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Biblical Wisdom

The Line Everyone Misquotes

Two words carry most of the difference. One gets dropped, one gets swapped.

By EmberKeeper Editorial 1 min read

Scripture 1 Timothy 6:10

It is not “money is the root of all evil.”

Paul wrote that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. The Greek has no article on “root”, so it is a root among others. And the subject is love, not money.

The misquote is convenient, because it lets two different people off the hook at once. It lets the person with little feel righteous by default, and it lets the person with much decide the verse is aimed at somebody else.

Paul is writing about appetite. Appetite does not check your balance before it starts.

The question is not what you have. It is what you would do to keep it.