But having food and clothing, we will be content with that.
Parallel translations
- KJV And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
- BSB But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.
- NKJV And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.
- NASB If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.
- NLT So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Having food and clothing, we should be content. Life's basic provisions are enough for the satisfied believer.
Overview
Paul names a simple standard for contentment: having our basic needs of food and covering met is sufficient grounds for satisfaction. This is not a vow of poverty but a heart freed from craving more. It echoes Jesus' teaching not to be anxious, trusting the Father who knows our needs and provides.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Heb 13:5–6Be free from the love of money, content with such things as you have, for he has said, “I will in no way leave you, neither will I in any way forsake you.”
- Matt 6:11Give us today our daily bread.
- Matt 6:25–33Therefore I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
- Gen 28:20Jacob vowed a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and clothing to put on,
- Prov 30:8–9Remove far from me falsehood and lies. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me;
- Deut 2:7For Yahweh your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He has known your walking through this great wilderness. These forty years, Yahweh your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.
- Eccl 3:12–13I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice, and to do good as long as they live.
- Prov 27:23–27Know well the state of your flocks, and pay attention to your herds:
- Deut 8:3–4He humbled you, and allowed you to be hungry, and fed you with manna, which you didn’t know, neither did your fathers know; that he might teach you that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of Yahweh’s mouth.
- Eccl 2:24–26There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw, that it is from the hand of God.
- Gen 48:15He blessed Joseph, and said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life long to this day,
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Christ at the center
There is 'one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all' — the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.
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Original language
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