Generosity for All

Scripture: 1 Timothy 6:6-19

               Since 1979 the research group Gallup has conducted an Ethics and Honesty study.  In this survey they ask people about the perceived honesty and ethical integrity of various professions.  While some professions rotate from year to year, there are others that are included in every survey.  One of those professions that has been asked about since the beginning are pastors, and the report is not great.  The 2025 report shows that public trust in pastors has fallen to an all-time low, with only 30% of respondents believing pastors have high or very high levels of honesty and ethics.   Twenty years ago, this was at 56% and this twenty-six point decline over that time is steeper than any other profession.  

 Unfortunately, someone does not need to look very hard into news sources to see why this is the case.  For instance, in May of this year Mitchell Summerfield pastor of Word of God church in Raleigh, North Carolina pled guilty to bank and wire fraud, where he leveraged the church to illegally obtain $400,000.   In August of this year Eli Regalados, pastor a Victorious Grace Church in Colorado was indicted on 40 counts of theft, racketeering and securities fraud.  He used his position to leverage more than 3 million dollars from congregants in a cryptocurrency scheme.  Amazingly, a different pastor in a different state was indicted for almost the exact same scheme in January of this year.  Those are just a few examples, from just this year!  

 The reason why public trust in pastors is so low is because every year there are dozens of stories of people who should know better, doing these things or worse.  Even though we are separated from the time that Paul wrote 1 Timothy by centuries, it seems his words are just as true today: “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”  As this morning’s scripture points a love of money is ultimately empty, and it does not compare to the all surpassing love of God.  This morning’s scripture is about more than money, it is about the abundance of God and it is a reminder that for those who follow Jesus- generosity should be a way of life for all. 

1 Timothy, like many of the epistles in the New Testament, was not written to stand alone in a vacuum.  It was written to a specific audience, in a specific place, for a specific reason.  Paul wrote 1 Timothy as a letter to one of his protégés, Timothy, who he had commissioned to lead the church in Ephesus.  Much of 1 Timothy are encouragements to Timothy and instructions on how to lead a church.  However, chapter 1 begins by addressing an issue with false teachers that were causing problems and distrust in the area around Ephesus.  Exactly what these teachers are teaching is never explicitly stated, but Paul returns to the topic at the end of the letter.   We started reading at verse 6, but in verse 5 Paul alleges one of the motivations of these false teachers is to use godliness for financial gain.

From there this morning’s scripture picks up and Paul urges Timothy to not find motivation in accumulating wealth.  He points out that a love for money has not only brought about so much evil in the world, but it has wrecked people’s faith and caused them to wander away from the truth.  I think we know the truth of this.  The stories I already shared show that a love of money has brought about the downfall of multiple church leaders, and the fallout from those instances has damaged the faith development of many people. 

 Paul then encourages Timothy to put his focus and his energy on something more important than material wealth.  He encourages him to fight the good fight of faith, to pursue following God above all else.  Perhaps the biggest problem of a love for money in our faith is not the greed and the pain that greed can cause, the bigger problem is that it is a distraction.   If our main focus, if the thing that we put all of our energy behind is acquiring more and more, then we cannot pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.  We cannot fight the good fight, if we are instead fighting to get a bigger horde of loot.  Jesus himself said the same thing.  In Matthew 6:24 Jesus says, “"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money".   While I think many of us can get behind the idea of a love of money being the root of all kinds of evil, and we can fired up about the idea of fighting the good fight of faith, I also wonder if we do not pay attention as much to the next part. 

 In this morning’s scripture, Paul continued to write “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor put their hope in wealth” and “command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.”  We might not pay as much attention to this scripture, because we might not think it applies to us.    But they do.  The command to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous is something that all of us can take to heart.  There are a couple of points about generosity that we should keep in mind.  

Generosity is not about quantity; it is about quality.   A while ago, I heard a story about a United Methodist Church in Indiana from decades ago.  It was a small-town church in a poorer area.   Often, the church struggled to meet its annual budget.   In this town the only real factory was owned by two brothers, and every Christmas Eve one of the brothers would come to the church.   Before the service began, he would loudly ask the preacher how short the church was this year.   When the offering plate was passed, he would wait until the plate was to be handed to him.  In big gestures he would get out his checkbook.  This paused the whole service as everyone watched him write his check.  Every year, it would then be announced at the January ad council meeting that the church met its budget for the previous year, and everyone knew why.   There is no reason why this rich factory owner could not quietly give that money, or given it regularly throughout the year.  It was an intentional choice to wait until the 24th day of the last month to make a public display of giving.  It does not matter how many zeros that check had, that was not generosity.  The goal of generosity is to be a blessing to someone else, to make the world better for another.  That is the motivation that makes an action generous. 

Second, generosity is not just about giving to an institution like a church.  Generosity is an approach to life.  Unfortunately, American Christians do not always make generosity a way life like perhaps we should.  For instance, if you know someone who works as a server in a restaurant, then there is a good chance that their least favorite time to work is the Sunday lunch shift.  It is common knowledge among servers that church-goers give the worst tips.   This is such a prevailing thought that studies have been done to see if this is true.  The good news is that the studies found that the majority of Christians going out to eat for lunch after church do tip in line with national averages.  However, one study found that on average, non-religious people are slightly better tippers than churchgoers.  Another the same study found that a church goer was much more likely to give a tip of 5% or less on Sunday when compared to a non-church goer.  If we collectively took seriously the command of this morning’s scripture to be generous and willing to share, then that attitude would be present in all areas of our lives.   Sunday afternoon should be the best time to be a server, not the worst, because the people of God should be the most generous people on the planet. 

Often one of the hindrances to us being generous is that we feel it is hard to share when we can barely cover our bases.  We can fall into the trap of thinking that we will be more generous when we get a little better off, but often when we reach that milestone, we end up moving the goalpost a little further down.   We can get stuck in the trap of feeling like we never have enough.   This is why this morning’s scripture starts with the wisdom of “godliness with contentment is great gain.”  We can struggle with generosity because of an attitude of scarcity that informs us we do not have quite enough.  However, when we reframe how we think about wealth, we can move from an attitude of scarcity to one of abundance. 

This morning’s scripture focuses on money, and because of that we often associate generosity with sharing financial wealth.  Money is not the only way to be wealthy.  This year business coach Sahil Bloom’s book The 5 Types of Wealth made the New York Times Bestseller list.  In this book Sahil lays out a framework to think about wealth differently, because we can be rich in more than just money.   There is financial wealth, but Sahil also identifies social wealth- the strength of friendships and quality of one’s social network.  He identifies time wealth, the ability to have time to spend on things you value most.  He also lifts mental and physical wealth because our health has a large impact on our overall wellbeing. 

When we consider wealth as more than just money, then we can all be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share.   So perhaps you are on a fixed income, but you are retired and have a lot of time wealth.   Then perhaps you can be generous with your time and show up to serve, show up to encourage, and show up to make a difference.   Perhaps life is busy and there seems to only ever be enough money to just make it, but you are the kind of person who seems to know everyone.  Perhaps you can use that abundance of social wealth to help other people.  You can help connect people who need help with those who can help, or you could mentor a young person.   When we think of wealth as more than just money, then we realize most of us are likely to be far wealthier than we often think.   When we think about wealth as more than money, then we likely get a better picture of how abundantly God has provided for us.   If we can claim we blessed by God’s abundance, then we should share that generosity with others. 

This morning’s scripture contains one of the most well known and most misquoted scriptures in the bible:  A love for money is a root of all kinds of evil.   However, this scripture is about more than just money.  This morning’s scripture is a call to faithful discipleship.  It is encouragement to pursue righteousness, goodliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness over something as fleeting as money.  It is a call to fight the good fight of faith, and it is a command to be generous.   May you realize that wealth is more than the number in your bank account, and may you realize just how much wealth you truly have.   May you be willing to share that abundance with others generously so that you are rich with good deeds.  In this way, may you lay up treasures as a firm foundation for the age to come so that you may take hold of the life that is truly life.