"The Love of Money" - What Our Love of Wealth Reveals About our Hearts

Greetings dear friends,
Another week in the book of James, and another challenging text before us. There is so much that can be said about money and the love of money.... specifically because of what the Bible has to say bout it. We only really got to skim the surface on Sunday. So I hope the words that follow will help take it to a new depth.

There is a passage in the New Testament (**Hint: James 5**) that has made people uncomfortable for centuries. It does not apologize for its directness. It does not soften its edges. It simply tells the truth about one of the most powerful forces shaping human behavior from the ancient world to the present moment: money.

And the truth it tells is this -- wealth itself is not the problem. What we do with it, what we believe about it, and what we allow it to become in our hearts -- that is where things get dangerous.

The Real Issue Is Never the Money
Scripture is clear that money is not inherently evil. It is a resource, a symbol of human labor and provision, a tool that can be used for tremendous good. The warning that echoes through the pages of the New Testament is not aimed at wealth itself but at the love of it. In his first letter to Timothy, Paul writes that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil -- not money, but the love of it.

That distinction matters enormously.

When someone loves money, they are not simply making a financial decision. They are making a theological one. They are declaring, whether they say it aloud or not, that money is more trustworthy than God. That it is more capable of satisfying their deepest needs.

That it holds more power over their future than the One who holds the future itself.
Money becomes a rival god -- and like all rival gods, it eventually disappoints the people who worship it.

The Danger of Hoarding
One of the sharpest critiques leveled at the wealthy in the New Testament is not that they earned too much, but that they hoarded what they earned. They accumulated. They stockpiled. They sat on resources while others around them suffered.

James, writing to a first-century audience, paints a picture of lavish possessions left to rot. Garments eaten by moths. Gold and silver corroded. The image is striking precisely because it captures the absurdity of hoarding -- these people gathered so much that their possessions began to decay before they could even use them.

Jesus himself addressed this pattern directly. In the sixth chapter of Matthew, he warns against laying up treasures on earth, where decay and theft can reach them, and calls his followers instead to invest in treasures that cannot be touched by the corruption of this world. The reason he gives is simple and searching: where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

That is not merely a financial principle. It is a diagnostic tool. If you want to know what someone truly values, look at where they put their resources.

When Wealth Becomes Weaponized
There is another layer to this conversation that moves beyond personal greed and into something even more sobering: the way that the love of money leads to the mistreatment of others.

In James's day, wealthy landowners would withhold wages from the workers who labored in their fields. In the cultural context of that time, this was not simply unfair -- it was devastating. Scholars of that period have noted that in the Jewish world, to deprive someone of their livelihood was considered equivalent to taking their life, because daily wages were often the only thing standing between a family and starvation.

The love of money, left unchecked, does not stay contained to a person's private life. It bleeds outward. It shapes how they treat the vulnerable. It determines whose suffering they notice and whose they ignore. It builds systems that protect the wealthy and grind down the poor.

This is why Scripture returns to this theme again and again. God is not neutral on the question of economic injustice. He hears the cries of those who are exploited. And the warning is clear: those who build their comfort on the suffering of others will not escape accountability.

The Misery at the End of the Road
There is a pattern that plays out in real human lives, depicted in literature and film and confirmed by experience. A person chases wealth. They acquire it. They surround themselves with every comfort money can buy -- the homes, the travel, the fine things, the admiration of others. And then, somewhere along the way, they arrive at the end of that road and find it hollow.

The happiness they expected never came, or it came briefly and then evaporated. The joy they thought money would deliver turned out to be a promise money could not keep.
Paul captures the alternative beautifully in his letter to the Philippians. Writing from a prison cell, a man who had once belonged to a class of people who prized wealth and religious status, he describes having learned the secret of contentment in any circumstance -- whether in plenty or in want. The secret was not a financial strategy. It was a Person.

A Better Way to Hold Wealth
None of this means that saving is wrong, or that enjoying the good things of life is sinful. Scripture is equally clear that God created good things to be received with gratitude by those who know him. The book of Proverbs offers a prayer that strikes the right balance -- a request for neither poverty nor riches, but simply enough, so that the one praying neither forgets God in abundance nor dishonors him in desperation.

That is the posture worth pursuing. Hold wealth loosely. Use it generously. Remember that it is a tool, not a treasure. Remember that the God who provides it is more reliable than the account that holds it.

The wealth entrusted to us is not meant to be hoarded or worshiped. It is meant to be used -- for the good of others, for the glory of God, and as a daily reminder that everything we have is held in open hands, received from a Giver who is far more generous than we deserve.

Grateful for God's Providence,
Bro. Tony