John’s earlier post on the subject of covetousness showed up the day after our family devotions reached Mark chapter 10, even as John referenced.
My Puritan friends Richard Baxter and Thomas Watson dealt with the issue in the time frame John referenced, and I recommend the Baxter for comprehensiveness and Watson for the linguistics of it. Both taught that wealth is not evil in itself — in fact, God gives the power to profit from our labor — but the inordinate love of it, when it becomes our overriding goal in life. “Water is useful for the sailing of the ship,” wrote Watson; “[A]ll the danger is when the water gets into the ship; so the fear is, when the world gets into the heart. (Watson, The Ten Commandments)
A snare to divert us from a proper service of God and man, yes; an unmitigated evil, never; a temptation we seem especially prone to, absolutely.
