For bodily exercise profits for a little while: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
Some indeed put it thus, “Incline my heart unto Thy testimonies and not to what is useful.” The reference is to that kind of usefulness which is always on the watch for making gains in business and has been bent and diverted by the habits of men to the pursuit of money. For as a rule most people call that only useful which is profitable, but we are speaking of that kind of usefulness which is sought in earthly loss “that we may gain Christ,” whose gain is “godliness with contentment.” Great, too, is the gain whereby we attain to godliness, which is rich with God, not indeed in fleeting wealth but in eternal gifts, and in which rests no uncertain trial but grace constant and unending. There is therefore a usefulness connected with the body, and also one that has to do with godliness, according to the apostle’s division, “Bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things.” –.
“Godliness,” then, “which is the true worship of God, is profitable to all things,” since it deflects or blunts the troubles of this life and leads to that other life, our salvation, where we shall suffer no evil and enjoy the supreme and everlasting good. I exhort you as I do myself to pursue this happiness more earnestly and to hold to it with strong constancy. .
Some think St. Paul alludes in this verse to the corporal exercises of wrestlers, which procured them but a little short renown, whereas the works of piety have a more lasting reward. (Menochius; Tirinus)
Corporal exercises of temperance, mortification are good, but not to be compared with the spiritual virtues of charity, piety (St. Bernard)
St. Paul is plainly referring to this when he says, “bodily exercise is profitable for a little, but godliness” (by which he surely means charity) “is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life that now is and of the life to come.” What is said to be profitable for a little cannot be profitable forever and cannot (of itself) bring a man to the perfect life. The phrase “for a little” might mean one of two things. It might mean “for a short time,” since these bodily exercises are not going to last as long as the man who practices them. Or it might mean “only of little profit.” Corporal austerity brings the first beginnings of progress, but it does not beget that perfect charity which has the promise of this life and the life to come.
For bodily exercise profits little. This has by some been referred to fasting; but away with such a notion! For that is not a bodily but a spiritual exercise. If it were bodily it would nourish the body, whereas it wastes and makes it lean, so that it is not bodily. Hence he is not speaking of the discipline of the body. What we need, therefore, is the exercise of the soul. For the exercise of the body has no profit, but may benefit the body a little, but the exercise of godliness yields fruit and advantage both here and hereafter.
This is a faithful saying, that is, it is true that godliness is profitable both here and hereafter. Observe how everywhere he brings in this, he needs no demonstration, but simply declares it, for he was addressing Timothy.
So then even here, we have good hopes? For he who is conscious to himself of no evil, and who has been fruitful in good, rejoices even here: as the wicked man on the other hand is punished here as well as hereafter. He lives in per...
