1 Timothy 6:17–19

1 Timothy 6:17 — The Double Prohibition and the Positive Anchor

Paul opens with a verb of command — parangelle (charge, instruct with authority) — the same word used throughout 1 Timothy for binding pastoral directives (cf. 1:3, 4:11, 5:7). This is not a gentle suggestion but a formal apostolic order Timothy must deliver to a specific group: tois plousiois en tō nyn aiōni, "those who are rich in the present age." The phrase "present age" (nyn aiōn) is theologically loaded: it stands in contrast to "the age to come" (aiōn mellōn) and implies that current wealth belongs to a passing order. The wealthy are already, implicitly, living in the wrong register — investing in something temporary.

The first prohibition is against hypsēlophronein — high-mindedness, arrogance, a swelling pride tied to social status. Wealth in the Greco-Roman world of Ephesus (where Timothy ministered) conferred honor, deference, and influence. Paul sees this as spiritually corrosive; wealth breeds a self-sufficiency that crowds out dependence on God. The second prohibition is against setting hope (elpizein) on "the uncertainty of riches" (adēlotēti ploutou) — a striking phrase. The word adēlotēs means hiddenness, opacity, unreliability; riches are structurally untrustworthy, not just occasionally so. The contrast is stark: instead of the adēlotēs of wealth, fix hope on the living God (Theō zōnti), a title emphasizing divine actuality versus the phantom security of money. And God, Paul notes, "richly provides us with everything to enjoy" (panta plusiōs eis apolausin) — a deliberate irony: the truly rich provider is God, and His provision is for genuine enjoyment (apolausis), not anxious accumulation. Created goods are affirmed as gifts, not suspect in themselves.

1 Timothy 6:18 — The Fourfold Positive Commission

Having cleared the ground with two negations, Paul now builds up with four positive imperatives, structured in two pairs. First: agathoergein — "to do good," to actively perform beneficent acts. This is the general category. Second, and more specific: ploutein en ergois kalois — "to be rich in good works." The wordplay is deliberate and cutting: if you must be ploutos (rich), be rich in this currency. True wealth is measured not in property but in deeds of mercy.

Third: eumetadoton einai — "to be ready to distribute," to give freely and without reluctance. The word carries the sense of generosity as a disposition, not merely an occasional act. Fourth: koinōnikous einai — "willing to share," literally "to be communal, participatory." Koinōnia is one of the great New Testament words for Christian fellowship and communion; here it takes on a material, economic dimension. Genuine community requires that the wealthy share materially with those in need. Chrysostom will later seize on precisely this pairing: liberality (eumetadoton) addresses the act of giving; koinōnikos addresses the relational posture that makes giving natural rather than grudging.

1 Timothy 6:19 — Eschatological Reframing: The Treasure Laid Up

The climax is a stunning eschatological inversion. By distributing wealth now, the rich are apothēsaurizontas heautois themelion kalon — "laying up in store for themselves a good foundation." The language of storage (apothēsaurizō) echoes Jesus's own teaching on treasure (thēsaurizō, Mt. 6:19–20); Paul is consciously recasting the very instinct to accumulate and redirecting it heavenward. What is stored up by generosity is not credit or merit in a commercial sense but a foundation (themelion) — something stable and load-bearing for the future (to mellon), in explicit contrast to the adēlotēs (uncertainty) of earthly riches in verse 17.

The cluster closes with hina epilabōntai tēs ontōs zōēs — "that they may lay hold of the life that is truly life." The construction ontōs zōē ("life that really is life") is decisive: what the wealthy seek in their riches — security, vitality, flourishing — is only genuinely found in eternal life. Earthly wealth is a simulacrum of the life God offers. Generosity is not merely an ethical obligation; it is the instrument by which the grip of false life is loosened and real life is grasped.

Catholic tradition reads this passage within its integrated theology of wealth, charity, and salvation — a tradition that resists both the prosperity gospel (wealth as divine favor) and a Manichaean suspicion of material goods.

On the goodness of creation and created wealth: The phrase "richly provides us with everything to enjoy" (v. 17) grounds Catholic social teaching's insistence that material goods are genuine gifts of God. The Catechism affirms that "the goods of creation are destined for the whole human race" (CCC 2402) and that the right to private property is real but subordinate to the universal destination of goods (CCC 2403). Paul's language here anticipates this exact tension: wealth is gift, not achievement, and gift entails responsibility to the giver and the community.

On the preferential option for the poor: St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on 1 Timothy, Homily 18) is characteristically fierce: "The rich man is a kind of steward of the money which is owed to the poor… When you have given to the poor, you have not given what is yours; you have rendered what was his." This is not merely devotional hyperbole; Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum (§22) and John Paul II in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (§42) both echo the patristic insistence that superfluous wealth carries a moral charge toward the poor.

On almsgiving and eternal life: The phrase "lay hold of eternal life" (v. 19) has always pressed Catholic interpreters on the relationship between works and salvation. The Council of Trent (Session 6, Ch. 16) clarifies: good works are genuinely meritorious of eternal life not as payment but because God, in grace, has freely chosen to associate human cooperation with His gift. Almsgiving does not purchase salvation; it is the form that living faith takes in the hands of those who possess material abundance. As Trent insists, it is God's grace that makes meritorious what human freedom freely performs.

On detachment as spiritual freedom: St. Thomas Aquinas (ST II-II, q. 117–119) treats liberality (liberalitas) as the mean between avarice and prodigality — a virtue disposing one to use wealth well, not merely to give it away indiscriminately. Paul's fourfold positive commission (v. 18) maps neatly onto this Thomistic schema: generosity is not chaotic self-emptying but ordered, virtuous stewardship. The rich are not told to become poor but to become free — free from the adēlotēs that enslaves.

Contemporary Catholic life unfolds within a culture that measures security, status, and even identity by net worth — exactly the spiritual pathology Paul diagnoses. Verse 17's double prohibition against arrogance and misplaced hope maps precisely onto the anxiety-driven financial culture many Catholics inhabit: the retirement portfolio that becomes an idol, the neighborhood chosen for its prestige, the discomfort with downward mobility.

Paul's counter-proposal is concrete: redirect the instinct to accumulate, not abolish it. "Laying up in store a good foundation" (v. 19) speaks to the Catholic who is prudent, forward-thinking, and serious — and tells them to apply that same energy to generosity. Practically, this might mean tithing as a discipline before lifestyle choices are made, volunteering financial skills to parish or diocesan ministries, or treating charitable giving as a line item that is non-negotiable before discretionary spending.

The phrase "the life that is truly life" (v. 19) is a gentle but devastating diagnostic for the Catholic professional, entrepreneur, or retiree: if your sense of security, vitality, and fullness is bound to your balance sheet, you are holding a counterfeit. The Eucharist and the corporal works of mercy — not portfolio performance — are where "the life that is truly life" is encountered and rehearsed.