Wyatt Yates Host 00:00 Money doesn't have to be complicated. You can achieve financial independence. This podcast gets to the truth behind the money mess you hear from your grandma, your broke uncle, the latest social media influencers and the so-called money experts. Welcome to Money Myths with your host, wyatt Yates. 00:23 The myth we're going to cover today is Money is the root of all evil. Now, this is a very common myth that you've probably heard before. So where does this myth come from? It's actually from in reference to a verse in the Bible. Now, more specifically, it's in the New Testament, in Paul's letter to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 6, verse 10, is what this myth is referencing. And let's just real quickly look at you know why it may be true and why we think that. Oh, this makes sense. Money is the root of all evil. 01:01 A lot of us probably know someone that has used money to do something that maybe we considered evil or not right, or money is often associated with greed, and people that have money have to be greedy to get it or to want to get it. And some people even like to use it personally as a justification on, maybe, why they're morally superior to the greedy rich people, right? So we can see why this myth seems reasonable to us. It's greedy to want more money. It's bad to want more money and a lot of times money is associated with greed. But let's get to why. This may be not the best way to look at it. Well, the first thing is this Bible verse is actually misquoted, and it's misquoted so often it's actually laughable. The Bible verse does not say money is the root of all evil. Here's what Paul's letter to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, verse 10 actually says the entire verse For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. So it doesn't say money is the root of all evil. It says for the love of money is the root of all evil. So the love of money. Now, I don't like taking things out of context and I always think it's important to not just take something on its own. 02:45 What was said before this and what was said after this can really provide us context in what Paul was trying to get across in his message to Timothy. Now, regardless of your spiritual beliefs, there's still a lot of wisdom that you can get from the Bible, whether you believe in God or not. So let's look at this so we get a better understanding of what the intent of this message was. So this letter before Paul starts talking about money to Timothy, he's talking about false teachers, and this is what he has to say, starting in verse 4. 03:24 They are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words and the result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil, suspicions and the constant friction between people of corrupt mind who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness means to financial gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world and we take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people are eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from this and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your confession in the presence of many witnesses. 04:35 You see, paul doesn't say money in itself is evil, but talks about the love of money. He's talking about your heart. So there's a very big difference and key difference when you read the whole passage in its context, that it is addressing the state of our hearts, just like when Jesus talks about money in his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 621, when he says For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be. Both Paul and Jesus are telling us to put God first in our hearts. What we desire, what we pursue, what we live for, should first be God and not material things on earth. Now, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't have money. We shouldn't earn money, save and invest money, enjoy exchanging money for what we need or desire or be concerned with our finances at all, but it does mean that we cannot be emotionally attached to money. We cannot put money first in our lives. Both Paul and Jesus, in their talks and their writings in the New Testament, aren't against money. They are against your evil desires for money and more concerned about putting God first. Now, regardless of if you believe in God or not, you can relate that evil. Desires for money is not a good thing, and what you do with money, if you use money to do evil or harmful things, that is not good. 06:07 There are many other verses throughout the Bible, both in the New Testament and in the Old Testament, that talk about money, and the common theme amongst most of the verses is to not put money on a pedestal and what are your desires for money and making sure you keep those desires in check. One last verse here from Jesus in Luke, chapter 11, verse 42. Woe to you, pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, roux and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the later without leaving the former undone. In this verse Jesus is saying you know you should still tithe, you should still give a tenth, but the more important thing is your heart. And where's your heart with money? So a lot can be learned from that. Whether you agree with Jesus or the existence of God or anything, there is wisdom in what is being said here in the Bible. So put aside, maybe, your beliefs and just look at what it's trying to tell you. 07:18 Money is amoral, it's not good, it's not evil. It's neither moral or immoral. It is just a tool. It is a method of exchange, but you cannot place money as your number one value in your life. Yes, you need to learn how to use it, you need to learn how to manage it correctly. You need to learn how to get more of it, to use it to help people in need, but understand that it will not fulfill you. Is it bad to have a lot of money? No, but your desires and what you do with that money could be evil. So don't let that happen to you. The more money you have, the more people you can help and the bigger impact you can have. But it has to come from the right place. 08:07 So let's just back this up and summarize this real quick. So the myth we are looking at is money is the root of all evil, and we know this myth's busted right Right out of the gate. It's misquoted from what the actual verse says and it's taken our context, because you're not even looking at what the intent of the original writings were, from Paul to Timothy. When we look at the verse and the verses leading up to it and after it, in full context, we understand the love of money is the root of all evil. So it gets down to where our heart is with money and where do we place money in our orders of priority in our life. And regardless of where your belief system is, you can still see where there's wisdom to gain from this that we shouldn't place money as our number one priority in our life. It will only lead to trouble, and what we do with our money should go to good things, not to evil things. And money can't fulfill you. Yes, we all want more money and we may need more money to pay for the basic necessities, but it's not going to fulfill you. So you need to look at your reasons, why, and your desires behind your wanting more money. So how can we apply this to our lives, this lesson to our life? 09:34 I have three questions in our action steps this week for you. The first question I want you to think about is number one why do you want more money? Number two what good could you do with that money? And the last question what value or values in your life will you place ahead of money? Now, these are very personal to you and there's no real right or wrong answer as far as how you look at it, except for think back to what we covered today and making sure that money is not the number one priority in your life and what good can you do with it. Remember, it's just a tool. It is not evil or good on its own. It's how you use it and your desires behind it. So ask yourself those three questions, really think about it. Number one why do you want more money? Number two what good could you do with that money? And number three what value or values in your life will you place ahead of money? Because understand money will not fulfill you and it can't be your number one priority. Still, manage it correctly. It's okay to want more, but what is your intent behind it? 10:59 And that wraps up our month of May, where we covered money habits and mindset type topics. We covered 13 of them, between our podcast here on Money Myths and our Friday financial tip Friday emails that we send out to everybody on our email list, as well as our monthly blog post. So we covered 13 topics in total. You want to make sure that you get every topic we're covering throughout each month. Make sure you sign up for that email list to get our financial tip Friday emails, as well as to get notified when we have new blog posts and also subscribe to the podcast so you can get notified when new podcast episodes are released. 11:45 For the month of June, we're going to be covering budgeting, savings and debt. We have nine topics we're going to be covering between our three platforms as far as our blog and our weekly email and the weekly podcast. So stay tuned for June, where we cover some unique things as far as how it goes with budgeting, paying off debt and saving that maybe go contrary to what you see or read online. Want to achieve financial independence? Go to ruggedfinancialcom where you can download my free PDF of the 12 Things to Do to Win with Money, and you can also sign up for my weekly money tips emails where I cover the same tips and tricks and advice I walk all my clients through so you can begin your journey to financial independence. 12:34 Thank you for watching and listening to this episode of the Money Myths podcast. Please do me a favor and, if you found this episode interesting, subscribe to the podcast so you can make sure you get all the future episodes. Also, leave a rating and review so you can help us grow this podcast so we can leave more people to financial independence. And lastly, please take a screenshot of the episode, share it on your social media channels and tag us using atruggedfinancial. We will see you later.