"Ministers should not neglect physical exercise. They should seek to make themselves useful and to be a help where they are dependent upon the hospitalities of others. They should not allow others to wait upon them, but should rather lighten the burdens of those who, having so great a respect for the gospel ministry, would put themselves to great inconvenience to do for them that which they should do for themselves. The poor health of some of our ministers is because of their neglect of physical exercise in useful labor. 3T 211.1"
"For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come."
While 1 Timothy 4:8 states that bodily exercise profits little compared to godliness, EGW argues that ministers should not neglect physical exercise. This is not a contradiction, but rather an application of the principle that physical health is important, even if secondary to spiritual health.
As the matter has resulted, I was shown that it would have been better had the Brethren J done what they could in the preparation of tracts to be circulated among the French. If these works were not prepared in all their perfection, they might better have been circulated, that the French people might have had an opportunity to search the evidences of our faith. There are great risks in delay. The French should have had books setting forth the reasons of our faith. The Brethren J were not prepared to do justice to these works, for they needed to be spiritualized and enlivened themselves or the books prepared would bear the stamp of their minds. They needed to be corrected, lest their preaching and writing should be tedious. They needed to educate themselves to come at once to the point and make the essential features of our faith stand forth clearly before the people. The work has been hindered by Satan, and much has been lost because these works were not prepared when they should have …
"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen."
Both passages deal with the importance of spreading the gospel and teaching others about faith. EGW's passage focuses on the specific task of preparing and circulating tracts, while Matthew 28:19-20 is the Great Commission. The underlying theme of evangelism connects them.