These are the things you are to teach and insist on. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain. 1 Timothy 6:2b-6
“As indicated by the repetition of the two key terms “gain” and “godliness” and the linking “to be” verb (now moved to emphatic position), Paul turns the negative assessment just made inside out to correct (and further condemn) the heretical distortion of values. While the repetition of thoughts is rhetorically significant, it is the expansions he introduces, and the implicit redefinition of “godliness” that results, that shift the direction of meaning.
First, Paul takes the discussion to a higher level than the heretical understanding is able to reach. The “great gain” he associates with “godliness” exceeds the limited material “gain” sought by the opponents.
Second, his repetition the term “godliness,” bearing the profound meaning of authentic Christian existence, also seeks a higher, spiritual level of meaning. The further qualification of it as “godliness with contentment [or self-sufficiency]” removes godliness from the material limitations of the false teachers’ motives and substantiates Paul’s spiritual thrust. The qualifying phrase contains a term that was essential to Stoic philosophy (and present also in Cynic and Epicurean teaching), where it expressed the notion of “self-sufficiency,” emphasized detachment from things or outside possessions, and stressed independence. Paul was clearly in touch with this theme (2 Corinthians 9:8; Philippians 4:11-12), but supplied a Christian basis for it. By introducing the counter-materialistic concept of self-sufficiency as an element of “godliness,” he left no room for the acquisitiveness and financial implications attached to the false teachers. With a slight shift, the term comes to mean the satisfaction or contentment with what one already has. In the present context, the two ideas converge. Godliness is not about acquiring better and more material things; it is instead an active life of faith, a living out of covenant faithfulness in relation to God, that finds sufficiency and contentment in Christ alone whatever one’s outward circumstances might be.”
Philip H. Towner in The Letters to Timothy and Titus (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) 398-399.
When Towner was my doctoral advisor, I marveled at his brilliant grasp of the biblical text as evidenced by his profound comments here. “Godliness is not about acquiring better and more material things; it is instead an active life of faith, a living out of covenant faithfulness in relation to God, that finds sufficiency and contentment in Christ alone whatever one’s outward circumstances might be.”
We live in a world that bombards us with messages to the contrary. The world equates gain with getting the money and things that it says you need to live. That’s the part Towner pins down for us. “With a slight shift, the term comes to mean the satisfaction or contentment with what one already has.” Or in plain terms, when we have Christ, we have everything we need, we have ever needed, and will ever need.
Many, wrongly, fall into the trap of thinking that they need Christ and money or material possessions. What’s wrong with this thinking? It creates two masters in our lives and Christ tells us that we can only serve one, so we end up slaves to the wrong master. This is a common pitfall for many professing Christians in modernity. Those who fall into it might live what the world describes as “the good life” but in so doing they miss out on grasping the abundant life that Christ offers.
This week at Black Rock Retreat, the theme for Family Camp is “Mission: Improbable.” Jenni and I will teach on “Building Good and Faithful Families.” This is not likely to happen, but it’s possible, and even probable, with Jesus! We plan to go through five parables and teach five spiritual practices this week. Our lesson today is entitled “The Secret Every Family Must Know” based on the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30. We will discover together that the secret to entering eternal joy is knowing the Master.
Father, open the eyes and ears of the couples we will speak to this week, and all readers of these daily meditations, to grasp authentic Christian existence. Forgive us for thinking we need anything but You. Forgive us for holding on to money in fear. By your Holy Spirit, empower us to show the world that we have found everything we need in You by how we obediently put to work all the money You have entrusted to us. Hear our prayer in the name of Jesus, in Whom we have everything we need. Amen.