Cultivate Contentment

Why does Paul call godliness with contentment great gain rather than godliness alone?

Paul has just finished describing people who treat godliness as a way to get rich, and he turns the phrase around. Contentment is what keeps a good life from becoming a business plan.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we certainly can’t carry anything out. But having food and clothing, we will be content with that.

1 Timothy 6:6–8

But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation, a snare, and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

1 Timothy 6:9–10

“Two things I have asked of you. Don’t deny me before I die. Remove far from me falsehood and lies. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full, deny you, and say, ‘Who is Yahweh?’ or lest I be poor, and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.

Proverbs 30:7–9

What did Paul have to learn about being hungry and being full?

Paul does not say he was always content. He says he learned it, and the classroom was a life that swung between having plenty and having nothing. The sentence about all things is written by someone who had been on both sides.

Not that I speak because of lack, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it. I know how to be humbled, and I also know how to abound. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:11–13

But I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your thought for me; in which you did indeed take thought, but you lacked opportunity.

Philippians 4:10

Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself.) I am more so: in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, and in deaths often. Five times I received forty stripes minus one from the Jews. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep. I have been in travels often, perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my countrymen, perils from the Gentiles, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brothers; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness.

2 Corinthians 11:23–27

Why does the command against loving money rest on God's promise never to forsake his people?

The writer to the Hebrews does not argue that money is harmless. He sets the promise of God's presence against the fear that drives the love of it, and lets the promise answer the fear.

Be free from the love of money, content with such things as you have, for he has said, “I will in no way leave you, neither will I in any way forsake you.”

Hebrews 13:5

So that with good courage we say, “The Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?”

Hebrews 13:6

Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid or scared of them, for Yahweh your God himself is who goes with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you.” Moses called to Joshua, and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land which Yahweh has sworn to their fathers to give them; and you shall cause them to inherit it. Yahweh himself is who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be discouraged.”

Deuteronomy 31:6–8

No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not fail you nor forsake you.

Joshua 1:5