1 Timothy 6 - Contentedness and Wandering

So often we hear 1 Timothy 6:10 misquoted as "the love of money is the root of all evil", or "money is the root of all evil".  That's not what it says.  It does say that "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil", as in "a whole lot of evil".  I don't think anyone can argue with that.  At the same time, we need to understand that the principle here isn't against money itself, but rather against greed and a lack of contentedness.  When we see what people have and want it for ourselves, rather than being grateful for all we have, we put our hearts in a very dangerous place.  It's basically impossible to honor God while feeling sorry for myself because somebody else can afford something that I want.

At the end of verse 10 we see that the love of money has cause some to "wander from the faith", an expression that gets repeated at the very end of the chapter in verse 21.  This second group of wanderers has embraced godless chatter and false teachings, and in doing they have also "wandered from the faith".  The idea of wandering is interesting.  They didn't sprint away.  It didn't happen all at once.  It was a gradual drift that resulted in people distancing themselves from the love of Jesus.  They simply wandered away.  May we always be on guard to make sure that we are not doing so ourselves, committing each day to following Him and asking Him to grab hold of us tightly if/when we begin to wander.