“Money is the root of all evil.”
The text says the love of money is the root of all evil, and it warns about coveting, not about currency. The problem is the affection, not the object.
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. — 1 Timothy 6:10
The dropped phrase is small and it changes everything. Paul writes that the love of money is the root of all evil, and that some coveting after it have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Money itself is morally neutral, a tool that Scripture elsewhere treats as something to be earned honestly, given generously, and stewarded carefully. The misquote is convenient in both directions: it lets a poor man feel righteous by default and lets a rich man dismiss the warning as somebody else's problem. Read as written, the verse gets under everyone's skin, because a man with very little can love money just as fiercely as a man with much. Paul's counsel in the surrounding verses is contentment with food and raiment, which is a far harder word than a blanket condemnation of wealth.
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