spiritual and material lives than those who profess to believe in Christ. And all of this made me question, if even for a few moments, the authenticity of the bible.

Is the bible really true? How well does it hold up under scrutiny? Although I have observed on numerous occasions what seem like contradictions in the bible, I, having personally experienced the power of God, reassure myself that contradictions in the bible are only what seems like contradictions to the untrained eye, and that God, an infinitely more intelligent Being, can easily explain away all these apparent contradictions. I still firmly resolve, therefore, that the bible is the inspired word of God.

But just then, another thought crossed my mind. I remembered the bible verse, “the love of money is the root of all evil.” And since I had been taught this since I was child, and from sources which I considered authoritative, I was basically indoctrinated with the idea. I never sought to examine the truth within it, but rather I was always on the lookout to find situations and stories which corroborate the truth in this bible verse.

But that night, I reflected a bit deeper, and the bible verse, “the love of money is the root of all evil” didn’t seem to hold up under scrutiny. “The love of money” is an abstract idea. It is a human desire. This verse suggests then, that without human thoughts, evil cannot exist. But we also read in the bible that the devil, Satan, is the enemy of God and mankind, and therefore he, the devil, is supposed to be the root of all evil.

If we go back to the first sin committed in the bible – where Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit – we see that the first sin, or what can also be considered the root of all evil, had absolutely nothing to do with money. It was about disobedience to God. So, if you told me that disobedience is the root of all evil, or rebellion is the root of all evil, I would be more inclined to accept it as truth than if you said that the love of money is the root of all evil.

Furthermore, if the love of money is the root of all evil, then those communities which don’t have monetary systems, such as some of those “uncivilized” indigenous communities, were supposed to be absolutely free of all evil. So why then do Christian missionaries attempt to go into those settlements which are supposed to be free from the root of all evil and convert those peoples and bring them into the monetary system on which evil grows?

But it doesn’t stop there. I can think of quite a few instances where evil has nothing to do with the love of money. People have a tendency to commit evil acts even in cases where money is not involved. For example, jealousy, hatred, etc. The bible tells us that the heart of man is desperately wicked, and I think that that is with or without money involved. We learn in history, for example, that indigenous peoples who did not have a monetary system still waged wars against each and committed all sorts of evil acts.

On the other hand, I know that money can be a force for good as well as a great motivating factor. For example, a child growing up in impoverished circumstances may study hard with the aim of becoming somebody who earns a lot of money. In doing so, he or she may become a great doctor, inventor, or pioneer of medicine, and be of great help to humans and humanity while earning a lot of money. In this case, as in many others, the love of money can be a force for good. Some others may become good teachers, mechanics, nurses, pilots, etc because they know that by doing so, they will earn money. So in these examples, the idea that the love of money is the root of all evil doesn’t exactly hold up under scrutiny. It may be so to some extent, but not fully, and it clearly also is a force for good.

I sent a message to a Jehovah Witness friend of mine, Simon Warner, asking him to give his input on this somewhat controversial idea. Simon is a devoted Jehovah’s Witness from England who is currently residing in Bonfim, Brazil. Well, Simon usually has some smart explanations for those apparent trouble spots in the bible that I discuss with him. But this time, I thought that Simon might not be able to explain away this apparent misstatement. I discussed it with him anyway and I was surprised that his explanation was just as good as all the others he had given in the past – if not better.

Simon’s Response:

Hi Patrick. Sorry I didn’t reply earlier. Yea, I understand your points there. I was just looking at some different translations, like our bible says, “the love of money is “a” root, (not the root) but a root of all sorts of injurious things.” So, that could mean a lot of things, right? It’s a root of all sorts of injurious things. So we could look at a lot of injurious, or if you wanted to say evil, things. And we could say that the money is a root of some of those things. So it’s not an all inclusive thing.

And I was just looking at…I have a Greek word-for-word translation…which…you can’t read it word-for-word because it wouldn’t make sense: just as if you translated word-for-word Portuguese into English, the word order might not be the same. So in there, it speaks about the root of bad things is the fondness of silver. So, the original word doesn’t mention money. It mentions silver. So, modern translations, or even not so modern ones…ones that are written for the English audience, or more modern audience use the words money because now we have money, right? In the past they had silver. So if they translate it, “the love of silver” what would the reader think? The reader might think, “oh, well I don’t like silver. I like gold. I prefer gold rings and gold jewelry to silver jewelry.”

They would get the wrong idea of the sense of what the bible is really saying. So that’s why they have the word money. So silver was something of value back then. Money is of value today. I can’t really comment on the history of the Amerindians, but I’m sure that they didn’t just fight because they woke up and felt like fighting. But, a lot of old wars, they fought for land which was valuable…because of the resources that you could gain from a piece of land. It could be maybe closer to a piece of fertile land near the mountain, and you wanted it, but your neighbor is there so, envy…. Envy is being jealous of what another person has to the point that you want to take it from them. You don’t want them to have it. That could easily…the desire of envy could easily fit in with the love of money – wanting something that belongs to somebody else – something valuable. It doesn’t have to be money, but it could be another valuable thing. So there are some points just to round off the thought a little bit with the discussion. Like you said, some people…some people are motivated. I think better teachers are motivated because they really want to teach.

If you just love money, you would be doing your job just waiting for your paycheck. You won’t be a very good teacher, you just do the minimum hoping you would gain the money. The same with these pharmaceutical companies. They might be invested in producing a drug, or even a vaccine which is a controversial subject nowadays. But it could be more about the money, and they could ignore some the side effects or exaggerate the real needs of having this drug or whatever it is.

I think anyway, that’s just to kind of like round off. You know people’s motive, we have to look at every case, case by case. So, for example, the inventor of aspirin, you know…I don’t know if he was rich or what his motivation was, or paracetamol. But anyway, some people have been motivated by money and are successful and have benefited people, so I’m not saying it’s not a good point. It’s a good point. But also being too focused on money, can, “can, not always,” be detrimental to our physical health, or maybe make us do things that Christians wouldn’t do. Actually, the words that we are talking about come from the letter that the apostle Paul wrote. Jesus, His words, what He said is, “Anyone who loves riches cannot love God. No one can serve two masters.” This is where Jesus’ worry was: about where our love lies. As Christians, we want to make sure that our priority is serving God and having time for our relationship with Him. If we are just completely in love with money, then we could forget or have less time for what’s more important. So that would be a more important thing to focus on. So yea, those are my thoughts on the subject.

Conclusion: Although the Jehovah Witnesses’ translation of the verse is more plausible and renders the statement acceptable, I have not studied the original text from which the verse was translated into English. I would resolve nevertheless, that something might have been lost in the translations of other bibles (such as the King James Version) since words and concepts sometimes change their meanings slightly across space (geographic regions and languages) and time.