Posted by BY J E SOLOMON
Quite often I hear people say, “Money is the root of all evil.” And they claim it’s written in the Holy Bible. It’s not. Nowhere in the big Book can one find such a passage.
Money is not evil. It’s good, and very, very good. It’s a blessing to have money, and well, more money than most people. However, it’s the love of money; to the degree that one can stray from what’s right and fair and even dare to commit sinful acts in the quest for more money.
That exactly is what the Bible talks about in 1Timothy 6:10. “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil….” Yes, it’s the love of money, not the money.
If someone has a business that earns him millions of dollars (pounds, euros, or cedis, as the case may be) and he’s earning the millions in all fairness, that’s fine. But if one’s business involves luring young girls and selling them off as sex slaves then that’s not good business.
In many ways, money can be likened to blood. And rightly so, in my native home Ghana, we have a saying that, “sika ye moja”, meaning money is blood.
Money by itself is not evil. Money is all good, especially more and more of it. In a recession such as the one we’re going through now, those who are having bad times do know the pain of not having more money. And those who are enjoying good times appreciate the importance of having more money. Money is not the root of all evil. What’s evil is the excessive love of money and the unrighteous acts that some people engage in while trying to get money.
One other common misquotation is: “Another day, another dollar.” The real quotation, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is actually, “Another day, another dolor,” meaning “another depressing day” (dolor is Spanish for pain). Courtesy: Wikiquote