17 Give orders to those who have money and goods in this life, not to be lifted up in their minds, or to put their hope in the uncertain chances of wealth, but in God who gives us in full measure all things for our use;
Truly, because they had no faith they were broken off, and you have your place by reason of your faith. Do not be lifted up in pride, but have fear;
And the disciples were full of wonder at his words. But Jesus said to them again, Children, how hard it is for those who put faith in wealth to come into the kingdom of God!
But he was not without witness, because he did good, and gave you rain from heaven and times of fruit, making your hearts full of food and joy.
Are your eyes lifted up to it? it is gone: for wealth takes to itself wings, like an eagle in flight up to heaven.
Being certain of this, that no man who gives way to the passions of the flesh, no unclean person, or one who has desire for the property of others, or who gives worship to images, has any heritage in the kingdom of Christ and God.
He takes them all up with his hook, he takes them in his net, getting them together in his fishing-net: for which cause he is glad and full of joy. For this reason he makes an offering to his net, burning perfume to his fishing-net; because by them he gets much food and his meat is fat.
And when they came there, and had got the church together, they gave them an account of all the things which God had done through them, and how he had made open a door of faith to the Gentiles.
And Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, for even he is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to make search for those who are wandering from the way, and to be their Saviour.
And he said to them, Take care to keep yourselves free from the desire for property; for a man's life is not made up of the number of things which he has. And he said to them, in a story, The land of a certain man of great wealth was very fertile: And he said to himself, What is to be done? for I have no place in which to put all my fruit. And he said, This I will do: I will take down my store-houses and make greater ones, and there I will put all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have a great amount of goods in store, enough for a number of years; be at rest, take food and wine and be happy. But God said to him, You foolish one, tonight I will take your soul from you, and who then will be the owner of all the things which you have got together? So that is what comes to the man who gets wealth for himself, and has not wealth in the eyes of God.
And in the evening, there came a man of wealth from Arimathaea, Joseph by name, who was a disciple of Jesus:
Because the Gentiles go in search of all these things: for your Father in heaven has knowledge that you have need of all these things:
When I gave them food they were full, and their hearts were full of pride, and they did not keep me in mind.
For they themselves give the news of how we came among you; and how you were turned from images to God, to the worship of a true and living God,
It was my desire, when I went on into Macedonia, that you might make a stop at Ephesus, to give orders to certain men not to put forward a different teaching,
I give you orders before God and Christ Jesus and the angels of God's selection, to keep these orders without giving thought to one side more than another.
I give you orders before God, the giver of life, and Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate gave witness to the faith,
Training us so that, turning away from evil and the desires of this world, we may be living wisely and uprightly in the knowledge of God in this present life;
Which he gave us freely through Jesus Christ our Saviour;
Give to her as she gave, even an increased reward for her works; in the cup which was mixed by her, let there be mixed as much again for herself. As she gave glory to herself, and became more evil in her ways, in the same measure give her pain and weeping: for she says in her heart, I am seated here a queen, and am no widow, and will in no way see sorrow.
It is better to have faith in the Lord than to put one's hope in man. It is better to have faith in the Lord than to put one's hope in rulers.
And when the Lord your God has taken you into the land which he gave his oath to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, that he would give you; with great and fair towns which were not of your building; And houses full of good things not stored up by you, and places for storing water which you did not make, and vine-gardens and olive-trees not of your planting; and you have taken food and are full; Then take care that you keep your hearts true to the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house.
Say not then, in your hearts, My power and the strength of my hands have got me this wealth.
And the chief things of the oldest mountains, and the good things of the eternal hills,
But Hezekiah did not do as had been done to him; for his heart was lifted up in pride; and so wrath came on him and on Judah and Jerusalem. But then, Hezekiah, in sorrow for what he had done, put away his pride; and he and all Jerusalem made themselves low, so that the wrath of the Lord did not come on them in Hezekiah's life-time.
There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. He was without sin and upright, fearing God and keeping himself far from evil. And he had seven sons and three daughters. And of cattle he had seven thousand sheep and goats, and three thousand camels, and a thousand oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and a very great number of servants. And the man was greater than any of the sons of the east.
For the evil-doer is lifted up because of the purpose of his heart, and he whose mind is fixed on wealth is turned away from the Lord, saying evil against him. The evil-doer in his pride says, God will not make a search. All his thoughts are, There is no God.
See, this is the man who did not make God his strength, but had faith in his goods and his property, and made himself strong in his wealth.
They are not in trouble as others are; they have no part in the unhappy fate of men. For this reason pride is round them like a chain; they are clothed with violent behaviour as with a robe. Their eyes are bursting with fat; they have more than their heart's desire. Their thoughts are deep with evil designs; their talk from their seats of power is of cruel acts. Their mouth goes up to heaven; their tongues go walking through the earth.
The Lord God is our sun and our strength: the Lord will give grace and glory: he will not keep back any good thing from those whose ways are upright. O Lord of armies, happy is the man whose hope is in you.
Now Abram had great wealth of cattle and silver and gold.
He who puts his faith in wealth will come to nothing; but the upright man will be full of growth like the green leaf.
For fear that if I am full, I may be false to you and say, Who is the Lord? or if I am poor, I may become a thief, using the name of my God wrongly.
And I saw the destruction of his wealth by an evil chance; and when he became the father of a son he had nothing in his hand. As he came from his mother at birth, so does he go again; he gets from his work no reward which he may take away in his hand.
Every man to whom God has given money and wealth and the power to have pleasure in it and to do his part and have joy in his work: this is given by God. He will not give much thought to the days of his life; because God lets him be taken up with the joy of his heart.
O generation, see the word of the Lord. Have I been a waste land to Israel? or a land of dark night? why do my people say, We have got loose, we will not come to you again?
This is the word of the Lord: Let not the wise man take pride in his wisdom, or the strong man in his strength, or the man of wealth in his wealth: But if any man has pride, let it be in this, that he has the wisdom to have knowledge of me, that I am the Lord, working mercy, giving true decisions, and doing righteousness in the earth: for in these things I have delight, says the Lord.
A blessing is on the man who puts his faith in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he will be like a tree planted by the waters, pushing out its roots by the stream; he will have no fear when the heat comes, but his leaf will be green; in a dry year he will have no care, and will go on giving fruit.
Truly, this was the sin of your sister Sodom: pride, a full measure of food, and the comforts of wealth in peace, were seen in her and her daughters, and she gave no help to the poor or to those in need. They were full of pride and did what was disgusting to me: and so I took them away as you have seen.
Was not your sister Sodom an oath in your mouth in the day of your pride,
And because of the great power he gave him, all peoples and nations and languages were shaking in fear before him: some he put to death and others he kept living, at his pleasure, lifting up some and putting others down as it pleased him. But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit became hard with pride, he was put down from his place as king, and they took his glory from him: And he was sent out from among the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts', and he was living with the asses of the fields; he had grass for his food like the oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till he was certain that the Most High is ruler in the kingdom of men, and gives power over it to anyone at his pleasure. And you, his son, O Belshazzar, have not kept your heart free from pride, though you had knowledge of all this; But you have been lifting yourself up against the Lord of heaven, and they have put the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your women, have taken wine in them; and you have given praise to gods of silver and gold, of brass and iron and wood and stone, who are without the power of seeing or hearing, and without knowledge: and to the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, you have not given glory;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 1 Timothy 6
Commentary on 1 Timothy 6 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 6
1Ti 6:1-5
1Ti 6:6-12
From the mention of the abuse which some put upon religion, making it to serve their secular advantages, the apostle,
1Ti 6:13-21
The apostle here charges Timothy to keep this commandment (that is, the whole work of his ministry, all the trust reposed in him, all the service expected from him) without spot, unrebukable; he must conduct himself so in his ministry that he might not lay himself open to any blame nor incur any blemish. What are the motives to move him to this?