For bodily exercise profiteth little. — More accurately rendered, bodily exercise is profitable for little. St. Paul here, no doubt, was thinking of those bodily austerities alluded to in 1 Timothy 4:3. The stern repression of all human passions and desires, the abstinence from all compliance with the natural impulses of the flesh — such an unnatural warfare, such an exercise, such a training of the body, no doubt in many cases would lead, in many cases certainly has led, the individual to a higher spiritual state. Such a total surrender for the one who so exercises himself is, no doubt, in a certain sense, “profitable.” But then it must be remembered that this kind of victory over the flesh, in very many instances, leads to an unnatural state of mind; for the rigid ascetic has removed himself from the platform on which ordinary men and women move. His thoughts have ceased to be their thoughts, his ways are no longer their ways. For practical everyday life such an influence, always limited, is at times positively harmful, as its tendency is to depreciate that home-life and family-life, to raise and elevate which is the true object of Christian teaching. Still, the Apostle, while remembering, and in his teaching ever carrying out, the spirit of the Lord’s solemn prayer to the Father, “I pray, not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil,” refrains from an entire condemnation of a life which received, on more than one occasion, from the lips of the Sinless One a guarded commendation (Matthew 17:21; Matthew 19:12).
St. Paul, in his divinely-taught wisdom, recognises that such an austere and severe example and life, though by no means the ideal life of a Christian teacher, yet in the great world workshop of the Master might receive a blessing as “profitable for little.”
But godliness is profitable unto all things. — Better, for all things. But while this “bodily exorcise,” this austere subduing of the flesh, can only weigh with a narrow and circumscribed group, St. Paul points out that the influence of “godliness is world-wide;” a godliness, not merely an inward holiness, but an operative, active piety, which, springing from an intense love for Christ, manifests itself in love for His creatures. This godliness transfigures, and illumines with its divine radiance all busy, active life — every condition, every rank, all ages. That surely is what the good minister of Jesus Christ must aim at!
Having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. — For this godliness, which may and ought to enter into all states, all ages of life, promises the greatest happiness to those who struggle after it. It promises “life” — that is, the highest blessedness which the creature can enjoy in this world — as well as the rich prospect of the endless life with God in the world to come; whereas a false asceticism crushes out all the joy and gladness of this present life, and is an unreal preparation for that which is future.