Around this time last year, Penny and I
were getting ready to buy something at a store here in Athens. Next to the cash
register was a sign that had a portion of a verse from our I Timothy scripture
reading today.
The
sign read, “Since money is the root of
all evil, we’ll be happy to take it from you.”
I turned to Penny and I said, “Now, that is funny!” And Penny said, “But they misquoted the bible verse.”
I said, “What?”
She said, “It’s not, ‘money is the root of all evil.’ It should say, ‘the love of
money is the root of all evil.’”
Leave it to a person who is
named after a coin to know her bible verses about money.
She’s right. This is probably the most
misquoted verse in the entire bible and I fell for it that day! A presidential
candidate misquoted this verse during a speech by saying, “money is the root of all evil.”
I wonder if the Apostle Paul who wrote
this letter to Timothy had any idea that this would become the most misquoted
verse in the entire Bible. Maybe he should have put the word, “LOVE” in all
caps. Or maybe, he should have included a heart emoji after the word, “love” to
emphasize his point.
Why do we tend to misquote this verse about
money? What’s up with that? Maybe it’s because we are a little embarrassed to
admit that it’s easy to have a love affair with our money.
You know how I am with quarters, right? I’ve
shared with you how for the longest time, I have stored quarters in my car.
Pennies, nickles, and dimes are not allowed. Only quarters are permitted.
I think the reason I have a love affair
with quarters is because they give me an extra sense of assurance, like that
time I made a late afternoon trip to Dairy Queen. When they asked for me to pay
the $8 or so amount, I realized that I had forgotten to bring my wallet with
me.
I motioned for the worker to give me a
just a minute. I went out to my car and proudly put over 32 quarters on the
counter. I walked out of that place with my head held high and with a little
swagger to my step. My precious quarters saved the day. So, yeah, we sometimes
have this love affair with our precious money.
The Apostle Paul isn’t saying that we
shouldn’t care about money. He just wants us to keep it in perspective so that
we can be the generous people that God is calling us to be.
Paul is saying that it’s important for us
to have the right perspective with money. We need to remember that we can’t
take it with us when we leave this world.
As someone once said, “I’ve never seen a hearse pulling a U-haul.” Our possessions won’t
do us any good in the afterlife, but it can do a whole lot of good while we’re right
here on earth.
Paul writes how money can provide us with
the basic necessities of life like food and clothing and this can give us
contentment, but he also says how it can lead us down a selfish and destructive
path.
Paul concludes this passage of scripture
on money by encouraging us to do good and to share what we have with others.
This is what it means to be generous. This is what it means to live out our
faith and to use our money wisely.
If the love of money is the root of all
evil, then Paul also wants us to know that it’s the love of God that is the
root of all good. If we love God with our whole hearts, we will become the
generous givers that God is calling us to be. We just need to remember to add a
little love in how we handle our money.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism has
given us three important ways to be generous in our giving and to now allow the
love of money to get the best of us. Those three ways of handling money are to
1) Earn all you can. 2) Save all you can. And 3) Give all you can.
If we can just remember those three
things, we will be able to be to have a proper perspective on handling money.
Earn All You Can
The first way of handling money is to earn
all you can. Of course, this is assuming that our earnings are done in an
ethical way. It’s important to have enough money to care for our needs. Earning
all we can means that we use the gifts, abilities, and opportunities that God
has given us to make a living.
Save All You Can
The second important way of handling money
is to save all you can. Saving money is not always easy, but it’s so important
because we need to think about our long-term financial stability.
Putting away a little money each month
will pay dividends in the long run.
Give All You Can
And the third important way of handling
money is to give all you can. This is at the heart of what the Apostle Paul is
saying in our scripture reading for today. He want us to be generous givers so
that we can not only use our money to give us a sense of contentment, but to
also bless others.
When we give away all we can so that we
can do good for others, it helps us to keep our focus on God and not on our
money.
This is how we are to handle our money.
Earn all we can. Save all we can. And give all we can.
Rev. Dick Teller was my first District
Superintendent back in the mid 80s. We also served on staff together at a
church in the 90s. He became a spiritual mentor for me over these many years,
giving me pointers about pastoral ministry, the importance of taking care of
myself, and giving me thoughts on things he had learned about managing
finances. He passed away last November.
Just before he passed away, the church
where he had been attending in his retirement years did a stewardship video
with him. They showed this short video at the church as part of their annual
stewardship campaign.
I’d like to show this video of my friend
Rev. Dick Teller to you as he shares his thoughts about being generous givers
to Christ and his church. Let’s watch.
My friend truly lived out what he shared
in this video. He and his wife, Jan were very generous people.
Being generous is all about just adding a
little love to our giving. That’s what the Apostle Paul is talking about in our
scripture reading for today.
This past Spring, Sharon Stoltzfus and I
attended a meeting at the Conference office in Columbus. They had asked several
leaders of different churches in our conference to come and share ministry
ideas. We shared about our outdoor prayer cross and how that has been a way for
people who walk by our church to let know that we are a church that cares for them.
One of the churches at that conference
meeting shared an incredible ministry idea that Sharon and I thought you would
like to hear.
This is a small church located just north
of Columbus. The pastor of that church told the congregation that they would be
receiving a special offering through the month of December, including at their
Christmas Eve service.
He told them that he wasn’t going to tell
them what the special offering was for until at the end of the Christmas Eve
service when all of the money had been collected. He said how people in that
church kept bugging him during the whole month of December to tell him where
they were going to send the offering, but he wouldn’t tell them, no matter how
much they begged him.
He said how some of his members who said
they would be in Florida for Christmas Eve, wanted him to tell him what that
surprise offering was for, but he said, “It’s
a surprise. I can’t tell anyone.” They were even trying to bribe him, but
he just wouldn’t tell them.
So,
finally, Christmas Eve came and at the end of their 11 o’clock candlelight
service, he told them about the offering. He told them the amount that had been
collected which was one of the largest Christmas offerings they had ever
received at that church.
He then told the 11 o’clock Christmas Eve
service crowd that the Christmas offering was going to be evenly divided and
given to all the workers at the local Waffle House restaurant that night. As a
church, they were going to give them a very nice Christmas surprise.
So, the pastor invited anyone from the 11
o’clock service to head on over to the Waffle House to surprise these workers
with this offering. The pastor said how he thought that maybe 5 people would
actually go with him to The Waffle House that night. But to his surprise, about
30 to 40 people were there. They all wanted to be part of this random act of
kindness.
The pastor said that he arrived at The
Waffle House after everybody else because he had to turn out the church lights
and secure the building. When he got there, he asked them if they told the
workers why they were there and they said, they hadn’t because they were
waiting for him to arrive.
He said that those Waffle House workers
were probably really worried about all those people they were going to have to
serve. So they all went in to the Waffle House restaurant, and this pastor said
that each of those workers received a little over $400 on that early Christmas
morning from their church.
They
were shocked that their church would do such a nice thing for them. They were
so thankful to these church members. It was a very memorable night for everyone
involved. The church was on cloud nine over this. It became the talk of the
town.
The pastor didn’t think too much more
about this until about a week after Christmas. One of his church members said
that she decided to eat at that same Waffle House restaurant one day, and the
waitress, recognizing this person from that early Christmas morning said that
she was one of the workers who received money from the church.
The waitress then said how that extra $400
really came in handy because she and her children were facing an eviction
notice at the time. Because of that generous Christmas gift from their church,
they were able to stay in their apartment.
This story reminds me that being generous
is really just about adding a little love in our giving. When we add a little
of God’s love in our giving, it truly does bring transformation to our
community and world.
This
week, many of us will be receiving a 2017 estimate of giving card in the mail.
We are invited to prayerfully consider what our generous offering will be to
Christ and his church for this coming year. We can either mail our cards to the
church or bring it to church with us next Sunday as we dedicate our cards to
the glory of God.
The Apostle Paul was right when he said
that, “It’s the love of money that is the root of all evil.” May God always
help us to remember that “It’s the love of God that is the root of all good.”
As we prepare for a new year of ministry,
let’s add a little love in our giving. That’s all it takes in being the
generous people that God has called us to be.
Generosity: Just Add a Little Love
Small Group Questions
I Timothy 6:6-19
September 25, 2016
Pastor Robert said that I Timothy 6:10 is perhaps the most misquoted verse in the entire bible. It doesn't say that money is the root of all kinds of evil. The correct phrase is "the love of money..."
Why is this distinction important in interpreting and living out this verse in our everyday lives?
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism encouraged people to 1) earn all you can 2) save all you can 3) give all you can.
Which of these three areas do you struggle with the most? Which of these three areas come more easily than the others?
In thinking about the Waffle House story from the sermon, we can only imagine how good the people in that church must have felt to help the workers at that restaurant on that early Christmas morning.
Share a time when someone was blessed through your giving just by adding a little love. How did that experience deepen your faith?
