CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT
(I Tim. 6:6-8)
Overview of I Tim. 4:1-6:8
4:1-2 How False Teaching Enters the Church
4:3-5 Common Grace
4:6 Word of God in Life of the Believer
4:7a Godliness – Divine / Human Role
4:7b Train Yourself to be Godly
4:7c Spiritual Disciplines (The Word of God)
4:7d Spiritual Disciplines (Devotions, Worship)
4.7e Spiritual Disciplines (Church Attendance, Journaling, Practicing Presence of God)
4:8-9 Why Godliness Has Great Value
4:10 Putting Our Hope in the Living God
4:12 Setting an Example for Believers
4:13 What a Christian Worship Service Looked Like in the First Century
4:14 Neglecting the Spiritual Gift God has Given Us
4:15-16 Getting Home Before Dark
5:1-2 So, How Should We Describe the Church?
5:3-16 God’s Tilt Towards the Disenfranchised
5:3-16 Sorting Out those Worthy of Relief – A Biblical Approach to Social Welfare
5:3-16 The Biblical Rationale for Providing for Relatives
5:5-16 The Tale of Two Widows – A Biblical Approach to Pleasure
5:9-10 The Good Works of a New Testament Woman
5:11-14 The Younger Widows – Breaking Celibacy Vows
5:11-14 The Younger Widows – Gossiping False Teaching
5:15 Satan’s Effort to Keep Jesus from Fulfilling His Mission
5:17-18 Honoring the Work of Elders
5:19-20 How NT Church Discipline Illustrates Cultural Formation
5:21 Partiality – A Christian Problem?
5:22-24 Selecting Church Leadership
5:23 The Christian’s Use and Abuse of Alcoholic Beverages
6:1 Honoring God’s Name
6:1-2 A What In Christianity Undermined Slavery?
6:1-2 B The Evangelical Awakening and Abolition of Slavery
6:1-2 C Masters and Slaves / Employers and Employees
6:3-5 Why Do Some Christians Become False Teachers?
6:6-8 Christian Contentment
6But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. 8But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs (I Tim. 6:6-10).
INTRODUCTION:
1. The remainder of this letter has Paul issuing five charges:
a. To False Teachers (3-5)
b. To the Christian Poor (6-10)
c. To the ‘man of God’(11-16)
d. To the Christian Rich (17-19)
e. To Timothy (20-21)
2. The charge to the Christian poor – I Tim. 6:6-10:
* These verses contain principles of universal significance.
a. The Contented Poor (6-8)
b. The Covetous Poor (9-10)
I CONTENTMENT IN FIRST CENTURY GREEK-JEWISH CULTURE
QUESTION: How do we define contentment?
Stoicism is the name of a comprehensive philosophical system inaugurated at Athens by Zeno of Citium in the last years of the fourth century B.C.
A school of thought that flourished in Greek and Roman antiquity. It was one of the loftiest and most sublime philosophies in the record of Western civilization. In urging participation in the affairs of man, Stoics have always believed that the goal of all inquiry is to provide man with a mode of conduct characterized by tranquility of mind and certainty of moral worth.
“Contentment” (autarkeia) was one of the great watchwords of the Stoic philosophers. By it they meant a complete self-sufficiency. They meant a frame of mind which was completely independent of all outward things, and which carried a secret of happiness within itself” (Barclay, pg. 128).
According to Gordon Fee, it meant the ability to rely on one’s own inner resources, true self-sufficiency.
Epicurus, a Cynic, which was another school of Greek philosophy stated, “To whom little is not enough nothing is enough. Give me a barley cake and a glass of water and I am ready to rival Zeus for happiness.” One of the saying of the Jewish Rabbis was: “Who is rich? He that is contented with his lot.” (Barclay, 129).
SO THE PHILOSOPHERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD TAUGHT A CONTENTMENT THAT WAS A “SELF-SUFFICIENCY ALTOGETHER INDEPENDENT OF CIRCUMSTANCES,” A CONTENTMENT THAT DOES NOT DEPEND ON EXTERNAL THINGS.
II. CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT INVOLVES GODLINESS
6But godliness with contentment is great gain
Some authorities would translate the end of verse 5 and verse 6 as follows: … who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. [Indeed] godliness with contentment is great gain.
“Godliness” here describes true holiness, spirituality, and virtue. (MacArthur, 250).
A godly person has experienced a Christian conversion. Whereas his life was previously focused on himself it is now focused on Christ. Knowing, loving and pleasing God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit dominates and gives direction to His life. A godly person lives a God-centered life (Abbreviated version of John Stott’s definition of godliness).
“They feel that religion [godliness] should yield dividends; and of course religion [godliness] does yield high dividends, but only to those who are content with what they have” (REB).
It seems like Paul is referring back to an earlier statement: “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” (I Tim. 4:8).
I Tim 4:7e tells us to “Train ourselves to be godly.” We spent four weeks looking at some of the spiritual disciplines that aid us in becoming godly people.
QUESTION: What are some of the spiritual disciplines that help us grow in godliness?
Bible study, meditation, memorization, prayer, fasting, solitude, silence, service, worship, confession, church attendance (Bible study, small group, adult community etc), giving, journaling, devotions, practicing the presence of God.
Contentment (being satisfied with what we have) is no gain to the Christian if it is not married to godliness. Contentment without godliness is not a plus for the Christian. Contentment with godliness is “great gain.”
III. CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT IS BASED ON A BASIC REALITY
7For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it.
QUESTION: What OT verses and saying of Jesus does Paul use to support his argument here?
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart” (Job 1:21).
15 Naked a man comes from his mother’s womb, and as he comes, so he departs. He takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand. 16 This too is a grievous evil: As a man comes, so he departs, and what does he gain, since he toils for the wind? (Eccl. 5:15-16)
19″Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal (Mt. 6:19-20).
How does the apostle argue the Christian case for contentment and against covetousness? He reminds us of a fundamental (though often ignored) fact or our human experience, relating to our birth and death. … Here is Job’s version of it: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall depart’ (Job 1:21). That is, we are born naked and penniless, and when we die and are buried we are naked and penniless again. In respect of earthly possessions, our entry and our exit are identical. So our life on earth is a brief pilgrimage between two moments of nakedness” (Stott, 150).
ILLUSTRATION: Man who was transporting gold while on a ship that was sinking. The ship was going down so he loaded gold bars into his clothes and jumped into the sea.
ILLUSTRATION: When asked by a curious person about how much money a wealthy widow left at her death, the pastor said, “She left all of it.”
ILLUSTRATION: Spanish proverb: There are no pockets in a shroud. The American translation: Hearses don’t have tow-bars for U-Hauls.
Our world view is foundational to true contentment: “Christian contentment in the present depends on a belief in a future which is independent of material things. Real living is infinitely more than gaining of what is merely transitory” (Guthrie, 125).
If we think the only life we will ever live is the life we are living right now, we will have a hard time being content.
IV. CHRIST ENABLES US TO EXPERIENCE TRUE CONTENTMENT
11I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13I can do everything through him who gives me strength (Phil. 4:11-13).
QUESTION: According to these verses what is the “secret” of contentment?
In Philippians Paul “turned the tables” on the Stoics by declaring that genuine autarkreia (contentment) is not self-sufficiency but Christ-sufficiency. For Paul, therefore, the word means contentment, the empowering that Christ gives to live above want and plenty (Fee, pg. 143).
Genuine contentment is not self-sufficiency but Christ sufficiency. Christ enables us to be content with little or with much.
You can be poor and not be content and you can be rich and not be content. In other words, contentment and material prosperity have nothing to do with each other. Contentment is not based on what we have but on our relationship with Christ.
ILLUSTRATION: No amount of money will make up for the lack of contentment. John D. Rockefeller once said, “I have made many millions, but they have brought me no happiness.” Cornelius Vanderbilt added, “The care of millions is too great a load … there is no pleasure in it.” Millionaire John Jacob Astor described himself as “the most miserable man on earth.” Despite his wealth, Henry Ford once remarked, “I was happier doing mechanic’s work.” And John D. Rockefeller commented, “The poorest man I know is the man who has nothing but money” (MacArthur, 252).
The author of Hebrews states the same premise in another way: Keep yourselves free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Heb. 11:5).
V. CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT IS EVIDENCED IN A CHRISTIAN LIFESTYLE.
8But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that (I Tim. 6:8).
Some translators here feel that “clothing” could include shelter … but maybe Paul didn’t worry much about shelter since he traveled and stayed with people…. And maybe had his own tent to sleep in. “… what Paul is defining is not the maximum that is permitted to the believer, but the minimum that is compatible with contentment” (Stott, 150).
Paul is not asking for poverty, which is destructive to humanness, but a simplicity of lifestyle which is compatible with human dignity.
This is certainly not “prosperity theology”!!! Contentment does not come from external things. George Herbert, the British poet wrote, “For he that needs $50,000 or $500,000 to live / Is just as poor as he who needs $50.”
Separating “needs” from “wants” is the challenge we all face.
ILLUSTRATION: Seruni House: cement floor, 300 watts of electricity, dirt yard, bamboo fence, water into below ground level cistern, no kitchen, radio from house next door, no office.
ILLUSTRATION: Carol Richardson’s mother asked Carol what she really wanted: Just a door on the bedroom in the house they lived in among the Sawi.
“How much money and possessions can we safely keep? Enough to care for our basic needs and some basic wants, but not so much that we are distracted from our basic purpose, or that large amounts of money are kept from higher kingdom causes.” (Choosing A God Honoring Lifestyle by Randy Alcorn.
QUESTION: What in the Lausanne statement, is hardest for us to control, to get a handle on?
We resolve to renounce waste and oppose extravagance in personal living, clothing and housing, travel and church buildings. We also accept the distinction between necessities and luxuries, creative hobbies and empty status symbols, modesty and vanity, occasional celebrations and normal routine, and between the service of God and slavery to fashion. Where to draw the line requires conscientious thought and decision by us, together with members of our family.
(‘Personal Lifestyle’, Evangelical Commitment to Simple Lifestyle, Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, March 1980).
ILLUSTRATION: The car we drive, the house we live in, the vacations we take, the clothes we wear, the restaurants we eat in, the food we purchase … etc all say something about our level of contentment.
“Simple Living” over against “Strategic Living”
ILLUSTRATION: During World War II, when fuel was precious, billboards routinely asked the motorist, “Is this trip necessary?” Every resource used for individual convenience was one less resource for the country’s central concern, winning the war. As Christians, we are engaged in a great battle that also requires great resources (Ephesians 6:12). We too must realize that spending on our own private concerns leaves fewer resources for our kingdom’s central concern. We should ask, “Does this really contribute to my purpose in being here on this earth? Is this an asset to me as a soldier of Christ, or is it a liability?”
Ralph Winter uses the term “wartime lifestyle,” which is generally a more helpful concept than “simple lifestyle.” If I am devoted to merely “simple” living, I might reject owning a computer because it is modern and nonessential. But if I live a wartime lifestyle, then the computer may serve as a strategic tool for kingdom purposes. My computer is serving that purpose as I’m writing books. Likewise, a microwave oven might be a luxury in one case but a useful tool in another, freeing time to engage in the cause for which we are fighting. Simple living may be self-centered. Strategic living is kingdom-centered. (Choosing A God Honoring Lifestyle by Randy Alcorn. 01-03-2003. Being the right kind of disciple with financial resources)
SO WHAT????
1. For the Christian, true contentment includes a passion for godliness.
2. A Christian, by keeping in the forefront of his mind the fact that life is transitory, has a head start to contentment.
3. Christ can give us the ability to be content with much or little.
4. Our lifestyles will tend to indicate our level of Christian contentment.
5. We need to move towards a “wartime mentality” and a “wartime lifestyle” when making spending decisions.