One night as I was getting ready for bed, my wife was reading an article she’d found online about ways to be more financially successful. This article talked about having a positive attitude, believing you have already succeeded, and consistently focusing on one’s goals, among other things. My wife thought it was a great article, but she was surprised that the majority of the comments at the end of the article were quite negative. The general sentiment among commentors was that money is evil and desiring money is morally wrong.

Not long after that, I read an online debate about whether money is the root of all evil. After both sides of the argument were made, the readers would vote on which side of the argument they agreed with. Over 70% of the readers agreed that money is indeed the root of all evil. 70%!

Though I now think this is ridiculous, these beliefs were all too familiar to me. As a teenager, I read the Bible story found in Matthew 19: 16-21. In this story, a rich young man approaches Jesus and explains that he has kept the commandments found in the Law of Moses from his youth. Then he asks Jesus what other thing he needs to do to have eternal life. Jesus responds that he should give his money to the poor and follow Him. When I read this story, I thought it meant that in order to be good followers of Christ, we had to be poor and humble. And so the belief that money is evil began to grow inside of me

I grew up in a family that didn’t have a lot of money. We weren’t poor-we had money sufficient for our needs-but we didn’t have a lot of extra money. For example, just last year, after 40+ years of marriage, my parents bought their first brand new car. My parents taught me by their example to live frugally, to be careful with money, and to work hard. But other beliefs I picked up along the way from family, church culture, and society are that money leads to pride, greed, vanity, and a litany of other bad traits and sins.

But I was a teenager and loved fast cars, had expensive hobbies, and dreamed of one day traveling the world and living a more luxurious life than what I grew up in. I was having a hard time reconciling my dreams with this belief that money is bad.

As a 19-year-old, I moved to Belgium as a missionary for my church (I’m a Mormon). I was speaking one day to the Mission President (the man chosen to oversee missionary work in a certain area). This man had been very successful in his business career and was, well, loaded. He also happened to be one of the best men I had ever met. He encouraged me to work hard to be successful in my career and to make a lot of money. His rationale was that a person can do more good in the world if he has more monetary means to do so. This was a new way of thinking for me and it opened my mind up to the idea that maybe money isn’t all bad. But long-time beliefs die hard, and it would be another decade before I would see the light, so to speak.

The Love of Money

In 1 Timothy 6:10, the apostle Paul states, “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” I’ve heard this scripture misquoted many times to simply say, “Money is the root of all evil.” I have also heard this scripture quoted correctly but misinterpreted. I have misinterpreted it a bit myself. What is the root of all evil, according to Paul? It is the love of money. And what is the love of money? The obvious and easy answer would be greed. But I think there’s more to it than that.

I like my friends but I love my wife. I like other people’s kids but I love my own. I like to read but I love to ski. So, in a choice between spending time with my wife or spending time with friends, I’d choose my wife. Same goes for my kids over others’ or skiing over reading. When given a choice, I give the priority to the things I love over everything else. Well, what if we love money? Does that love of money lead us to work and try to make money on the sabbath instead of keeping the sabbath day holy by serving God? Or does it lead us to work long hours at the expense of family time, our families being the second greatest gift God has given us, right behind The Savior? Do we love our money so much that we are unwilling to part with it to help someone in need?

It’s not that money is bad. Money just is. Left on its own, it cannot do good or bad. But in the hands of a person, suddenly it becomes a powerful tool. In my opinion, the reason Paul warns about loving money is because it is one of Satan’s most effective tools for leading people away from God. If Satan can get people to love money and the things that money buys, maybe they’ll forget their God. Maybe they’ll buy that boat they’ve always wanted and then find that Sunday is the best day to enjoy that boat. Pretty soon enjoying God’s blessings and spending time with family or friends, two good things usually, have replaced God all together in their lives.

There are other ways in which Satan uses money to corrupt our minds and lead us away from God. I’ll use a story from the Book of Mormon for this example. Though some that read this may not agree that the Book of Mormon is scripture like I believe it is, I think you’ll at least understand the point I am making.

The Book of Mormon is an ancient record of some of the inhabitants of the American continents. In the Book of Mormon, there are two main groups of people, the Nephites and the Lamanites. The book follows these groups over about a 1000 year period. There is a consistent pattern among both groups that when these groups follow God, they prosper. They have peace, become wealthy, and are generally happy. But, at a certain point, the wealthiest start to look down on the people who have less. These people wear more expensive clothing and do other things to set them apart from the poor and eventually start to persecute the poor. They forget God, start fighting with their neighbors, and end up in wars. Because of the hardship they go through, they humble themselves, repent, start asking God for help, and they again start to keep the commandments. God blesses them and they begin to prosper again. This cycle continues throughout the book. Not every group in the Book of Mormon falls into this pride cycle, but most do.

In our day, Satan’s tactics haven’t changed. He uses money as a means to get us to believe we are better than others because we have more than they do. We start wearing more expensive clothes, buying more toys, building bigger houses, and notice when others don’t have as much as we have. Then, if we’re not careful, we’ll start to think that maybe we’re smarter or harder working or even more righteous than others because we’ve been blessed with so much. And then we start withholding our substance from people in need and maybe we even make some bad comments about the homeless dude who we decide not to help because he’s only going to spend it on booze anyway. And then Satan has us. Without realizing it we have turned into the very type of people who, in Jesus’ time, despised the sick, the poor, and the needy and eventually crucified their God.

Now, I know I just went from zero to crucifixion in about three seconds and that many good people who have been blessed with an abundance of money will not fall into this category, I am just trying to point out the tactics in which Satan uses money to ensnare people and drag them down. But it doesn’t need to be that way. We have a choice in how we can respond to God’s blessing.

If money were bad, God wouldn’t use it to bless faithful people.

If money were bad in God’s eyes, he wouldn’t use it to bless people who are faithful. Take the story of Job, for example. Job was a stalwart follower of God. According to the scriptures he was a perfect and upright man (Job 1:1). Satan made the argument to God that Job was faithful only because God had blessed him with riches and made his life abundant, but if that was taken away, Job’s faithfulness wouldn’t last. And so God allowed Satan to tempt him (Job 1:7-12).

Job, the wealthiest man in the east, had everything taken from him-his wealth, his health, his family, his friends. If ever there was something bad that could happen, Job experienced it. But, as God told Satan he would be, Job stayed faithful and true to his God, putting Him first before all other things. Because of Job’s faithfulness, God eventually blessed Job with beautiful children and twice as much wealth as he had before and allowed Job to enjoy abundance the second half of his life.

From this story, we can learn a few things. For one, like we learned earlier, Satan will use money to tempt and ensnare people. In this case, God allowed Satan to take the money away and Satan tried to get Job to curse God. It’s kind of a backward tactic from before, but if we have money and then we lose it, you can guarantee Satan will be right there whispering in our ears, trying to get us to curse God for our misfortune. And if we love money more than God, there’s a good chance we will.

The second thing we can learn is that God does bless people for their faithfulness, and one way that He does this is with money and abundance. In fact, all throughout The Bible and The Book of Mormon are the teachings that God blesses us with monetary prosperity, among other things. Take, for example, the following scriptures:
Romans 8: 32 - “He (God, the Eternal Father) that spared not his own Son (Jesus Christ), but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”
Psalms 112: 1-3 - “ . . . Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments . . . Wealth and riches shall be in his house: and his righteousness endureth forever.”
In Proverbs 3 it says something similar about barns being filled with plenty.
In Matthew 6: 33 it says that if we put the kingdom of God first, all the blessing that were previously stated (clothes, food, etc) will be added unto us.
Isaiah 1:19 - “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.”

This list of scriptures could be pages long, but you get the picture. God blesses the faithful with abundance, which includes money.

One quick note here so that I’m not misunderstood. Though the scriptures are replete with examples of God blessing people with abundance, which includes money, money is not an indicator of one’s righteousness or standing with God. There are plenty of evil people with a lot of money and a lot of good people without money. Remember the widow’s mite. She gave all she had, which wasn’t much at all, but Jesus praised her to His disciples. The point is that, no matter what your financial standing in life, keeping the commandments of God will only improve that standing. The blessings may not come instantly, just like the punishment of evil acts don’t always come immediately, but they do always come. That is God’s law.

God is a Loving Heavenly Father

The fact is that there is a loving Father looking down on us, wanting so badly to bless us and help us be happy.

Matthew 7:11 - “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”

He wants to give abundantly and make our lives more beautiful and comfortable and enjoyable than we could ever imagine, but as with all blessings from God, they are dependant on us keeping the laws and commandments to which those blessings are tied. And that’s a good thing. If He blessed us every time we sinned, it would be the same as if we gave a treat to our dog every time she peed on the carpet. Pretty soon the stench of that carpet would only be outdone by the stench of our degenerate lives. God wants us to be happy and He knows that true happiness comes from living good, honest, righteous lives.

Conclusion

This ran on a little longer than I intended, so I’ll be as brief as I can wrapping this up. I started out this article talking about my own negative feelings toward money. But, as I’ve studied the scriptures and thought critically about the subject, I’ve realized that I had it backward. It’s not that God doesn’t want me to have money because it’s evil, it is that God wants me to have money when I am good, because then it can be the greatest blessing to me and others.

You’ve heard the stories of people who somehow come into money and it ends up ruining their lives. You’ve probably also heard of people who come into money and they do wonderful things with it. God desires the second one for all of us.

In my efforts to make more money and provide a more comfortable life for my family, I hope I can always stay faithful to my Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. It is helpful and encouraging to know that they want me to be rich too.