Verse explainer

What does 1 Timothy 6:10 really mean?

It's not money that's the root of evil — it's the LOVE of money. The verse indicts a craving of the heart, not the coins in your pocket.

KJV

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.

BSB

For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. By craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.

The plain meaning

Paul is warning Timothy about people who treat godliness as a means of profit (vv. 5-9) — those who long to be rich and fall into a snare. The diagnosis is precise: not money, but the love of it (philargyria, literally "silver-loving"). The Greek even reads more like "a root of all kinds of evil" than "the root of all evil" — money-hunger breeds many evils, not every evil. The picture is of a craving that lures people away from faith and impales them on sorrows. Wealth itself isn't condemned; the very next verses tell the rich to be generous, not to despair (vv. 17-19).

The common misreading

"Money is the root of all evil." The single most common misquote drops the crucial words "the love of." Paul does not say money is evil or its root; he says the love of money is. Money is a neutral tool — the same letter tells the wealthy to do good and be generous (vv. 17-19). And the Greek points to "a root of all kinds of evil," not the lone source of every evil. The target is a grasping heart, which can afflict the poor as easily as the rich.

What the commentators say

Matthew Henryearly 18th c. · PD

Henry is careful to say it is the love of money, not money itself, that is the root of evil — an inordinate desire that has drawn many from the faith and filled them with self-inflicted sorrows; riches well used are a blessing.

John Gill18th c. · PD

Gill notes the apostle blames the covetous affection, not the metal, and reads the phrase as money-love being a root from which all sorts of evils spring, piercing the greedy soul with anguish.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown19th c. · PD

JFB observe the Greek lacks the article — "a root of all kinds of evil" — and stress that it is the eager craving, not possession of wealth, that Paul condemns as breeding manifold evils and apostasy.

The word behind it

φιλαργυρία philargyria

Literally "love of silver" (philos, loving + argyros, silver). It names an affection of the heart, not a substance. Paul's whole point hangs on this word: the danger is the craving, the grasping love, not money as such. And the sentence reads "a root of all kinds of evil" — money-love spawns many evils, not the single source of all evil.

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