No doubt we’ve all heard somewhere that “money is the root of all evil.” The saying is deeply embedded in popular wisdom.
But is it really true?
Where did “money is the root of all evil” come from?
The origin is actually pretty clear. We can trace the phrase directly back to a much-quoted letter written by the apostle Paul to his young apprentice Timothy, probably in the mid-sixties.
Paul wrote portions of this letter out of a concern that certain church leaders may have strayed into greed. Working together, he and Timothy had to deal with the growing pains of a struggling young church.
Except in our day Paul has been badly misquoted.
The good news is that it only takes a few minutes to clear these muddy waters. And eventually the challenge of a much deeper (and quite positive) principle emerges. But more on that later.
Let’s start by looking at where we may have gone wrong, all this time. How is Paul typically and frequently…
