And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. — The Greek word rendered “let us be content” is better translated, we shall have a sufficiency. The argument will run thus: “All earthly possessions are only for this life; here, if we have the wherewithal to clothe us and to nourish us, we shall have enough;” if we have more than this, St. Paul goes on to show, we shall be in danger of falling into temptation.
There is no contradiction between this reading and that contained in this same Epistle (1 Timothy 4:1-5). There the Apostle is warning the Church against a false, unreal asceticism, which was teaching men to look upon the rich gifts of this world, its beauties and its delights, as of themselves sinful, forgetting that these fair things were God’s creatures, and were given for man’s use and enjoyment. Here the same great teacher is pressing home the truth that the highest good on earth was that godliness which is ever accompanied with perfect contentment, which neither rejects nor deems evil the fair things of this life, but which, at the same time, never covets them, never longs for them. It was one thing to be rich, it was another to wish to be rich; in God’s providence a man might be rich without sin, but the coveting, the longing for wealth, at once exposed him to many a grave danger both to body and soul.