1 Timothy 6:11 “But you, man of God, flee from all this (the love of money), and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.”

In life there are times to stand and fight. Ladies, if a man attacks you, the consensus is now that you should put up a resistance. Don’t think that you can appease him. By all means, don’t get into his car. Resist. If a hijacker were to hijack your airplane, the thought used to be that hostages should simply comply with his demands. In this day of suicide terrorism, that may not be the best plan anymore.

The same is true of temptations. There is a time to stand and fight. If someone is gossiping, mocking someone else, dragging down their reputation, there may be a temptation to join in, or a temptation to leave and say nothing. But for the sake of your neighbor’s good name, this is a time to hit the temptation head on. Stand and fight for his reputation.

That is not the case with so many of the temptations that appeal to our senses. Then the Bible urges us to “flee”, retreat, run for your life. “Flee the sinful desires of youth,” Paul warns Timothy in his next letter to him. “Flee sexual immorality” he wrote to the Corinthians. And here he suggests that we do the same thing when we are tempted with the love of money. “Flee from all this.” The danger to our faith is simply too strong. The inner appeal of the temptation is simply too powerful to stand there and see how long we can hold out. We are standing in a burning house without a fire hose, with hardly a cup of water to throw on the flames. Get out while you still can!

Paul addresses this to Timothy with a rather unusual title. “You, man of God, flee from all this.” Some people who become wealthy, remain humble, approachable, down to earth people even after they become rich. It doesn’t seem to change them. But you know that some of them develop a kind of attitude, a new identity, that suggests they are somehow more important than other people because they have money. More than one celebrity has tried to pull, “Do you know who I am?” when the wait staff, or security, or the person behind the desk wasn’t letting them do what they want.

Paul is reminding Timothy, “Don’t forget who you are.” You are a man of God. That’s not just a phrase for clergy. You, we, are all God’s men and women. We were sinners God should have wanted nothing to do with. But he rescued us from our sins, bled and died to redeem us, sought and found us to bring us to faith and make us his own. We don’t have to pretend we are important or valuable if we have money, or doubt our importance and value if we don’t. We are all forgiven failures, loved by Jesus the same as everyone else. We are God’s people, so we flee, run away from the lure of loving money with all its dangers to our faith.