But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. (1 Timothy 6:9)
Paul wrote about those who turned religion into a means of gain. They entered into this life for personal profit, as if piety were a business venture. The essential point is that they pursued this profit through evil methods and motives. Their doctrine did not agree with the words of Christ, and their conduct betrayed them. He called them conceited and corrupt, accusing them of stirring up envy, strife, slander, suspicion, and constant friction. Their error was not that they believed godliness brings gain, but that they treated godliness as a tool for dishonest gain. They reduced the life of faith into a scheme for financial profit, and in doing so they revealed their unbelief.
Godliness is gain, but not when the chief desire is financial profit, not when it is pursued as a racket, and not when severed from faith and love. Paul distinguished dishonest gain from true gain, and pointed to the reward that comes from God himself. To deny that godliness brings increase would be to contradict the very gospel, for God is the one who rewards those who seek him.
The testimony of Scripture is consistent and broad on this point. The book of Proverbs speaks repeatedly about the reward of righteousness, diligence, and faithfulness. Riches and honor belong to those who walk in wisdom. The fear of the Lord leads to health and prosperity. These promises are central to the wisdom of God. Jesus himself declared that if a person seeks first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all the things that even the greedy and carnal pagans seek will be added. He assured his disciples that faith does not leave them barren but brings them into a life of abundance. Godliness is not a subtraction from life but the fullness of life itself.
It is true that Paul warned against the love of money, saying that those who long to be rich fall into temptation and ruin. But here again the distinction is clear. He spoke against craving wealth for its own sake, and pursuing it in a way that results in all kinds of evil and causes one to wander from God. In other words, he referred to someone who put money first, thus losing God, not someone who would put God first, thus gaining money. The issue was never gain through faith, but gain through greed, and even criminal means. To seek the kingdom and receive wealth as God’s addition is one thing, to lust after wealth and use religion as a cloak for dishonesty, hatred, and criminal activities is another.
Paul did not describe a mere interest in money, but a fixation that pushed a person into progressively evil methods. His language was severe: temptation, snare, ruin, destruction, evils, wandering from the faith, piercing themselves with pangs. This was not the portrait of someone who merely enjoyed abundance, but of men who corrupted religion for gain, sold their integrity, exploited and devoured others, and even descended into violence and murder to protect their idols. The love of money became a power that deformed the soul and drove a man headlong into destruction.
The opposite error has proven even more destructive. There are many who suppose that godliness is pain, that to follow Christ means inevitable loss, and that holiness consists of renouncing prosperity. They present poverty as if it were a sacrament, and treat lack as if it were the essence of piety. But this is a denial of God’s character and covenant. If godliness is not gain in every way as God promised, then faith is meaningless and grace is empty. To remove gain from godliness is to remove God from godliness. The whole relationship falls apart once God is no longer the giver of life and reward. Faith, Scripture says, pleases God by affirming that he is the rewarder of those who seek him. What Paul rejected was dishonest gain and criminal method, but faithless religious people reject gain itself, even when it comes from God, since they suppose that no gain comes from God, and in doing so they reject the gospel itself.
The Lord Jesus taught that life does not consist in the abundance of possessions, but he did not mean that life consists in their absence. The essence of life is found in God himself, in faith, love, and justice. Possessions are never the center. A man with much may walk in godliness, and a man with little may descend into wickedness, because godliness is measured in relation to God, not in the measure of possessions.
Jesus asked, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?” To pursue the world as the ultimate goal is folly, for the soul is of greater value than all the wealth and honor of the nations. But notice what he did not say. He did not say that losing the world will save the soul. To surrender wealth without faith does not redeem a man. Poverty in itself has no power to confer righteousness. The issues are distinct. To gain the world and lose the soul is ruin. To lose both the world and the soul is the same ruin. The only gain that matters is God himself, and from him flows every other blessing in its proper order.
To confess that godliness is gain is to confess that God himself is gain. He is life, light, wisdom, and wealth. He gives freely to those who trust him, and he adds all things to those who seek his kingdom. Godliness is not a scheme for dishonest profit, nor a badge of ascetic loss, but the reality of sharing in the abundance of God. Those who believe in him inherit both this life and the life to come. They walk in peace, in righteousness, and in the fullness of blessing.
The error lies in shifting the center away from God, whether by using him for dishonest gain or by rejecting gain altogether. Both errors miss the main thing. Both treat possessions as if they defined the essence of godliness, whether by grasping or by renouncing. Both displace God from the center. But true godliness places God where he belongs, and receives from him whatever comes, with faith and gratitude.
The gain of godliness is measured in all things, not only in possessions. It is gain in peace, in health, in wisdom, in strength, in prosperity, in joy, and in eternity. It is gain in the soul and in the world, in time and in eternity, because God himself is the giver. The gospel proclaims that God blesses his people with every spiritual blessing in Christ and with every good thing added according to his promise, rather than leaving them impoverished.