This document provides commentary on Romans 12:1-11 from multiple authors. It begins with an introduction explaining the purpose and structure of the commentary. The commentary then analyzes various aspects of the biblical passage in 3 sentences or less, drawing from the insights of authors such as Barclay, Barne, Clarke, and others. Key points discussed include: presenting our bodies as living sacrifices to God; true worship involving dedicating everyday life, not just rituals; offering our best efforts, not what is defective; and reasonable service referring to spiritual worship over external rituals. The commentary aims to concisely bring together the thoughts of many scholars to help Bible students efficiently understand the text.

1. ROMA S 12 VERSES 1-11 COMME TARY
Written and edited by Glenn Pease
PREFACE
The following commentary consists of my own thoughts combined with the thoughts
of the many authors both ancient and modern who have made comments on this
most important letter of Paul. I have quoted so many others because I have found in
each a unique way to convey the ideas that Paul is seeking to communicate.
Sometimes I have not been able to give credit, and if anyone discovers the name of
the author quoted and lets me know, I will gladly give credit where credit is due. If
anyone does not want their quotes expressed in this commentary, they can let me
know as well, and I will delete them. My e-mail is glenn_p86@yahoo.com The
purpose of this commentary is to bring the thoughts of many authors together in
one place in order to save the Bible student a lot of time in research. All of the
comments are available to anyone, but it takes an enormous amount of time to read
all of the resources. I have brought together what I feel are the best thoughts on the
text in this one place to save others the time. It is my pleasure to do so, and I use
these studies myself to teach a class of about 20 people. The numbering system uses
letters as well as numbers because it gives me the freedom to add new material I
discover without doing the numbers all over. I welcome any comments, and I will
add them to this commentary if they contribute new and valued insight.
Living Sacrifices
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's
mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual[ ]
act of worship.
Barclay reminds us that Paul never ends with deep theological issues, but always
with practical issues of living to please God. He wrote, “Here we have Paul following
the pattern he always followed when he wrote to his friends. He always ends his
letters with practical advice. The sweep of his mind may search through the
infinities, but he never gets lost in them; he always finishes with his feet firmly
planted upon the earth. He can, and does, wrestle with the deepest problems which

2. theology has to offer, but he always ends with the ethical demands which govern
every man. "Present your bodies to God," he says. There is no more
characteristically Christian demand. We have already seen that that is what a
Greek would never say. To the Greek, what mattered was the spirit; the body was
only a prison-house, something to be despised and even to be ashamed of. o real
Christian ever believed that. The Christian believes that his body belongs to God
just as much as his soul does, and that he can serve him just as well with his body as
with his mind or his spirit.
The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and the instrument through which the
Holy Spirit works. After all, the great fact of the incarnation basically means that
God did not grudge to take a human body upon himself, to live in it and to work
through it. Take the case of a church or a cathedral. It is built for the offering of
worship to God. But it has to be designed by the mind of some architect; it has to be
built by the hands of craftsmen and of laboring men; only then does it become a
shrine where men meet to worship. It is a product of the mind and the body and the
spirit of man. Here we have a most significant thing. True worship is the offering to
God of one's body, and all that one does every day with it. Real worship is not the
offering to God of a liturgy, however noble, and a ritual, however magnificent. Real
worship is the offering of everyday life to him, not something transacted in a
church, but something which sees the whole world as the temple of the living God. A
man may say, "I am going to church to worship God," but he should also be able to
say, "I am going to the factory, the shop, the office, the school, the garage, the
locomotive shed, the mine, the shipyard, the field, the byre, the garden, to worship
God.
BAR ES, “I beseech you - The apostle, having finished the argument of this Epistle,
proceeds now to close it with a practical or hortatory application, showing its bearing on
the duties of life, and the practical influence of religion. None of the doctrines of the
gospel are designed to be cold and barren speculations. They bear on the hearts and lives
of people; and the apostle therefore calls on those to whom he wrote to dedicate
themselves without reserve unto God.
Therefore - As the effect or result of the argument or doctrine. In other words, the
whole argument of the eleven first chapters is suited to show the obligation on us to
devote ourselves to God. From expressions like these, it is clear that the apostle never
supposed that the tendency of the doctrines of grace was to lead to licentiousness. Many
have affirmed that such was the tendency of the doctrines of justification by faith, of
election and decrees, and of the perseverance of the saints. But it is plain that Paul had
no such apprehensions. After having fully stated and established those doctrines, he
concludes that we ought therefore to lead holy lives, and on the ground of them he
exhorts people to do it.
By the mercies of God - The word “by” διᆭ dia denotes here the reason why they
should do it, or the ground of appeal. So great had been the mercy of God, that this
constituted a reason why they should present their bodies, etc. see 1Co_1:10;
Rom_15:30. The word “mercies” here denotes favor shown to the undeserving, or
kindness, compassion, etc. The plural is used in imitation of the Hebrew word for mercy,

3. which has no singular. The word is not often used in the New Testament; see 2Co_1:3,
where God is called “the Father of mercies;” Phi_2:1; Col_3:12; Heb_10:28. The
particular mercy to which the apostle here refers, is that shown to those whom he was
addressing. He had proved that all were by nature under sin; that they had no claim on
God; and that he had showed great compassion in giving his Son to die for them in this
state, and in pardoning their sins. This was a ground or reason why they should devote
themselves to God.
That ye present - The word used here commonly denotes the action of bringing and
presenting an animal or other sacrifice before an altar. It implies that the action was a
free and voluntary offering. Religion is free; and the act of devoting ourselves to God is
one of the most free that we ever perform.
Your bodies - The bodies of animals were offered in sacrifice. The apostle specifies
their bodies particularly in reference to that fact. Still the entire animal was devoted; and
Paul evidently meant here the same as to say, present Yourselves, your entire person, to
the service of God; compare 1Co_6:16; Jam_3:6. It was not customary or proper to speak
of a sacrifice as an offering of a soul or spirit, in the common language of the Jews; and
hence, the apostle applied their customary language of sacrifice to the offering which
Christians were to make of themselves to God.
A living sacrifice - A sacrifice is an offering made to God as an atonement for sin; or
any offering made to him and his service as an expression of thanksgiving or homage. It
implies that he who offers it presents it entirely, releases all claim or right to it, and
leaves it to be disposed of for the honor of God. In the case of an animal, it was slain, and
the blood offered; in the case of any other offering, as the first-fruits, etc., it was set apart
to the service of God; and he who offered it released all claim on it, and submitted it to
God, to be disposed of at his will. This is the offering which the apostle entreats the
Romans to make: to devote themselves to God, as if they had no longer any claim on
themselves; to be disposed of by him; to suffer and bear all that he might appoint; and to
promote his honor in any way which he might command. This is the nature of true
religion.
Living - ζራσυν zōsun. The expression probably means that they were to devote the
vigorous, active powers of their bodies and souls to the service of God. The Jew offered
his victim, slew it, and presented it dead. It could not be presented again. In opposition
to this, we are to present ourselves with all our living, vital energies. Christianity does
not require a service of death or inactivity. It demands vigorous and active powers in the
service of God the Saviour. There is something very affecting in the view of such a
sacrifice; in regarding life, with all its energies, its intellectual, and moral, and physical
powers, as one long sacrifice; one continued offering unto God. An immortal being
presented to him; presented voluntarily, with all his energies, from day to day, until life
shall close, so that it may he said that he has lived and died an offering made freely unto
God. This is religion.
Holy - This means properly without blemish or defect. No other sacrifice could be
made to God. The Jews were expressly forbid to offer what was lame, or blind, or in
anyway deformed; Deu_15:21; Lev_1:3, Lev_1:10; Lev_3:1; Lev_22:20; Deu_17:1;
compare Mal_1:8. If offered without any of these defects, it was regarded as holy, that is,
appropriately set apart, or consecrated to God. In like manner we are to consecrate to
God our best faculties; the vigor of our minds, and talents, and time. Not the feebleness
of sickness merely; not old age alone; not time which we cannot otherwise employ, but
the first vigor and energies of the mind and body; our youth, and health, and strength.
Our sacrifice to God is to be not divided, separate; but it is to be entire and complete.
Many are expecting to be Christians in sickness; many in old age; thus purposing to offer

4. unto him the blind and the lame. The sacrifice is to be free from sin. It is not to be a
divided, and broken, and polluted service. It is to be with the best affections of our hearts
and lives.
Acceptable unto God - They are exhorted to offer such a sacrifice as will be
acceptable to God; that is, such a one as he had just specified, one that was living and
holy. No sacrifice should be made which is not acceptable to God. The offerings of the
pagan; the pilgrimages of the Muslims; the self-inflicted penalties of the Roman
Catholics, uncommanded by God, cannot be acceptable to him. Those services will be
acceptable to God, and those only, which he appoints; compare Col_2:20-23. People are
not to invent services; or to make crosses; or to seek persecutions and trials; or to
provoke opposition. They are to do just what God requires of them, and that will be
acceptable to God. And this fact, that what we do is acceptable to God, is the highest
recompense we can have. It matters little what people think of us, if God approves what
we do. To please him should be our highest aim; the fact that we do please him is our
highest reward.
Which is your reasonable service - The word rendered “service” λατρείαν latreian
properly denotes worship, or the homage rendered to God. The word “reasonable” with
us means what is “governed by reason; thinking, speaking, or acting conformably to the
dictates of reason” (Webster); or what can be shown to be rational or proper. This does
not express the meaning of the original. That word λογικᆱν logikēn denotes what pertains
to the mind, and a reasonable service means what is mental, or pertaining to reason. It
stands opposed, nor to what is foolish or unreasonable, but to the external service of the
Jews, and such as they relied on for salvation. The worship of the Christian is what
pertains to the mind, or is spiritual; that of the Jew was external. Chrysostom renders
this phrase “your spiritual ministry.” The Syriac, “That ye present your bodies, etc., by a
rational ministry.”
We may learn from this verse,
(1) That the proper worship of God is the free homage of the mind. It is not forced or
constrained. The offering of ourselves should be voluntary. No other can be a true
offering, and none other can be acceptable.
(2) We are to offer our entire selves, all that we have and are, to God. No other offering
can be such as he will approve.
(3) The character of God is such as should lead us to that. It is a character of mercy; of
long-continued and patient forbearance, and it should influence us to devote
ourselves to him.
(4) It should be done without delay. God is as worthy of such service now as he ever
will or can be. He has every possible claim on our affections and our hearts.
CLARKE, “I beseech you therefore, brethren - This address is probably intended
both for the Jews and the Gentiles; though some suppose that the Jews are addressed in
the first verse, the Gentiles in the second.
By the mercies of God! - ∆ια των οικτιρµων του Θεου· By the tender mercies or
compassions of God, such as a tender father shows to his refractory children; who, on
their humiliation, is easily persuaded to forgive their offenses. The word οικτιρµος comes

5. from οικτος, compassion; and that from εικω, to yield; because he that has compassionate
feelings is easily prevailed on to do a kindness, or remit an injury.
That ye present your bodies - A metaphor taken from bringing sacrifices to the
altar of God. The person offering picked out the choicest of his flock, brought it to the
altar, and presented it there as an atonement for his sin. They are exhorted to give
themselves up in the spirit of sacrifice; to be as wholly the Lord’s property as the whole
burnt-offering was, no part being devoted to any other use.
A living sacrifice - In opposition to those dead sacrifices which they were in the
habit of offering while in their Jewish state; and that they should have the lusts of the
flesh mortified, that they might live to God.
Holy - Without spot or blemish; referring still to the sacrifice required by the law.
Acceptable unto God - Ευαρεστον· The sacrifice being perfect in its kind, and the
intention of the offerer being such that both can be acceptable and well pleasing to God,
who searches the heart. All these phrases are sacrificial, and show that there must be a
complete surrender of the person - the body, the whole man, mind and flesh, to be given
to God; and that he is to consider himself no more his own, but the entire property of his
Maker.
Your reasonable service - Nothing can be more consistent with reason than that
the work of God should glorify its Author. We are not our own, we are the property of the
Lord, by the right of creation and redemption; and it would be as unreasonable as it
would be wicked not to live to his glory, in strict obedience to his will. The reasonable
service, λογικην λατρειαν, of the apostle, may refer to the difference between the Jewish
and Christian worship. The former religious service consisted chiefly in its sacrifices,
which were δι’ αλογων, of irrational creatures, i.e. the lambs, rams, kids, bulls, goats, etc.,
which were offered under the law. The Christian service or worship is λογικη, rational,
because performed according to the true intent and meaning of the law; the heart and
soul being engaged in the service. He alone lives the life of a fool and a madman who
lives the life of a sinner against God; for, in sinning against his Maker he wrongs his own
soul, loves death, and rewards evil unto himself.
Reasonable service, λογικην λατρειαν, “a religious service according to reason,” one
rationally performed. The Romanists make this distinction between λατρεια, and δουλεια,
latreia and douleia, (or dulia, as they corruptly write it), worship and service, which they
say signify two kinds of religious worship; the first proper to God, the other
communicated to the creatures. But δουλεια, douleia, services, is used by the Septuagint
to express the Divine worship. See Deu_13:4; Jdg_2:7; 1Sa_7:3, and 1Sa_12:10 : and in
the New Testament, Mat_6:24; Luk_6:23; Rom_16:18; Col_3:24. The angel refused
δουλειαν, douleia, Rev_22:7, because he was συνδουλος sundoulos, a fellow servant; and
the Divine worship is more frequently expressed by this word δουλεια, douleia, service,
than by λατρεια, latreia, worship. The first is thirty-nine times in the Old and New
Testament ascribed unto God, the other about thirty times; and latreia, worship or
service, is given unto the creatures, as in Lev_23:7, Lev_23:8, Lev_23:21; Num_28:18;
yea, the word signifies cruel and base bondage, Deu_28:48 : once in the New Testament
it is taken for the worship of the creatures, Rom_1:25. The worshipping of idols is

6. forbidden under the word λατρεια, latreia, thirty-four times in the Old Testament, and
once in the New, as above; and twenty-three times under the term δουλεια, douleia, in the
Old Testament; and St. Paul uses δουλευειν Θεᆞ, and λατρευειν Θεᆞ indifferently, for the
worship we owe to God. See Rom_1:9, Rom_1:25; Rom_12:1, Gal_4:8, Gal_4:9;
1Th_1:9; Mat_6:24. And Ludouicus Vives, a learned Romanist, has proved out of Suidas,
Xenophon, and Volla, that these two words are usually taken the one for the other,
therefore the popish distinction, that the first signifies “the religious worship due only to
God,” and the second, “that which is given to angels, saints, and men,” is unlearned and
false. - See Leigh’s Crit. Sacra.
GILL, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,.... The
apostle having finished the doctrinal part of this epistle, proceeds to that which is more
practical; and enforces the several duties of religion, upon the principles he had before
laid down, a method generally observed by him in all his epistles. The illative particle
"therefore", shows that the following exhortations are so many conclusions,
consequences, and inferences, deduced from what had been said in the latter part of the
preceding chapter; that since all things are of God, and by him and to him, then the
saints ought to present their bodies to him, and to know, approve, and do his will; and
since they have nothing but what they have received from him, they ought not to think
too highly of, or glory in their attainments. The introduction to these exhortations, is in a
very kind and affectionate manner; the saints are addressed as "brethren", and very
appropriately; since this expresses the relation they stood in to the apostle, for whom he
had an hearty love and concern; and therefore what he pressed them to was out of a
sincere regard to their good, as well as to the glory of God; also their relation to each
other, and which several of the duties he urges had a connection with; likewise their
relation to God, being of his family, having one and the same Father, and so under
obligation to regard his will, honour and reverence him: moreover, these things are
moved, not in an imperious way, in an authoritative manner, but by way of entreaty, "I
beseech you"; as an ambassador of Christ, and as though in his stead: nor are they
enforced by terrors, threats, and menaces, but "by the mercies of God"; that is, the
abundant mercy of God, displayed in their election, regeneration, and calling; than
which, nothing can have a greater influence on a believer, to engage him to holiness of
life and conversation; and shows, that the doctrines of grace are no licentious ones, nor
do they render useless precepts, exhortations, entreaties, cautions, and advice,
particularly such as follow;
that ye present your bodies; not barely that part of them commonly so called, for
this is not to be understood of a mere presentation of the body in public worship: for
though this ought to be, yet not without the heart engaged therein, otherwise bodily
exercise will be of no avail; nor of a bare abstinence from grosser sins done in the body,
and against it, and which defile and dishonour it; much less of a maceration, and keeping
under the body, by watchings, fasting, &c. and still less of an offering of the body at death
in a way of martyrdom, though this ought to be cheerfully complied with when called for:
but by their bodies are meant, themselves, their whole souls and bodies, all the powers
and faculties of their souls, and members of their bodies; and the presenting of them,
designs a devoting of them, with all readiness and willingness, to the service of God for
his honour and glory, without putting any confidence in, or placing any dependence

7. upon them; which would be sacrificing to their own net, and burning incense to their
drag; it includes the whole of their service, conversation, and religion, internal and
external. So the Jews (k) say,
"worthy is the portion of the righteous, who offer every day this offering before the Lord;
and what is it? ‫ונפשייהו‬ ‫,גרמייהו‬ "their bodies and their souls", which they offer before him.''
The allusion is to the rite of sacrificing, to the bringing of the slain beast, and laying it on the
altar, and there presenting and offering it to the Lord. Under the Gospel dispensation all
believers are priests; and the sacrifices they bring are not the bodies of slain beasts, but their own
bodies, their whole selves; and these
a living sacrificea living sacrificea living sacrificea living sacrifice, in opposition to the bodies of slain beasts offered under the legal dispensation,
and to the dead works of such as are destitute of faith in Christ, and to the lifeless performances
of the saints themselves at certain times; and designs such a presentation of themselves in the
performance of religious duties, as springs from a principle of life under the quickening
influences of the Spirit of God, with faith and fervency; though without any view to obtain life
hereby, for that is only by the offering up of the body of Christ once for all. Another epithet of
this sacrifice of our bodies to God is
holyholyholyholy, in allusion to the sacrifices under the law, which were separated from common use, and
devoted to God, and were not to have the least spot and blemish in them; and regards men
sanctified by the Spirit of God, and whose actions flow from a principle of holiness, and are
performed under the influence of the Holy Spirit; and such sacrifices as are both living and holy,
cannot but be
acceptable to Godacceptable to Godacceptable to Godacceptable to God through the mediation of his Son, by whom, as the persons, the souls and
bodies of his people, so their spiritual sacrifices, whether of prayer or praise, are only acceptable
to him:
which is your reasonable servicewhich is your reasonable servicewhich is your reasonable servicewhich is your reasonable service; it is agreeably to reason, and especially as sanctified, that men
who have their beings from God, and are upheld in them by him, and are followed with the
bounties of Providence; and especially who are made new creatures, and are blessed by him with
all spiritual blessings in Christ, that they should give up themselves to him, and cheerfully serve
him in their day and generation; such service is also agreeably to the Scriptures of truth, the
standard of filth and practice, and contain and enforce nothing but what is highly reasonable to

8. be complied with; it is such service as lies not in the slaying of irrational creatures, but in the
presenting of men endued with rational powers unto God; and is of a spiritual nature, performed
by spiritual men, under the influence of the Spirit of God: and is suitable to the nature and
perfections of God, and stands opposed to the corporeal and carnal service of the Jews.
HE RY, “We may observe here, according to the scheme mentioned in the
contents, the apostle's exhortations,
I. Concerning our duty to God, We see what is godliness.
1. It is to surrender ourselves to God, and so to lay a good foundation. We must first
give our own selves unto the Lord, 2Co_8:5. This is here pressed as the spring of all duty
and obedience, Rom_12:1, Rom_12:2. Man consists of body and soul, Gen_2:7;
Ecc_12:7.
(1.) The body must be presented to him, Rom_12:1. The body is for the Lord, and the
Lord for the body, 1Co_6:13, 1Co_6:14. The exhortation is here introduced very
pathetically: I beseech you, brethren. Though he was a great apostle, yet he calls the
meanest Christians brethren, a term of affection and concern. He uses entreaty; this is
the gospel way: As though God did beseech you by us, 2Co_5:20. Though he might with
authority command, yet for love's sake he rather beseeches, Phm_1:8, Phm_1:9. The
poor useth entreaty, Pro_18:23. This is to insinuate the exhortation, that it might come
with the more pleasing power. Many are sooner wrought upon if they be accosted kindly,
are more easily led than driven. Now observe,
[1.] The duty pressed - to present our bodies a living sacrifice, alluding to the sacrifices
under the law, which were presented or set before God at the altar, ready to be offered to
him. Your bodies - your whole selves; so expressed because under the law the bodies of
beasts were offered in sacrifice, 1Co_6:20. Our bodies and spirits are intended. The
offering was sacrificed by the priest, but presented by the offerer, who transferred to God
all his right, title, and interest in it, by laying his hand on the head of it. Sacrifice is here
taken for whatsoever is by God's own appointment dedicated to himself; see 1Pe_2:5. We
are temple, priest, and sacrifice, as Christ was in his peculiar sacrificing. There were
sacrifices of atonement and sacrifices of acknowledgment. Christ, who was once offered
to bear the sins of many, is the only sacrifice of atonement; but our persons and
performances, tendered to God through Christ our priest, are as sacrifices of
acknowledgment to the honour of God. Presenting them denotes a voluntary act, done by
virtue of that absolute despotic power which the will has over the body and all the
members of it. It must be a free-will offering. Your bodies; not your beasts. Those legal
offerings, as they had their power from Christ, so they had their period in Christ. The
presenting of the body to God implies not only the avoiding of the sins that are
committed with or against the body, but the using of the body as a servant of the soul in
the service of God. It is to glorify God with our bodies (1Co_6:20), to engage our bodies
in the duties of immediate worship, and in a diligent attendance to our particular
callings, and be willing to suffer for God with our bodies, when we are called to it. It is to
yield the members of our bodies as instruments of righteousness, Rom_6:13. Though
bodily exercise alone profits little, yet in its place it is a proof and product of the
dedication of our souls to God. First, Present them a living sacrifice; not killed, as the
sacrifices under the law. A Christian makes his body a sacrifice to God, though he does
not give it to be burned. A body sincerely devoted to God is a living sacrifice. A living
sacrifice, by way of allusion - that which was dead of itself might not be eaten, much less

9. sacrificed, Deu_14:21; and by ways of opposition - “The sacrifice was to be slain, but you
may be sacrificed, and yet live on” - an unbloody sacrifice. The barbarous heathen
sacrificed their children to their idol-gods, not living, but slain sacrifices: but God will
have mercy, and not such sacrifice, though life is forfeited to him. A living sacrifice, that
is, inspired with the spiritual life of the soul. It is Christ living in the soul by faith that
makes the body a living sacrifice, Gal_2:20. Holy love kindles the sacrifices, puts life into
the duties; see Rom_6:13. Alive, that is, to God, Rom_6:11. Secondly, They must be holy.
There is a relative holiness in every sacrifice, as dedicated to God. But, besides this, there
must be that real holiness which consists in an entire rectitude of heart and life, by which
we are conformed in both to the nature and will of God: even our bodies must not be
made the instruments of sin and uncleanness, but set apart for God, and put to holy uses,
as the vessels of the tabernacle were holy, being devoted to God's service. It is the soul
that is the proper subject of holiness; but a sanctified soul communicates a holiness to
the body it actuates and animates. That is holy which is according to the will of God;
when the bodily actions are no, the body is holy. They are the temples of the Holy Ghost,
1Co_6:19. Possess the body in sanctification, 1Th_4:4, 1Th_4:5.
[2.] The arguments to enforce this, which are three: - First, Consider the mercies of
God: I beseech you by the mercies of God. An affectionate obtestation, and which should
melt us into a compliance: dia tōn oiktirmōn tou Theou. This is an argument most sweetly
cogent. There is the mercy that is in God and the mercy that is from God-mercy in the
spring and mercy in the streams: both are included here; but especially gospel-mercies
(mentioned ch. 11), the transferring of what the Jews forfeited and lost by their unbelief
unto us Gentiles (Eph_3:4-6): the sure mercies of David, Isa_55:3. God is a merciful
God, therefore let us present our bodies to him; he will be sure to use them kindly, and
knows how to consider the frames of them, for he is of infinite compassion. We receive
from him every day the fruits of his mercy, particularly mercy to our bodies: he made
them, he maintains them, he bought them, he has put a great dignity upon them. It is of
the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, that our souls are held in life; and the
greatest mercy of all is that Christ hath made not his body only, but his soul, an offering
for sin, that he gave himself for us and gives himself to us. Now surely we cannot but be
studying what we shall render to the Lord for all this. And what shall we render? Let us
render ourselves as an acknowledgment of all these favours - all we are, all we have, all
we can do; and, after all, it is but very poor returns for very rich receivings: and yet,
because it is what we have, Secondly, It is acceptable to God. The great end we should all
labour after is to be accepted of the Lord (2Co_5:9), to have him well-pleased with our
persons and performances. Now these living sacrifices are acceptable to God; while the
sacrifices of the wicked, though fat and costly, are an abomination to the Lord. It is God's
great condescension that he will vouchsafe to accept of any thing in us; and we can desire
no more to make us happy; and, if the presenting of ourselves will but please him, we
may easily conclude that we cannot bestow ourselves better. Thirdly, It is our reasonable
service. There is an act of reason in it; for it is the soul that presents the body. Blind
devotion, that has ignorance for the mother and nurse of it, is fit to be paid only to those
dunghill-gods that have eyes and see not. Our God must be served in the spirit and with
the understanding. There is all the reason in the world for it, and no good reason can
possibly be produced against it. Come now, and let us reason together, Isa_1:18. God
does not impose upon us any thing hard or unreasonable, but that which is altogether
agreeable to the principles of right reason. Tēn logikēn latreian humōn - your service
according to the word; so it may be read. The word of God does not leave out the body in
holy worship. That service only is acceptable to God which is according to the written
word. It must be gospel worship, spiritual worship. That is a reasonable service which we

10. are able and ready to give a reason for, in which we understand ourselves. God deals with
us as with rational creatures, and will have us so to deal with him. Thus must the body be
presented to God.
JAMISO , “Rom_12:1-21. Duties of believers, general and particular.
The doctrinal teaching of this Epistle is now followed up by a series of exhortations to
practical duty. And first, the all-comprehensive duty.
I beseech you therefore — in view of all that has been advanced in the foregoing
part of this Epistle.
by the mercies of God — those mercies, whose free and unmerited nature, glorious
Channel, and saving fruits have been opened up at such length.
that ye present — See on Rom_6:13, where we have the same exhortation and the
same word there rendered “yield” (as also in Rom_12:16, Rom_12:19).
your bodies — that is, “yourselves in the body,” considered as the organ of the inner
life. As it is through the body that all the evil that is in the unrenewed heart comes forth
into palpable manifestation and action, so it is through the body that all the gracious
principles and affections of believers reveal themselves in the outward life. Sanctification
extends to the whole man (1Th_5:23, 1Th_5:24).
a living sacrifice — in glorious contrast to the legal sacrifices, which, save as they
were slain, were no sacrifices at all. The death of the one “Lamb of God, taking away the
sin of the world,” has swept all dead victims from off the altar of God, to make room for
the redeemed themselves as “living sacrifices” to Him who made “Him to be sin for us”;
while every outgoing of their grateful hearts in praise, and every act prompted by the love
of Christ, is itself a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savor (Heb_13:15, Heb_13:16).
holy — As the Levitical victims, when offered without blemish to God, were regarded
as holy, so believers, “yielding themselves to God as those that are alive from the dead,
and their members as instruments of righteousness unto God,” are, in His estimation,
not ritually but really “holy,” and so
acceptable — “well-pleasing”
unto God — not as the Levitical offerings, merely as appointed symbols of spiritual
ideas, but objects, intrinsically, of divine complacency, in their renewed character, and
endeared relationship to Him through His Son Jesus Christ.
which is your reasonable — rather, “rational”
service — in contrast, not to the senselessness of idol-worship, but to the offering of
irrational victims under the law. In this view the presentation of ourselves, as living
monuments of redeeming mercy, is here called “our rational service”; and surely it is the
most rational and exalted occupation of God’s reasonable creatures. So 2Pe_1:5, “to offer
up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
SPURGEO , “Rom_12:1. I beseech you therefore, brethren,
Paul is a calm reasoner. He is a bold starer of truth, but here he comes to pleading with us. I think
that I see him lift the pen from the paper and look round upon us, as. with the accent of entreaty, he
says, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, by God’s great mercy to you, his
many mercies, his CONTINUED mercies.” What stronger plea could the Apostle have? “I
beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God.”
Rom_12:1. By the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice,

11. holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Though he beseeches you to do it, he claims a right to it. It is but your reasonable service. Do we
need to be entreated to be reasonable? I am afraid that we do sometimes. And what are we to do?
To present our bodies to God, not our souls alone, to make real, practical work of it. Let this flesh
and blood in which your body dwells be presented unto God, not to be killed and to be a dead
sacrifice, but to live and still to be a sacrifice, a living sacrifice unto God, holy and acceptable to him.
This is reasonable. God help us to carry it out.
PULPIT, “I beseech you therefore, brethren (he does not command, as did Moses in the
Law; he beseeches; he is but a fellow-servant, with his brethren, of Christ; he does not "lord it over
God's heritage" (cf. 1Pe_5:3), but trusts that they will of their own accord respond to "the mercies of
God" in Christ, which he has set before them), by the mercies of God ("Qui misericordia Dei recte
movetur in omnem Dei voluntatem ingreditur. At anima irae obnoxia vix quiddam juvatur
adhortationibus," Bengel), that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable service. The verb παραστῆσαι is the usual one for
the presenting of sacrificial animals at the altar (Xen., 'Anab.,' 6.1.22; Lucian, 'De Sacrif.,' 13.
The LXX in LeRom_16:7, Rom_16:10, has στήσει . Cf. Luk_2:22 : Col_1:22, Col_1:28,
and supra, 6.13). Our bodies are here specified, with probable reference to the bodies of victims
which were offered in the old ritual. But our offering differs from them in being "a living sacrifice,"
replete with life and energy to do God's will (cf. Psa_40:6, Psa_40:7, Psa_40:8,
and Heb_10:5, Heb_10:6, Heb_10:7), yea, and oven inspired with a new life—a life from the dead
(Rom_6:13). Further, the thought is suggested of the abuse of the body to uncleanness prevalent in
heathen society (cf. Rom_1:24). The bodies of Christians are "members of Christ," "temples of the
Holy Ghost," consecrated to God, and to be devoted to his service (cf. 1Co_6:15, etc.); and not in
heart only, but in actual life, of which the body is the agent, we are to offer ourselves, after the
example of Christ. Your reasonable service ( τὴν λογικὴν λατρείαν ὑµῶν ) must be taken in
apposition to "present your bodies, rather than to "sacrifice," it being the act of offering, and not the
thing offered. that constitutes the λατρεία . This word is especially used for the ceremonial worship
of the Old Testament
(cf. Exo_12:25, Exo_12:26; Exo_13:5; Rom_9:4; Heb_8:5; Heb_9:1, Heb_9:6, Heb_9:9; Heb_10:2;
Heb_13:10), the counterpart of which in Christians is, according to St. Paul, not ceremonial service,
but rather that of a devoted life (cf. Act_27:23; Rom_1:9; Php_3:3; 2Ti_1:3; Hebrews 41:28). The
epithet λογικὴν has been variously understood. It probably means rational,denoting a moral and
spiritual serving of God, in implied opposition to mechanical acts of outward worship. "Respectu
intellectus et voluntatis" (Bengel). It may be taken to express the same idea as οἱ Πνεῦµατι
Θεῷ λατρεύοντες (Php_3:3), and πνευµατικὴν θυσίαν (1Pe_2:7; of. Joh_4:24). Though the offering
of the body is being spoken of, yet "bodily self-sacrifice is an ethical act" (Meyer). Cf. 1Co_6:20. The
word itself occurs in the New Testament only here and in 1Pe_2:2, where its meaning, though
obscure, may be similar.
CALVI , “After having handled those things necessary for the erection of the kingdom of God,
— that righteousness is to be sought from God alone, that salvation is to come to us alone from his
mercy, that all blessings are laid up and daily offered to us in Christ only, — Paul now passes on,
according to the best order, to show how the life is to be formed. If it be, that through the saving
knowledge of God and of Christ, the soul is, as it were, regenerated into a celestial life, and that the
life is in a manner formed and regulated by holy exhortations and precepts; it is then in vain that you
show a desire to form the life aright, except you prove first, that the origin of all righteousness in
men is in God and Christ; for this is to raise them from the dead.
And this is the main difference between the gospel and philosophy: for though the philosophers
speak excellently and with great judgment on the subject of morals, yet whatever excellencyshines

12. forth in their precepts, it is, as it were, a beautiful superstructure without a foundation; for by omitting
principles, they offer a mutilated doctrine, like a body without a head. Not very unlike this is the
mode of teaching under the Papacy: for though they mention, by the way, faith in Christ and the
grace of the Holy Spirit, it yet appears quite evident, that they approach heathen philosophers far
nearer than Christ and his Apostles.
But as philosophers, before they lay down laws respecting morals, discourse first of the end of what
is good, and inquire into the sources of virtues, from which afterwards they draw and derive all
duties; so Paul lays down here the principle from which all the duties of holiness flow, even this, —
that we are redeemed by the Lord for this end — that we may consecrate to him ourselves and all
our members. But it may be useful to examine every part.
1.I therefore beseech you by the mercies (miserationes — compassions) of God, etc. We know that
unholy men, in order to gratify the flesh, anxiously lay hold on whatever is set forth in Scripture
respecting the infinite goodness of God; and hypocrites also, as far as they can, maliciously darken
the knowledge of it, as though the grace of God extinguished the desire for a godly life, and opened
to audacity the door of sin. But this exhortation teaches us, that until men really apprehend how
much they owe to the mercy of God, they will never with a right feeling worship him, nor be
effectually stimulated to fear and obey him. It is enough for the Papists, if they can extort by terror
some sort of forced obedience, I know not what. But Paul, that he might bind us to God, not by
servile fear, but by the voluntary and cheerful love of righteousness, allures us by the sweetness of
that favor, by which our salvation is effected; and at the same time he reproaches us with
ingratitude, except we, after having found a Father so kind and bountiful, do strive in our turn to
dedicate ourselves wholly to him. (377)
And what Paul says, in thus exhorting us, ought to have more power over us, inasmuch as he
excels all others in setting forth the grace of God. Iron indeed must be the heart which is not kindled
by the doctrine which has been laid down into love towards God, whose kindness towards itself it
finds to have been so abounding. Where then are they who think that all exhortations to a holy life
are nullified, if the salvation of men depends on the grace of God alone, since by no precepts, by no
sanctions, is a pious mind so framed to render obedience to God, as by a serious meditation on the
Divine goodness towards it?
We may also observe here the benevolence of the Apostle’ spirit, — that he preferred to deal with
the faithful by admonitions and friendly exhortations rather than by strict commands; for heknew that
he could prevail more with the teachable in this way than in any other.
That ye present YOUR bodies, etc. It is then the beginning of a right course in good works, when
we understand that we are consecrated to the Lord; for it hence follows, that we must cease to live
to ourselves, in order that we may devote all the actions of our life to his service.
There are then two things to be considered here, — the first, that we are the Lord’ — and secondly,
that we ought on this ACCOUNT to be holy, for it is an indignity to God’ holiness, that anything,
not first consecrated, should be offered to him. These two things being admitted, it then follows that
holiness is to be practiced through life, and that we are guilty of a kind ofsacrilege when we relapse
into uncleanness, as it is nothing else than to profane what is consecrated.
But there is throughout a great suitableness in the expressions. He says first, that our body ought to
be offered a sacrifice to God; by which he implies that we are not our own, but have entirely passed
over so as to become the property of God; which cannot be, except we renounce ourselves and
thus deny ourselves. Then, secondly, by adding two adjectives, he shows what sort of sacrifice this
ought to be. By calling it living, he intimates, that we are sacrificed to the Lord for this end, — that
our former life being destroyed in us, we may be raised up to a new life. By the term holy, he points
out that which necessarily belongs to a sacrifice, already noticed; for a victim is then only approved,
when it had been previously made holy. By the third word,acceptable, he reminds us, that our life is

13. framed aright, when this sacrifice is so made as to be pleasing to God: he brings to us at the same
time no common consolation; for he teaches us, that our work is pleasing and acceptable to God
when we devote ourselves to purity and holiness.
By bodies he means not only our bones and skin, but the whole mass of which we are composed;
and he adopted this word, that he might more fully designate all that we are: for the members of the
body are the instruments by which we execute our purposes. (378) He indeed requires from us
holiness, not only as to the body, but also as to the soul and spirit, as in1Th_5:23. In bidding us
to present our bodies, he alludes to the Mosaic sacrifices, which were presented at the altar, as it
were in the presence of God. But he shows, at the same time, in a striking manner, how prompt we
ought to be to receive the commands of God, that we may without delay obey them.
Hence we learn, that all mortals, whose object is not to worship God, do nothing but miserably
wander and go astray. We now also find what sacrifices Paul recommends to the Christian Church:
for being reconciled to God through the one only true sacrifice of Christ, we are all through his grace
made priests, in order that we may dedicate ourselves and all we have to the glory of God. No
sacrifice of expiation is wanted; and no one can be set up, without casting a manifest reproach on
the cross of Christ.
Your reasonable service This sentence, I think, was added, that he might more clearly apply
and CONFIRM the preceding exhortation, as though he had said, — “ yourselves a, sacrifice to
God, if ye have it in your heart to serve God: for this is the right way of serving God; from which, if
any depart, they are but false worshippers.” If then only God is rightly worshipped, when we observe
all things according to what he has prescribed, away then with all those devised modes of worship,
which he justly abominates, since he values obedience more than sacrifice. Men are indeed
pleased with their own inventions, which have an empty show of wisdom, as Paul says in another
place; but we learn here what the celestial Judge declares in opposition to this by the mouth of Paul;
for by calling that a reasonable service which he commands, he repudiates as foolish, insipid, and
presumptuous, whatever we attempt beyond the rule of his word. (379)
(377) By “” the Apostle refers, as some think, to the various sects of God’ mercy, such as election,
vocation, justification, and final salvation. [Grotius ] considers that God’ attributes are referred to,
such as are described in Exo_34:6. [Erasmus ], QUOTING [Origen ], says, that the plural is used
for amplification, in order to show the greatness of God’ mercy, as though the Apostle had said, “
God’ great mercy.” [Schleusner ] renders the clause, “per summam Dei benignitatem — by God’
great kindness,” that is, in bringing you to the knowledge of the gospel. So “ of mercies,” in 2Co_1:3,
may mean “ merciful Father,” or the meaning may be, “ Father of all blessings,” as mercy signifies
sometimes what mercy bestows, (Phi_2:1,) as grace or favor often means the gift which flows from
it. According to this view, “” here are the blessings which God bestows, even the blessings of
redemption. — Ed.
(378) The word σώµατα “” he seems to have used, because of the similitude he adopts respecting
sacrifices; for the bodies of beasts we are to consecrate our own bodies. As he meant before by
“” Rom_6:13, the whole man, so he means here by “” that is, themselves.
They were to be living sacrifices, not killed as the legal sacrifices, they were to be holy, not maimed
or defective, but whole and perfect as to all the members, and free from disease. SeeLev_22:19.
They were to be acceptable , εὐάρεστον “placentem — pleasing,” [Beza ]; “” [Doddridge ]. It was not
sufficient under the law for the sacrifices themselves to be holy, blameless, such as God required;
but a right motive and a right feeling on the part of the offerer were necessary, in order that they
might be accepted or approved by God. Without faith and repentance, and a reformed life, they
were not accepted, but regarded as abominations. See Psa_51:19; Isa_1:11

14. It is said by [Wolfius ], that all the terms here are derived from the sacrificial rites of the law, and that
Christians are represented both as the priests who offered, and as the sacrifices which were offered
by them. — Ed.
(379) The word λογικὴν “” was considered by [Origen ], and by many after him, as designating
Christian service consonant with reason, in opposition to the sacrifices under the law, which were
not agreeable to reason. But [Chrysostom ], whom also many have followed, viewed the word as
meaning what is spiritual, or what belongs to the mind, in contradistinction to the ritual and external
service of the law; but there is no example of the word having such a meaning, except it
be 1Pe_2:2, which is by no means decisive. Rational, or reasonable, is its meaning, or,
what AGREES with the word, as Phavorinus explains it. There is no need here to suppose any
contrast: the expression only designates the act or the service which the Apostle prescribes; as
though he said, “ I exhort you to do is nothing but a reasonable service, consistent with the dictates
of reason. God has done great things for you, and it is nothing but right and just that you should
dedicate yourselves wholly to him.” This seems to be the obvious meaning. To draw this expression
to another subject, in order to set up reason as an umpire in matters of faith, is wholly a perversion:
and to say, that as it seems to refer to the word in 1Pe_2:2, it must be so considered here, is what
does not necessarily follow; for as λόγος sometimes means “” and sometimes “” so its derivative
may have a similar variety. — Ed.
Unknown author, “Pursue God and in pursuing God He will make your paths
straight (Prov. 3:5-6) by reveavling Himself, His Word, and His ways to you. As we
continue to pursue the Lord we become more atuned to His will. It’s as if we have an
antenna and as we run after God the picture becomes more and more clear. Then
we are able to say, “Oh, I understand God! (As far as we can humanly, that is.)
Your ways really do work and are perfect.” And the more we see the clear picture,
the more we trust in God and see experientally that His ways are perfect. The best
part of it is that as we continue along our hearts are changed, we are transformed as
we stare at the face of Christ. Reflect with me today on your pursuit of Christ. Ask
yourself, “Do I struggle with knowing what God’s will for me is?” If yes, then ask
the Lord, “Why?” Is it unbelief? Rebellion? Fear? Whatever it is confess it before
Him today.”
Unknown author, “We offer ourselves to God since He has shown us such great
mercy. As I was studying, I came across a different translation of this verse and it
was just so wonderful to me, “When you think of what he has done for you, is this
too much to ask?” ( LT) I think that hits it on the head. So often we can come up
with excuses, mostly without even being conciously aware, of why we shouldn’t or
can’t fully give ourselves to God. That’s why I love this translation, When you think
of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask?” Seriously, is it too much for
God to ask for our complete dedication when he gave up His Son for us? ow, how
can anyone answer, “Yes, it is too much to ask!” Who would even be so bold? It’s a
humbling question that our hearts already know the answer. Offering our self to
God is not only an act of spiritual worship or submission, but it is giving Him what
is rightfully His, “You are not your own [...] You were bought with a price.
Therefore, honor God with your body” (1 Cor. 6:19b-20).

15. Beet, “We present our bodies when we resolve to look
upon them henceforth as belonging only to God, and resolve to use
our bodily powers only to advance His purposes. This is practi-
cally the same as presenting ourselves to God : for only through our
body does the world act upon us and we upon the world. But the
mode of thought is different. This ver. looks upon the man within
as the priest who lays upon the altar, not the body of a dead sheep,
but his own living body. Sacrifice: Phil. iv. 18, Heb. xiii. 1$,
I P. ii. 5. Our body has now the sacredness associated in the
mind of a Jew with the animals laid on the brazen altar. Living :
suggested by the contrast of the Mosaic sacrifices. While our feet
can run and our lips speak, we give them to God that they may
run and speak for Him. Holy, Presentation to God makes our
bodies holy, as it did the sacrificial animals, Ex. xxix. 37. Hence-
forth our bodies exist only to work out God's purposes. Comp.
carefully vi. 19. Well-pleasing to God: xiv. 18, 2 Cor. v. 9, Eph.
v. 10, Phil. iv. 18, Heb. xiii. 16, 21. Although the bodies of some
of Paul's readers had been defiled by sin, and their powers wasted
in the service of idols, yet when laid upon the altar they were
acceptable to God. They were acceptable because a man's own
body is the noblest sacrifice he has to offer. Service : as in i. 9,
25, ix. 4, Heb. ix. I, 6. It keeps up the reference to Jewish ritual.
To present our bodies, is the worship prescribed by God for us
Rational, A Mosaic sacrifice might be a purely mechanical offer-
ing in which the intelligence had no part. But the sacrifice re-
quired from us, since it is our own body, can be offered only by the

16. act of the reasoning spirit within.
Bosworth, “General statement: Though the present evil age
has not yet ended you must no longer live its life.
Through the spiritual re-enforcement that your
higher nature has experienced you must even now
live the life of the Spirit Age to come and make pre-
liminary demonstration of the will of God, 12: 1-2.”
"Since God through all the generations has been mercifully
preparing the race for the glory of the New Age, I beseech you,
my Brothers who have yielded to his mercy and have felt the
power of the New Age, to take the very flesh bodies, which once
made you slaves of sin and which still link you to this present
evil age of flesh, and lay them resolutely on the altar of God.
Let them be a living sacrifice, untouched by priestly knife, purified
from all the base uses they once served, no longer a foul offense to
God but well pleasing to him. This will be the fitting form of
worship for you to offer to God in the spiritual world which you
have begun to enter (i). Do not follow the pattern of life that
prevails in this evil age, but live as if you had already been
granted the glorious bodies that shall be yours in the New Age.
This is now possible since your higher nature has been so re-
enforced that you are able to make demonstration of the will of
God, doing everything that is good, well-pleasing to him, and as
it shall be in the perfect Coming Age
It takes believing passages like 1CO 6:19-20 "Or do you not know that your body is

17. a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you
are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in
your body."
This is taught in ROM 6:13 "and do not go on presenting the members of your body to
sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from
the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God."
Some style him the pearl of great price,
And says he 's the fountain of joys ;
Yet feed upon folly and vice,
And cleave to the world and its toys :
Like Judas, the Savior they kiss,
And while they salute him, betray :
Ah ! what will profession like this
Avail in his terrible day ?
If ask'd what of Jesus I think ?
Though still my best thoughts are but poor ;
I say. He 's my meat and my drink.
My life, and my strength, and my store.
My Shepherd, my Husband, my Friend,
My Saviour from sin and from thrall,
My hope from beginning to end.
My portion, my Lord, and my all.
GEORGE MATHESON, “So is it with Thee, Thou Son of the Highest.
Thou hast nothing to attract but Thine own
beauty. Thou hast put off the best robe of
the Father; Thou hast assumed the dress of
the prodigal son. It is in a soiled garment that
Thou hast solicited my love. Thou hast come
to me footsore and weary — a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief. Thou hast offered
me no gifts of material glory. Thou hast asked
me to share Thy poverty. Thou hast said:

18. " Wilt thou come with me to the place where
the thorns are rifest, to the land where the roses
are most rare? Wilt thou follow me down
the deep shadows of Gethsemane, up the steep
heights of Calvary? Wilt thou go with me
where the hungry cry for bread, where the sick
implore for health, where the weary weep for
rest? Wilt thou accompany me where pain
dwells, where danger lurks, where death lies?
Wilt thou walk with me through the lanes and
alleys where the poor meet and struggle and
die? Wilt thou live with me where the world
passes by in scorn, where fashion pauses not
to rest, where even disciples have of ten. for-
saken me and fled? Then is thy love com-
plete, my triumph perfected. Then have I
reached the summit of human glory; for thou
hast chosen me for myself alone, and without
the aid of earth I have drawn thy heart to
heaven."
CHARLES SIMEON, “DEVOTEDNESS TO GOD RECOMMENDED
Rom_12:1. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
THE end of all true religion is, to bring men to God. From him they have fallen, and to him must they
be restored. Whatever INSTRUCTIONS have not this object in view, are of small value. The
Gospel itself would be an empty speculation, if it did not teach us to hope for some practical effects.
There are some who would separate principle from practice: but not so the Apostle Paul: he
expected not fruit indeed without a root; nor hoped to raise an edifice, without laying a foundation:
but, when his foundation was firmly laid, he deferred not to build upon it. In all the preceding part of
this epistle he has shewn how sinners are to find acceptance with God; and has proved the
sovereignty of God in the disposal of his blessings. But, having finished his argument, he does not
leave us there; he goes on to shew the practical effects of his principles; and urges us, from the
consideration of all God’s mercies, to devote ourselves unreservedly to his service.
That we may ENTER fully into the exhortation before us, we shall consider,

19. I. The duty to which we are exhorted—
There is in the words before us an evident allusion to the sacrifices that were offered under the law.
The victims were brought to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and were there slain;
and their bodies were disposed of according to the particular directions given in the law, as suited to
the occasions on which the offerings were made; some being wholly burnt upon the altar, and
others partly burnt, and partly eaten by those who ministered before the Lord. In reference to these,
we are required to “present our bodies (which is here put for our whole selves) a living sacrifice unto
the Lord;” that is, we should, with the full concurrence of our inmost souls, devote ourselves to God,
1. To fulfil his will—
[We must not strain a metaphor too far. The sacrifices under the law were intended to make
atonement for sin: but this is no part of our office; Christ, our great sacrifice, having, by his own
body once offered, made a full, perfect, and sufficient satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. It
is only as far as the victim was surrendered entirely to God, that the metaphor is applicable to us:
and in this view it is frequently used; the whole body of believers being themselves an offering to the
Lord [Note: Rom_15:16.], and “a spiritual priesthood also, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable
to God by Jesus Christ [Note: 1Pe_2:5.].”
Hear then to what an extent we are to be given up to God: May “the very God of peace,” says the
Apostle, “sanctify you wholly: and I pray God, your whole spirit, and soul, and body, may be
preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ [Note: 1Th_5:23.].” No part of us
should be under the dominion of any other lord: but “as we have formerly yielded both the members
of our bodies and the faculties of our souls, as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, we must
henceforth yield them wholly unto God, as those that are alive unto God [Note:Rom_6:12-
13; Rom_6:19.].” Every sin, of whatever kind, must be mortified; and every grace, however difficult
and self-denying, be brought into habitual exercise — — —]
2. To be disposed of for his glory—
[If God call for our whole persons, as it were, to be consumed by fire upon his altar, we must not
draw back; but must say with the Apostle, “I am ready, not only to be bound, but also to die, for the
Lord’s sake.” So far from regarding such an event with dread, we should rather consider it as our
highest honour. Thus it was that Paul viewed it: “If,” says he, “I be offered upon the sacrifice and
service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all: do ye also joy and rejoice with me
[Note: Php_2:17-18.];” for, so far am I from regarding such an event as a matter of condolence, that
I look upon it as a fit subject for mutual congratulations. I mean not that such an end is to be sought
for by us; but it is cheerfully to be SUBMITTED to, if God in his providence should call us to it.

20. We should regard sufferings for Christ’s sake with a holy indifference, “desiring only that Christ
should be magnified in our bodies, whether by life or death [Note:Php_1:20.].” Of course, all minor
sacrifices of property, or reputation, or liberty, are to be welcomed by us, and gloried in, as means
of honouring and glorifying our incarnate God [Note:1Pe_4:12-14.]. In a word, “we should neither
live unto ourselves, nor die unto ourselves; but live and die unto God only; so that, both living and
dying, we may be the Lord’s [Note:Rom_14:7-8.].”]
But let us mark more particularly the beauty and emphasis of,
II. The exhortation itself—
St. Paul presses upon us the performance of this duty,
1. From the obligations we owe to God—
[In all the preceding part of this epistle, St. Paul has been unfolding the great mystery of redemption
as wrought out for us by the Lord Jesus Christ, and as applied to us by the Spirit, according to the
eternal counsels of the Father. By the consideration of these “mercies” he urges us to give up
ourselves to God. It was for this very end that these mercies were vouchsafed to us. Wherefore did
our blessed Saviour “give himself for us?” Was it not “to redeem us from all iniquity, and to purify
unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works?” And to what did the Father predestinate us,
but to be conformed to THE IMAGE of his Son?” Let these ends then be answered in us: and let
us remember, that, “having been bought with a price, we are not our own; but are bound to glorify
God with our bodies and our spirits, which are his [Note: 1Co_6:20.].”]
2. From the nature of the service itself—
[It is good in itself.—“God calls us not unto uncleanness, but to holiness.” He says, “Be ye holy; for I
am holy.” The sacrifices under the law were to be without spot or blemish: and such also are we to
be: “We should present ourselves a living sacrifice, holy.” True it is, that till we are renewed by the
Holy Spirit we cannot be holy: but it is equally true, that, when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ
aright, he will give us his Holy Spirit, by whom we shall be “created after God in righteousness and
true holiness,” and “be changed into Christ’s image, from glory to glory.”
It is also “acceptable to God.”—Nothing in the UNIVERSE is so pleasing to him as a broken and
contrite heart. As for all the legal sacrifices, he had no delight in them, any farther than they typified
the Lord Jesus, and were offered with a reference to him. They were even odious to him, when
presented by ungodly worshippers, who relied on them for acceptance, whilst they lived in wilful sin
[Note: Isa_1:11-14.]. A heart filled with gratitude to him, and devoted to his service, was “more than

21. thousands of rams or ten thousands of rivers of oil [Note: Mic_6:6-8.]: and every act of obedience
proceeding from faith and love, is in his sight the most acceptable tribute that can possibly be
offered [Note: Psa_50:9-14. Heb_13:15-16.].”
It is also most worthy of a rational being. Any service short of an entire surrender of the soul to God
is irrational and absurd. How can it possibly be, that the heart-searching God should approve of
formal and hypocritical services! If he had no delight in the blood of bulls and of goats, how can we
suppose that he should have pleasure in lying words, and hypocritical professions? But in the
surrender of the soul to him, there is something that commends itself to the judgment of every
considerate mind. True, we cannot add to his glory or happiness by any thing that we can do: but
still we may employ for him the bodies he has created, and the souls he has redeemed: and in so
doing, we render him the best service of which our nature is capable; and shall asuredly receive
from him at last that token of his approbation, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”]
APPLICATION —
[Let me now, brethren, after the Apostle’s example, address you in the language of entreaty. We
might, as standing in the place of Almighty God, command you: but for love sake we rather
“beseech you.” O consider what mercies you have received at God’s hand, and are yet hoping to
receive, through the sacrifice of his only dear Son — — — Think too how reasonable is the service
to which we call you; how profitable to you, and how pleasing to God — — — We entreat you not to
withhold it: we entreat you not to defer it another hour. If indeed you can prove it unreasonable, or
unprofitable, or unacceptable to God, we are content that you shall reject it as folly, and decry it as
enthusiasm: but if you cannot find one substantial objection against it, or one reasonable excuse for
declining it, then, we beseech you, act as becomes persons already on the brink and precipice of
eternity, and speedily to stand at the judgment-seat of Christ. Give yourselves up to Him who
bought you with his blood: give yourselves to him, to be saved in his appointed way, and to glorify
him in every situation which you may be called to fill. If he calls you to act for him, “whatsoever your
hand findeth to do, do it with all your might:” and if to suffer for him, “rejoice that you are counted
worthy to suffer for his sake.” Thus shall the end of all God’s mercies to you be duly answered, and
his glory be advanced in your everlasting salvation.]
GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE, “The Body for God
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.—Rom_12:1.
1. What St. Paul says to us here is no single or partial lesson dropped by the way. Standing where it
does in his writings, it carries an exceptional weight of authority and breadth of meaning. It forms a
kind of midpoint in the greatest and most comprehensive of his early Epistles. The two divisions of

22. the Epistle are joined together by this text, itself St. Paul’s own text and foundation for the moral
teaching which follows it, as it is at the same time the immediate conclusion from the doctrinal
teaching which has gone before. The doctrine of the Epistle to the Romans is justification by faith;
the practical lesson of the Epistle to the Romans is self-consecration to God.
2. “I beseech you therefore”—take the words separately in order to understand the mind of the
Apostle.
(1) Notice, TO BEGIN with, the word “therefore”; it connects this great appeal with what had gone
before. St. Paul had been laying before his Roman readers the marvellous provision of grace, the
sovereign love of God in adopting us into sonship; he had been picturing the wondrous wealth and
resource of the Father’s love: “Of him, and through him, and to him are all things: I beseech
you therefore.” That is always St. Paul’s way: first the doctrine, then the duty; first the creed, then
the character: because of what God has done, live in accordance with His will; first the principle of
redemption, then the individual life that follows. It is so in the Epistle to the Ephesians; for the first
three chapters he shows the marvellous light and life and heavenly possibility in Christ, then he
adds in striking suddenness, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk
worthy.”1 [Note: A. E. Joscelyne.]
(2) “I beseech you.” This is the entreaty of a man who was himself living the life of bodily
consecration to God. St. Paul had given himself up altogether to God, body, soul, and spirit. And
now he was filled with the conscious strength and triumph of this sublime unity. His life was full-
orbed and rounded perfectly. Every thought, every aim, every desire had in it the might of God; of
God, and through God, and to God was the beat of every pulse, the throb of every thought, the life
of every desire, and the strength of every work. There was of necessity in this man a constant
sense of triumph. He moved about with a calm untroubled confidence, quite sure that all things were
working together for the glory of the Lord, and for his good. There sang ever in his soul the music of
those who serve God day and night in His holy temple. And then, in all the consciousness of this
blessed life, he thinks of the half-hearted, of those who come far enough out of the far country to
lose the husks of the swine, but not far enough to get the bread of the Father’s house. These are
the miserable people of the world, who admit the claims of God, and yet do not give themselves up
to them; who pull for heaven, and yet do not cast off the rope that holds them to the shore. The
Apostle’s soul is stirred within him, and at once with a demand and an entreaty he cries: “I beseech
you, by the mercies of God, that ye give yourselves right up and wholly to God!” If this religion is
worth anything it is worth all the mind and heart and strength that we can put into it.
(3) “I beseech you.” Note the tenderness and winsomeness of St. Paul’s language. “I beseech you.”
He struck the keynote there. It was his favourite word—he loved to play on the gentler notes in
presenting Christ to men. His preaching was predominantly persuasive, pleading, and tender.

23. Predominantly—it did not leave out the severities. Sometimes there was the voice of God’s wrath in
it, there were visions of the terrors of the Lord and of a judgment throne. But he was always most at
home when he assumed the gentleness of a mother. “I beseech you.” There is the sweet ring of that
appeal in all his Epistles: “I beseech you by the gentleness of Christ”; “I beseech you by the
compassions of Christ”; “We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God”; “I might be
bold to enjoin thee, yet for love’s sake I rather beseech thee.” We are told that in preaching he lifted
up his hand. We can almost see that raised hand. It is never a clenched fist; it is never shaken in
the face of a congregation; it is stretched out as if it would lay hold of people and sweetly constrain
them. It quivers with emotion, and there is the sound of tears in his voice. “By the space of three
years,” he says, “I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.”
(4) “I beseech you.” Paul is speaking to Jews and Gentiles alike, united in the one Church, all taught
by their own several histories that a Christless world is a world on the way downwards into darkness
and death, all now raised to a new and endless and fruitful life in the crucified and risen Lord, all
receivers of this gift by no claim of wages earned but by the mercy of the God who loved them. It is
the sons of purity that he calls to suffer pain. It is to the souls captivated by love that he appeals for
an exercise of self-denial. “Ye,” he says, “who have yourselves been made white, ye who have
received the mercy of your God, ye who by Divine grace have already reached the inner shrine of
the sanctuary, I appeal to you to bear the burdens of humanity. I ask not those in the outer court. I
ask not those who are one with the degraded multitude. I ask not those who are partners in the
same sin as that of their guilty brother, and who, therefore, might be expected to bear his infirmities.
I ask the white-robed. I appeal to the spotless. I call upon the pure in heart who see God. I cry, “If a
man be overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual, restore!” “I beseech you by the mercies of God
that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.”
When vaccination was introduced in Aberdeen, there existed a strong popular prejudice against it
and a corresponding reluctance on the part of parents to allow their children to undergo that
operation. It “went over” the medical men of Aberdeen to disabuse people’s minds of the fear that it
“would do more harm than good.” This having come to Dr. Kidd’s knowledge, he was determined
that it should not go over him. He accordingly took up the subject with characteristic energy, and at
once set himself to acquire as much knowledge and information regarding it as he could from the
local medical men and other available sources. In this way he soon mastered the theory of
vaccination, but would not rest content until he had mastered the practice also; and having found a
willing coadjutor in the person of a medical friend, he was soon able to perform the operation
himself. Thus equipped, he frequently from the pulpit enforced on parents the duty of having their
children vaccinated, and of giving them the benefit of that invaluable discovery. On one of these
occasions he said, “If you mothers have any scruple about taking your children to a doctor, bring
them to me, at my house, any week-day morning, between nine and ten o’clock, and I’ll vaccinate
them for you myself. You don’t seem afraid to entrust the souls of your children to my care, and

24. surely you won’t have any fear to entrust me with their bodies.” This appeal had a wonderful effect,
and many mothers came to his house with their children at the daily appointed time. The result
came to be that the prejudice against vaccination gradually subsided, and Dr. Kidd was soon able to
discontinue his own amateur labours in favour of the medical men of the city, who, ere long, had as
much work of that kind on their hands as they were well able to overtake. His personal ascendancy
once more asserted itself, though even he had a stiff fight before he overcame the stubbornness
and fears of the people. They had such faith in the man that they at last submitted, when their own
judgment was unconvinced, and their own inclination was decidedly hostile.1 [Note: J. Stark,
Dr. Kidd of Aberdeen, 173.]
I
The Motive Force
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God.”
It was not a little step that St. Paul was urging these Roman Christians to take: “I beseech you to
present your bodies a living sacrifice.” This act of consecration must have a motive adequate to
produce it. The life of consecration must have a dynamic equal to sustaining it. Where is the motive
power of the Christian life to be found?
1. It was in the “mercies of God” that the Apostle found his motive power. That plural does not mean
that he is extending his view over the whole wide field of the Divine beneficence, but rather that he
is contemplating the one all-inclusive mercy about which the former part of his letter has been so
eloquent—viz. the gift of Christ—and contemplating it in the manifoldness of the blessings which
flow from it. The mercies of God which move a man to yield himself as a sacrifice are not the
diffused beneficences of His providence, but the concentrated love that lies in the person and work
of His Son.
2. The emotionless moralist will tell you to do right for right’s sake, because goodness is beautiful in
itself and brings its own reward. And the stern moralist will advise you to pursue the clean and
righteous course because the other way ends in a harvest of shame and sorrow. And, of course,
both these voices are heard in the Bible; they are both used by the Christian preacher. But they are
low down in the Christian scale; they have little force in the Christian conscience. There is no ring of
persuasiveness in them, because there is no emotion and no fire. We never feel the kindling and
the inspiration until we get to the very furnace, the power-producing furnace of the Christian life, and
that is the soul-enthralling, love-creating mercies of God in Christ.
“The Well is deep.”
Thy saying is most true:

25. Salvation’s well is deep,
Only Christ’s hand can reach the waters blue.
And even He must stoop to draw it up,
Ere He can fill thy cup.
3. It is impossible to be too careful in observing the connexion between consecration and mercy, for
in the very vague theology of the present day there is a great deal which certainly has the
appearance of teaching that the blessed peace of a union with Christ is to be the result of entire
consecration. But we are here taught, not that we are to reach mercy as the result of the
completeness of our consecration, but that, having realized mercy, we should yield ourselves in
consecration to God. That union with the Lord Jesus must be given through the personal
appropriation of the mercy of God in Him.
One ship turns east, and another west
With the selfsame winds that blow;
’Tis the set of the sails, and not the gales,
Which tells us the way to go.
Like the winds of the sea are the waves of fate,
As we voyage along through life;
’Tis the set of the soul which decides the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
II
The Consecration

26. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to
God.”
It is not often that the idea of sacrifice is associated with the thought of mercy. We commonly view it
as one of the obstacles to our belief in God’s mercy. In all religions but one, men sacrifice to God
when they think His mercy turned away; they sacrifice to avert His anger, to restore His smile. But
there is one religion which inverts the order—the religion of Christ. All other faiths say, “Sacrifice
that ye may win God’s favour”; Christianity says, “Win God’s favour that ye may sacrifice.” All other
faiths make sacrifice the root; Christianity makes sacrifice the flower.
It is the sacrifice of the body that St. Paul calls for. Let us look first at sacrifice, and secondly at the
sacrifice of the body.
i. Sacrifice
1. “Making sacrifices.”—We often speak of making sacrifices for Christ. That expression is not in the
Bible. On the contrary, it rather runs against the true view of the subject—for it seems to limit
sacrifice to particular acts, whereas the whole life is the sacrifice.
Was there ever a time when there were so many home-made Christians as there are to-day, man-
made, church-made Christians? Who does not know the recipe? Tie up the hands and say: “Sir, you
must not do that.” Tie up the feet and say: “You must not go to such and such places—at least,
when you are at home.” Gag the mouth, blind the eyes, stop the ears, and there is your Christian: a
creature with his heart hungering for the world as fiercely as ever, and whose only evidence of any
earnestness is in a constant discussion as to whether there is any harm in a score of questionable
or unquestionable things that he desires, and in the sincerity of his complaint that they are
forbidden.1 [Note: M. G. Pearse.]
Dr. Stewart of Lovedale, his biographer tells us, could not endure the idea that missionaries were to
be pitied for the sacrifices they made. A member of his staff says: “One incident will live in my
memory for all time. It occurred in the course of a brief address he gave once at the weekly staff
prayer-meeting in the large hall at Lovedale. Something that he had heard or read moved him to
speak of the so-called sacrifices which men made when entering the mission-field. He flamed up at
the idea, and spoke with a burning torrent of words which showed us—just for the moment—the
liquid fires of devotion which he hid behind his reserve. As I write I can see, as though it were
yesterday, that tall form swaying with noble passion: Sacrifice! What man or woman could speak of
sacrifice in the face of Calvary? What happiness or ambition or REFINEMENT had any one
‘given up’ in the service of humanity to compare with the great sacrifice of Him who ‘emptied himself
and took upon himself the form of a servant’? It made some of us feel rather ashamed of our
heroics, for we knew that if ever a man since Livingstone had a right to speak like that it was Dr.
Stewart.”2 [Note: Stewart of Lovedale, 176.]

27. Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing
good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such
a view, and with such a thought! it is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety,
sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a forgoing of the common conveniences and
charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink, but let
this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter
be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.3 [Note: David Livingstone.]
People who make real sacrifices are never able to calculate self-complacently the good the said
sacrifices are doing them; just as people who really grieve are unable at the time to philosophize
about the good effects of grief.4 [Note: F. W. Robertson, Life and Letters, 435.]
2. True sacrifice.—Have you ever seen a forester cutting down a great tree? It falls to earth, never
to rise again; there will be no more shade or beauty, no more glory of summer green or autumn
gold. Is the tree wasted? No, it is sacrificed. One day a brave ship sails the seas; to build it the tree
was sacrificed. One day God’s church rises towards heaven; to form the roof the tree was
sacrificed. Have you ever seen men quarrying stone? It is torn out of the quarry, and split and
shattered, and carved and cut, and chiselled and hammered; one day we see the walls of a stately
cathedral, and there is the stone which was sacrificed. You watch a sculptor carving the marble; the
white fragments fall thickly, the marble wastes, but the beautiful image grows; it is not waste, but
sacrifice. Was Mary’s ointment wasted? No, the world has been sweeter for it ever since. Was
Gordon’s life wasted when he died at Khartoum, or Nelson’s when he fell at Trafalgar? Many a
devoted missionary, many brave men and delicate women have died of fever and savage torture,
and the world says, To what purpose was this waste? But theirs was a sacrifice to win souls. To
some people the crucifixion of our Master seems a waste of life; to the Church it is the great
sacrifice, which taketh away the sins of the world. “He that loseth his life shall find it.”
Listen to the parable of the earth, as it lies far down beneath the blue heaven, or as in the cold night
it looks up at the silver stars. “Here am I,” it mutters, “so far away from Him who made me. The
grass blades and the flowers lift up their heads and whisper to the breeze, the trees go far up into
the golden sunshine, the birds fly up against the very heaven, THE CLOUDS are touched
sometimes with glory as if they caught the splendour of the King, the stars are bright as if they
shone with the light of His presence. And I am down here! How can I ever climb up to Him who
made me?” And then the poor earth sighs again: “And that is not all—not even the worst of it. I am
only dull soil, without any beauty of form, or richness of colour, or sweetness of smell! All things
seem full of loveliness but me. How can I ever be turned into worth and blessedness?”
And now there comes the seed, and it is hidden in the earth. “Earth,” whispers the seed, “wilt thou

28. give me thy strength?”
“No, indeed,” replies the earth; “why should I give thee my strength? It is all I have got, and I will
keep it for myself.”
“Then,” saith the seed, “thou shalt be earth, and only earth, for ever and ever. But if thou wilt give
me thy strength thou shalt be lifted into another life.”
So the earth yields and gives up its strength to the seed. And the seed takes hold of it and lifts it up
and begins to turn it into a hundred forms of beauty; it rises with wondrous stem; it drinks in
sunshine and rain and air, mingling them with the earth’s strength and changing all to toughened
branch or dainty leaf, to rich flower or ripened fruit. Then its work is done as it ends in the seed. And
it cries to the earth: “Spake I not truly? Thou art not lost, but by sacrifice transformed to higher life,
to worth and beauty.”1 [Note: M. G. Pearse.]
All the winter-time the wine gives joy
To those who else were dismal in the cold;
But the vine standeth out amid the frost;
And after all, hath only this grace left,
That it endures in long, lone steadfastness
The winter through:—and next year blooms again;
Not bitter for the torment undergone,
Not barren for the fulness yielded up;
As fair and fruitful towards the sacrifice
As if no touch had ever come to it
But the soft airs of heaven and dews of earth;—
And so fulfils itself in love once more.2 [Note: Harriet E. H. King.]

29. 3. The permanent value of sacrifice.—Here lies the test by which we may try the fabric of our own
actions. We have—have now and for ever—only that which we have offered to others and to God.
Wherever the thought of self dominates in our schemes; wherever we identify the success of a
cause, however noble, with our own success; wherever we determine for our own pleasure, as far
as we can, the course of events great or small—there is the seed of ultimate corruption and decay
and failure. The fatal harvest may be early or it may be late, but it is prolific and it is certain. That
which is marked with the Cross has the pledge of permanence; that which bears the impress of self
must perish.
Sacrifice hallows what it touches. And under its hallowing touch values increase by long leaps and
big bounds. Here is a fine opportunity for those who would increase the value of gifts that seem
small in amount. Without stopping now for the philosophy of it, this is the tremendous fact. Perhaps
the annual foreign missionary offering is being taken up in your church. The pastor has preached a
special sermon, and it has caught fire within you. You find yourself thinking as he preaches, and
during the prayer following, “I believe I can easily make it fifty dollars this year. I gave thirty-five last
time.” You want to be careful not to make it fifty dollars, because you can do that easily. If you are
shrewd to have your money count the most, you will pinch a bit somewhere and make it sixty-two
fifty. For the extra amount that you pinch to give will hallow the original sum and increase its
practical value enormously. Sacrifice hallows what it touches, and the hallowing touch acts in
geometrical proportion upon the value of the gift.1 [Note: S. D. Gordon.]
ii. The Sacrifice of the Body
“Present your bodies,” says the Apostle. He does not say your “souls.” We are very ready at times
to say that we serve God in the spirit, though our deeds are somewhat mixed; and sometimes a
man will do a wrong thing and admit that it is not quite right, but “my heart is right,” he will say, “and
God looks upon the heart.” That is a kind of service that has no part or lot in Christ. A man who is
trying to sever his body from his spirit, a man who thinks religion is merely a thing of the spirit and
not of the outward life, a thing of the soul and not a thing of the body, is misreading the Gospel.
It is a matter of great interest, and even awe, to me, to observe how the nobler feelings can exist in
their intensity only where the whole nature, the lower too, is intense also; and how that which is in
itself low and mean becomes sublimated into something that is celestial. Hence, in the highest
natures I suppose goodness will be the result of tremendous struggle; just as the “bore,” which is
nothing in the Thames, becomes a convulsion on the Ganges, where the waters of a thousand
miles roll like a sea to meet the incoming tide of the ocean.2 [Note: F. W. Robertson, Life
and Letters, 215.]
1. What was St. Paul’s attitude to the body?
(1) It was not the pagan attitude of worship.—This attitude is perhaps best ILLUSTRATED by the

30. ancient Greeks. Their worship of the body took two forms—the worship of beauty and the worship of
physical strength. Their worship of beauty is a commonplace to every one who knows anything
whatever about the nation whose sculpture is the admiration and despair of later artists. With them
the artistic feeling was not a luxury of the wealthy, but was interwoven with the life of the whole
people. The most beautiful women of Greece were as famous as its greatest men. Their worship of
physical strength was shown especially by the place given to athletics in the great national festivals,
such as the Olympian Games. These games were not a mere sporting meeting, but a sacred
celebration. The winner was considered to reflect immortal glory upon the city which bare him. He
returned home in triumphal procession; he received a distinction which might be compared to our
conferring of the “freedom” of a city; a statue was erected in his honour; and sometimes his exploits
were celebrated in the loftiest poetry. So essential a part of Greek life were these games that
chronology was based upon them, the years being reckoned by Olympiads.
To-day there is among us much of this old pagan worship. Witness the “religion of the ballet,” the
portraits of professional beauties in the shop windows, and the extolling of sensuous charms in
much popular modern poetry. Witness, too, the exaggerated language that is used about the
elevating influence of art; as though the salvation of society from sin and misery were in mere
picture-galleries; as though the criminal classes would cease to be criminal if presented with season
tickets for the Royal Academy. Nor can we deny the existence of a widespread worship of physical
strength. In recent years we have seen the revival of the prize-fight and the canonization of St.
Slavin. These be thy gods, O Israel. These are the heroes whose names stand first on the modern
bead-roll of fame. And even health and innocent sports have been degraded by excessive
admiration. Games which used to be played for amusement have now become partly a science and
partly a trade.1 [Note: H. W. Horwill.]
(2) It was not the pseudo-Christian attitude—that the body is the seat of all evil.—Heresy at
Colosse took the form of hostility to the body as a physical organism. Some members of the Church
there hated the body instead of the evil heart of unbelief, and so became ascetics, injuring the body
and starving it. Hence St. Paul’s rebuke of those things which “have a show of wisdom in will-
worship, and humility, and severity to the body; but are not of any value against the indulgence of
the flesh.” This tendency was developed still further under the monastic system. One man lived for
fifty years in a subterranean cave, which was his way of hiding his light under a bushel. Some
buried themselves up to the neck in the burning sands of the desert. Some slept on bundles of
thorns. Some bound themselves to jump about on one leg. Another forced his body into the hoop of
a cart wheel, and remained in that position for ten years. Another, Saint Simeon Stylites—the most
conspicuous example of a man’s making himself a fool for Christ’s sake—is said to have kept
himself alive for thirty years on the top of a column, and, when too weak to stand any longer upright,
to have had a post erected on it to which he was fastened by chains. The monks of later days did
not go to such extremes, though they wore hair clothes, and in many other ways developed

31. considerable ingenuity in the manufacture of discomfort. In the Middle Ages there might have been
seen on the Continent long processions of “Flagellants” travelling from country to country, weeping
as they went, singing penitential hymns, and applying the scourge to their naked backs. And they
found that all this did not destroy sin.
This contempt for the body which St. Paul rebuked among the Colossians has not yet died out of
the Church. We are constantly speaking about the value of souls, and forget sometimes that these
souls are in bodies. How often we sneer at the body as though it were not worth attention! But great
indeed is the mistake of those who think they glorify God by sneering at or maltreating the body,
which is one of the noblest products of His skill. Would you compliment an inventor by destroying
his machine, by pulling it to pieces either literally or metaphorically?1[Note: H. W. Horwill.]
After dinner to the San Gregorio to Bee the frescoes, the “Martyrdom of St. Andrew,” the rival
frescoes of Guido and Domenichino, and afterwards drove about till dark, when we went to a most
extraordinary performance—that of the Flagellants. I had heard of it, and had long been curious to
assist at it. The church was dimly lit by a few candles on the altar, the congregation not numerous.
There was a service, the people making responses, after which a priest, or one of the attendants of
the church, went round with a bundle of whips of knotted cord, and gave one to each person who
chose to take it. I took mine, but my companion laughed so at seeing me gravely accept the whip,
that he was obliged to hide his face in his hands, and was passed over. In a few minutes the
candles were extinguished, and we were left in total darkness. Then an invisible preacher began
exhorting his hearers to whip themselves severely, and as he went on his vehemence and passion
increased. Presently a loud smacking was heard all round the church, which continued a few
minutes; then the preacher urged us to fresh exertions, and crack went the whips again louder and
faster than before, as he exhorted. The faithful flogged till a bell rang; the whips stopped, in a few
minutes the candles were lit again, and the priest came round and collected his cords. I had
squeezed mine in my hands, so that he did not see it, and I brought it away with me. As soon as the
candles were extinguished the doors were locked, so that nobody could go out or come in till the
discipline was over. I was rather nervous when we were locked up in total darkness, but nobody
whipped me, and I certainly did not whip myself. A more extraordinary thing (for sight it can’t be
called) I never witnessed. I don’t think the people stripped, nor, if they did, that the cords could have
hurt them much.1 [Note: The Greville Memoirs, i. 396.]
In regard to those atrocious scenes which formed the favourite Huron recreation of a summer night,
the Jesuits, it must be confessed, did not quite come up to the requirements of modern sensibility.
They were offended at them, it is true, and prevented them when they could; but they were wholly
given to the saving of souls, and held the body in scorn, as the vile source of incalculable mischief,
worthy the worst inflictions that could be put upon it. What were a few hours of suffering to an
eternity of bliss or woe? If the victim were heathen, these brief pangs were but the faint prelude of

32. an undying flame; and if a Christian, they were the fiery portal of Heaven. They might, indeed, be a
blessing; since, accepted in atonement for sin, they would shorten the torments of Purgatory. Yet,
while schooling themselves to despise the body, and all the pain or pleasure that pertained to it, the
Fathers were emphatic on one point—it must not be eaten. In the matter of cannibalism, they were
loud and vehement in invective.2 [Note: Francis Parkman, The Jesuits in North
America, ii. 173.]
The ideals of different races and centuries have no doubt been very different. With us cleanliness is
next to godliness. With our ancestors it was the very reverse, and dearly they paid for their error, in
plagues and black death. According to the Venerable Bede, St. Etheldreda was so holy that she
rarely washed, except perhaps before some great festival of the Church; and Dean Stanley tells us
in his Memorials of Canterbury that after the assassination of Becket the bystanders were much
impressed, for “the austerity of hair drawers, close fitted as they were to the bare flesh, had hitherto
been unknown to English saints, and the marvel was increased by the sight—to our notions so
revolting—of the innumerable vermin with which the haircloth abounded—boiling over with them, as
one ACCOUNT describes it, like water in a simmering cauldron. At the dreadful sight all the
enthusiasm of the previous night revived with double ardour. They looked at each other in silent
wonder, then exclaimed, ‘See! see what a true monk he was, and we knew it not,’ and burst into
alternate fits of weeping and laughter, between the sorrow of having lost such a head, and the joy of
having found such a saint.”1 [Note: Lord Avebury, Peace and Happiness, 41.]
When Archbishop Whately was dying, his chaplain read to him the eighth chapter of the Epistle to
the Romans, and then QUOTED the words from the Epistle to the Philippians (Rom_3:20-21):
“We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body,” etc. The dying
man was pained, and asked for “the right thing” to be read to him. The chaplain then repeated it
again, with the rendering, with which we are now familiar in the Revised Version: “Who shall fashion
anew the body of our humiliation.” “That is right,” said the Archbishop; “there is nothing vile which
God has made.”
(3) It was the attitude of Christ.—One of the greatest lessons of the Incarnation was the honour put
by Christ upon the body by His living in it. Throughout His life He emphasized this regard for the
body by such parables as that of the Good Samaritan, and by such miracles as that of the Feeding
of the Multitudes. By the Apostles the figure of the body was used to show the connexion between
Christ and His Church. “We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” In reading the
Epistles of St. Paul, we are especially startled by the constant references to the importance of the
body. “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof; neither
present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto
God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” “The
body is for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.” “Glorify God therefore in your body”—“and in your

33. spirits” seems to have been added by some copyist, quite unnecessarily. The reason why we
should glorify God in our bodies is that we were bought with a price. “Know ye not that your body is
a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?” What a marvellous thought, that God is living in the
world to-day in the bodies of Christians! But of all passages there is none more striking than our
text. St. Paul has been devoting eleven chapters to the exposition of the story of the sin of man, the
atonement of Christ, and all the blessings that follow. These eleven chapters are perhaps the
noblest theological argument ever written. He then Bums them all up, coming out of theory into
practice, by saying. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present,” not, as
we should probably have expected, “your souls,” or “your intellects,” but “your bodies a living
sacrifice.”
In 1899 a very important addition was made to our store of early liturgical documents by the
publication of the Sacramentary of Bishop Serapion, which dates from 350 a.d. The work consists of
thirty prayers such as a Bishop would be likely to use. Of these the first six and the last twelve have
to do with the celebration of the Eucharist; the remainder relate to Baptism, Confirmation,
Ordination, and Burial. “Life is a remarkable note of the collection,” and it is life in the fullest sense
of the word. In the opening Offertory prayer we find the words, “We beseech thee, make us living
men.” At the invocation of the Word upon the elements, “Make all who communicate to receive a
medicine of life for the healing of any sickness.” In “the prayer for those who have suffered,” “Grant
health and soundness, and cheerfulness and all advancement of soul and body.” And in the final
Benediction, “Let the communion of the Body and Blood go with this people. Let their bodies be
living bodies, and their souls be clean souls.” Provision is also made for special prayer for the sick,
and for the blessing of oils and waters for their benefit, and in these connexions we find such
expressions as the following: “Be propitious, Master; assist and heal all that are sick. Rebuke the
sicknesses.” “Grant them to be counted worthy of health.” “Make them to have perfect health of
body and soul.” “Grant healing power upon these creatures that every power and every evil spirit
and every sickness may depart.” It need scarcely be said that all these references to bodily wants
are set in a context which is marked by the simplest and most ardent spiritual devotion. The
physical is never allowed to usurp the first place. But it is never forgotten. The early Christians
believed that the Life which was offered to them in fellowship with their Lord was to extend to every
part of their constitution, to “spirit and soul and body.”1[Note: A. W. Robinson, The Voice of
Joy and Health, 220.]
Let us not always say,
“Spite of this flesh to-day,
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole.”

34. As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry, “All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul.”2 [Note: Browning, Rabbi ben
Ezra.]
2. What, now, is to be the manner of the offering? The name that used to be applied to the burnt-
offering was a very significant one. It meant the thing that went up—“that which ascends”; it never
came down. So our offering is to be offered to God, and never taken back. This is brought out by
the word used for “present.” It really means that the thing is to be done once for all.
(1) To “present” or to “yield” is to cease to resist. That there may be a resistance, even in those who
have been quickened by the Spirit, to the will of God, no believer who knows anything of his own
heart can deny. This resistance is one of the main hindrances to the exercise of faith. It was so with
Jacob at Peniel. “And there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.” This passage in
Jacob’s history has a parallel in the life of many a child of God. How many can trace a similar crisis
in God’s dealings with them!
It is the law in public and political life. A man entering the President’s cabinet, as a secretary of
some department, surrenders any divergent views he may have to those of his chief. With the
largest freedom of thought that must always be where there are strong men, there must of necessity
be one dominant will if the administration is to be a powerful one. It is the law of commercial life.
The man entering the employ of a bank, a manufacturing concern, a corporation of any sort, in
whatever capacity, enters to do the will of somebody else. Always there must be one dominant will if
there is to be power and success.3 [Note: S. D. Gordon.]
(2) But yielding means also ceasing to withhold. “My son, give me thine heart.” In other words, let
God have full possession, not only of the spirit and the soul, but of all your physical powers. Yield
every member up to Him.
All misuse of the body is not of vulgar vice, the kind of thing which is soul-murder, and which
declares its character openly and visibly. There is a subtler misuse. There is a way of living which
gives increasing concern to the incidentals of life, which spends itself for comfort; for comfort which
may be quite of a refined kind, but which, because it is raised into an essential, instead of relegated
to an inconsequent and incidental matter, is unutterably vicious. It is keen on luxuries and pleasures
that are not sin in themselves, but, unless they are kept in minor place, are utterly and fatally
deadening. “Pride, fulness of bread, and prosperous ease,” these deaden the spirit; they make the
ears deaf too, and the hands unready for the needs of the world and the claims of God. Be on your

35. guard. What is ailing with many of us is that we are too fatally comfortable. It is sucking out the
better life of us. “How could I fail to win?” said Frederick the Great, after the battle of Rosbach.
“Soubrise had seven cooks and one spy; I had seven spies and one cook.” The remark has a wide
application. Watch the proportion of things. Life is a battle which has a way of hanging on to the
proportions a man preserves between the commissariat and the intelligence departments; between
his cooks and his sentries. “What I say unto one, I say unto you all—Watch.”1 [Note: T. Yates,
Sculptors of Life, 108.]
(3) And again, yielding also means ceasing to struggle. It means no longer trying to keep oneself up
—putting forth vigorous efforts to keep oneself from sinking—but casting all upon Him who is able to
keep us from falling.
It is indeed a life of self-denial this, and I feel as if now for the first time I had even a dim view of
what it is to be not one’s own, to me a heart-rending lesson, a long and bitter lesson, one I would
gladly exchange for fasting, or scourging, or what asceticism you will. Let me keep my own will, let
me be my own, aim at my own idea of holiness, aid myself with my own props, and I would do most
things. But this is the hard thing to learn, that in everything, from this moment for ever, I am not only
not to get my own will, but I am to desire not to get my own will, to will to be controlled by another
wholly and unceasingly. This has to me at times all the pain of dissolution. It is indeed a dying to this
world.
Death ends indeed the cares of life,
Yet shudders life when death comes near,
And such the fond heart’s death-like strife
When first the loved one does appear.
For, where true love is wakened, dies
The tyrant self, that despot dark.
Rejoice then that in death he lies,
And breathe morn’s free air, with the lark.1 [Note: Early Letters of Marcus Dods, 103.]

36. 3. And what is the nature of the offering? In the old time the bodies offered in sacrifice were those of
bulls and goats—not men, but possessions of men. That order of sacrifice had now passed away,
since One had come who had borne our sins in His own body on the fatal tree; and in His doing of
the will of God we had been hallowed by the offering of His body once for all. But sacrifice itself had
not therefore passed away from among mankind. A riper and more complete form of sacrifice had
succeeded, no longer of our possessions only, but of our very selves. But it is a living sacrifice. In
this there is no contradiction. We sometimes fancy that sacrifice must needs involve death, or at
least suppression. But it is not so. True sacrifice involves that utter offering of which death is the
complete fulfilment. But this sacrifice of the will is not always executed in act. The sacrifice of
Abraham was a true sacrifice, though Isaac was given back to him in life. The presenting, as St.
Paul calls it, of Isaac was already complete; faith had already done its work. But when we present
our very selves to God as a living sacrifice, alive with a new life, displacing the old sinful semblance
of life which works only destruction, then by that same act we present our members to God as ready
instruments of His righteousness. But this could not be if in sacrificing ourselves we always slew
ourselves. The surrender of life to God is complete, but His will most commonly is to give us back
the surrendered life as life from the dead.
(1) The sacrifice is to be a living sacrifice.—And since our sacrifice is to be a “living sacrifice”—
something that has life in it, and not a thing which has lost its life or had its life taken away—we are
not to wait till we are dead or nearly dead, we are not to wait till the infirmities of old age come upon
us, or till the withering hand of sickness or of disease lays hold of us, before we give ourselves to
God. Our life, the best of our life—the health, strength, and vigour of manhood—are to be given to
Him. Why cannot there be a holy alliance between the athlete and the Christian? an alliance against
the common enemies of both—against intemperance, and indolence, and dissipation, and
effeminacy, and æsthetic voluptuousness, and heartless cynicism, and all the unnatural and
demoralizing elements in our modern life? Why will some take so narrow a view of the true aims of
physical training that they bound their horizon by the vision of prizes and athletic honours, not
seeing that in themselves and by themselves these things are as worldly and as worthless as
unsanctified wealth, or knowledge, or literature, or art? Why will others, again, who would not
willingly break any of God’s commandments, who would not pass a day without prayer, who believe
and trust in a risen Saviour—why will they not regard sedentary habits, and softness of living, and
feebleness which might have been strength, and delicacy which might have been hardihood, as
physical sins? Why will they not devote to the service of the Kingdom of heaven blood as pure,
limbs as supple, condition as fit, energies as buoyant as if they were aspirants for a championship,
and thus help to refute the slander that religion is a feeble emasculated thing, good enough for sick-
beds, and minor tones, and solemn functions, and gentle counsel, but out of place amid the strong
rough work and the more manly joys of life?
Quintin Hogg, the founder of the Polytechnic Institute of London, put a large fortune into the

37. accomplishment of his work, but laid down something besides that was worth more than a fortune.
“Mr. Hogg,” some one said to him once, “how much does it cost to build up an institute like yours?”
“Only one man’s life-blood,” was his reply.1 [Note: R. E. Speer.]
(2) The sacrifice is holy.—The original, the first, the primary significance of that word “holy”
is devoted. The consecrated life is a life of utter devotion. That means many things. It means
separation from the world, for one thing. But the positive point is that it means God first, God last,
God everywhere, God as the spring of thought and word and deed, God as the ruling power of our
whole being; we are devoted utterly to God, every bit of our life is stamped with the hallmark of
devotion to Christ.
A few years ago I crossed from Fife to Hamburg in a coal-cargo steamer, English-built, but trading
under the Swedish flag, the s.s. Zelos. My wife and I were given the Captain’s room—a long
commodious cabin. One night I chanced to notice certain words cut in one of the iron beams
overhead. These were: “Certified for the accommodation of the master.”1 [Note: W. Christie.]
(3) The sacrifice is acceptable.—This condition embraces both the others, but goes beyond them.
All men who ever offered sacrifice, unless it were in hypocrisy or by mere custom, offered it as well-
pleasing to the god of their worship. But why they wished to please their god was another matter;
their wish might come from this or that of a whole range of paltry, or indifferent, or lofty motives.
Accordingly St. Paul, knowing well the false thoughts of sacrifice which spring up naturally in men’s
hearts, has left no room for them in his exhortation. Against one false thought of sacrifice he has set
the need that it be living; against another he has provided by refusing to recognize a sacrifice which,
though living, is not kept holy. But the universal thought of pleasing God has a truth of its own which
may not without peril be forgotten. The livingness, the holiness are in themselves well-pleasing to
God; yet it is possible, strange and contradictory as it may seem, for men to make the sacrifices,
and to be careful about them in both these respects, to speak much and act much on the belief that
sacrifice and life and holiness are truly great things, and yet to forget God Himself. But when this
happens, the whole meaning of sacrifice is lost. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart
and soul and strength “remains the first and great commandment. The Christian desire of well-
pleasing has nothing to do with the hope of gain or the fear of suffering, but is that desire of well-
pleasing which belongs to love and love alone. The supreme value of sacrifice springs from the
yearning of God’s children on earth for their Father in heaven.
I cannot get out of my mind, when I read these words, the figure of a consecrated knighthood.
Christians are to be the chosen knights of the Lord’s table, the representatives and embodiments of
true Christian chivalry. This, with higher and more glorious relationships, is the true conception of
the Church. Every member of the Christian Church is a knight of King Jesu’s table, a member of an
elect company, elected to special devotion and unceasing service. This is not always the ideal

38. conception which prevails in the Christian Church. There are unworthy conceptions of membership.
There is what I may call the book conception. It is thought sufficient to have the name on the roll. I
know that the Scriptures mention with great honour those “whose names are written in the Book of
Life.” Ay, but these are the names of the alive, and they are enrolled because of the surrender of
their life to the service of their King. The one is a mere label, and might mean anything. This name
is written with one’s own blood. And there is what I may call the couch conception. It is not openly
expressed, but tacitly implied. The member who embodies this conception sits and reclines, and
thinks it enough to feel happy! The wind that roars outside the house constrains him to draw his
couch nearer the fire. He does not regard the tempest as a call to service, but as an incitement to
more coddling ease. Sometimes the couch conception deteriorates into the stretcher conception!
And by this I mean that the member of the Church not only reclines, but expects to be carried by the
more faithful few. And there is the leech conception. This type of membership reveals itself in
constant grasping. The hand is opened only to take, and never to give. It is greedy for comfort, for
attention, for visitation. It never opens its veins and lets out blood; it knows nothing about sacrifice.
And because all these conceptions are so prevalent the Church is the victim of perilous weakness.
“Some are sickly, and not a few asleep.” And therefore the Church is sometimes like an infirmary,
and sometimes like a sleeping compartment—anything rather than a gathering-place of armed
knights, pledged to be true unto death, and ready to go forth in living sacrifice to serve the King in
fighting the gathered hosts of the devil.1 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]
In the guest book of a friend I saw recently a few lines written by Dr. John Willis Baer, in which he
said, quoting from another—
God gave Himself for us,
God gave Himself to us,
God wants to give Himself through us.2 [Note: J. W. Chapman.]
III
The Part which Reason Plays
“Which is your reasonable service.”
1. It is natural to suppose, at first sight, and indeed the explanation is given by many expositors, that
the word “reasonable” here means that it is not an unreasonable thing, but on the contrary proper
and becoming, that we should present our bodies unto God. That is true, but it is not the meaning of
the word in this verse. The word rendered “reasonable” here occurs only once besides in the New
Testament, and there it is translated “spiritual.” It means what belongs to the reason, and appertains
to the mind, to the intellect and thought, not to any external or ceremonial law. Hence reasonable

39. service means the service of reason, the service of mind. The reason of man is the priest that lays
the body on the altar. The mind or will expresses its devotion by surrendering the body to God.
The powers of reason are required to determine what acts would be acts of rightful sacrifice and
worship. Simple obedience to the precepts of the ceremonial law or tradition had once been a
sufficient guide, but henceforth sacrifice was to be bound up with the new and glorious
responsibilities which belong to knowledge.1 [Note: F. J. A. Hort.]
2. The word “service,” too, is somewhat ambiguous. It does not here mean service in the sense of
ministering to the wants and obeying the commands of a master, but service in the sense in which
we use the word when we speak of “Divine service.” When the word service is used in a Scriptural
sense, it means the service of worship; and reasonable service will therefore mean the worship of
mind—the worship of thought, intellect, a worshipping mind approaching God. “I beseech you to
present your bodies a living sacrifice, which is the worship of your minds.” If that is the meaning,
and there cannot be much doubt that it is, the expression “reasonable service” seems to stand in
contrast to the word “body” in the middle of the verse—“to present your bodies.” What you present
is the body, but it is the worship of your mind. It is as much as to say, on the one hand, that no act
done by the body is worship, is service, is acceptable unto the Lord, unless accompanied by an act
of mind—an act of thought. God cannot be pleased with an external act, unless that external act
represents an internal resolve, an internal desire, an internal act. There must be presentation of the
body to perfect the worship of the mind. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”
PULPIT, “Christian sacrifice and worship.
In commencing the practical part of this Epistle, St. Paul adopts a tone of gentle and affectionate
persuasion. He might have addressed his readers as disciples, and have used towards them the
language of authority and command. But, on the contrary, he calls them his "brethren," and he
"beseeches," entreats them, as employing the appeals of love to enforce the precepts of duty. At the
same time, his language implies that compliance with his admonitions is not a matter optional and
indifferent. He beseeches them because they are brethren, and because he has a right to expect
that they will not only listen with respect, but obey with alacrity. Before entering upon the specific
duties of the Christian life, and depicting in detail the Christian character, the apostle exhibits in this
verse the general ,and comprehensive principle of practical Christianity. As religious men, these
Roman Christians must, as a matter of course, offer a sacrifice and a service of worship. And they
are here told that the presentation to God of themselves is the one great act in which all specific
acts of obedience are summed up and involved. Let them ENTER into the temple of God, and
bring with them a living sacrifice; let them join in offering to Heaven a reasonable, a spiritual
worship; for with such the Father will be well pleased.

40. I. Consider THE MOTIVE WHICH THE APOSTLE URGES in order to induce to consecration. "By
the mercies of God." To every sensitive and appreciative mind this is a cogent motive. The mercies
of God have been, and are, so many, so varied, so suited to our case, so unfailing, that we cannot
meditate upon them without acknowledging the claim they constitute upon us. The word used here
is peculiar; the apostle speaks of the pity, the compassions, of the Lord. Language this which brings
out our condition as one of dependence, helplessness, and even misery, and which brings out also
the condescension and loving-kindness of our heavenly Father. There is, no doubt, an especial
reference to the spiritual favours which have been so fully and powerfully described in the earlier
portion of the Epistle. The mercies of God are nowhere so apparent as in redemption; and human
sin requires a great salvation. In exhibiting the marvellous interposition of Divine grace on behalf of
sinful humanity, in explaining the reconciling work of Christ, in depicting the immunities, privileges,
and hopes of those who receive the gospel, the apostle has laid a good foundation for the appeal of
the text. Mercies may well excite gratitude, for they are undeserved, sovereign, and free; and
gratitude in the mind of the Christian, who is under the influence of the Holy Spirit, is a motive of no
mean order. And gratitude to such a God, and for such gifts, can only be a motive to virtue and
holiness.
II. Consider WHAT THE APOSTLE ENJOINS US TO PRESENT TO GOD. "Your bodies." The
vigorous understanding of St. Paul preserved him from that sentimental form of religion which many,
professing to be his followers, have adopted and advocated. It will not do to treat men, to regard
ourselves, as possessing only a spiritual nature. We have body as well as soul. The most ethereal
and ecstatic spiritual experiences do not prove a man to be a true Christian. God requires that body,
soul, and spirit should be consecrated to him. For the bodily nature is intended to express and
manifest the character, the spiritual life, the true man. If the spirit be renewed and purified, the effect
of this Divine work within will be apparent in the outer life. Thus it is that the new creation, which is
the work of the Holy Spirit, extends to the whole nature and life. The body, therefore, shares in the
death unto sin, and in the new life unto righteousness and holiness. The body is consecrated to him
who has redeemed the body as well as the soul; and its members are employed as weapons or
instruments, not of sin, but of righteousness. It cannot be supposed that the apostle intends us to
understand that bodily service alone is sufficient. Nothing would have been more alien from his
whole teaching, or from the spirit of the New Testament, than such a doctrine. Christ has taught us
that worship, in order to being acceptable, must be in spirit and in truth; and St. Paul himself has
assured us that bodily exercise profiteth nothing, that circumcision avalleth nothing, but a new
creation. In presenting our bodies unto God, we offer the praises of our lips and the service of our
hands. The body is the instrument of toil. The Christian's daily activity is consecrated to his
redeeming God; and this is so, whatever be the employment to which Providence has called him.
The body is also the agent of spiritual ministry. Accordingly, the Christian's special efforts to do
good, his teaching and preaching, his ministering to the wants of his fellow-men and relieving them

41. from their sufferings, his evangelistic journeys in order to seek the lost and to proclaim the gospel,—
all are instances of his consecration of the body as well as of the soul to his redeeming Lord.
III. Remark that
such PRESENTATION ON THE PART OF THE CHRISTIAN IS REGARDED AS SACRIFICE.
From a study of the religions of mankind, we learn that the sacrifices, alike of the heathen and of the
Jews, may be regarded as
(1) offering, and
(2) propitiation.
Now, as far as expiation, propitiation, is concerned, we, as Christians, know that there has been
one, and only one, real and acceptable sacrifice of this kind—the sacrifice of himself offered to the
Father by our Lord Jesus Christ. This was the substance of which all that went before was merely
the shadow, and which can neither be repeated nor imitated. But as far as the tribute of
thanksgiving, adoration, and obedience is concerned, we are taught that this is to be offered to
God CONTINUALLY (Heb_13:15, Heb_13:16). It is in this respect that all Christians are priests
unto God; all, irrespective of the position they hold in the Church, or the special services they render
in the congregations of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Jewish sacrifice, which this perpetual offering
most closely resembles, is the burnt offering, which the Hebrew worshipper brought to Jehovah as
the expression of his personal devotion and consecration to Heaven, as the public declaration that
he owed everything to the Lord, and that he withheld from him nothing which he possessed. In like
manner Christians present their bodies—their whole nature and life—to him who gave himself for
them. "Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your bodies,
which are his." Of this sacrifice, in which all Christians unite, the apostle reminds us that it
possesses three qualities.
1. It is living. The sacrifices which the Jews offered were either living creatures, or substances which
by their nature ministered to life; and in offering such gifts the worshipping was presenting a symbol
of his own life. But ordinary sacrifices were slain; the life was consumed in the offering. The
Christian's life is not forfeited in being presented to God. Yet in the presentation there is both death
and life. It has been said, "There is in every sacrifice a death, and in this sacrifice a death unto sin,
out of which there arises a new life of righteousness unto God. Thus the living sacrifice is that in
which, though the natural life is not lost, a new life of holiness is gained." What a privilege
is ours, who are expected to bring unto God, not the bodies of brute animals, not the blood of bulls
and goats, but our own bodies—our very selves, our living nature—and gratefully and willingly to lay
this sacrifice upon the altar of God!

42. 2. It is holy. The animals which were presented under the Mosaic economy were, according to the
prescribed regulations, to be free from blemish. This was doubtless an ordinance intended to
impress upon the mind of the worshipper a sense of the holiness of the Being who was approached.
All who officiated were to be ceremonially clean. The substance, of which these symbols were the
shadow, was holiness, spiritual purity, freedom from iniquity. There is nothing upon which greater
stress is laid than the requirement that every offering to God shall be such as a Being of perfect
purity can accept. A sprinkled body is not sufficient; a pure heart is the demand of him who is
himself the all-holy Lord.
3. And such an offering is well PLEASING to God. This, indeed, may be inferred from a
consideration of God's moral character as a truth-loving and holy Governor, who cannot endure
dissimulation and hypocrisy. The enlightened among the ancient Hebrews saw clearly enough that
ceremonial purity and ritual correctness were not enough to secure Divine acceptance and favour.
And none who enters into the teaching of our Saviour, and sympathizes with the spirit of his religion,
can fail to discern the necessity of a living and holy sacrifice in order to please the Searcher of
hearts, and satisfy the requirements of Christ.
IV. The offering of the Christian is further represented as
A REASONABLE SERVICE OR WORSHIP. The Revisers have, in the margin, "spiritual." It is a
service rendered by the intelligent, reasonable, spiritual part of our nature. Though the body is
presented, he presentation of the body is the expression of inner, spiritual worship. For the word
means "worship"—"an outward act of religious worship." Worship is a universal expression of the
religious nature of man. The heathen practised their ritual of ceremony, sacrifice, prayer, adoration;
and the Jewish religion imposed an elaborate system of public worship. The superiority of Christian
worship is marked. Obedience is the highest and most acceptable form of worship which can be
offered to God. This "reasonable worship" is distinguished from worship that is merely mechanical
and formal. It is similarly distinguished from all substitutionary worship. It is personal, not
representative; not by a priest who worships for the congregation, and professes to offer sacrifice as
their representative, but by each individual Christian who has his own tribute to offer, his own
service to render.
APPLICATION . The language of the text appeals to those who neglect or withhold this sacrifice,
this service, and reproaches them as unreasonable, ungrateful, indefensible, disobedient, self-
destructive. It urges them to yield what God asks, through Christ, who makes obedience and praise
acceptable offerings to God.
MACLAREN, “THE SACRIFICE OF THE BODY
Rom_12:1.

43. In the former part of this letter the Apostle has been building up a massive fabric of doctrine, which
has stood the waste of centuries, and the assaults of enemies, and has been the home of devout
souls. He now passes to speak of practice, and he binds the two halves of his letter indissolubly
together by that significant ‘therefore,’ which does not only look back to the thing last said, but to the
whole of the preceding portion of the letter. ‘What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.’
Christian living is inseparably connected with Christian believing. Possibly the error of our
forefathers was in cutting faith too much loose from practice, and supposing that an orthodox creed
was sufficient, though I think the extent to which they did suppose that has been very much
exaggerated. The temptation of this day is precisely the opposite. ‘Conduct is three-fourths of life,’
says one of our teachers. Yes. But what about the fourth fourth which underlies conduct? Paul’s
way is the right way. Lay broad and deep the foundations of God’s facts revealed to us, and then
build upon that the fabric of a noble life. This generation superficially tends to cut practice loose
from faith, and so to look for grapes from thorns and figs from thistles. Wrong thinking will not lead
to right doing. ‘I beseech you, therefore, brethren, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.’
The Apostle, in beginning his practical exhortations, lays as the foundations of them all two
companion precepts: one, with which we have to deal, affecting mainly the outward life; its twin
sister, which follows in the next verse, affecting mainly the inward life. He who has drunk in the spirit
of Paul’s doctrinal teaching will present his body a living sacrifice, and be renewed in the spirit of his
mind; and thus, outwardly and inwardly, will be approximating to God’s ideal, and all specific virtues
will be his in germ. Those two precepts lay down the broad outline, and all that follow in the way of
specific commandments is but filling in its details.
I. We observe that we have here, first, an all-inclusive directory for the outward life.
Now, it is to be noticed that the metaphor of sacrifice runs through the whole of the phraseology of
my text. The word rendered ‘present’ is a technical expression for the sacerdotal action of offering.
A tacit contrast is drawn between the sacrificial ritual, which was familiar to Romans as well as
Jews, and the true Christian sacrifice and service. In the former a large portion of the sacrifices
consisted of animals which were slain. Ours is to be ‘a living sacrifice.’ In the former the offering was
presented to the Deity, and became His property. In the Christian service, the gift passes, in like
manner, from the possession of the worshipper, and is set apart for the uses of God, for that is the
proper meaning of the word ‘holy.’ The outward sacrifice gave an odour of a sweet smell, which, by
a strong metaphor, was declared to be fragrant in the nostrils of Deity. In like manner, the Christian
sacrifice is ‘acceptable unto God.’ These other sacrifices were purely outward, and derived no

44. efficacy from the disposition of the worshipper. Our sacrifice, though the material of the offering be
corporeal, is the act of the inner man, and so is called ‘rational’ rather than ‘reasonable,’ as our
Version has it, or as in other parts of Scripture, ‘spiritual.’ And the last word of my text, ‘service,’
retains the sacerdotal allusion, because it does not mean the service of a slave or domestic, but that
of a priest.
And so the sum of the whole is that the master-word for the outward life of a Christian is sacrifice.
That, again, includes two things-self-surrender and surrender to God.
Now, Paul was not such a superficial moralist as TO BEGIN at the wrong end, and talk about the
surrender of the outward life, unless as the result of the prior surrender of the inward, and that
priority of the consecration of the man to his offering of the body is contained in the very metaphor.
For a priest needs to be consecrated before he can offer, and we in our innermost wills, in the
depths of our nature, must be surrendered and set apart to God ere any of our outward activities
can be laid upon His altar. The Apostle, then, does not make the mistake of substituting external for
internal surrender, but he presupposes that the latter has preceded. He puts the sequence more
fully in the parallel passage in this very letter: ‘Yield yourselves unto God, and your bodies as
instruments of righteousness unto Him.’ So, then, first of all, we must be priests by our inward
consecration, and then, since ‘a priest must have somewhat to offer,’ we must bring the outward life
and lay it upon His altar.
Now, of the two thoughts which I have said are involved in this great keyword, the former is
common to Christianity, with all noble systems of morality, whether religious or irreligious. It is a
commonplace, on which I do not need to dwell, that every man who will live a man’s life, and not
that of a beast, must sacrifice the flesh, and rigidly keep it down. But that commonplace is lifted into
an altogether new region, assumes a new solemnity, and finds new power for its fulfilment when we
add to the moralist’s duty of control of the animal and outward nature the other thought, that the
surrender must be to God.
There is no need for my dwelling at any length on the various practical directions in which this great
exhortation must be wrought out. It is of more importance, by far, to have well fixed in our minds and
hearts the one dominant thought that sacrifice is the keyword of the Christian life than to explain the
directions in which it applies. But still, just a word or two about these. There are three ways in which
we may look at the body, which the Apostle here says is to be yielded up unto God.
It is the recipient of impressions from without. There is a field for consecration. The eye that looks
upon evil, and by the look has rebellious, lustful, sensuous, foul desires excited in the heart, breaks
this solemn law. The eye that among the things seen dwells with complacency on the pure, and
turns from the impure as if a hot iron had been thrust into its pupil; that in the things seen discerns

45. shimmering behind them, and manifested through them, the things unseen and eternal, is the
consecrated eye. ‘Art for Art’s sake,’ to QUOTE the cant of the day, has too often meant art for
the flesh’s sake. And there are pictures and books, and sights of various sorts, flashed before the
eyes of you young men and women which it is pollution to dwell upon, and should be pain to
remember. I beseech you all to have guard over these gates of the heart, and to pray, ‘Turn away
mine eyes from viewing vanity.’ And the other senses, in like manner, have need to be closely
connected with God if they are not to rush us down to the devil.
The body is not only the recipient of impressions. It is the possessor of appetites and necessities.
See to it that these are indulged, with constant reference to God. It is no small attainment of the
Christian life ‘to eat our meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God.’ In a hundred
directions this characteristic of our corporeal lives tends to lead us all away from supreme
consecration to Him. There is the senseless luxury of this generation. There is the exaggerated care
for physical strength and completeness amongst the young; there is the intemperance in eating and
drinking, which is the curse and the shame of England. There is the provision for the flesh, the
absorbing care for the procuring of material comforts, which drowns the spirit in miserable anxieties,
and makes men bond-slaves. There is the corruption which comes from drunkenness and from lust.
There is the indolence which CHECKS lofty aspirations and stops a man in the middle of noble
work. And there are many other forms of evil on which I need not dwell, all of which are swept clean
out of the way when we lay to heart this injunction: ‘I beseech you present your bodies a living
sacrifice,’ and let appetites and tastes and corporeal needs be kept in rigid subordination and in
conscious connection with Him. I remember a quaint old saying of a German schoolmaster, who
apostrophised his body thus: ‘I go with you three times a day to eat; you must come with me three
times a day to pray.’ Subjugate the body, and let it be the servant and companion of the devout
spirit.
It is also, besides being the recipient of impressions, and the possessor of needs and appetites, our
instrument for working in the world. And so the exhortation of my text comes to include this, that all
our activities done by means of brain and eye and tongue and hand and foot shall be consciously
devoted to Him, and laid as a sacrifice upon His altar. That pervasive, universally diffused reference
to God, in all the details of daily life, is the thing that CHRISTIAN MEN and women need most of
all to try to cultivate. ‘Pray without ceasing,’ says the Apostle. This exhortation can only be obeyed if
our work is indeed worship, being done by God’s help, for God’s sake, in communion with God.
So, dear friends, sacrifice is the keynote-meaning thereby surrender, control, and stimulus of the
corporeal frame, surrender to God, in regard to the impressions which we allow to be made upon
our senses, to the indulgence which we grant to our appetites, and the satisfaction which we seek
for our needs, and to the activities which we engage in by means of this wondrous instrument with
which God has trusted us. These are the plain principles involved in the exhortation of my text. ‘He

46. that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption.’ ‘I keep under my body, and bring it into
subjection.’ It is a good servant; it is a bad master.
II. NOTE , secondly, the relation between this priestly service and other kinds of worship.
I need only say a word about that. Paul is not meaning to depreciate the sacrificial ritual, from which
he drew his emblem. But he is meaning to assert that the devotion of a life, manifested through
bodily activity, is higher in its nature than the symbolical worship of any altar and of any sacrifice.
And that falls in with prevailing tendencies in this day, which has laid such a firm hold on the
principle that daily conduct is better than formal worship, that it has forgotten to ask the question
whether the daily conduct is likely to be satisfactory if the formal worship is altogether neglected. I
believe, as profoundly as any man can, that the true worship is distinguishable from and higher than
the more sensuous forms of the Catholic or other sacramentarian churches, or the more simple of
the Puritan and Nonconformist, or the altogether formless of the Quaker. I believe that the best
worship is the manifold activities of daily life laid upon God’s altar, so that the division between
things secular and things sacred is to a large extent misleading and irrelevant. But at the same time
I believe that you have very little chance of getting this diffused and all-pervasive reference of all a
man’s doings to God unless there are, all through his life, recurring with daily regularity, reservoirs
of power, stations where he may rest, kneeling-places where the attitude of service is exchanged for
the attitude of supplication; times of quiet communion with God which shall feed the worshipper’s
activities as the white snowfields on the high summits feed the brooks that sparkle by the way, and
bring fertility wherever they run. So, dear brethren, remember that whilst life is the field of worship
there must be the inward worship within the shrine if there is to be the outward service.
III. Lastly, note the equally comprehensive motive and ground of this all-inclusive directory
for conduct.
‘I beseech you, by the mercies of God.’ That plural does not mean that the Apostle is extending his
view over the whole wide field of the divine beneficence, but rather that he is contemplating the one
all-inclusive mercy about which the former part of his letter has been eloquent-viz. the gift of Christ-
and contemplating it in the manifoldness of the blessings which flow from it. The mercies of God
which move a man to yield himself as a sacrifice are not the diffused beneficences of His
providence, but the concentrated love that lies in the person and work of His Son.
And there, as I believe, is the one motive to which we can appeal with any prospect of its being
powerful enough to give the needful impetus all through a life. The sacrifice of Christ is the ground
on which our sacrifices can be offered and accepted, for it was the sacrifice of a death propitiatory
and cleansing, and on it, as the ancient ritual taught us, may be reared the enthusiastic sacrifice of
a life-a thankoffering for it.

47. Nor is it only the ground on which our sacrifice is accepted, but it is the great motive by which our
sacrifice is impelled. There is the difference between the Christian teaching, ‘present your bodies a
sacrifice,’ and the highest and noblest of similar teaching elsewhere. One of the purest and loftiest
of the ancient moralists was a contemporary of Paul’s. He would have re-echoed from his heart the
Apostle’s DIRECTORY , but he knew nothing of the Apostle’s motive. So his exhortations were
powerless. He had no spell to work on men’s hearts, and his lofty teachings were as the voice of
one crying in the wilderness. Whilst Seneca taught, Rome was a cesspool of moral putridity and
Nero butchered. So it always is. There may be noble teachings about self-control, purity, and the
like, but an evil and adulterous generation is slow to dance to such piping.
Our poet has bid us-
‘
Move upwards, casting out the beast,
And let the ape and tiger die.’
But how is this heavy bulk of ours to ‘move upwards’; how is the beast to be ‘cast out’; how are the
‘ape and tiger’ in us to be slain? Paul has told us, ‘By the mercies of God.’ Christ’s gift, meditated
on, accepted, introduced into will and heart, is the one power that will melt our obstinacy, the one
magnet that will draw us after it.
Nothing else, brethren, as your own experience has taught you, and as the experience of the
world CONFIRMS , nothing else will bind Behemoth, and put a hook in his nose. Apart from the
constraining motive of the love of Christ, all the cords of prudence, conscience, advantage, by which
men try to bind their unruly passions and manacle the insisting flesh, are like the chains on the
demoniac’s wrists-’And he had oftentimes been bound by chains, and the chains were snapped
asunder.’ But the silken leash with which the fair Una in the poem leads the lion, the silken leash of
love will bind the strong man, and enable us to rule ourselves. If we will open our hearts to the
sacrifice of Christ, we shall be able to offer ourselves as thankofferings. If we will let His love sway
our wills and consciences, He will give our wills and consciences power to master and to offer up
our flesh. And the great change, according to which He will one day change the body of our
humiliation into the likeness of the body of His glory, will be begun in us, if we live under the
influence of the motive and the commandment which this Apostle bound together in our text and in
his other great words, ‘Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your
body and spirit, which are His.’

48. BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “I beseech you.
A lesson to ministers
Ministers of the gospel should be gentle, TENDER , and affectionate. They should be kind in
feeling, and courteous in manner--like a father or mother. Nothing is ever gained by a sour, harsh,
crabbed, dissatisfied manner. Sinners are never scolded either into duty or into heaven. Flies are
never caught with vinegar. No man is a better or more faithful preacher because he is rough in
manner, coarse, or harsh in his expressions, or sour in his intercourse with mankind. Not thus was
the Master or Paul. (A. Barnes, D.D.)
Therefore--
The connection between the two parts of the Epistle
Religion among the ancients was service (cultus), and cultus had for its centre sacrifice. The Jewish
service counted four kinds of sacrifice which might be reduced to two: the first, comprising the
sacrifices offered before reconciliation and to obtain it (sin and trespass-offering); the other the
sacrifices offered after reconciliation and serving to celebrate it (whole burnt-offering and peace-
offering). The great division of the Epistle to which we have come is explained by this contrast. The
fundamental idea of Part I. (chaps. 1-11), was that of the sacrifice for the sin of mankind. Witness
the central passage (Rom_3:25-26). These are the mercies of God to which Paul appeals here, and
the development of which has filled the first eleven chapters. The practical part which we are
beginning corresponds to the second kind of sacrifice, which was the symbol of consecration after
pardon had been received (the halocaust, in which the victim was entirely burned), and of the
communion established between Jehovah and the believer (the peace-offering, followed by a feast
in the court of the temple). The sacrifice of expiation offered by God in the person of His Son should
now find its response in the believer in the sacrifice of complete consecration and intimate
communion. (Prof. Godet.)
Doctrine and PRACTICE
The doctrinal and dispensational portions of the Epistle being ended, the apostle, as a wise master-

49. builder, erects the superstructure of personal religion upon the foundation of redemption, which he
has laid deep and substantial. “No doctrine,” remarks H. W. Beecher, “is good for anything that does
not leave behind it an ethical furrow, ready for the planting of seeds, which shall spring up and bear
abundant harvests.” The connection between doctrine and exhortation is quaintly explained by
Bishop Hall: “Those that are all in exhortation, no whit in doctrine, are like to them that snuff the
lamp, but pour not in oil. Again, those that are all in doctrine, nothing in exhortation, drown the wick
in oil, but light it not; making it fit for use if it had fire put to it; but as it is, neither capable of good nor
profitable for the present. Doctrine without exhortation makes men all brain, no heart; exhortation
without doctrine makes the heart full, but leaves the brain empty. Both together make a man, one
makes a wise man, the other a good; one serves that we may know our duty, the other that we may
perform it. Men cannot practise unless they know, and they know in vain if they practise not.”
(C. Neil, M.A.)
The relation between doctrine and life
1. The link which unites doctrine and duty is like the great artery that joins the heart to the
members--the channel of life and the bond of union. If that link is severed, the life departs. If
doctrine and duty are not united, both are dead; there remains neither the sound creed nor the holy
life.
2. A common cry is, Give charity, but no dogma, i.e., Give us fruit, but don’t bother us with mysteries
about roots. We join heartily in the cry for more fruit; but we are not content to tie oranges with tape
on dead branches. This may serve to amuse children; but we are grown men, and life is earnest.
3. In the transition from chap. 11 to chap. 12, the knot is tied that binds together doctrine and duty.
At the point of contact Paul defines the relations between the gifts which flow from God to men, and
the service rendered by men to God. Christians having gotten all from God are constrained to
render back to Him themselves and all they have. Here is a leaden pipe which, rising
perpendicularly from the ground, supplies the cistern on the roof. “Water flow up? Don’t mock us.
Water flows down, not up.” Place your ear against the pipe. Is not the water rushing upward? “Yes.”
The reason is that the water flowing from the fountain on the mountain’s side forces the water up.
So the soul is constrained, by the pressure of Divine mercy flowing through Christ, to rise in
responsive love. The word “therefore” is the link of connection between doctrine and life. It unites
the product to the power.

50. I. The mercies of God constitute the motive force.
1. Paul is a scientific operator--skilful in adapting means to ends. To provide the water-power may
be a much more lengthened and laborious process than to set the mill agoing; but without the
reservoir and its supply, the mill would never go round at all. So Paul takes every step on the
assumption that a devoted and charitable life cannot be attained unless the person and work of
Christ be made clear to the understanding and accepted with the heart.
2. There is a class of men pressing to the front whose maxim is, “A grain of charity is worth a ton of
dogma.” But, as I have seen a mechanic, after applying the rule to his work, turning the rule round
and trying it the other way, lest some mistake should occur, so it may be of use to express the same
maxim in another form; “A small stream flowing on the ground is worth acres of clouds careering in
the sky.” In this form the maxim is nonsense; but the two forms express an identical meaning.
Wanting clouds, there could be no streams; so, wanting dogma, there could be no charity. The
Scriptures present the case of a man who was as free of dogma as the most advanced secularist
could desire. “What is truth?” said Pilate, who was not burdened with even an ounce of dogma; yet
he crucified Christ, confessing Him innocent.
3. Those who lead the crusade against dogma are forward to profess the utmost reverence for the
life and teaching of Jesus Christ. But “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” was a dogma
He received with approbation and died for it. Therefore, if He be not the true God, He must be a
false man. Thus the Scriptures have rendered it impossible for modern secularists to reject the great
dogma of the gospel, and yet retain the life of Jesus as the highest pattern of human character.
4. The word “therefore” is like the steel point which constitutes the fulcrum of the balance. To one
extremity of the beam is fixed, by a long line, a consecrated life; but that life lies deep down in the
dark, a possibility only as yet. No human arm has power to bring it up. Here is a skilful engineer,
who has undertaken the task. What is he doing? He is making fast to the opposite extremity of the
beam some immense weight--nothing less than the mercies of God as exhibited in Christ. He has
fastened it now, and he stands back--does not put a hand to the work in its second stage. What
follows? They come! they come! the deeds of charity.
5. Ask those great lovers who have done and suffered most for men what motive urged them on
and held them up. They will answer unanimously, “The love of Christ constraineth us.” They are
bought with a price, and therefore they glorify God in their lives.
6. In the scheme of doctrine set forth in the first half of the Epistle, we behold the reservoir where
the power is stored; and in the opening verses of the second section the engineer opens the sluice,
so that the whole force of the treasured waters may flow out on human life, and impel it onward in

51. active benevolence.
II. A consecrated life is the expected result. This consists of--
1. Devotion to God, the constituents of which are--
(1) A living sacrifice--the offerer’s own body, not that of a substitute; and not dead, but living. It is not
a carcass laid on the altar to be burned; it is a life devoted to God. Love is the fire that consumes
the sacrifice; and in this case, too, the fire came down from heaven.
(2) A reasonable service. It is not the arbitrary though loving command addressed by a father to his
infant son, that he may be trained to habits of unquestioning obedience; it is rather the work
prescribed by the father to an adult son, which the son understands, and in which he intelligently
acquiesces.
2. In the remaining portion of the Epistle Paul labours to stimulate practical charity, in one place
reducing the whole law to one precept, to one word--love. After devoting so much attention to the
roots, he will not neglect to gather the fruit.
Conclusion:
1. We must look well to our helm as we traverse this ocean of life, where we can feel no bottom and
see no shore, lest we miss our harbour. But we must also look to the lights of heaven. The seaman
does not look to the stars instead of handling his helm. This would be as great folly as to handle his
helm vigorously and never look to the stars. So we must not turn to the contemplation of dogma
instead of labouring in the works of charity; but look to the truth as the light which shows us the way
of life, and walking in that way with all diligence.
2. Want of faith is followed by want of goodness, as a blighting of the root destroys the stem and
branches of a tree. But does the converse also hold good? Many trees when cut down grow again.
But some species--pines, for example--die outright when the main stem is severed. Here lies a
sharp reproof for all who bear Christ’s name. True it is also that, if from any cause the life cease to
act, the faith, or what seemed faith, will rot away underground (1Ti_1:19). While faith, by drawing
from the fulness of Christ, makes a fruitful life, the exercise of all the charities mightily increases
even the faith from which they sprung. While, on one side, the necessity of the day is to maintain
the faith as the fountain and root of practical goodness in the life; on the other side, the necessity of
the day is to lead and exhibit a life corresponding to the faith it grows upon. (W. Arnot, D.D.)

52. By the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Wherein our Christian sacrifice, with respect to the body, principally consists; and the
reasonableness of it
I. The character of the person exhorting. Whoever speaks to us in the name of God, or by a special
commission from Him, has certainly a right to our attention. When we consider that the generality of
men are more governed by example than precept, or the intrinsic reason of things, we must
acknowledge it adds a very great force to instructions we hear from any person when they come
recommended by his own practice, and that upon two accounts.
1. Because the actions of men discover most evidently to us the secret bent and disposition of their
hearts.
2. Because a good example is a more moving and sensible argument to the practice of piety than
the most beautiful images whereby we can otherwise represent it.
II. The manner of the apostle’s exhortation.
1. “Brethren” is the general appellation of Christians which St. Paul uses in all his Epistles.
2. “By the mercies of God,” that is, from the consideration of those great things our good and
merciful God has done for us.
3. The subject-matter of the apostle’s exhortation in the following words, “That you present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God.”
(1) By presenting our bodies a “living” sacrifice is implied that we perform to God a ready and
cheerful obedience, that no difficulties or discouragements step us in the course of our Christian
progress.

53. (a) “Living” may be here understood as it is opposed to those sensual lusts and passions which
have their source from the body, and upon the account of which the apostle cries out (Rom_7:24).
By indulging our sensual appetites we vitiate the best constitution, put the organs of the body out of
tune, and by degrees perhaps do render it a sink of mortal diseases. All which disorders must
necessarily render the body a very unfit and dull companion for the soul, or rather, as it were, a
dead weight hanging upon it, in the more lively exercises of reason and devotion. And therefore we
must take care never to indulge our bodily appetites to any excess, but rather endeavour to mortify
our members which are upon the earth, that the soul operate with its full force and activity; which it
is impossible we should do while we study nothing so much as to gratify our bodily appetites.
(b) “Living,” that is, a continual sacrifice. Our whole life in every part and period of it should be
consecrated to the service of God. Our incense must burn continually before Him, and the sacrifice
of our body, while we are in the body, never cease to be offered. But this leads me to consider--
(2) The other affection of this sacrifice, in order to render it acceptable to God, and that is “holiness.”
A thing is said to be holy that is set apart to the more immediate service or worship of God. So that
to present our bodies holy, is to keep them in a constant preparation for the duties of religion; to
preserve them in a regular, pious, and composed temper; not to suffer our imagination to be defiled,
or our sensual appetites gratified to any excess. And in particular to any of those sinful excesses
which in the Holy Scriptures are termed the works of the flesh, and which are so contrary to the
purity of that Divine Spirit who has chosen our bodies to be a habitation for Himself.
III. The reason and ground of the apostle’s exhortation. There is nothing here required of us
but what is proper to the state and condition of human nature; nothing but what is fit and
“reasonable” to be done.
1. God being the Creator and absolute Governor of the world, has power to lay what restraints upon
men He sees fit, not exceeding the benefits of their creation.
2. He has laid no restraints upon our natural appetites but what generally tend to our own good and
the perfection of our reasonable nature.
3. We think it no injustice in secular potentates to restrain subjects in their natural rights and liberties
when such liberties are found inconvenient to themselves, or others, or to the government in
general.

54. 4. We often, upon a prospect of a future and greater good, are willing to deny ourselves a present
pleasure or satisfaction. Nothing is more common or thought more reasonable.
5. The restraints which are complained of in the Christian religion are no more than what some of
the wisest moralists and teachers of natural religion have laid upon themselves and prescribed to
others. (R. Fiddes, D.D.)
Are you grateful?
Ingratitude is one of the meanest of vices. You know the old fable of the man who found a frozen
viper and in kindness took it home and put it on his hearth-stone to be revived; but when the
creature felt the warmth and began to renew its life, it bit its benefactor. This meanest of vices is
often seen in men, but scarcely ever in a dog. Perhaps one of its worst forms is when it is shown
towards parents; and children who are most indulged are generally the most ungrateful. Note:--
I. The compassions of God.
1. Was it not compassionate of God to create us? There might have been so much better men in
our shoes than we are. How shameful then that some of us are little better than logs in a stream!
How mean that some of us should wallow in mire like swine, and then say we cannot help it! The
wonder is that God can bear with us; but having in mercy created us, He has followed it up with
infinite forbearance. Many people are like the Prodigal--they do not care about God until they meet
with disaster. Yet God, in His compassion, does not spurn them.
2. God shows His compassion in preparing a heavenly life for us. I dare say that some mother here
has taken her little son to market, and when he began to be fagged, encouraged him by saying,
“Now, Johnny, be a brave lad, and when we get home I’ll love you and make it up to you! “ Then the
little feet trot on more gaily. My weary friend, take courage! God will make it up to you in the other
world.
3. Then what compassion to redeem us and to save us from our sins!
II. Our reasonable service. God does not expect aa impossibility from us--only a “reasonable

55. service.” Men are ready enough to profess their willingness to love God, but they are not so
ready to show their love to Him by loving one another. Some of you may be living lonely
lives, but, if you will, you may people the uninhabited island of your life. You long for
sympathy. Well, others feel just the same, and they very likely think you are cold and
reserved. Is there not somebody to whom you can say a gentle word, or to whom you can do
a kind act? This is your “reasonable service.” Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with
those who weep. Take an interest in the joys and sorrows of your fellow.creatures. Those
who have money to spare should enjoy the pleasure of dispensing it while they live. When a
man gives his money while he lives it is a “living sacrifice”; but when he dies, his money is
no longer his. If we have not treasures in money, we have the more precious treasures of
love. Some people are like the picture of a rose, which has no perfume. Be perfumed, that is,
living Christians; be fragrant of good deeds, which are the sweet breath of heaven; and thus
you will show your gratitude to God, be an honour to the gospel of Jesus and a comfort to
mankind. (W. Birch.)
True life a priesthood
The life of every man should be that of a priest. The earth should be trod, not as a garden, a
playground, or a market, but as a temple. The text indicates that true priesthood is characterised
by:--
I. Individuality. “Bodies” here stand for the whole nature--man himself. In this priesthood--
1. Every man is his own sacrifice. The wealth of the world would not be a substitute for himself.
What does this imply?
(1) Negatively; not--
(a) The loss of personality. Man does not lose himself by consecrating his existence to the Eternal.
(b) The loss of free agency. Man does not become the mere tool or machine of Omnipotence. In
truth he only secures his highest liberty.
(2) Positively; it includes--

56. (a) Yielding to God’s love as the inspiration of our being.
(b) Adopting His will as the role of our activities.
2. Every man is his own minister. None can offer the sacrifice for him. He must do it freely, devoutly,
manfully.
II. Divinity. It is a vital connection with the Great God.
1. God is the object of it. Men are sacrificing themselves everywhere to pleasure, lucre, fame,
influence. There are gods many in England at whose altars men are sacrificing themselves.
2. God is the motive of it. God’s “mercies,” which are infinite in number and variety, are the inciting
and controlling motives. The true priest moves evermore from God to God.
3. God is the approver of it. “Acceptable unto God.” He approves it because it is--
(1) Right in itself;
(2) Blessed to man.
III. Rationality. Its reasonableness will be seen if you consider what it really means, viz.--
1. Cherishing the highest gratitude to our greatest Benefactor. Reason tells us that we ought to be
thankful for favours generously bestowed upon us. But who has bestowed such favours as God?
2. The highest love to the best of beings. Reason tells that we should only love a being in proportion
to his goodness. God is infinitely good, therefore He should be loved with all our hearts, minds,
souls.
3. That we should render our entire services to our exclusive proprietor. God owns us; all we have
and are belong to Him. If this is not reasonable, what is? In truth religion is the only reasonable life.
Conclusion: Such is true priesthood.

57. 1. All other priesthoods are shams, mimicries, and impieties.
2. Christ’s priesthood will be of no avail to us unless we become true priests to God ourselves. His
priesthood is at once the model and the means of all true human priesthood. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
Gratitude requires expression
President Hopkins, of Williams College, used to tell his classes that if our religious feelings have no
appropriate forms of expression, the feelings themselves will die out. If we do not take a reverential
attitude in prayer, we shall lose the spirit of prayer. It is true that if a tree is stripped of its leaves,
and kept so, it will die. If we do not express our gratitude and love to God, we shall lose what we
have; but by expressing them they are increased--hence these offerings.
Bodily consecration
I. The persons addressed. “You, brethren.” Church members. Paul regarded conversion as an initial
step, which, to amount to anything, must be followed by a “going on to know the Lord.” His favourite
words were run, strive, fight, grow. He saw the potentialities of Christian manhood in the babe in
Christ. This gave him weighty convictions as to the importance of prompt and proper attention to
the NURSING .
II. The duty enjoined. “Present your bodies.” The body, as well as the soul, is redeemed, and both
must go together into God’s service. It is man yielding his members, as servants of iniquity, that
gives power to the kingdom of darkness. So, to be of any service in the cause of God, we must
yield, not our sympathy merely, but “our members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”
III. The state of condition of the offering. “A living sacrifice.” Allusion is here made to the Jewish
sacrifices--which, to have any moral value, must be dead; the Christian sacrifice must be presented
living. Man is a priest who lays upon the altar his own living body. And as it was the business of the
Jewish priest, not only to present the sacrifice, but to keep it on the altar and see that it be properly
offered, so the Christian’s sacrifice is to be--

58. 1. “Holy.” He is to see that his body is kept from all contact with the degrading or sensual.
2. Therefore, “acceptable to God.” Jewish sacrifices were the best of their kind; and man must
consecrate all his powers, or God will reject his offering as a mockery and a sham.
3. “Reasonable.” Nothing more reasonable than that the creature should serve the Creator. If man
was made to rule, it is equally true that he was made to obey; and in obedience is his greatest
pleasure and profit.
IV. The motive prompting the sacrifice. “The mercies of God.” This motive is--
1. Strange. Other religions motive their devotees by the judgments and terror of their gods. None
but Christianity ever thought of love as the motive to obedience.
2. Winsome.
3. Adequate. (T. Kelly.)
Entire consecration
The force of the aorist suggests that our self-dedication is to be entire, for once and for all. This act
embraces three things--being, doing, and suffering. We must be willing to be, to do, and to suffer, all
that God requires. This embraces reputation, friends, property, and time. It covers body, mind, and
soul. These are to be used when, where, and as God requires; and only as He requires. Such a
consecration should be made--
1. Deliberately;
2. For all coming time;
3. Without any reserve; and
4. In reliance upon Divine strength. (C. Nell, M.A.)

59. Personal consecration for Divine service
I. This is a summons to a service of worship.
1. The priestly service is required of all Christians without distinction. Every believer is assumed to
be anointed, to have passed through the preliminary purification, to have been called and separated
(1Pe_2:9), and to have passed through the consecration ritual (Rev_1:5-6). Therefore every one of
them has “boldness to enter into the holiest (Heb_10:19; Eph_3:12). And therefore they are all here
summoned to holy service. Clearly the act of worship is to be continuous. The Jewish priests had to
minister day by day. Morning and evening sacrifices must be offered: the altar fire must be kept
burning; the lamps must be lit, and, generally, worship must be offered up continually. And these all
symbolised for the people of God the necessity of constant service (1Co_10:31; Heb_13:12-15).
2. This priestly service of worship is to be one of sacrifice--is not indeed of atonement, for the one
offering of our great High Priest needs never more to be repeated. But now, the reconciliation
having been effected by that offering, we must draw near to God for holy fellowship, as in the
peace-offering; to praise, as in the thank-offering; and for perpetual dedication, as in the burnt-
offering.
(1) The Christian must present his own body. The Jew had to present the body of an animal: the
Christian must offer his own. Under the law the priest sacrificed the animal; the Christian must offer
up himself. The free, intelligent soul must be the presenting priest: the body, animated by the soul,
and serving as its many-mannered instrument, must be the ever-presented offering (Rom_6:13).
(2) The sacrifice must be living. The servant of God is not at liberty, by neglect of the body, to put an
end to its life. Rather must it be carefully preserved that its providential term may be available for
Divine service. For this life belongs to God (Rom_14:7-8).
(3) This sacrifice must be holy. This holiness includes--
(a) Full and perpetual dedication to Divine service.
(b) Sanctification by the blood of Jesus, or it will become anathema.
(c) “Sanctification of the Spirit,” so that all the appetites, instincts, and members of the body, and all

60. the powers and properties of the inspiring soul, shall be brought into true harmony with the will of
God.
3. This priestly service of sacrifice shall be acceptable to God. It is at once worthy of the priest, the
temple, and God. That could not be said of the ritual service of the Jewish temple, except in so far
as it was type of better things (Isa_1:11-15).
II. The spirit in which these priests are required to perform their service (Rom_12:21)
1. Negatively--“Be not conformed to this world.” The special characteristics of worldliness vary
according to the variations in the tendencies of thought and of ethical aim and effort at different
periods, in different countries, and amongst different people’s. The spirit of the age in which Moses
lived was the spirit of gross, sensuous idolatry. Hence the prohibition thereof in the Decalogue. The
spirit of the age amongst the Jews, in the time of the apostles, was that of dependence upon
external services (Gal_4:3; Gal_4:9). The spirit of the age by which the Colossians were in danger
of being contaminated was that of “philosophy and vain deceit” (Col_2:8-23). There is in almost
every age a twofold world-spirit, each being the other’s opposite, the most energetic working of
which was perhaps most strikingly manifested in the early ages of monasticism, when those who
became earnestly religious sought for the perfection of the spiritual life in seclusion and asceticism.
Both were injurious to true spiritual religion, and the remedy will be secured by attention to the true
Christian requirement. “Present your bodies,” and they are as capable of true spiritual service within
their sphere as are your spirits. Therefore “marriage is honourable among all” right-minded men.
Therefore to “them that believe and know the truth,” “every creature of God is good” (1Ti_4:3-5).
Therefore all the honest occupations of life may be pursued in a truly religious spirit (1Co_7:29-31).
2. Positively. Observe
(1) The result to be produced; a transformation into something the very opposite of that
conformation to this world, which is produced by the energy of merely secular powers. The form is
that of likeness to the image of the glory of the Lord (2Co_3:18).
(2) This result is to be produced by the renewing of the mind, i.e., the progressive growth and ever-
increasing power of Christian life, bringing the mind, and through that the whole person, into ever-
increasing approximation to the perfect likeness of the Lord (2Co_4:16).
(3) This renewing of the mind is a work of the Holy Ghost (Tit_3:5) carried on with our own free and
active Concurrence. Therefore the command is laid upon us.

61. III. The arguments by which the priests are urged to attend diligently to this service.
1. The apostle’s personal influence. He himself had consecrated all to the service of God
(Php_2:17). And therefore with great urgency of moral power could he say, “I beseech you.”
2. “The mercies of God,” in which there is at once a backward reference to the foregoing arguments
and ILLUSTRATIONS , an onward reference to the duties about to be inculcated, and a central
reference to the consequential link which binds on the one to the other.
3. That ye may personally prove the will of God--
(1) The thing to be proved is that which God wills, ordains, and prescribes as the rule and end of our
whole activity--“even our sanctification.”
(2) The method of proving this will is the practical one of rendering to it obedience under the
influence of saving grace. “If any man will do His will, he shall know,” etc.
(3) This will of God prescribes only that which is good, acceptable, and perfect. This is to be the
result of the test in the personal experience.
(a) He will prove it to be good, and also productive of good.
(b) He will prove it to be acceptable both to God and man (Rom_14:18; 2Co_1:12).
(c) He proves that the course prescribed for him by the will of God is perfect. (W. Tyson.)
The consecrated body
The body is--
I. The seat of our animal propensities. These are not necessarily criminal. They are only so
when they cease to be subordinate to God. When we are living in His power, the question will

62. not be, Is this self-indulgence right, or wrong? but, Does it interfere with the work of the Holy
Spirit within me, and the fulfilment of the mind of God in my life?
II. The seat of our sensuous experiences. Is the love of music to be indulged, or
may we take long journeys for pleasure? Surely none of these things are wrong
in themselves; but with the child of God the question is not, How shall I most
gratify my sensuous propensity? but, How most please God?
III. The seat of our physical sensibilities--those which are acted upon by the
sense of pain, pleasure, lassitude, etc. A duty has to be done, but it is a hot day,
and we have some approach to a headache, and we do not feel disposed to do it.
What is it will enable us to rise above that? Why, to be filled with the Spirit, and
then the body will present itself to God’s service joyfully.
IV. Our medium of communication with the physical world. Now, it is not a bad
thing that we should have to do with the physical world; but what effect is our
bodies producing upon this world? Is it the better for us? Is “Holiness to the
Lord” written upon the very vessels of our households? If we are filled with the
Spirit of God, our bodies will be the medium through which this world will be
continually affected by Him, etc.
V. The medium through which we hold intercourse with mankind. Now, what is
the nature of that influence? If we are filled with the Holy Spirit, it will be a
revelation of Christ. In these bodies we should carry about the marks of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The tone of our voice, the line of our conduct, the look of our eye,
everything about us, will speak of Christ.
VI. The veil which conceals the things unseen. Strip off these bodies, and in a
moment we are landed in the presence of invisible realities. There is only this

63. between me and eternity, between me and God. Now, that is something for
which to be thankful. If it were not for this veil it would be impossible for me to
fulfil the work of my probation. At the same time, the devil employs it as a
means of deadening our spiritual sensibilities. When the Holy Spirit has free
course within our being, then the veil becomes almost transparent. There are
times when God draws so near to us that it seems more like seeing than
thinking, more like touching than simply contemplating. (W. Hay Aitken, M.A.)
Consecrated and transformed
The key of this chapter is found in the preceding verse. The law of the universe, the great march of
all things is from God, through God, to God. But all things about us are wrought upon by a great
compulsion. From reason, not from blind necessity, we yield ourselves to the sweep of this great
law. Yet there is a compulsion even for us--nobler, as our service is nobler, viz., love: “by the
mercies of God.”
I. The entreaty: “I beseech you.” But we object to be besought to do a reasonable thing. Show us
that a thing is reasonable, and at once and of course we do it. Think, then, that for our highest good
we have to be besought! For God alone we play not the part of reasonable men. How amazing that
we should have to be urged when God invites us to give ourselves to Him that He may give Himself
to us! “That ye may prove what is that good will of God.” The ear is deaf to the voice of God,
calling us to Paradise again. This is the entreaty of a man--
1. Who was living this life of blessedness. Of, through, and to God, was the rhythmic flow of his
whole being. And then, in all the consciousness of this blessed life, he thinks of the half-hearted, of
those who come far enough out of the far country to lose the husks of the swine, but not far enough
to get the bread of the father’s house, who, like the fabled coffin of Mahomet, lie suspended
between earth add heaven, UNCLAIMED by either, and yet fretting for each. To these the
apostle cries, “I beseech you,” etc.
2. Who had lingered at the Cross until its great love possessed him. He had seen something of
God’s unspeakable gift. With that mercy kindling his soul he asks, What acknowledgment can we
make? Only ourselves. The power that prompts and sustains this consecration is only here--the love
of God in Jesus. There let us seek it.

64. II. The consecration to which we are urged. Turn again to the great law of all things and trace its
application.
1. Nothing in God’s world is any good until it is given up to that which is above it. What is the worth
of the land, however fruitful, and whatever title we may have to it, unless we can do something with
it? The soil must minister to us, or it is merely waste land. The seed again and all its products--what
should we give for them if we could do nothing with them? And what use are cattle and sheep,
except as they clothe and feed us? And what are we for? Here lies our worth and our good, in giving
ourselves “a living sacrifice” to Him, of, through, and to whom are all things.
2. Every thing by sacrifice not lost, but turned into higher life. Very beautiful is this law of
transformation. Listen to the parable of the earth. “Here am I,” it mutters, “so far away from Him who
made me, without any beauty of form, or richness of colour, or sweetness of smell! How can I ever
be turned into worth and beauty?” And now there comes the seed, and whispers, “Earth, wilt thou
give me thy strength?” “No, indeed,” replies the earth, “it is all I have got, and I will keep it for
myself.” “Then,” saith the seed, “thou shalt be only earth for ever. But if thou wilt give me thy
strength thou shalt be lifted up and be turned into worth and beauty.” So the earth yields, and the
seed takes hold of it. It rises with wondrous stem; it drinks in sunshine and rain and air, mingling
them with the earth’s strength and changing all to branch, leaf, flower, and fruit. The parable repeats
itself in the case of the seed. It has a kind of life, but all unconscious. It cannot see, or hear, or
move. But it yields itself to the animal, and then its strength is turned into part of the seeing eye, the
hearing ear, the subtle nerve, the beating heart. And the animal gives itself in turn to serve man,
and is exalted to a thousand higher purposes. And man gives himself up to God, and is
transformed--into what? Ah! who can tell of that wondrous transformation when it is completed?
Once when I was a schoolboy going home for the holidays, I embarked at Bristol with just money
enough to pay my fare, and thought in my innocence that that included meals. By and by came the
steward with his bill. “I’ve got no money,” said
I. “What is your name and address?” I told him. “I should like to shake hands with you,” he said
instantly, with a smile. Then came the explanation--how that some years before some little kindness
had been shown by my father to his widowed mother.” I never thought the chance would come for
me to repay it,” said he, pleasantly; “but I am glad it has.” I told my father what had happened. “Ah,”
said he, “see how a bit of kindness lives! Now he has passed it on to you. Remember, if ever you
meet anybody that needs a friendly hand, you must pass it on to them.” Years went by, and I had
forgotten it all, until one day I was at a railway station, and saw a little lad crying. “What is the

65. matter, my lad?” I asked. “If you please, sir, I haven’t money enough to pay my fare. I have all I want
but a few pence; and I tell the clerk if he will trust me I will be sure to pay him again.” Instantly
flashed the forgotten story of long ago. Here, then, was my chance of passing it on. I gave him the
sum he needed, and told the little fellow the story of the steward’s kindness to me. “Now, to-day,” I
said, “I pass it on to you; and remember, if you meet with any one that needs a kindly hand, you
must pass it on to them.” My story is the ILLUSTRATION of the law of God’s great kindness that
runs through all things. Here lies the earth, and it says: “I have got in me some strength. It belongs
to God.” Then it whispers to the seed, “I will pass it on to you.” Then the seed passes it on to the
animal, and the animal to man, who completes the circle. Think how all things minister to him. If he
serves not God, he hinders all things, and diverts them.
III. The result of this consecration. “Be not conformed to this world.” How great a drop is
this! We were dreaming of heaven, and now we have a string of moral commonplaces. Be not
wise in your own conceits. Be given to hospitality. Be not slothful in business. Live
peaceably with all men. But that this should seem a coming down makes the lesson all the
more needful. Do we not too often think that our way upward is first to be right with
ourselves, and then to be right with the world, and then somewhere far off we may some day
come to be right with God? No, the order is reversed. First right with God, then, and then
only, right with all things. First “present your bodies a living sacrifice” unto God; then the
world, and all belonging to it, is put in its right place. How vain are all other attempts at
curing conformity to the world! There never was a time when there were so many man-made,
church-made Christians. Who does not know the receipt? Tie up the hands and say, “You
must not do that.” Tie up his feet and say, “You mustn’t go to such and such places--at least,
when you are at home.” Cut him off from certain things at which society is shocked, and
there is your Christian: a creature with his heart hungering for the world as fiercely as ever.
To “present our bodies a living sacrifice” to the opinions of religious society is no cure for
conformity to the world. This is the only way--a glad, whole-hearted giving up of ourselves to
God. Then comes the being “transformed by the renewing” of the “mind.” Transformed, not
from without, but from within; exactly as the earth is transformed when it gives itself up to
the seed. “That ye may prove,” etc. The renewed mind has new faculties of discernment--
new eyes to see the will of God, and a new heart to do it, and to be it. We cannot know God’s
will until we are given up to it. Once as I meditated on these words I heard the children pass
my study door. “I sha’n’t,” rang out a little voice. “This won’t do,” said I, gravely; “you must
stand in the corner until you come to a better mind.” “Think now,” said I to myself, “if she
should say, ‘Well, I suppose it is my father’s will, and I must submit to it,’ should I not
answer, ‘Nay, it is dead against your father’s will? Your father’s will is that you should be in
the garden playing with the others, but you have gone against your father’s will, and now

66. your father’s will has gone against you.’” And as I turned it over, I thought I saw where all the
crosses come from. When God’s will goes one way and our will goes another, there is the
cross. When God’s will and mine are one the cross is lost. Already the crown is ours--for
what makes heaven? Not white robes, not golden streets, not harps and anthems, but this
only--the eternal harmony of wills; and we can have that down here. And what is hell? The
eternal collision of wills. We may have that here, and this it is that makes the madness of
many a life. Conclusion: And now here is a thing to be done. It shall help us nothing to know
all this, to believe it all, and yet to stop short of doing it. Will you do it? (Mark Guy
Pearse.)
How is the body to become a sacrifice?
Let thine eye look upon no evil thing, and it hath become a sacrifice; let thy tongue speak nothing
filthy, and it hath become an offering; let thy hand do no lawless deed, and it hath become a whole
burnt-offering. But this is not enough, we must have good works also. Let the hand do alms, the
mouth bless them that despitefully use us, and the ear find leisure evermore for the hearing of
Scripture. For sacrifice can be made only of that which is clean; sacrifice is a firstfruit of other
actions. Let us, then, from our hands, and feet, and mouth, and all our other members, yield a
firstfruit unto God. Such a sacrifice is well-pleasing, and not, as that of the Jews, unclean, for “their
sacrifices,” says the Scripture, “shall be unto them as the bread of mourners.” Not so ours. Theirs
presented the thing sacrificed dead; ours maketh the thing sacrificed to be alive. For when we have
mortified our members, then we shall be able truly to live. For the law of this sacrifice is new, and
the fire of a marvellous nature. For it needeth no wood under it, but liveth of itself, and doth not burn
up the victim, but rather quickeneth it. This was the sacrifice that God sought of old. Wherefore the
prophet saith, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.” And the three children offered this when
they said, “At this time there is neither prince, nor prophet, nor leader, nor burnt-offering, nor place
to sacrifice before Thee, and to find mercy. Nevertheless, in a contrite heart and an humble spirit, let
us be accepted.” (Chrysostom.)
A living sacrifice
Here is--

67. I. Something to be done. Note--
1. The terms of the text.
(1) “Present” is elsewhere rendered “yield” (Rom_6:13; Rom_6:16; Rom_6:19), a word commonly
used for bringing to offer in sacrifice (Luk_2:22).
(2) “Bodies,” a part of human nature, is here used to represent the whole. Our whole nature
consists of body, soul, and spirit. But as the body is the visible part of our nature, the organ of
practical activity, as soul and spirit cannot now be devoted to God, except as connected with the
body, nor themselves without the body, and as the body cannot be presented as a sacrifice
separate from the spirit; moreover, as the allusion to the ancient sacrifices required the recognition
of the material part of our nature, we may conclude that by “your bodies” is intended “yourselves.”
(3) The animals required by the law were brought alive to the altar, and in offering them up they
were slain. So soon as the offering was made they were dead sacrifices. Yield yourselves a
sacrifice in life, a sacrifice FOR LIFE , a sacrifice rich in life.
(4) “Holy,” not nominally but really, cleansed from guilt, purified; passively and actively, not
ceremonially, but experimentally; not outwardly only, but inwardly.
(5) “Acceptable”; the sacrifice real, the bringing of the offering sincere; the Mediator recognised in
the offering, therefore acceptable, i.e., well-pleasing unto God. The sacrifices under the law were
pleasing to God as representing certain ideas and facts, and as expressing certain sentiments; but
the sacrifice before us is in itself an object of Divine complacency (Psa_147:11;Isa_62:4-
5; Mal_3:16-17).
2. That which is here required is not “devotions,” but devotion. Present the offerings of true worship,
but above all, present yourselves. All that we are is required, beside that which we have. Bring
money, time, and influence as offerings, but above this, offer yourselves, your natural selves, your
redeemed selves, the best in yourselves, and the whole of yourselves.
(1) That you may be what He requires, His children, servants, witnesses, and as such, poor or rich,
least or greatest, according to His will.
(2) That you may do what He requires, in obedience as a son, and in work as a servant, and in
testimony as a witness, etc.
(3) That you may suffer and submit to all that He requires.

68. 3. Now there are three things necessary to this--
(1) Knowledge of God. No such sacrifice as that described in my text was ever offered to an
unknown God.
(2) Reconciliation to God. There can be no devotion or consecration where there is indifference or
alienation.
(3) Love to God.
II. A strong motive power by which to do it.
1. “The mercies of God,” which are the manifestations of His goodness recorded in the previous part
of this Epistle (see Rom_2:4; Rom_5:8; Rom_5:20-21; Rom_8:38-39). But there are mercies which
Paul does not mention, and which the Christian shares with all men. The mercies of God are
countless in number, infinite in variety, and inestimable in value. Gratitude is a strong motive-power,
by whose aid we may present our bodies an offering for life, holy and acceptable.
2. And is there not some force in the statement that this offering is a reasonable service? The
victims under the law were irrational. This yielding ourselves to God is a reasonable service
because--
(1) Worthy of our nature and constitution as rational beings.
(2) In harmony with the object of man’s creation.
(3) The natural fruit of our redemption to God.
(4) A meet and right acknowledgment of our obligations to God.
(5) It commends itself to our judgment and conscience and heart.
(6) While involving thorough enthusiasm, it is far from all fanaticism and superstition.
3. And is there not something due to the earnestness of Paul in this matter? “I beseech you.” This
man knew what it was to offer himself a sacrifice to God, and did what he recommends, by powers

69. and aids within reach of all Christians. Here lies the secret of his power (2Co_12:9; Php_4:13).
Conclusion:
1. Young brethren, render my text into life. In the school, home, place of business, present
yourselves living sacrifices. The religious habits you now form are of immense moment to you. Let
them be right habits even from the beginning.
2. Lukewarm and backsliding brethren, my text shows you what you ought to be, and indirectly what
you are. A sacrifice it may be, but to self, to vanity, covetousness, pleasure, etc.
3. False brethren, why do you creep into our churches? You are as wood, hay, and stubble in our
spiritual building, You are a cancerous growth on the body of Christ. Why do you not leave
Christians alone? If you be an infidel, be honest, and do not profess to be a Christian. Go to your
own company, but know that there is forgiveness for your falseness if you repent and turn from your
evil ways.
4. And let the Pharisees of doctrine and of ritual digest my text. Theory without practice, doctrine
without duty, a creed without spiritual life, will avail you nothing. (S. Martin.)
A living sacrifice
I. The motive of the sacrifice: “the mercies of God”--the most cogent motive that can possibly
influence a Christian soul.
II. The method. It is to be an act of presentation. “Here am I; send me.” Make what use of me Thou
canst and wilt.
III. The subject. “Our bodies.”
IV. The object. “Acceptable to God.” (W. Hay Aitken, M.A.)

70. A living sacrifice
We have here--
I. A highly figurative but exceedingly significant representation of practical and daily virtue. It is given
under the form of a presentation.
1. The Romans could not fail to be alive to its meaning. They had always been accustomed to
sacrifice and splendid ritualism. They had to turn away from this, and to become members of little
private societies, in which there was nothing of the kind. And I can imagine that they would almost
feel the want of it; and in consequence of the absence of it to the heathen they did not seem to have
any God or religion at all. But the Christian convert was now taught that he himself was a priest of
God, that everything he did should be presented on the altar of a religious faith.
2. By the term “bodies” we are to understand the whole person. Though the body is the instrument,
yet the mind is that which we always consider as acting. Of course you may take the term as it
stands. You are to present your hands by keeping them from violence and fraud, and putting them
to honest work. You are to present your eyes by turning them away from objects which may excite
concupiscence, or fill you with the workings of unholy passion. The senses and appetites must all
be controlled; and the understanding must learn to cultivate the knowledge of truth.
II. “be not conformed to the world, but be ye transformed.”
1. Here, again, the primitive Christian would have a stronger feeling than we can have. The Church
and the world were things very distinct then. On the one side were the idolatry, godless philosophy,
and vicious habits of heathen society; on the other a little flock, bearing the marks of that holiness
which the Christian faith was designed to produce. But things are so wonderfully intermixed now
that we do not know where the Church ends and where the world begins. There is a kind of border
land; and there they are, going to and fro. Of course there are a number of things which the Church
and the world must do in common, and in many cases non-conformity to the world consists, not so
much in doing different things as in the different feelings that underlie what we do. “Why,” says the
apostle, “if you are not to come in contact with certain persons, you might just as well be out of the

71. world.” If an unbeliever ask you to dine with him, and you are disposed to do so, go; only bear in
mind that you are a Christian, and that whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, you are to
do all to the glory of God. Now there can be no doubt at all about one thing. If anything presents
itself as sinful there must not be conformity. Well, then, if you are really wishing to be a Christian;
and if you find something which is injurious to you--you are not to enter into the question whether it
is injurious to your neighbour; if you find it injurious to you do not be conformed to it. You may be
conscious, e.g., that a certain kind of reading or music is a hindrance to your religious life. Take
care, then, that in these respects you “be not conformed to the world.” So with respect to anything
that is doubtful with regard to the expenditure of time or money. Let me here whisper to you young
people--whenever you find anything condemned by your intelligent and cultivated elders, you may
depend upon it that there is something right lying at the bottom of their antipathy.
2. But besides this negative abstinence outwardly, there is to be a positive opening and
development of the mind and affections towards that brighter world of Divine truth and goodness, to
which it becomes us to be conformed. You must not be contented with outwardly resisting and
inwardly longing. There is plenty of non-conformity to the world in the inside of a jail. Butts there the
renewal of the mind? Unlike the man coming out of prison, who immediately returns from the force
of the life that is within him to the things from which he has been parted for a season, there must be
in you such a renewal of the soul that you will detest the things which have been given up; you must
feel that you have meat to eat which the world knoweth not of. You will then have the satisfaction of
another kind of life within you.
III. The result of this is that you may know by a positive, subjective experience the will of God, how
beautiful, how perfect, how good it is; how it is just the thing for which man was evidently made.
1. There have been men of great genius who have been very immoral. “Well, now, let us suppose
such a man to have studied Divine truth until he apprehends it just as he might apprehend
astronomy. He has knowledge; he has a perception of the beauty of the system, but he has not
tasted and seen. There it is, lying above the intellect just as the stars lie above the sky; he has not
within him the sense of an actual loving spirit, instinct with the spirit of truth.
2. Take a man of inferior faculties--who, having some little to begin with--the lessons of his father,
the prayers of his mother, by which his young heart was early, taught to love holiness and to hate
sin; having very few ideas, and those not well arranged, but still daily presenting himself as a living
sacrifice unto God, and going on learning the truth by loving it--oh, what different feelings will such a
man have, as the whole system of truth gradually opens and reveals itself to him, and he gets more
and more an apprehension of it! That is the way in which I want you to come to a knowledge of the

72. Christian system.
IV. This sacrifice is a very reasonable thing. It is a service agreeable to your rational nature. Take
the case of a man who does not believe in God; suppose that man to come in contact with another
who is disgracing humanity by drunkenness or licentiousness. Can you not conceive him saying,
“Well, now, you know you were not made for that”? Or if he did not believe man to have been made
at all, can you not imagine him saying, “However, you were made, considering what your mind is,
and what society is, with your own knowledge of what is becoming, it is a most irrational thing for
you to sink down into such a low, gross existence”? Ay, and we say to the man who talks thus, “Sir,
if there’s a God that made him, and you, and me; and if the relations which we sustain to Him as
reasonable creatures are far more important than our relations to one another, then is it not required
by our rational nature that we should not only avoid the abominations which you have denounced,
but that, by the culture of what is good and beautiful and pure, we should present ourselves to God
“as a living sacrifice?”
V. The exhortation is enforced “by the mercies of God.” The word “therefore” connects the
exhortation with the preceding argument of the apostle, and without referring to that you cannot
understand what are the mercies to which he especially refers. That argument bears principally on
two points--the mediation of Christ, and the work of the Spirit. These are the two pillars on which the
mercies of God are inscribed. You are to “present yourselves a living sacrifice”; you are not to be
“conformed to the world,” but to be “transformed by the renewing of the mind.” Hard sayings. But
you are not to take them by themselves. There is a provision to meet your weakness. (T. Binney.)
A living sacrifice
This verse makes a transition from the first to the second half of this letter. All before it is what we
call doctrinal, the most of what comes after it is practical. There are many men that say, “Give us the
morality of the New Testament; never mind about the theology.” But you cannot get the morality
without the theology, unless you like to have rootless flowers and lamps without oil. On the other
hand, many forget that the end of doctrine is life, and that therefore the most orthodox orthodoxy,
divorced from practice, is like the dried flowers which botanists put between sheets of blotting-
paper--the skeletons of dead beauty. Let us, then, always remember this little word “therefore,” that
binds together indissolubly Christian truth and Christian duty. Note--

73. I. The sum of Christian service.
1. Sacrifice means giving up everything to God. That is the true sacrifice, when I think as in His
sight, and will, and love, and act as in obedience to Him. And this sacrifice will become visible in the
sacrifice of the body, when in all common actions we have a supreme and distinct reference to His
will, and do, or refuse to do, because of the fear and for the sake of the Lord. The body has wants
and appetites; you have to see to it that these are supplied with a distinct reference to, and
remembrance of, Him, and so made acts of religious worship. The excess which dulls the spirit and
makes it all unapt to serve Him, the absorbing care about outward things which checks all the
nobility of a man’s life, are the forms in which the body comes in the way of the soul, and the
regulation and suppression of these are the simplest parts of the offering. There is no need in this
generation to preach against asceticism. Better John the Baptist’s garment of camel’s hair and his
meat--locusts and wild honey, if, like John the Baptist, I shall see the heavens opened, and the
Spirit of God descending on the Son of Man, than this full-fed sensualism which is the curse and the
crime of this generation.
2. This offering makes a man live more nobly and more truly than anything else. Not mutilation but
consecration is the true sacrifice. We are not called upon to crush our desires, tastes, appetites, or
to refrain from actions; only they are to be controlled and done in obedience to God.
(1) Now and then circumstances may come in which it is Christian duty to put your hand down there
on the block and take an axe in the other and chop it off. But that is second-best; and if the man had
always consecrated his faculty to God, he would never have had need to cut it off. To harness and
tame it, to yoke it to the cart, and make it work, not to shoot the wild beast, is the right thing to do.
(2) Thus to consecrate one’s self is the way to secure a higher and a nobler life. Just as when you
take a flower out of the woods and put it into a greenhouse and cultivate it, you will get a broader
leaf and a finer flower than when it was wild, so the disciplined, consecrated man is the man whose
life is the richest every way. If you want to go all to rack and ruin live according to your own fancy
and taste.
3. This sacrifice is “your reasonable service.” The antithesis is with the material sacrifices, and the
Revised Version gives the true meaning in its marginal rendering “spiritual.” It is a service or
worship rendered by the inner man, transacted by the mind or reason, and thus, as indicating the
part of our nature which performs it, is reasonable. Now there is no need to depreciate outward
forms of oral worship. But still we have all need to be reminded that devout daily living is true

74. worship. Where the common food is eaten with thankfulness and in the consciousness of His
presence, it is holy as the Lord’s Supper. The same authority that said of the one,” This do in
remembrance of Me,” said by His apostle of the other, “Whether ye eat or drink, do all in the name
of the Lord Jesus.” “To work is to pray,” if done from a right motive. The bells on the horses may
bear the same inscription as blazed on the high priest’s mitre, “Holiness to the Lord,” and the shop-
girl behind the counter may be as truly offering sacrifice to God as the priest by the altar. The mere
formal worship is abomination without this.
EUB, “CHRISTIAN CONDUCT THE ISSUE OF CHRISTIAN TRUTH
AGAIN we may conjecture a pause, a long pause and deliberate, in the work of Paul and
Tertius. We have reached the end, generally speaking, of the dogmatic and so to speak
oracular contents of the Epistle. We have listened to the great argument of
Righteousness, Sanctification, and final Redemption. We have followed the exposition of
the mysterious unbelief and the destined restoration of the chosen nation; a theme which
we can see, as we look back on the perspective of the whole Epistle, to have a deep and
suggestive connection with what went before it; for the experience of Israel, in relation to
the sovereign will and grace of God, is full of light thrown upon the experience of the
soul. Now in order comes the bright sequel of this mighty antecedent, this complex but
harmonious mass of spiritual facts and historical illustrations of the will and ways of the
Eternal. The voice of St. Paul is heard again; and he comes full upon the Lord’s message
of duty, conduct, character.
As out of some cleft in the face of the rocky hills rolls the full pure stream born in their
depths, and runs under the sun and sky through green meadows and beside the thirsty
homes of men, so here from the inmost mysteries of grace comes the message of all-
comprehensive holy duty. The Christian, filled with the knowledge of an eternal love, is
told how not to dream, but to serve, with all the mercies of God for his motive.
This is indeed in the manner of the New Testament; this vital sequence of duty and
doctrine; the divine Truths first, and then and therefore the blessed Life. To take only St.
Paul’s writings, the Ephesian and Colossian Epistles are each, practically, bisected by a
line which has eternal facts before it and present duties, done in the light and power of
them, after it. But the whole Book of God, in its texture all over, shows the same
phenomenon. Someone has remarked with homely force that in the Bible everywhere, if
only we dig deep enough, we find "Do right" at the bottom. And we may add that
everywhere also we have only to dig one degree deeper to find that the precept is rooted
in eternal underlying facts of divine truth and love.
Scripture, that is to say, its Lord and Author, does not give us the terrible gift of a precept
isolated and in a vacuum. It supports its commandments on a base of cogent motive; and
it fills the man who is to keep them with the power of a living Presence in him; this we
have seen at large in the pages of the Epistle already traversed. But then, on the other
hand. the Lord of Scripture does not leave the motive and the Presence without the
articulate precept. Rather, because they are supplied and assured to the believer, it
spreads out all the more amply and minutely a moral directory before his eyes. It tells
him, as a man who now rests on God and loves Him, and in whom God dwells, not only
in general that he is to "walk and please God" but in particular "how" to do it. (1Th_4:1)
It takes his life in detail, and applies the will of the Lord to it. It speaks to him in explicit
terms about moral purity, in the name of the Holy One: about patience and kindness, in

75. the name of redeeming Love; about family duties, in the name of the Father and of the
Son; about civic duties, in the name of the King Eternal. And the whole outline and all
the details thus become to the believer things not only of duty but of possibility, of hope,
of the strong interest given by the thought that thus and thus the beloved Master would
have us use His divine gift of life. Nothing is more wonderfully free, from one point of
view, than love and spiritual power. But if the love is indeed given by God and directed
towards Him in Christ, the man who loves cannot possibly wish to be his own law, and to
spend his soul’s power upon his own ideas or preferences. His joy and his conscious aim
must be to do, in detail, the will of the Lord who is now so dear to him; and therefore, in
detail, to know it.
Let us take deep note of this characteristic of Scripture, its minuteness of precept, in
connection with its revelation of spiritual blessing. If in any sense we are called to be
teachers of others, let us carry out the example. Richard Cecil, wise and pregnant
counsellor in Christ, says that if he had to choose between preaching precepts and
preaching privileges he would preach privileges; because the privileges of the true Gospel
tend in their nature to suggest and stimulate right action, while the precepts taken alone
do not reveal the wealth of divine life and power. But Cecil, like his great contemporaries
of the Evangelical Revival, constantly and diligently preached as a fact both privilege and
precept; opening with energetic hands the revealed fulness of Christ, and then and
therefore teaching "them which had believed through grace" not only the idea of duty,
but its details. Thomas Scott, at Olney, devoted his week night "lecture" in the parish
church almost exclusively to instructions in daily Christian life. Assuming that his
hearers "knew Christ" in personal reality, he told them how to be Christians in the home,
in the shop, in the farm: how to be consistent with their regenerate life as parents,
children, servants, masters, neighbours, subjects. There have been times, perhaps, when
such didactic preaching has been too little used in the Church. But the men who, under
God, in the last century and the early years of this century, revived the message of Christ
Crucified and Risen as all in all for our salvation, were eminently diligent in teaching
Christian morals. At the present day, in many quarters of our Christendom, there is a
remarkable revival of the desire to apply saving truth to common life, and to keep the
Christian always mindful that he not only has heaven in prospect, but is to travel to it,
every step, in the path of practical and watchful holiness. This is a sign of divine mercy in
the Church. This is profoundly Scriptural.
Meanwhile, God forbid that such "teaching how to live" should ever be given, by parent,
pastor, schoolmaster, friend, where it does not first pass through the teacher’s own soul
into his own life. Alas for us if we show ever so convincingly, and even ever so winningly,
the bond between salvation and holiness, and do not "walk accurately" (Eph_5:15)
ourselves, in the details of our walk.
As we actually approach the rules of holiness now before us, let us once more recollect
what we have seen all along in the Epistle, that holiness is the aim and issue of the entire
Gospel. It is indeed an "evidence of life," infinitely weighty in the inquiry whether a man
knows God indeed and is on the way to His heaven. But it is much more; it is the
expression of life; it is the form and action in which life is intended to come out. In our
orchards (to use again a parable we have used already) the golden apples are evidences of
the tree’s species, and of its life. But a wooden label could tell us the species, and leaves
can tell the life. The fruit is more than label or leaf; it is the thing for which the tree is
there. We who believe are "chosen" and "ordained" to "bring forth fruit," (Joh_15:16)
fruit much and lasting. The eternal Master walks in His garden for the very purpose of
seeing if the trees bear. And the fruit He looks for is no visionary thing; it is a life of holy
serviceableness to Him and to our fellows, in His Name.

76. But now we draw near again and listen:
I exhort you therefore, brethren, by means of the compassions of God; using as my logic
and my fulcrum this "depths of riches" we have explored; this wonderful Redemption,
with its sovereignty, its mercy, its acceptance, its holiness, its glory; this overruling of
even sin and rebellion, in Gentile and in Jew, into occasions for salvation; these
compassionate indications in the nearer and the eternal future of golden days yet to
come; -I exhort you therefore to present, to give over, your bodies as a sacrifice, an altar
offering, living, holy, well pleasing, unto God; for this is your rational devotion. That is to
say, it is the "devotion," the "cultus," the worship service, which is done by the reason,
the mind, the thought and will, of the man who has found God in Christ. The Greek term,
"latreia," is tinged with associations of ritual and temple; but it is taken here, and
qualified by its adjective, on purpose to be lifted, as in paradox, into the region of the
soul. The robes and incense of the visible sanctuary are here out of sight; the individual
believer is at once priest, sacrifice, and altar; he immolates himself to the Lord, -living,
yet no longer to himself.
But observe the pregnant collocation here of "the body" with "the reason." "Give over
your bodies"; not now your spirit, your intelligence, your sentiments, your aspirations,
but "your bodies," to your Lord. Is this an anticlimax? Have we retreated from the higher
to the lower, in coming from the contemplation of sovereign grace and the eternal glory
to that of the physical frame of man? No more than the Lord Jesus did. when He walked
down from the hill of Transfiguration to the crowd below, and to the sins and miseries it
presented. He came from the scene of glory to serve man in its abiding inner light. And
even He, in the days of His flesh, served men, ordinarily, only through His sacred body:
walking to them with His feet; touching them with His hands; meeting their eyes with
His; speaking with His lips the words that were spirit and life. As with Him so with us. It
is only through the body, practically, that we can "serve our generation by the will of
God." Not without the body but through it the spirit must tell on the embodied spirits
around us. We look, we speak, we hear, we write, we nurse, we travel, by means of these
material servants of the will, our living limbs. Without the body, where should we be, as
to other men? And therefore, without the surrender of the body, where are we, as to
other men, from the point of view of the will of God?
So there is a true sense in which, while the surrender of the will is all-important and
primary from one point of view, the surrender of the body, the "giving over" of the body,
to be the implement of God’s will in us, is all important, is crucial, from another. For
many a Christian life it is the most needful of all things to remember this: it is the
oblivion, or the mere half recollection, of this which keeps that life an almost neutral
thing as to witness and service for the Lord.
And do not grow conformed to this world, this "aeon," the course and state of things in
this scene of sin and death; do not play "the worldling," assuming a guise which in itself
is fleeting, and which for you, members of Christ, must also be hollow: but grow
transfigured, living out a lasting and genuine change of tone and conduct, in which the
figure is only the congenial expression of the essence-by the renewal of your mind, by
using as an implement in the holy process that divine light which has cleared your
intelligence of the mists of self-love, and taught you to see as with new eyes "the
splendour of the will of God"; so as that you test, discerning as by a spiritual touchstone,
what is the will of God, the good, and acceptable, and perfect (will).
Such was to be the method, and such the issue, in this development of the surrendered
life. All is divine in origin and secret. The eternal "compassions," and the sovereign work
of the renewing and illuminating Spirit, are supposed before the believer can move one

77. step. On the other hand the believer, in the full conscious action of his renewed
"intelligence," is to ponder the call to seek "transfiguration" in a life of unworldly love,
and to attain it in detail by using the new insight of a regenerated heart. He is to look,
with the eyes of the soul, straight through every mist of self-will to the now beloved Will
of God, as his deliberate choice, seen to be welcome, seen to be perfect, not because all is
understood, but because the man is joyfully surrendered to the all-trusted Master. Thus
he is to move along the path of an ever-brightening transfiguration; at once open eyed,
and in the dark; seeing the Lord, and so with a sure instinct gravitating to His will, yet
content to let the mists of the unknown always hang over the next step but one.
It is a process, not a crisis; "grow transfigured." The origin of the process, the liberation
of the movement, is, at least in idea, as critical as possible; "Give over your bodies." That
precept is conveyed, in its Greek form (παραστηαι, aorist), so as to suggest precisely the
thought of a critical surrender. The Roman Christian, and his English younger brother,
are called here, as they were above, (Rom_6:13; Rom_6:19) to a transaction with the
Lord quite definite, whether or no the like has taken place before, or shall be done again.
They are called, as if once for all, to look their Lord in the face, and to clasp His gifts in
their hands, and then to put themselves and His gifts altogether into His hands, for
perpetual use and service. So, from the side of his conscious experience, the Christian is
called to a "hallowing of himself" decisive, crucial, instantaneous. But its outcome is to
be a perpetual progression, a growth, not so much "into" grace as "in" it, (2Pe_3:18) in
which the surrender in purpose becomes a long series of deepening surrenders in habit
and action, and a larger discovery of self, and of the Lord, and of His will, takes effect in
the "shining" of the transfigured life "more and more, unto the perfect day". (Pro_4:18)
Let us not distort this truth of progression, and its correlative truth of the Christian’s
abiding imperfection. Let us not profane it into an excuse for a life which at the best is
stationary, and must almost certainly be retrograde, because not intent upon a genuine
advance. Let us not withhold "our bodies" from the sacred surrender here enjoined upon
us, and yet expect to realise somehow, at some vague date. a "transfiguration, by the
renewal of our mind." We shall be indeed disappointed of that hope. But let us be at once
stimulated and sobered by the spiritual facts. As we are "yielded to the Lord," in sober
reality, we are in His mercy "liberated for growth." But the growth is to come, among
other ways, by the diligent application of "the renewal of our mind" to the details of His
blessed Will.
And it will come, in its true development, only in the line of holy humbleness. To exalt
oneself, even in the spiritual life, is not to grow; it is to wither. So the Apostle goes on:
For I say, through the grace that has been given me, "the grace" of power for apostolic
admonition, to everyone who is among you, not to be high-minded beyond what his
mind should be, but to be minded toward sober-mindedness, as to each God distributed
faith’s measure. That is to say, let the individual never, in himself, forget his brethren,
and the mutual relation of each to all in Christ. Let him never make himself the centre, or
think of his personal salvation as if it could really be taken alone. The Lord, the sovereign
Giver of faith, the Almighty Bringer of souls into acceptance and union with Christ by
faith, has given thy faith to thee, and thy brother’s faith to him; and why? That the
individual gifts, the bounty of the One Giver, might join the individuals not only to the
Giver but to one another, as recipients of riches many yet one, and which are to be spent
in service one yet many. The One Lord distributes the one faith power into many hearts,
"measuring" it out to each, so that the many, individually believing in the One, may not
collide and contend, but lovingly cooperate in a manifold service, the issue of their "like
precious faith" (2Pe_1:2) conditioned by the variety of their lives. So comes in that

78. pregnant parable of the Body, found only in the writings of St. Paul, and in four only of
his Epistles, but so stated there as to take a place forever in the foreground of Christian
truth. We have it here in the Romans, and in larger detail in the contemporary 1
Corinthians. (1Co_12:12-27) We have it finally and fully in the later Epistolary Group, of
the first Roman Captivity-in Ephesians and Colossians. There the supreme point in the
whole picture, the glorious Head, and His relation to the Limb and to the Body. comes
out in all its greatness, while in these earlier passages it appears only incidentally. But
each presentation, the earlier and the later, is alike true to its purpose. When St. Paul
wrote to the Asiatics he was in presence of errors which beclouded the living splendour
of the Head. When he wrote to the Romans, he was concerned rather with the
interdependence of the limbs, in the practice of Christian social life.
We have spoken of "the parable of the Body." But is the word "parable" adequate? "What
if earth be but the shadow of heaven?" What if our physical frame, the soul’s house and
vehicle, be only the feebler counterpart of that great Organism in which the exalted
Christ unites and animates His saints? That union is no mere aggregation, no mere
alliance of so many men under the presidency of an invisible Leader. It is a thing of life.
Each to the living Head, and so each to all His members, we are joined, in that wonderful
connection with a tenacity, and with a relation, genuine, strong, and close as the eternal
life can make it. The living, breathing man, multifold yet one, is but the reflection, as it
were, of "Christ Mystical," the true Body with its heavenly Head.
For just as in one body we have many limbs, but all the limbs have not the same function,
so we, the many, are one body in Christ, in our personal union with Him, but in detail,
limbs of one another, coherent and related not as neighbours merely, but as
complementary parts in the whole. But having endowments-according to the grace that
was given to us-differing, be it prophecy, inspired utterance, a power from above, yet
mysteriously conditioned (1Co_14:32) by the judgment and will of the utterer, let it
follow the proportion of the man’s faith, let it be true to his entire dependence on the
revealed Christ, not left at the mercy of his mere emotions, or, as it were, played upon by
alien unseen powers; be it active service, let the man be in his service, wholly given to it,
not turning aside to covet his brother’s more mystic gift; be it the teacher, let him
likewise be in his teaching, wholehearted in his allotted work, free from ambitious
outlooks from it; be it the exhorter, let him be in his exhortation; the distributer of his
means, for God, with open handedness; the superintendent, of Church, or of home, with
earnestness; the pitier, (large and unofficial designation!) with gladness, doubling his
gifts and works of mercy by the hallowed brightness of a heart set free from the aims of
self, and therefore wholly at the service of the needing.
This paragraph of eight verses lies here before us, full all along of that deep characteristic
of Gospel life, surrender for service. The call is to a profoundly passive inward attitude,
with an express view to a richly active outward usefulness. Possessed, and knowing it, of
the compassions of God, the man is asked to give himself over to Eternal Love for
purposes of unworldly and unambitious employment in the path chosen for him,
whatever it may be. In this respect above all others he is to be "not conformed to this
world"-that is, he is to make not himself but his Lord his pleasure and ambition. "By the
renewal of his mind" he is to view the Will of God from a point inaccessible to the
unregenerate, to the unjustified, to the man not emancipated in Christ from the tyranny
of sin. He is to see in it his inexhaustible interest, his line of quest and hope, his ultimate
and satisfying aim: because of the practical identity of the Will and the infinitely good
and blessed Bearer of it. And this more than surrender of his faculties, this happy and
reposeful consecration of them, is to show its reality in one way above all others first; in a
humble estimate of self as compared with brother Christians, and a watchful willingness

79. to do-not another’s work but the duty that lies next.
This relative aspect of the life of self-surrender is the burthen of this great paragraph of
duty. In the following passage we shall find precepts more in detail; but here we have
what is to govern all along the whole stream of the obedient life. The man rich in Christ is
reverently to remember others, and God’s will in them, and for them. He is to avoid the
subtle temptation to intrude beyond the Master’s allotted work for him. He is to be slow
to think, "I am richly qualified, and could do this thing, and that, and the other, better
than the man who does it now." His chastened spiritual instinct will rather go to criticise
himself, to watch for the least deficiency in his own doing of the task which at least today
is his. He will "give himself wholly to this," be it more or less attractive to him in itself.
For he works as one who has not to contrive a life as full of success and influence as he
can imagine, but to accept a life assigned by the Lord who has first given to him Himself.
The passage itself amply implies that he is to use actively and honestly his renewed
intelligence. He is to look circumstances and conditions in the face, remembering that in
one way or another the will of God is expressed in them. He is to seek to understand not
his duties only, but his personal equipments for them, natural as well as spiritual. But he
is to do this as one whose "mind" is "renewed" by his living contact and union with Iris
redeeming King, and who has really laid Iris faculties at the feet of an absolute Master,
who is the Lord of order as well as of power.
What peace, energy, and dignity come into a life which is consciously and deliberately
thus surrendered! The highest range of duties, as man counts highest, is thus
disburthened both of its heavy anxieties and of its temptations to a ruinous self-
importance. And the lowest range, as man counts lowest, is filled with the quiet
greatness born of the presence and will of God. In the memoirs of Mme. de la Mothe
Guyon much is said of her faithful maidservant, who was imprisoned along with her (in a
separate chamber) in the Bastille, and there died, about the year 1700. This pious
woman, deeply taught in the things of the Spirit, and gifted with an understanding far
above the common, appears never for an hour to have coveted a more ambitious
department than that which God assigned her in His obedience. "She desired to be what
God would have her be, and to be nothing more, and nothing less. She included time and
place, as well as disposition and action. She had not a doubt that God, who had given
remarkable powers to Mme. Guyon, had called her to the great work in which she was
employed. But knowing that her beloved mistress could not go alone, but must
constantly have some female attendant, she had the conviction, equally distinct, that she
was called to be her maidservant."
A great part of the surface of Christian society would be "transfigured" if its depth was
more fully penetrated with that spirit. And it is to that spirit that the Apostle here
definitely calls us, each and every one, not as with a "counsel of perfection" for the few,
but as the will of God for all who have found out what is meant by His "compassions,"
and have caught even a glimpse of His Will as "good, and acceptable, and perfect."
"I would not have the restless will That hurries to and fro, Seeking for some great thing
to do Or secret thing to know I would be treated as a child, And guided where I go."

80. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind. Then you will be able to test and
approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing
and perfect will.
§ LT, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world”
§ IV, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world”
§ AMP, “Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted
to its external, superficial customs]”
§ ASB, “And do not be conformed to this world”
§ The Message, “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it
without even thinking.”
Barclay, “The word he uses for being transformed from the world is
metamorphousthai. Its root is morphe, which means the essential unchanging shape
or element of anything. A man has not the same schema at seventeen and seventy,
but he has the same morphe; a man in dungarees has not the same schema as a man
in evening dress, but he has the same morphe; his outward form changes, but
inwardly he is the same person. So, Paul says, to worship and serve God, we must
undergo a change, not of our outward form, but of our inward personality. What is
that change? Paul would say that left to ourselves we live a life kata sarka,
dominated by human nature at its lowest; in Christ we live a life kata Christon or
kata pneuma, dominated by Christ or by the Spirit. The essential man has been
changed; now he lives, not a self-centred, but a Christ-centred life. This must happen,
Paul says, by the renewal of your mind. The word he uses for renewal is anakainosis
(GS 0342). In Greek there are two words for new--neos and kainos. eos means
new in point of time; kainos means new in point of character and nature. A newly
manufactured pencil is neos; but a man who was once a sinner and is now on the
way to being a saint is kainos. When Christ comes into a man's life he is a new man;
his mind is different, for the mind of Christ is in him.”
BAR ES, “And be not conformed ... - The word rendered “conformed” properly

81. means to put on the form, fashion, or appearance of another. It may refer to anything
pertaining to the habit, manner, dress, style of living, etc., of others.
Of this world - τሬ αᅶራνι τούτሩ tō aiōni toutō. The word which is commonly rendered
“world,” when applied to the material universe, is κόσµος kosmos, “cosmos.” The word
used here properly denotes an age, or generation of people. It may denote a particular
generation, or it may be applied to the race. It is sometimes used in each of these senses.
Thus, here it may mean that Christians should not conform to the maxims, habits,
feelings, etc., of a wicked, luxurious, and idolatrous age, but should be conformed solely
to the precepts and laws of the gospel; or the same principle may be extended to every
age, and the direction may be, that Christians should not conform to the prevailing
habits, style, and manners of the world, the people who know not God. They are to be
governed by the laws of the Bible; to fashion their lives after the example of Christ; and
to form themselves by principles different from those which prevail in the world. In the
application of this rule there is much difficulty. Many may think that they are not
conformed to the world, while they can easily perceive that their neighbor is. They
indulge in many things which others may think to be conformity to the world, and are
opposed to many things which others think innocent. The design of this passage is
doubtless to produce a spirit that should not find pleasure in the pomp and vanity of the
World; and which will regard all vain amusements and gaieties with disgust, and lead the
mind to find pleasure in better things.
Be ye transformed - The word from which the expression here is derived means
“form, habit” µορφή morphē. The direction is, “put on another form, change the form of
the world for that of Christianity.” This word would properly refer to the external
appearance, but the expression which the apostle immediately uses, “renewing of the
mind,.” shows that he did not intend to use it with reference to that only, but to the
charge of the whole man. The meaning is, do not cherish a spirit. devoted to the world,
following its vain fashions and pleasures, but cultivate a spirit attached to God, and his
kingdom and cause.
By the renewing - By the making new; the changing into new views and feelings.
The Christian is often represented as a new creature; 2Co_5:17; Gal_6:15; Eph_4:24;
1Pe_2:2.
Your mind - The word translated “mind” properly denotes intellect, as distinguished
from the will and affections. But here it seems to be used as applicable to the whole spirit
as distinguished from the body, including the understanding, will, and affections. As if he
had said, Let not this change appertain to the body only, but to the soul. Let it not be a
mere external conformity, but let it have its seat in the spirit. All external changes, if the
mind was not changed, would be useless, or would be hypocrisy. Christianity seeks to
reign in the soul; and having its seat there, the external conduct and habits will be
regulated accordingly.
That ye may prove - The word used here δοκιµάζω dokimazō is commonly applied to
metals, to the operation of testing, or trying them by the severity of fire, etc. Hence, it
also means to explore, investigate, ascertain. This is its meaning here. The sense is, that
such a renewed mind is essential to a successful inquiry after the will of God. Having a
disposition to obey him, the mind will be prepared to understand his precepts. There will
be a correspondence between the feelings of the heart and his will; a nice tact or taste,
which will admit his laws, and see the propriety and beauty of his commands. A renewed
heart is the best preparation for studying Christianity; as a man who is temperate is the
best suited to understand the arguments for temperance; the man who is chaste, has

82. most clearly and forcibly the arguments for chastity, etc. A heart in love with the fashions
and follies of the world is ill-suited to appreciate the arguments for humility, prayer, etc.
“If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God,”
Joh_7:17. The reason why the heart is renewed is that we may do the will of God: the
heart that is renewed is best suited to appreciate and understand his will.
That good ... - This part of the verse might be rendered, that ye may investigate the
will of God, or ascertain the Will of God, what is good, and perfect, and acceptable. The
will of God relates to his commands in regard to our conduct, his doctrines in regard to
our belief, his providential dealings in relation to our external circumstances. It means
what God demands of us, in whatever way it may be made known. They do not err from
his ways who seek his guidance, and who, not confiding in their own wisdom, but in God,
commit their way to him. “The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he
teach his way,” Psa_25:9. The word “good” here is not an adjective agreeing with “will,”
but a noun. “That ye may find the will of God, what is good and acceptable.” It implies
that that thing which is good is his will; or that we may find his will by finding what is
good and perfect. That is good which promotes the honor of God and the interests of his
universe.
Perfect - Free from defect, stain, or injury. That which has all its parts complete, or
which is not disproportionate. Applied to religion, it means what is consistent, which is
carried out; which is evinced in all the circumstances and reactions of life.
Acceptable - That which will be pleasing to God. or which he will approve. There is
scarcely a more difficult text in the Bible than this, or one that is more full of meaning. It
involves the main duty of religion to be separated from the world; and expresses the way
in which that duty may be performed, and in which we may live so as to ascertain and do
the will of God. If all Christians would obey this, religion would be everywhere honored.
If all would separate from the vices and follies, the amusements and gaieties of the
world, Christ would be glorified. If all were truly renewed in their minds, they would lose
their relish for such things, and seeking only to do the will of God, they would not be
slow to find it.
CLARKE, “And be not conformed to this world - By this world, αιωνι τουτሩ, may
be understood that present state of things both among the Jews and Gentiles; the
customs and fashions of the people who then lived, the Gentiles particularly, who had
neither the power nor the form of godliness; though some think that the Jewish
economy, frequently termed ‫הזה‬ ‫עולם‬ olam hazzeh, this world, this peculiar state of things,
is alone intended. And the apostle warns them against reviving usages that Christ had
abolished: this exhortation still continues in full force. The world that now is - This
present state of things, is as much opposed to the spirit of genuine Christianity as the
world then was. Pride, luxury, vanity, extravagance in dress, and riotous living, prevail
now, as they did then, and are as unworthy of a Christian’s pursuit as they are injurious
to his soul, and hateful in the sight of God.
Be ye transformed - Μεταµορφουσθε, Be ye metamorphosed, transfigured, appear
as new persons, and with new habits, as God has given you a new form of worship, so
that ye serve in the newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. The word
implies a radical, thorough, and universal change, both outward and inward. Seneca,
Epis. vi, shows us the force of this word when used in a moral sense. Sentio, says he, non

83. Emendari me tantum, sed Transfigurari; “I perceive myself not to be amended merely,
but to be transformed:” i. e entirely renewed.
By the renewing of your mind - Let the inward change produce the outward.
Where the spirit, the temper, and disposition of the mind, Eph_4:23, are not renewed,
an outward change is of but little worth, and but of short standing.
That ye may prove - Εις το δοκιµαζειν, That ye may have practical proof and
experimental knowledge of, the will of God - of his purpose and determination, which is
good in itself; infinitely so. Acceptable, ευαρεστον, well pleasing to and well received by
every mind that is renewed and transformed.
And perfect - Τελειον, Finished and complete: when the mind is renewed, and the
whole life changed, then the will of God is perfectly fulfilled; for this is its grand design in
reference to every human being.
These words are supposed by Schoettgen to refer entirely to the Jewish law. The
Christians were to renounce this world - the Jewish state of things; to be transformed, by
having their minds enlightened in the pure and simple Christian worship, that they
might prove the grand characteristic difference between the two covenants: the latter
being good in opposition to the statutes which were not good, Eze_20:25; acceptable, in
opposition to those sacrifices and offerings which God would not accept, as it is written,
Psa_40:6-8; and perfect, in opposition to that system which was imperfect, and which
made nothing perfect, and was only the shadow of good things to come. There are both
ingenuity and probability in this view of the subject.
GILL, “And be not conformed to this world,.... By this world is meant, either the
Mosaic dispensation, and Jewish church state, so called in opposition to ‫הבא‬ ‫,עולם‬ "the
world to come", the Gospel dispensation; in which there were a worldly sanctuary, and the rites
and ceremonies of which are styled the rudiments and elements of the world; to which believers
in the present state are by no means to conform, there being sacrifices and ordinances of another
nature, it is the will of God they should observe and attend unto: or else the men of the world are
designed, carnal and unregenerate men, among whom they formerly had their conversation, from
among whom they were chosen, called, and separated, and who lie and live in wickedness, and
therefore should not be conformed unto them: which is to be understood, not in a civil sense of
conformity to them in garb and apparel, provided that pride and luxury are guarded against, and
decency and sobriety observed, and the different abilities of persons and stations in life are
attended to; or to any other civil usages and customs which are not contrary to natural and
revealed religion; but of a conformity in a moral sense to the evil manners of men, to walk vainly,
as other Gentiles do, to go into the same excess of riot with them; for this is contrary both to the
principle and doctrine of grace, which teach men to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts: and of a
compliance with the men of the world in a religious sense, by joining with them in acts of idolatry,

84. superstition, and will worship, and in anything that is contrary to the order, ordinances, and
truths of the Gospel.
But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mindBut be ye transformed by the renewing of your mindBut be ye transformed by the renewing of your mindBut be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind; which regards not the first work of
conversion and renovation; for in this sense these persons were transformed, metamorphosed,
changed, and renewed already; but the after progress and carrying on the work of renovation, the
renewing of them day by day in the spirit of their minds; see Eph_4:23; which believers should be
desirous of, and pray for, and make use of those means which the Spirit of God owns for this
purpose, attending to the spiritual exercises of religion, as reading, meditation, prayer,
conference, the ministration of the word and ordinances, which is the reverse of conformity to the
world: and the end to be attained hereby is,
that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of Godthat ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of Godthat ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of Godthat ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God; by which is meant
not the secret will of God, which cannot be searched into, proved, and known, till time and facts
discover it: but the revealed will of God, both in the law, as in the hands of Christ, which contains
nothing but what is good; and which when done in faith, from a principle of love, and to the glory
of God, is acceptable through Christ; and is perfect as a law of liberty, and rule of walk and
conversation; and which is to be proved and approved of by all the saints, who delight in it after
the inward man: and also that which is contained in the Gospel; as that all that the Father had
given to Christ should be redeemed by him, that these should be sanctified, and persevere to the
end, and be glorified; all which is the good will of God, an acceptable saying to sensible sinners,
and such a scheme of salvation as is perfect and complete, and needs nothing to be added to it;
and is, by such who are daily renewed in the spirit of their minds, more and more proved, tried,
discerned, and approved of, even by all such who have their spiritual senses exercised to discern
things that differ.
HE RY, “ The mind must be renewed for him. This is pressed (Rom_12:2):
“Be you transformed by the renewing of your mind; see to it that there be a
saving change wrought in you, and that it be carried on.” Conversion and
sanctification are the renewing of the mind, a change not of the substance,
but of the qualities of the soul. It is the same with making a new heart and a
new spirit - new dispositions and inclinations, new sympathies and
antipathies; the understanding enlightened, the conscience softened, the
thoughts rectified; the will bowed to the will of God, and the affections made
spiritual and heavenly: so that the man is not what he was - old things are
passed away, all things are become new; he acts from new principles, by new
rules, with new designs. The mind is the acting ruling part of us; so that the

85. renewing of the mind is the renewing of the whole man, for out of it are the
issues of life, Pro_4:23. The progress of sanctification, dying to sin more
and more and living to righteousness more and more, is the carrying on of
this renewing work, till it be perfected in glory. This is called the
transforming of us; it is like putting on a new shape and figure.
MateamorphoustheMateamorphoustheMateamorphoustheMateamorphousthe - Be you metamorphosed. The transfiguration of Christ is
expressed by this word (Mat_17:2), when he put on a heavenly glory, which
made his face to shine like the sun; and the same word is used 2Co_3:18,
where we are said to be changed into the same image from glory to glory.
This transformation is here pressed as a duty; not that we can work such a
change ourselves: we could as soon make a new world as make a new heart
by any power of our own; it is God's work, Eze_11:19; Eze_36:26, Eze_36:27.
But be you transformed, that is, “use the means which God hath appointed
and ordained for it.” It is God that turns us, and then we are turned; but we
must frame our doings to turn, Hos_5:4. “Lay your souls under the
changing transforming influences of the blessed Spirit; seek unto God for
grace in the use of all the means of grace.” Though the new man be created
of God, yet we must put it on (Eph_4:24), and be pressing forward towards
perfection. Now in this verse we may further observe,
[1.] What is the great enemy to this renewing, which we must avoid; and that is,
conformity to this world: Be not conformed to this world. All the disciples and followers
of the Lord Jesus must be nonconformists to this world. Mē suschēmatizesthe - Do not
fashion yourselves according to the world. We must not conform to the things of the
world; they are mutable, and the fashion of them is passing away. Do not conform either
to the lusts of the flesh or the lusts of the eye. We must not conform to the men of the
world, of that world which lies in wickedness, not walk according to the course of this
world (Eph_2:2); that is, we must not follow a multitude to do evil, Exo_23:2. If sinners
entice us, we must not consent to them, but in our places witness against them. Nay,
even in things indifferent, and which are not in themselves sinful, we must so far not
conform to the custom and way of the world as not to act by the world's dictates as our
chief rule, nor to aim at the world's favours as our highest end. True Christianity consists
much in a sober singularity. Yet we must take heed of the extreme of affected rudeness
and moroseness, which some run into. In civil things, the light of nature and the custom
of nations are intended for our guidance; and the rule of the gospel in those cases is a
rule of direction, not a rule of contrariety.
[2.] What is the great effect of this renewing, which we must labour after: That you
may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. by the will of God
here we are to understand his revealed will concerning our duty, what the Lord our God
requires of us. This is the will of God in general, even our sanctification, that will which
we pray may be done by us as it is done by the angels; especially his will as it is revealed
in the New Testament, where he hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son. First,
The will of God is good, and acceptable, and perfect; three excellent properties of a law.
It is good (Mic_6:8); it is exactly consonant to the eternal reason of good and evil. It is
good in itself. It is good for us. Some think the evangelical law is here called good, in
distinction from the ceremonial law, which consisted of statutes that were not good,
Eze_20:25. It is acceptable, it is pleasing to God; that and that only is so which is
prescribed by him. The only way to attain his favour as the end is to conform to his will
as the rule. It is perfect, to which nothing can be added. The revealed will of God is a
sufficient rule of faith and practice, containing all things which tend to the perfection of
the man of God, to furnish us thoroughly to every good work, 2Ti_3:16, 2Ti_3:17.

86. Secondly, That it concerns Christians to prove what is that will of God which is good, and
acceptable, and perfect; that is, to know it with judgment and approbation, to know it
experimentally, to know the excellency of the will of God by the experience of a
conformity to it. It is to approve things that are excellent (Phi_1:10); it is dokimazein (the
same word that is used here) to try things that differ, in doubtful cases readily to
apprehend what the will of God is and to close in with it. It is to be of quick
understanding in the fear of the Lord, Isa_11:3. Thirdly, That those are best able to
prove what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God, who are transformed by
the renewing of their mind. A living principle of grace is in the soul, as far as it prevails,
an unbiassed unprejudiced judgment concerning the things of God. It disposes the soul
to receive and entertain the revelations of the divine will. The promise is (Joh_7:17), If
any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine. A good wit can dispute and
distinguish about the will of God; while an honest, humble heart, that has spiritual
senses exercised, and is delivered into the mould of the word, loves it, and practises it,
and has the relish and savour of it. Thus to be godly is to surrender ourselves to God.
JAMISO , “And be ye not conformed to this world — Compare Eph_2:2;
Gal_1:4, Greek.
but be ye transformed — or, “transfigured” (as in Mat_17:2; and 2Co_3:18, Greek).
by the renewing of your mind — not by a mere outward disconformity to the
ungodly world, many of whose actions in themselves may be virtuous and praiseworthy;
but by such an inward spiritual transformation as makes the whole life new - new in its
motives and ends, even where the actions differ in nothing from those of the world - new,
considered as a whole, and in such a sense as to be wholly unattainable save through the
constraining power of the love of Christ.
that ye may prove — that is, experimentally. (On the word “experience” see on
Rom_5:4, and compare 1Th_5:10, where the sentiment is the same).
what is that — “the”
good and acceptable — “well-pleasing”
and perfect, will of God — We prefer this rendering (with Calvin) to that which
many able critics [Tholuck, Meyer, De Wette, Fritzsche, Philippi, Alford, Hodge] adopt -
“that ye may prove,” or “discern the will of God, [even] what is good, and acceptable, and
perfect.” God’s will is “good,” as it demands only what is essentially and unchangeably
good (Rom_7:10); it is “well pleasing,” in contrast with all that is arbitrary, as
demanding only what God has eternal complacency in (compare Mic_6:8, with
Jer_9:24); and it is “perfect,” as it required nothing else than the perfection of God’s
reasonable creature, who, in proportion as he attains to it, reflects God’s own perfection.
Such then is the great general duty of the redeemed - SELF-CONSECRATION, in our
whole spirit and soul and body to Him who hath called us into the fellowship of His Son
Jesus Christ. Next follow specific duties, chiefly social; beginning with Humility, the
chiefest of all the graces - but here with special reference to spiritual gifts.
HAWKER 1-5, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service. (2) And be not conformed to this world:
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what
is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (3) For I say, through

87. the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of
himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according
as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. (4) For as we have
many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: (5)
So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and everyone members one of
another.
In order to a right apprehension of the Apostle’s meaning, we must carefully keep in
remembrance, all that went before. Paul begins at this Chapter to shew, what gracious
consequences must follow, in the life of a child of God, brought into the blessed
enjoyment, of being justified freely before God, in the blood and righteousness of Jesus
Christ. He had in the foregoing Chapters, very fully displayed the electing love of God the
Father, the redeeming grace of the Lord Jesus Christ; and the regenerating work of God
the Spirit, upon the souls of God’s people. Having therefore shewn, both the ground-
work, and superstructure of the Church’s mercies, and traced them up to their fountain-
head, in the Covenant-love and faithfulness of Jehovah, in his three-fold character of
Persons; he now calls upon the Church, with all the earnestness and affection of a
brother, to live by faith, in the daily, hourly enjoyment of those glorious privileges. I
beseech you therefore brethren, (saith he,) by the mercies of God, that ye present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
It becomes a point of infinite importance to the peace and comfort of every child of God,
to have a right apprehension of what is here meant. My views, I confess, differ from all
that I have heard or read upon the subject. I therefore, very affectionately, entreat the
Reader to look up to the Almighty Author of his holy word, who guided his servant the
Apostle’s pen, that the Lord the Spirit may be his teacher in the perusal of it. And my
soul is looking also to the same matchless Instructor, that both the Writer and Reader of
this Poor Man’s Commentary may together be taught of God.
I will first beg to observe, what appears to me cannot be the sense and meaning of the
passage, according to true scriptural grounds of faith, before I venture to offer, what
appears to me to be, the real meaning of it. And when I have presented both before the
Reader, I shall very humbly leave him to form, under the Lord, his own conclusions.
And here I begin with observing, that the living sacrifice, which the Apostle calls upon
justified believers in Christ to present unto God, cannot possibly mean anything of their
own; for Christ is the One only sacrifice before God, and by that one offering of himself
once offered, he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, Heb_10:10; Heb_10:14.
Neither can the holiness the Apostle speaks of, in which they are to present their bodies,
mean any holiness of their own; for there is none holy but the Lord; and the Church hath
no holiness but in Christ and from Christ, 1Sa_2:2; Isa_54:17. And Paul could not be
supposed to mean the holiness of the creature; for he had told the Church but just
before, in this Epistle, that his body was a body of sin and death, Rom_7:14-24. He could
not mean, therefore, that the Church was to present their bodies a living sacrifice, and
holy, unto the Lord. And equally foreign to the Apostle’s meaning must it have been, to
suppose, that the Church was to look for acceptance in themselves before God, in any
righteousness of their own; for Paul himself taught, under the Holy Ghost, that it is to
the praise of the glory of God’s grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved,
Eph_1:6. So that upon none of those grounds, could Paul be supposed to recommend the
Church to present their bodies before God.
Having shewn, and I hope upon true scriptural authority, what cannot be supposed to be
the sense of the Apostle’s words, I will now venture, and upon the same authority, to
bring before the Reader what appears to me to be his meaning.

88. Let it be again remembered, that the Apostle had before fully established the doctrine of
the Church being elected, called, justified, and sanctified by God in Christ. He begins an
exhortation from these premises. And that little word, therefore, as an illative particle, he
useth, as deducing all he had to say, and all he entreated from them, in consequence
thereof. / beseech you therefore brethren, brethren in Christ, and as he elsewhere calls
them, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, partakers of Christ, interested
from an union with Christ, in all Christ’s communicable holiness, grace, and glory. See
Heb_3:14; Joh_15:22.
Next, I pray the Reader to observe the Apostle’s expression, when be saith, I beseech you
therefore brethren, by the mercies of Goo, What mercies did the Apostle mean? All are
mercies we have from God. But I humbly conceive Paul alluded to what the Prophet
taught the Church, and which Paul himself afterwards explained, the sure mercies of
David. If the Reader before he prosecutes the subject further, would consult the
scriptures on this point, I venture to believe, that he will be inclined to conclude with me,
that such God the Holy Ghost referred to in this passage. (Compare Isa_55:3 with
Act_13:32-39.) And, if this be supposed, Paul’s exhortation will amount to this, that he
desired the Church by the mercies of God in Christ, to come to God in Christ, and make
this the one, and the only foundation in coming.
Now then we arrive at the main subject of enquiry, concerning this presentation of their
bodies, which is to be, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, and (saith Paul) your
reasonable service. Holy scripture reveals no sacrifice but one. And this indeed is, a
living sacrifice; for Jesus ever liveth to make it effectual, as a life-giving principle to his
people. Having opened a new and living way by his blood, he ever liveth to keep it open
by his intercession. And God the Holy Ghost by putting forth the efficacy of it, unto the
persons of the redeemed, makes it truly living in their hearts and consciences. In this
new and living way we are commanded to come, and very blessed are the consequences
promised to our coming; when our hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our
bodies washed with pure water. Compare Heb_10:19-22 with Eze_36:25. (I need not tell
the Reader, that the waters here spoken of by the Prophet, means the blood of Christ; for
the blood of Christ is called the blood of sprinkling, Heb_12:24. And the Holy Ghost is
never said to be water sprinkled, or put upon us, but a well of water in us, Joh_4:14.)
If, therefore, the Apostle had in view, (as it should seem from all that he had said before
in this Epistle he had,) Christ the living sacrifice, in whom, and by whom, the Church
alone is justified; then in that living sacrifice and Person of her Lord, she was to present
her whole body. And this, indeed, is a living and life-giving sacrifice, truly holy,
acceptable unto God, and our reasonable service; for it is most reasonable that the
services of spiritual worshippers, acting under the Spirit’s constant influences, should
thus present themselves continually before the Lord. But unless the words of the Apostle
be considered in this sense, it is impossible to conceive, that Paul should direct the
Church to do, what he himself could never perform, to present his body a living sacrifice,
holy, and acceptable unto God, when he groaned daily under a body of sin and death.
Yea, he had before said to the Church, if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin;
but the spirit is life because of righteousness, Rom_8:10. And how shall a body dead
because of sin, present itself a living sacrifice?
Reader! The Lord give you a right understanding in all things, 2Ti_2:7. And, if under
divine teaching, your views and mine correspond, we shall both see and through grace be
enabled to follow, what the Apostle so affectionately recommends, when justified in the
Person and work of Christ, by those mercies of God, to present our bodies indeed as well
as our souls, daily, and hourly, upon the Altar of that living sacrifice, which is holy,

89. acceptable unto God, and our reasonable service. For Christ is our New Testament Altar,
(neither is there any other,) our sacrifice, and the sacrificer. And, as the whole person of
every child of God, both soul and body, is united to Christ, both are included in this
presentation. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit, 1Co_6:17. And the Lord Jesus
himself saith, speaking of the persons of his people. That they all may he one, as thou
Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, Joh_17:21. And, while we
know that he abideth in us by the spirit which he hath given us, we know also, that our
bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in us, 1Jn_3:24; 1Co_6:19. And, as it is
by consequence of this union in our souls with Christ as regeneration, we are made
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through
lust; and at the separation by death of soul and body, the soul joins the society of the
spirits of just mm made perfect, until the morning of the resurrection; so, from the same
union with Christ, the body at death sleeps in Jesus, until the last day, and equally one
with Christ in body as well as soul; the body will be raised by virtue of it, to live with
Christ both body and soul forever. The Holy Ghost bears sweet testimony to this most
blessed truth in his word. For if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead
dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal
bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you, Rom_8:11. See 2Pe_1:4.
I do not think it necessary, after having so largely stated what appears to me to be the
Apostle’s meaning of the daily presentation of the child of God in the first verse of this
chapter, to offer anything more on what follows, in relation to the effects which arise out
of it. No one who is a child of God, and who daily lives in acts of faith and grace upon the
Person of Christ and his living sacrifice, will be conformed to this world. A conformity to
this world, and its vanities and customs, is wholly the reverse of a life of grace. For it is
expressly said, that God in his foreknowledge of his children the Church, did
predestinate them to be conformed to the image of his Son, Rom_8:20. So that the very
predestination of the children is to this conformity to Christ, that Christ may be both the
head to his body, and the first-born and brother among many brethren. And where this
is the case, all such will be transformed, by the daily renewings of God the Holy Ghost.
And, as each regenerated soul is a member of Christ’s mystical body; so, through grace,
each will be led into the suited office of that membership, being manifestly a part of the
one body in Christ, and everyone members one of another.
SBC, “Conformity and Transformation.
I. There are two terms in the original language for the expression the world. One of them
regards the things that now are in reference to time, the other in reference to space. The
one means the things that are seen, this material world, with all its enjoyments and
gratifications, its riches, pleasures, and honours; the other means the time or age to
which these things belong, and by which they are limited and circumscribed; the period,
longer or shorter—we know not its duration, but God knoweth—previous to what we are
taught to designate as the end of all things, that consummation of the old, that
introduction of the new, which shall be the concomitant of the second Advent of Jesus
Christ, the consequence of that second and greater Epiphany for which the Church on
earth and in heaven is ever waiting and watching.
II. In the passage before us, the term rendered world means properly the period or age
that now is. Therefore "Be not conformed to this world" becomes equivalent to "Be not
conformed to time, but rather to eternity." Wear not the fashion of persons who belong
to time and have nothing to do with eternity. Let not the garb of your souls, let not the
habit of your lives, be that which befits persons whose home, whose dwelling-place,

90. whose all, is in the passing unreal scene, which we call human life, and who have no part
nor lot in the permanent and unchanging realities of the new heaven and new earth,
which shall come into view with the return of Christ and the resurrection of the just.
Wear not the garb of time, but invest yourselves already with the fashion of eternity.
III. No one can be conformed to, can fashion himself according to, that which he knows
not. We are conformed to this world, not because it satisfies us, not because it makes us
happy; not because we find rest or peace in living by its rules and principles, but because
it is the only world we know, the only world, let me say, in which we know any one. The
way to escape from our worldliness is not so much to struggle with it hand to hand, but
to supersede it, as it were, by the entrance into us of a new affection; by giving our hearts
to another, even to Him who has already entered for us within the veil, and who now and
ever liveth to be our Intercessor and our life.
C. J. Vaughan, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, p. 1.
Romans 12:2
The Christian Life a Transfiguration.
Notice:—
I. Where Paul begins—with an inward renewal, "the renewing of your mind." He goes
deep down, because he had learned in his Master’s school who said, "Make the tree good,
and the fruit good." This new creation of the inner man is only possible as the result of
the communication of a life from without. That communicated life from without is the
life of Jesus Christ Himself put into your heart, on condition of your simply opening the
door of your heart by faith, and saying to Him, "Come in, Thou blessed of the Lord." And
He comes in, bearing in His hands this gift most chiefly, the gift of a germ of life which
will mould and shape our mind after His own blessed pattern.
II. The transfigured life which follows upon that inward renewal. What about the
Christianity that does not show itself in conduct and character? What about men that
look exactly as if they were not Christians? What about the inward life that never comes
up to the surface? A certain kind of seaweeds that lie at the bottom of the sea, when their
flowering time comes, elongate their stalks, and reach the light and float upon the top,
and then, when they have flowered and fruited, they sink again into the depths. Our
Christian life should come up to the surface and open out its flowers there, and show to
the heavens and to all eyes that look. Does your Christianity do that? It is no use talking
about the inward change unless there is the outward transfiguration. Ask yourselves the
question whether that is visible or not in your lives.
III. Consider the ultimate consequence which the Apostle regards as certain, from this
central inward change, viz., the unlikeness to the world around. "Be not conformed to
this world." The more we get like Jesus Christ, the more certainly we get unlike the
world. For the two theories of life are clean contrary—the one is all limited by this "bank
and shoal of time," the other stretches out through the transient to lay hold on the
Infinite and Eternal. The one is all for self, the other is all for God, with His will for law
and His love for motive. The two theories are contrary to one another, so that likeness
with and adherence to the one must needs be dead in the teeth of the other.
A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 2nd series, p. 17.

91. I. St. Paul had been dwelling at great length, in this Epistle to the Romans, on the
unsearchable riches and goodness of God, in grafting the Gentiles into the stock of Israel,
whereby they were become partakers of all the promises made to the Jews of old; which
he sums up by this appeal: "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your
reasonable service."
II. "Be not conformed to this world," be not like the age around you, and in which you
live, the fashion of which perisheth and passeth away; but be ye transformed, let a
continual change be taking place in you, by the renewing of your mind, by a new heart,
new dispositions, and new way, such as is consistent with the new man, and the new
birth in Christ, being made conformable to the Holy Child in obedience, that ye may
prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. "That ye may prove" the
word, means to ascertain by putting it to the proof; by obedience men come to know
what is pleasing to God, as our Lord says, "If ye do the will, ye shall know of the
doctrine." Thus, by the renewal of your minds, ye shall learn that which is good, well
pleasing to God, and perfect. The old sacrifices were not so, being but the shadows of
good things to come; but the body is of Christ, He is the only good, the one well-pleasing
and perfect sacrifice, and such are they who by faith shall be found in Him, perfect even
as He is perfect, inasmuch as their old man being buried and dead, they are only known
of God as having their life in Christ.
III. Thus in Christ must all Christian teaching begin and end. He is Himself the true
Passover, and the Lamb that is offered; in Him alone is all reasonable service and filial
obedience. He is the New Man to whom we are to be transformed day by day by the
renewing of our mind. It is as parts of His body, as limbs and members of Him, that we
are to learn humility and love to one another; it is in Him we are to be about our Father’s
business and in His house. He is Himself that little child to whose pattern we are to
humble ourselves.
I. Williams, The Epistles and Gospels, vol. i., p. 119.
I. When first we meet with such expressions as these, "conformed to the world,"
"transformed by the renewing of our mind," we may suppose that St. Paul is speaking of
a state of mind which is suitable to us as inhabitants of this present earth, and of some
other state which may prepare us for what is to come after death. But this is a very
imperfect and slovenly method of explaining his language. The man who is in conformity
with the world is not the man who understands the world best, not the man who admires
the beauty of it most, not the man even who can adapt himself best to all its various
circumstances and conditions. He is too much a slave of the things he sees to reflect upon
them or look into the meaning of them; too much devoted to all outward shows and
enjoyments to have an apprehension of their secret loveliness and harmony. The word
"conformed" is used very strictly; it implies that he takes his form from the things about
him, that they are the mould into which his mind is cast. Now, this St. Paul will not for
an instant admit to be the form which any man is created to bear.
II. Deliverance from conformity to the world is the transformation which is spoken of in

92. the next clause of the verse. The process of this transformation St. Paul describes as the
renewing of the mind. Such a phrase at once suggests the change which takes place when
the foliage of spring covers the bare boughs of winter. It is not strictly a recovery of that
which had been lost. The substance is not altered, but it is quickened. The alteration is
the most wonderful that can be conceived of, but it all passes within. It is not sudden, but
gradual. The power once given works secretly, probably amidst many obstructions from
sharp winds and keen frosts. Still, that beginning contains in it the sure prophecy of final
accomplishment. The man will be renewed according to the image of his Creator and
Father, because the Spirit of his Creator and Father is working in him.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 123.
CALVI , “2.And conform ye not to this world, etc. The term world has several significations, but
here it means the sentiments and the morals of men; to which, not without cause, he forbids us to
conform. For since the whole world lies in wickedness, it behooves us to put off whatever we have
of the old man, if we would really put on Christ: and to remove all doubt, he explains what he
means, by stating what is of a contrary nature; for he bids us to be transformed into a newness of
mind. These kinds of contrast are common in Scripture; and thus a SUBJECT is more clearly set
forth.
Now attend here, and see what kind of renovation is required from us: It is not that of the flesh only,
or of the inferior part of the soul, as the Sorbonists explain this word; but of the mind, which is the
most excellent part of us, and to which philosophers ascribe the supremacy; for they call
it ἡγεµονικὸν, the leading power; and reason is imagined to be a most wise queen. But Paul pulls
her down from her throne, and so reduces her to nothing by teaching us that we must be renewed in
mind. For how much soever we may flatter ourselves, that declaration of Christ is still true, — that
every man must be born again, who would ENTER into the kingdom of God; for in mind and
heart we are altogether alienated from the righteousness of God.
That ye may prove, (380) etc. Here you have the purpose for which we must put on a new mind, —
that bidding adieu to our own counsels and desires, and those of all men, we may be attentive to
the only will of God, the knowledge of which is true wisdom. But if the renovation of our mind is
necessary, in order that we may prove what is the will of God, it is hence evident how opposed it is
to God.
The epithets which are added are intended for the purpose of recommending God’ will, that we may
seek to know it with greater alacrity: and in order to constrain our perverseness, it is indeed
necessary that the true glory of justice and perfection should be ascribed to the will of God. The
world persuades itself that those works which it has devised are good; Paul exclaims, that what is
good and right must be ascertained from God’ commandments. The world praises itself, and takes
delight in its own inventions; but Paul affirms, that nothing PLEASES God except what he has
commanded. The world, in order to find perfection, slides from the word of God into its own devices;
Paul, by fixing perfection in the will of God, shows, that if any one passes over that mark he is
deluded by a false imagination.
(380) Ut probetis εἰς τὸ δοκιµάζειν ὑµᾶς “ut noscatis — that ye may know,” [Theophylact ]; “ut
diligenter scrutemini — that ye may carefully search,” [Jerome ], “ ye may experimentally know,”
[Doddridge ]; “ ye may learn,” [Stuart ]. The verb means chiefly three things, — to test, i.e., metals
by fire, to try, to prove, to examine, 1Pe_1:7; Luk_14:19; 2Co_13:5, — to approve what is
proved, Rom_14:22; 1Co_16:3, — and also to prove a thing so as to make a proper distinction,

93. to discern, to understand, to distinguish, Luk_12:56; Rom_2:18. The last idea is the most suitable
here, “ order that ye may understand what the will of God is, even that which is good and
acceptable and perfect.”
What [Stuart ] says on the last clause seems just, that it is to be taken by itself, and that the words
do not AGREE with “” but stand by themselves, being in the neuter gender. Otherwise we cannot
affix any idea to “” for it would be unsuitable to say that God’ will is “” to him, that being self-evident.
“ ,” ἀγαθὸν is useful, advantageous, beneficial; “ ,” εὐαρεστον is what is pleasing to and accepted
by God; and “ ,” τέλειον is COMPLETE , entire, without any defect, or just and right.
It ought to be borne in mind, as [Pareus ] observes, that in order to discern, and rightly to
understand God’ will, the Apostle teaches us, that “ renewing of the mind” is necessary; otherwise,
as he adds, “ corrupt nature will fascinate our eyes that they may not see, or if they see, will turn our
hearts and wills, that they may not approve, or if they approve, will hinder us to follow what is
approved.” — Ed.
PULPIT, “And be notconformedto (rather, fashioned after; the verb
is συσχηµατίζεσθαι thisworld; butbeye transformed(the verb here is µεταµορφοῦσθαι ) by the
renewing of your mind, that ye may prove (or, discern) what is the will of God, that
which is good and acceptable and perfect. (So, rather than as in the Authorized Version;
the epithets acceptable and perfect not being properly APPLICABLE to the will of God; and the
translation given above being close to the original.) It is a matter of no importance for exegesis that
ancient authorities leave it uncertain whether the verbs at the beginning of this verse should be read
as imperatives ( συσχηµατίζεσθε and µεταµορφοῦσθε ) or as infinitives
( συσχηµατίζεσθαι and µεταµορφοῦσθαι ). In the latter case they depend,
with παραστῆσαι in Rom_12:1, on παρακαλῶ . The meaning remains unaffected. As to the words
themselves, Meyer's assertion that they stand in contrast only through theprepositions, without any
difference of sense in the stem-words, is surely wrong. St. Paul is not in the habit of varying his
expressions without a meaning; and he might have
writtenµετασχηµατίζεσθε (cf. 1Co_4:6; 2Co_11:13, 2Co_11:14; Php_3:21) instead
of µεταµορφοῦσθε or συµµορφοῦσθε (cf. Php_3:10) instead of συσχηµατίζεσθε . And there is an
essential difference between the senses in which σχῆµα and µορφή may be used. The former
denotes outward fashion, which may be fleeting, and belonging to accident and circumstance; the
latter is used to express essential form, in virtue of which a thing is what it is; of. Php_3:21, and also
(though Meyer denies any distinction here) Php_2:6, Php_2:7. The apostle warns his readers not to
follow in their ways of life the fashions of this present world, which are both false and fleeting
(cf. 1Co_7:31, Παράγει γὰρ τὸ σχῆµα τοῦ κόσµου τούτου ), but to undergo such a change of
essentialform as to preclude their doing so. If they become συµµόρφοι with Christ (cf. Rom_8:29),
the world's fashions will not affect them. The phrase, "this world" or "age". The transformation here
spoken of consists in the renewal of the mind ( τοῦ νοὸς ), which denotes the Understanding, or
thinking power, regarded as to its moral activity. And Christian renewal imparts not only the will and
power to do God's will, but also intelligence to discern it. Hence follows εἰς τὸ δοκιµάζειν ὑµᾶς , etc..
It is to be observed, lastly, that the present tenses of the
verbs συσχηµατίζεσθε andµεταµορφοῦσθε , unlike the previous aorist παραστῆσαι , intimate
progressive habits. The perfect Christian character is not formed all at once on conversion
(of Php_3:12, seq.; see also previous note on Rom_6:13, with reference
to παριστάνετε and παραστιήσατε ).
So far the exhortation has been general. The apostle now passes to particular directions; and first
(Php_2:3-9) as to the use of gifts.

94. Beet, “This age : same words in i Cor. i. 20, ii. 6, 8, 2 Cor. iv. 4,
Gal. i. 4, Eph. i. 21, ii. 2, etc. It denotes the whole current of life
and influence around us, except so far as it is controlled by Christ.
This current, unless we pull against it, will carry us along in its
own direction, a direction always wrong ; and will thus gradually
fill us with its own spirit, and fashion us like itself. Thus day by
day the influences around will enter into us and become part of
ourselves. The following words show that Paul refers to a con-
formity of thought and purpose. The change required in us will
affect the details of outer life only so far as these express the mind
within. All attempts to distinguish the people of God by littl
external details have utterly failed. We must and we ought to do,
to a large extent, as those around us do. But God requires in us a
total change of purpose ; and of outward life only so far as it is
a natural outworking of the inward change. But be tramf. :
more fully, * be day by day transformed.' Instead of yielding to
the influences which tend to shape us into the likeness of things
around, we must day by day undergo a change in an opposite
direction. Trains/brmed : s.u. ii. 20. Renewal, etc,: Eph. iv. 23,
Col. iii. 10, 2 Cor. iv. 16. God gives up to blindness the minds of
those who forget Him, i. 21, 28, so that moral objects no longer
appear in their true colours. Depravity of the whole man is the
result, i. 28. But to those who believe, God gradually gives back
the power of correct moral vision. And, since a man's character is
formed by his estimate of what is good and bad, the restoration
of moral vision gradually changes the whole man. Thus, by the

95. renewal of the mind, we are ourselves day by day transformed.
In order that, etc, j purpose to be attained by the renewal and
transformation, viz., that they may day by day so test the actions
presented for their adoption as to find out what God desires them
to do. As we grow in spiritual life we become increasingly able to
do this. And ability to do it is one of God's best gifts. Good and
well-pl., etc, J describes the will of God. It is good in its effect
upon us and others, vii. 12. It is pleasing to God. Mature : cvt
perfect, worthy of full-grown men in Christ Paul desires that God
may give back to them clear moral insight ; because only thus can
they correctly determine what God wills them to do, /.^., what is
really for their good, pleasing to God, and worthy of Christian
manhood. Thus the moral change produced by mental renewal
reacts on the mind and increases its power of discerning right and
wrong. Obs. that we have here the first mention, except viii. 13,
of the gradual development of the Christian life.
CHARLES SIMEON, “AGAINSTCONFORMITYTO THEWORLD
Rom_12:2. Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
THE morality, no less than the doctrines, of the Gospel far excels the boasted inventions of
philosophy. There is not one principle in the human heart, or one action of our lives, which is not
depraved by sin. The whole system of man’s conduct is deranged: and to rectify it in all its parts, is
the scope of that revelation which God has given us. The inspired writers are not satisfied with
lopping off a few branches; they strike at the root of all sin; and labour to bring us back to that state
of allegiance to our Maker from which we are fallen. This is peculiarly observable in the exhortation
before us, in explaining which we shall shew,
I. What is that conformity to the world which we are to avoid—

96. Doubtless there is a degree of conformity to the world which is necessary, if we would not render
ourselves perfectly ridiculous and absurd: but there are limits, beyond which we ought not to go. To
mark out those limits we may observe, that we should not be conformed to,
1. Its company and conduct—
[We cannot wholly avoid worldly company; for “then we must needs go out of the world:” but we
surely should not choose such for our companions; and much less form an indissoluble alliance with
them [Note: 1Co_7:39. “only in the Lord.”]. If we ourselves be spiritual, it is not possible that we
should enjoy the society of a carnal person, because his views, desires, and pursuits must of
necessity be as opposite to ours as darkness is to light [Note: 2Co_6:14-17.]. By forming a
connexion with such persons, what can be expected but that we should be enticed to imitate their
conduct? And though we commit no flagrant evil, we are assured, that while we are walking
according to the course of this world, we walk after the will of Satan and not of God
[Note:Eph_2:2.].]
2. Its maxims and principles—
[According to the established maxims of the world, we should seek above all things the favour and
esteem of men; we should avoid every thing that may make us appear singular; and on
no ACCOUNT testify our disapprobation of any practice that is sanctioned by general custom.
But how do such principles accord with the Holy Scriptures? In them we are told that, if we make it
our grand aim to please men, we cannot be the servants of Jesus Christ [Note: Gal_1:10.]: and, if
we have attained that object, instead of congratulating ourselves upon our success, we have reason
to tremble on ACCOUNT of the woe denounced against us [Note: Luk_6:26.]. Instead of dreading
a necessary singularity, we are required to shine as lights in a dark world [Note: Php_2:15.], and not
only to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but faithfully to reprove them
[Note: Eph_5:11.]. We are to be armed with a steady determination to live the rest of our time, not to
the lusts of men, but to the will of God [Note: 1Pe_4:2.].]
3. Its spirit and temper—
[In what does the spirit of the world consist? It consists altogether in self-seeking, self-pleasing, self-
confidence, and self-complacency. Now can any thing be more abhorrent from a Christian state
than such a disposition as this? We are not to be resting satisfied with present attainments, or
studying how much we can please the flesh without forfeiting the favour of God; but are rather to be
pressing forwards towards perfection, without at all regarding the loss or pain we may be called to
undergo in the prosecution of our duty [Note: Act_20:24; Act_21:13.]. How hateful a want of such a
holy resolution is, may be seen in the reply which our Lord made to Peter, who would have

97. dissuaded him from exposing himself to the trials he had PREDICTED : “Get thee behind me
Satan; for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of
men [Note: Mat_16:23.].”]
Further light will be reflected on this subject by considering,
II. Wherein consists that transformation of soul that is opposed to it—
The Christian is “a new creature; old things are passed away; and all things are become new:”
according to the proficiency he has made, he conforms himself to,
1. Other principles—
[The worldly man knows no higher principle than self-love: whatever be his subordinate motive of
action, all may be traced up to this. But they who are partakers of the Gospel salvation, are under
the influence of a far nobler principle, the love of Christ: the thought of Christ having died for them,
fills their hearts with admiration and gratitude: it inspires them with an ardent desire to testify their
sense of his kindness: and forms a powerful incentive to holy actions. This is attested by St. Paul
[Note: 2Co_5:14-15.]; and it constitutes a most essential part of that transformation of soul, which
characterizes the true Christian. Subordinate motives indeed a believer may feel; but a desire of
pleasing and honouring God, and a fear of dishonouring or displeasing him, will operate with the
greatest force; and that too, in opposition to carnal considerations, no less than in aid of them.]
2. Other rules—
[The fashion of the world is the standard by which men in general regulate their conduct: but the
Christian takes the word of God for his guide, and the example of Christ for his pattern; and, instead
of reducing the rule to his practice, he endeavours to elevate his practice to the rule. He brings
every thing “to the law and to the testimony:” and a plain declaration, or command, of God will be
more to him than any precepts of men, or than the example of the whole universe. It is his ambition
to “walk as Christ walked:” and though he knows that he can never attain the measure of his
perfection, yet he strives incessantly to follow the pattern of it, that so he may be perfect even as his
Father that is in heaven is perfect [Note: Mat_5:48.].]
3. Other ends—
[A Christian would not be content with ordering his actions aright, even if he could arrive at the
highest degrees of holiness, unless he had also the testimony of his conscience that he sought, not
his own glory, but the glory of God: having been “bought with a price,” he is conscious that he is “not

98. his own,” and that consequently he “ought not to live unto himself, but unto him that died for him.”
He feels that, if in any thing he consult merely his own honour or interest, he so far withholds from
God the honour due unto his name; and therefore he labours to comply with that divine injunction,
“Whether ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God [Note: 1Co_10:31.].”]
Thus is the Christian transformed, not in respect of his life only, but in the spirit of his mind; and
therefore can declare from experience,
III. What effects this progressive renovation will produce—
There are many objections raised by the world against the sanctity that has been before described;
and there is much opposition to it in the heart of every unrenewed person: but the experience of it
will most effectually discover it to be,
1. Good in itself—
[Piety is too generally considered as needless preciseness: nor need we have any thing more than
a separation from the world, and a transformation of soul after the Divine image, in order to become
objects of reproach and contempt. Even the more sober and discreet part of mankind regard the
precepts before us as “hard sayings,” unsuitable to modern times, and unfit for general practice. But
as our Lord said of his doctrines, that whosoever would do his will, should know whether they were
of God [Note: Joh_7:17.], so we may say of his precepts. While we are blinded by carnal desires,
the commands of God will appear rigorous; and we shall labour more to explain them away, than to
obey them: but if once we adopt them as the rule of our conduct, their beauty and excellence will
manifestly appear; and we shall be convinced that, to obey them is, to be truly happy
[Note: Isa_32:17.].]
2. Acceptable to God—
[While religion is ACCOUNTED superstition, it is no wonder that the sublimer duties of
Christianity are declined as unnecessary, and that they who practise them are deemed “righteous
over-much.” But a renovation of soul will soon dispel this error, and shew us that, the more entire
our devotedness to God be, the more highly shall we be raised in God’s esteem. If only we make
the word of God the standard of our actions, we cannot possibly be too earnest in improving the
talents committed to us: nor can we doubt but that the tokens of God’s approbation that we shall
receive, shall be proportioned to the sacrifices we have made, and the exertions we have used in
his service [Note: Mat_25:20-23.].]
3. Beneficial to man—

99. [It is usually supposed that a compliance with the directions in the text would weaken our faculties,
and so distract our minds as to render us unfit for the common offices of life. But the very reverse of
this is known to be true by all those who make the experiment. Heavenly-mindedness tends to
“perfect” the man of God in all his faculties, and “thoroughly to furnish him unto all good works.” Till
this takes possession of the soul, a man is the sport of every temptation, and liable to be led captive
by every lust: but grace will establish his heart; it will bring a consistency into his whole conduct; it
will change him into the very image of God; and will render him “meet for the inheritance of the
saints in light.”]
ADDRESS —
1. Those who are yet conformed to the world—
[If you are free from gross vices, you do not apprehend your conformity to the world to be any
reason for questioning the safety of your state. But it is scarcely possible for God to declare in more
express terms your guilt and danger, than he has done in various parts of Holy Writ
[Note: Joh_17:16. Gal_1:4. 1Jn_2:15-16. Jam_4:4.]. You are therefore reduced to this alternative,
either to come out of Sodom, or to perish in it; either to enter in at the strait gate, and walk in the
narrow way, or to fall into that destruction that awaits you at the end of the broad and frequented
path. O that God may enable you to CHOOSE THE good part; and to adhere to it in spite of all
the odium your singularity may bring upon you!]
2. Those who profess to have experienced a transformation of soul—
[You need to be much upon your guard lest “after you have escaped the pollutions of the world, you
should be again entangled therein and overcome [Note: 2Pe_2:20.].” It is your wisdom to avoid
temptation, and to guard against the snares that are laid for your feet. However circumspectly you
may walk, you will find reason enough to lament your manifold defects. Lay not then any stumbling-
blocks in your own way; but seek rather to experience the transforming efficacy of the Gospel: let
the world be crucified unto you, and be ye crucified unto the world [Note:Gal_6:14.]. As obedient
children, “fashion yourselves in no respect according to your former lusts in your ignorance, but as
he who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation [Note: 1Pe_1:14-15.].”]
GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE, “In Fashion or in Favour
Be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that
ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.—Rom_12:2.

100. 1. The great aim of St. Paul in the first eleven chapters of the Epistle to the Romans is to convince
his readers that men of no race or class, whether Jews or Gentiles, can claim eternal life on the
ground of their own merits, but, in order to receive it, must be content to accept it humbly and
thankfully from the grace of God. His own summary of his whole argument is, “For God hath
concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.” To this mercy or grace he traces
the calling, the election, the justification, the sanctification, the peace, the joys, the hopes, and, in a
word, all the blessings shown by him to be included in the portion of a Christian. These glorious
privileges are all mercies, pure mercies of God.
From the commencement of the twelfth chapter to the close of his Epistle we find the Apostle
presenting those mercies, the nature and fulness of which he had previously unfolded in doctrine,
as motives to Christian activity. They do not produce the effect which they ought to have if they do
not produce righteous and holy living. It is accordingly on the valid foundation which these mercies
supply that the Apostle raises his practical exhortations.
2. St. Paul addresses men here on the hypothesis that in some sense or other they are responsible
for their surroundings. He says: “Be not conformed to this world.” He would not have us for a
moment listen to this suggestion of a necessity. “Be not.” He speaks as to people who make their
own circumstances for themselves. And yet, in fact, the freedom of our will does not lie in any power
to create or to fashion circumstances or facts or motives outside ourselves; our will has none of that
properly creative or constructive power, but what it can do is to select among the actual facts and
motives which lie in our circumstances already. Our freedom lies in selecting, in paying attention to,
this or that element in our actual surroundings, and by thus attending to it we have the power to give
it such predominant force that all the other elements in our surroundings sink by the side of it into
insignificance. Thus, in fact, men can do what in effect comes to making their own surroundings.
In this London of ours there are the same surroundings for all of us, and, for the most part, they are
ugly enough, grimy enough, in our atmosphere; but the artistic spirit selects, it looks to those
particular buildings where it can find something which will gratify its sense of form. As the man of
artistic sensibility walks up Whitehall he looks not to all the buildings indiscriminately. He selects
and distinguishes the Banqueting Hall on his right. He loves its form. It is something which responds
to his sense of beauty and of fitness. As he gets to the top of Whitehall he selects and distinguishes
that one statue of incomparable beauty which is the distinction of London—Le Sueur’s statue of
Charles I. Under the grime with which the London atmosphere has incrusted it, his eye can
distinguish the lines of beauty and the majestic pose of the beautiful figure and the horse. A little
farther and his imagination penetrates through the walls of the National Gallery and recalls those
countless forms of beauty and of grace which have already passed into his memory from the
pictures of Flemish or Italian or English School. He selects, and, by selecting, makes his own
atmosphere.

101. So he knows what are the special glories of the sunset as it slopes along the Serpentine, what are
the extraordinary beauties of the low and lurid lights which are always to be found as he walks along
the Thames Embankment by day or by night. The artistic temperament selects; by selecting it
attends to particular objects; it is not indiscriminate; it takes what it chooses. Thus it makes its own
environment, and though it moves, in fact, among exactly the same multitudinal and thronging
objects amidst which we all move, it makes its own world by that incomparable power which is
possessed by the human will, of attending to what it pleases and, by attending to it, giving it the
predominant force which makes that real and all the rest of little account.
And so it is with the religious man. He creates his atmosphere by what he attends to. He penetrates
behind the show and glamour of the world, back to what lies behind.1 [Note: Bishop Gore.]
The question which St. Paul invites the Christians in Rome to decide is whether they ought to be in
fashion with the world or in favour with God. He urges them not to be “fashioned according to this
world,” but to be “transformed” or transfigured, i.e. changed from the figure or fashion of things
belonging to the world into likeness to Christ. In that way they will be in harmony with God’s will, and
will discover how good God is.
Thus we may separate the good advice of the Apostle into three parts, and ask—
I. What is meant by being fashioned according to this world?
II. What is meant by being transformed by the renewing of the mind?
III. What is meant by proving that God’s will is good and acceptable and perfect?
I
Fashionedaccordingto thisWorld
i. Fashion
1. It is a custom of St. Paul to make a distinction between the “form” of a thing, which really and
necessarily belongs to it, and the “fashion,” which is only a matter of outward seeming, or at best is
subject to change; and so it is misleading here to talk of being “conformed” or “transformed,” when
St. Paul speaks of only the good thing as a “form,” and of the bad one as a mere “fashion.” In
another Epistle he says, “The fashion of this world passeth away” (1Co_7:31); here he reminds us
that it is a passing thing, by the mere use of the word “fashion.”
2. This very fact, that “the fashion of this world” is changeable and uncertain, makes it harder to give

102. definite rules as to the way to avoid being “fashioned according to this world.” St. Paul does not
attempt to do so; he does not say, “Such and such talk, such and such employments, such and
such pleasures are worldly: therefore the servants of God must avoid them”; but he gives us the
warning against accommodating ourselves to the fashion, whatever it be, of this world. That warning
holds good however the fashion may change.
Our English virtues and vices would seem at times to go in and out of fashion like our wearing
apparel. Up to the time, say, of William Cobbett, contentment was ACCOUNTED a virtue in an
Englishman and enthusiasm a vice. To Hume or Gibbon the words “discontented enthusiast” would
have suggested a repulsive and seditious personality of the Czolgosz type—or, at least, some
contemptible Ranter or Shaker. It is curious to reflect how matters altered later on when the Divine
duty of discontent came openly to be preached, and Besant and Rice’s “Dick Mortiboy” impressed
upon the school-feast children that unless your station in life was already among the great ones of
the earth it was a despicable thing therewith to be content.1 [Note: Recreations and
Reflections (from “The Saturday Review”), 373.]
Another virtue, charity or philanthropy, seems to have fluctuated in favour. In The Moonstone, Mr.
Murthwaite, suggesting Godfrey Ablewhite as the possible culprit, observes, “I am told that he is a
great philanthropist—which is decidedly against him TO BEGIN with.” Mr. Brough, the worthy
family solicitor, cordially agreed with this, and it is pretty obvious that Wilkie Collins himself agreed
with them both. The Moonstone was of course written long before charitable “slumming” came into
fashion. Society philanthropists are always liable to offend by self-advertisement and the airs they
give themselves of standing in loco Dei to the poor.
But the good bishop with a meeker air
Admits, and leaves them, Providence’s care.
Pope’s bishop was no doubt a worse man, but he avoided this particular rock of offence.2 [Note:
Ib., 377.]
3. “The last new fashion.” There is something inherently contemptuous in the phrase. When we say
of anything that it “has become a fashion,” we almost mean it to be inferred that it has become so
for no particularly good reason, and will probably some day cease to be so for some reason no
better. Ever since the word came to be applied in our language to men’s customs or whims, it has
absorbed that other idea of change, and therefore of comparative worthlessness. Now there is
nothing intrinsically worthless or wrong in mere change, or in the substitution of one “fashion” for
another. In things into which the moral element does not enter, there is no harm in fashion, but
obviously much good. Take the most obvious, because vulgarest, use of the term, as applied to

103. dress. Into this “fashion,” as into everything human, the evil will, the low morality of man can intrude.
Ostentation, extravagance, self-indulgence, vulgar and reckless competition in all these things must,
and do, intrude. But the love of beauty, of variety, in colour and form, is not base or worldly love. It
should not shame us to find pleasure in letting the eye rest upon such things, which like all God’s
gifts are seen and loved first as we gaze upon the faultless beauties and the everchanging beauties
of His creation. That the eye, given us to perceive and rejoice in these beauties, should long for an
ever-changing succession of them, should discern the loveliness of alternation and variety, is no
disgrace. Change, transition, contrast, whether in Nature or in Art—how large a part do not these
make in the beauty of God’s creation, and of that human art which has grown out of the study of that
creation! Should we not be grateful for the “shifting fashions”—for so they are—of God’s world, for
the shifting fashions of the landscape in winter and in summer, in spring and in autumn?
Robertson had seen a great deal of the fashionable society of watering-places. With the exception
of the brief interludes of Oxford and Winchester, he had lived all his days in such places. By the
world generally he would himself be regarded as a man of fashion. He himself keenly appreciated
the social and intellectual side of such society. But he had a thorough suspicion and dislike of the
essential characteristics of these places. This comes out in his sermons and also in his letters: “If
you wish to know what hollowness and heartlessness are, you must seek for them in the world of
light, elegant, superficial fashion, where frivolity has turned the heart into a rock-bed of selfishness.
Say what men will of the heartlessness of trade, it is nothing compared with the heartlessness of
fashion. Say what they will of the atheism of science, it is nothing to the atheism of that round of
pleasure in which many a heart lives—dead while it lives.”1 [Note: F. Arnold, Robertson of
Brighton, 224.]
4. There are fashions in morals as well as in art, in religion, even, as well as in social etiquette; and
it is against these that St. Paul warns his Roman Christians. Whenever and wherever the shifting
moral sense of Society forms its own rules and standards, without reference to the revelation of God
in His Word, and in His Son Jesus Christ, these fashions take their rise—the creations of the world
—with no assurance of permanence, because they depend ultimately upon the conscience of the
hour, which must needs vary. This must be true of every age—of this age no less than of that of
which the Apostle was writing. It is to the conscience of the hour that we are not to “conform,” or “be
fashioned,” if only because it has no permanence. There is no security, even if it is decently moral
to-day, that it will be the same to-morrow.
The relations of the Kingdom of heaven and the world have grown infinitely more complex since St.
Paul’s day. When he wrote, the boundary line between the Church and the World was tolerably
clear and defined. It is no longer so, and the World presents new fronts to the Church, or rather is
so permeated by the ways, if not the spirit, of the Church, that its fashions have become both more
complex and more alluring. Now the World has become leavened to a certain extent by the ethics of

104. the Church, and the Church leavened, alas! by the lower morals of the World, so that the boundary
lines between the two become fainter and more misleading. And the pressure of the World upon the
Church is greater than it was in St. Paul’s day, because it touches it at a greater number of points.
The fashion of the World seriously threatened the real Christians in Rome; but it now threatens in a
thousand fresh ways the nominal Christians of to-day.
“Fashion,” as a term, has degraded since St. Paul’s day. Unreality, as well as instability, is
inseparable from the name of “fashion.” “Why does such and such a man or woman do so and so?”
“Oh, because it’s the fashion—because it’s the thing to do!” Fashion is the public opinion of the
“set,” to which everything else is sacrificed. The tyranny of the “set”—how inflexible its grip! what
evils has it not to answer for! The vox populi, even when it is that of the large, free, public
conscience, has no security for being the vox Dei; but how when it is the voice of a sect or a clique?
To be really cynical is a bad enough thing—an affront to God and an insult to the law of Christian
love; but what shall we say of the cynical fashion, taken up because for the moment, and with
certain people we admire, it is the sign of cleverness and distinction. Then there is the sceptical
fashion. To refuse God’s revelation, in Nature and in Conscience and in His Word, is sad enough; it
is matter for deep pity as well as reproach. But what shall we say when it too has no root at all, good
or evil, but is taken up as a badge of enlightenment, as a mark of separation from the humdrum
superstitions of the world, and to win the good opinion of those in whom the same scepticism is
perhaps at least genuine?
Terrible, again, is the growing defiance of the accepted moralities and decorums—the custom-
hallowed decencies and reticences of life—which we see everywhere about us. Everywhere do we
see signs of this revolt against old ideas of reverence, of modesty, of charity, and of courtesy, under
the pretence of protesting against whatever is unreal or hypocritical in the so-called “respectabilities”
of life. Where this is a genuine revolt, having a supposed excuse in undoubted conventionalities and
hypocrisies to be found among us, it is at least not ignoble; but for one person who is fired by a
genuine indignation that overmasters him, how many are there who follow in the same track only to
win credit for the same thing, or even, must we not say, because the laxer morality, the reduced
stringency, is easier and pleasanter?
These and a thousand other fashions and follies are all around us. The satirists of the day know
these things well. The world is keenly alive to its own weak points. But satire has no power to cure
them, has no “healing in its wings.” For satire treats symptoms only, and no wise physician is
content with this. It was one of Pope’s half-truths that
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen.

105. But “hated” is just the wrong word here. To see the hatefulness of a thing and to hate it are quite
different stages of moral growth. To hate is the correlative of to love; and when we have once begun
to hate the evil that is in the world, we have also begun to hate the evil that is in ourselves, and our
deliverance is at hand.1 [Note: Alfred Ainger.]
In the department of the “minor morals” various little changes of fashion are observable. The
change in the drinking habits of society is too hackneyed a topic to be more than mentioned, but if
we are not mistaken, a striking change has taken place in the matter of “strong language.” It is quite
true that “damns had their day” once—and it is equally certain that they are having another one
now. Twenty years ago when one was sitting in the stalls it was not unusual, when the obnoxious
word was uttered, to hear materfamilias let fall some such remark as, “I really do think he might
have left that out!” Nowadays of course it passes absolutely unnoticed; nor does any man in telling
a story think it necessary to omit the word, if it comes in naturally, because of the presence of
women-folk. Nay, we appeal to our readers whether they do not hear it, more or less in play, from
the lips of beauty in distress—in a bunker or elsewhere. Nous ne discutons pas—nous constatons.
We merely remark that the mothers of this generation would not have done it any more than they
would have smoked cigarettes.1 [Note: Recreations and Reflections, 377.]
“One day,” says Madame de Hausset, in her curious memoirs of the Pompadour, “Madame said to
the Due d’Ayen that M. de Choiseul was very fond of his sisters. ‘I know it, Madame,’ said he—‘and
many sisters are the better for it.’ ‘What can you mean?’ she asked. ‘Why,’ he answered, ‘as the
Due de Choiseul loves his sisters, it is thought fashionable to do the same; and I know silly girls,
whose brothers formerly cared nothing for them, who are now most tenderly beloved. No sooner
does their little finger ache than their brothers are running all over Paris to fetch the doctor for them.
They flatter themselves that some one will say in M. de Choiseul’s drawing-room, “Ah, what a good
brother is M. de—!” and that they will gain advancement thereby.’ ” We need scarcely add that the
Due de Choiseul was chief minister, and the dispenser of royal favours.2 [Note: J. H. Friswell,
This Wicked World, 56.]
ii. ThisWorld
1. The marginal reference here gives “age” as an alternative reading for “world”—“be not fashioned
according to the age or time”—and it should not be overlooked that the Greek word, here rendered
“world,” does really mean the world in special relation to time as distinguished from place or space.
The changing forms or fashions to which the Apostle here refers are those which essentially belong
to changes incident to time, the suppressed contrast being, of course, with a heavenly order, which
is eternal. The idea is not necessarily theological: we are quite accustomed to the thought as a
necessary consequent on our observations of life and history, and of the changes which every
careful watcher of life must needs note in other people and even in himself.

106. The “Time-Spirit”—the “Zeit-Geist”—is naturalized among us as a phrase to indicate the force which
we see to be exercised, however little able we are to grasp and analyse it, in each succeeding
epoch of our history; and it is clearly something after the same kind that St. Paul saw to be at work
in the world of his day. And because his beloved converts must needs be in daily touch with the
world, though it was their first duty and privilege to be not “of it,” he had seen how necessary it was
to them to beware of the subtle power, the alluring and plausible charm, which it was certain to
exercise over them, unless they were forewarned and forearmed.
2. When St. Paul lifted up his voice against the world, and besought the Christians committed to his
charge to be separate from it, he was thinking of that imposing paganism which was ever fronting
them. With its love of pleasure, its glorification of power, its imperial pageantry, its idolatrous
temples, its unredeemed Art, its seduction both for the senses and for the intellect, paganism cast
its glamour over the new Christian converts. Writers so far apart as Cardinal Newman in
his Callista and the author of Quo Vadis suggest to our minds the fascinating atmosphere into which
Christianity was born, and where in its youth it had to fight the good fight of faith. Beneath the
beauty of form and colour, the magnificence of ceremonies and arms, the arts and riches of
civilization, that was an unclean and leprous world. Whether they lived in Corinth, with its
unblushing worship of lust, or in Rome, which was the moral sewer of the world, or in Ephesus,
where Christians were tempted by the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, or in Pergamos, where there were
those who held the abominable doctrine of Balaam, or in Thyatira, where Jezebel seduced God’s
servants, or in Sardis, where only a few had not defiled their garments, Christians had ever to stand
on guard. No wonder that some in Corinth had fallen through the lures of the flesh, or that a Demas
had forsaken the faith before that imperial magnificence. Christians had to choose between their
Lord and their world, and it was a world hard to escape or to resist.
3. It is evident that the world of to-day has changed, and it is unreasonable to require of modern
Christians the line of action which was necessary in the first century. The spirit of Christ has
counted for something during nineteen centuries, and Western society is not arrayed in arrogant
hostility to the claims and ethics of our Master. His disciples are neither persecuted nor seduced
after the fashion of the former days, and it is not necessary to preach that separation which once
was compulsory, or to warn against the gross temptations which once beset the disciple from street
and temple, from book and Art. Religious writers have shown a want of historical insight in adopting
those fiery denunciations of the world which applied to the Corinth of St. Paul and the Rome of
Juvenal. But this does not mean that there is no anti-Christian world or that Christians have not
need to watch and pray; it only means that war has changed its form, and instead of the clash of
swords we have the unseen danger of the rifle. We have to get to the principle which underlies all
forms, and what constitutes the world in every age is devotion to the material instead of to the
spiritual.

107. Preachers may talk with airy rhetoric about the distinction between the Church and the World; but
we feel, somehow, that the lines of division tend to melt away before our eyes. We cannot draw
sharp lines of separation. Men may try, they have often tried, to do so in one way or another. They
may wear, like Quakers, a peculiar dress, or they may ticket certain forms of amusement as
“worldly,” or they may use a peculiar phraseology; but experience tells us how ludicrous and
disastrous such attempts have been, to what hypocrisies and absurdities they lead. The very
expression, common enough once, still occasionally appears in newspapers, the “religious world”—
how unreal it sounds! No, if we are to choose between the “religious world” and the “world” without a
prefix, we must frankly prefer the latter.1 [Note: H. R. Gamble.]
4. A man does not cease to be unworldly by adopting a ritual of renunciation any more than a
Bushman becomes a European by washing off his grease and ochre, and attiring himself in clean
linen and broadcloth. The casual gossip of the cloister may show that society and the petty interests
of the butterfly crowd loom as large as ever in the imagination of its inmates. The unconscious
leanings of an evangelical home ruled by the straitest maxims may show that the silly, senseless
world finds a tell-tale mirror there. The trivialities of life, upon which the back has been ostensibly
turned, cling like burrs to the textures of the inner man. Honest unworldliness is central to a man’s
scheme of thought, and begins far down below the surface. We cannot bind it upon men by artificial
precepts.
Are saints to be distinguished as men and women to whom everyday concerns offer no sort of
attraction? Is their attitude towards civilization, and art, and business, and amusement that of
unconcern or even of disdain? Are they to be recognized by differences of dress, or manner of
speaking, from others around them? If so, Brother Lawrence in his kitchen, and Santa Zita going
about her work as a housemaid, and even St. Paul weaving cloth for his tents, cannot properly be
described as saints.1 [Note: A. W. Robinson, The Voice of Joy and Health, 105.]
(1) If any one is indulging in what the Prayer-Book calls “notorious sin,” i.e. sin of which no Christian
can doubt that it is serious and deadly sin; if he is a scorner of God, or of his parents, a blasphemer,
a fornicator, a thief, a slanderer, a liar; he must know at once, without further question, that he is
“fashioned according to this world.”
A story is told of Dr. Guthrie, that, finding a little girl weeping in great distress in Edinburgh, he,
pitying her, asked the reason, and discovered that she had lost sixpence. The Doctor not only
supplied the money, but took the child to a baker, not far from the spot, to buy a loaf for her. “That
little girl,” said the baker, “seems always to be losing sixpences, Doctor; perhaps it is her trade.” And
so it was. The poor little lassie had been brought up in a “padding ken,” or a “fencing crib,” a school
for young thieves; and her peculiar vocation was to take her walks abroad, drop a pretended
sixpence, and burst into uncontrollable weeping. The best of the story is that Doctor Guthrie,

108. bending down, told the child that she was now more than ever an object of pity, since she earned
her living by sin, and, finding out where she dwelt, he rescued her from her terrible
position.2 [Note: J. H. Friswell, This Wicked World, 14.]
(2) But, apart from open or notorious sin, if a man’s heart is so set upon anything here in this
present life that the thought of the world to come is unpleasant and irksome to him, he may be said
to be fashioned according to this world. When a man is so entirely taken up with his property,
pursuits, schemes, and employments in this world, innocent though they may be and useful in
themselves, that he is more in earnest about them than about his devotions and the preparation of
his soul for death, such a man has much need to watch and pray that he enter not into temptation;
to pray that he may pray better, lest by little and little he fall away, and become a thorough child of
this world, before he is aware.
St. Benedict, so the old story ran, was sitting in his cell, meditating upon heaven, when suddenly the
glory of this world was presented to his gaze, gathered, as it seemed, into a single dazzling and
bewitching beam. But the appeal was made in vain to a heart that had dwelt among the celestial
realities. Inspexit et despexit—“he saw and he scorned it.” Was that altogether un-Christlike? Did
not He also turn aside with something of loathing from the vision of the kingdoms of the world and
the glory of them? Did He not say, “I have overcome the world”? Was not His Apostle led by His
Spirit when he declared that “if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him”? And
were not all of us called upon to “renounce” the world before we were enrolled as His disciples?
1 [Note: A. W. Robinson, The Voice of Joy and Health, 112.]
(3) Again, we may be sure the world is getting or keeping too much hold of us, when we cannot
bear being scorned or ridiculed for doing what we know in our heart to be right. This is especially a
temptation of the world, because it is a temptation from our fellow-mortals, not from Satan, and
because it is so entirely without a man.
Some time ago, at the close of a meeting, a young man remained behind, and after the way of
salvation was explained, he was urged to decide for Christ. His answer was, “I dare not,” and the
reason he gave was that he would be the only Christian in the workshop, and he dreaded the taunts
and laughter of his workmates, and so he turned away from Christ for fear of a laugh. How different
was the conduct of the young recruit—a lad of eighteen years of age—who stood as bravely as any
Christian hero ever did. For two or three weeks he was the butt of the camp because he knelt and
said his prayers, and testified for his Master. At length his company was ordered to the seat of war,
and the battle came, and after a fierce fight the dead body of the young Christian was carried back,
and the ringleader of his persecutors said, “Boys, I couldn’t leave him. He fought so bravely that I
thought he deserved a decent burial.” And as they dug a grave and buried him, a comrade cut his
name and regiment on a piece of board, and another added, “I guess you’d better put in the words

109. ‘Christian Soldier’; he deserves it, and it may console him for all our abuse.” That is the courage we
want. The courage that “hates the cowardice of doing wrong,” as Milton magnificently puts it, and
the daring that stands unmoved amid scorn and obloquy. If you want to see that courage at its best,
then look at Christ, and listen to these words of the Apostle, “Who for the joy that was set before
him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of
God.”1 [Note: J. E. Roberts.]
II
Transformedby theRenewingof theMind
1. The word transform occurs elsewhere in the New Testament on two occasions. It is the word
used to denote our Lord’s Transfiguration (Mat_17:2; Mar_9:2); and it is the word employed by St.
Paul to describe that growing conformity to the likeness of our Lord, which results from the
contemplation of His excellency: “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, are changed”—transformed or transfigured—“into the same image from glory to glory, even as
by the Spirit of the Lord” (2Co_3:18).
2. “A transfigured life” suggests to us, in the light of the Lord’s Transfiguration, even nobler and
loftier aspirations and hopes than the phrase “a transformed life.” And there lie in it and in the
context such thoughts as these: the inward life, if it is healthy and true and strong, will certainly
shape the outward conduct and character. Just as truly as the physical life moulds the infant’s limbs,
just as truly as every periwinkle shell on the beach is shaped into the convolutions that will fit the
inhabitant by the power of the life that lies within, so the renewed mind will make a fit dwelling for
itself.
To a large extent a man’s spirit shapes his body; within limits, of course, but to a very large and real
extent. Did you never see some homely face, perhaps of some pallid invalid, which had in it the very
radiance of heaven, and of which it might be said without exaggeration that it was “as it had been
the face of an angel”? Did you never see goodness making men and women beautiful? Did you
never see some noble emotion stamp its own nobility on the countenance, and seem to dilate a
man’s very form and figure, and make the weakest like an angel of God? Have there not been other
faces like the face of Moses, which shone as he came down from the Mount of Communion with
God? Or, as Milton puts it,
Oft converse with heavenly habitants
Begins to cast a beam on the outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind.

110. Even as the fashion of His countenance was altered, so the inner life of Christ, deep and true in a
man’s heart, will write its presence in his countenance, and show how awful and how blessed
goodness is.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
Do you remember the scene in Roderick Hudson, a story written by Henry James? The hero, who is
a young artist, has wandered to Rome, and there drifted into a life of selfish indulgence. But far
away from the old American home a mother’s prayers had followed him. Her absent boy made her
forget self in those moments when she kneeled at the throne of Grace; then face and soul become
strangely plastic. She was conscious of no change as the years sped, but when at last she crossed
the ocean in search of her son, and they met in the foreign city, the artist asked in surprise: “What
has happened to your face? It has changed its expression.” “Your mother has prayed a great deal,”
she replied. “Well, it makes a good face,” answered the artist. “It has very fine lines in it.”2 [Note:
A. G. Mackinnon.]
3. Now, how is this transfiguration to take place in our lives? We are not left in doubt as to the power
which is to produce the change. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. We are to be transformed by the
renewing of the mind; the change must begin within; we must invoke spiritual influences, power
from on high. It will not be denied us if we seek it. “Ask, and ye shall receive.” We must not begin
trying to correct outward habits till we have implored inward grace. We must believe that the Holy
Spirit is willing to make His abode in our hearts.
Have you ever thought about the large place the New Testament gives to our mind? In the very next
verse to this St. Paul goes on to say, “For I say, through the grace that was given me, to every man
that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but so to think as to
think soberly, according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith.” That is characteristic of
New Testament teaching. “Set your mind on the things that are above.” When St. Peter was trying
to lead Jesus Christ into temptation, Jesus said to him, “Thou mindest not the things of God.” And
when St. Paul is describing people who are alienated from God, he says they “mind earthly things.”
You and I become like the things we think about. If we let our mind be a caravansary for all sorts of
evil thoughts, we shall become evil. If we fix our mind upon worldly things, we shall become worldly.
If we fix our mind upon things that are above, where Christ is, we shall become like Christ. We grow
like the things we think about, and the renewing of the mind means that there is implanted in our
heart, if we will have it so, a Divine power that will enable us to think about the things that have
praise and virtue until we are changed into their image. We can be transformed by the renewing of
our mind.1 [Note: J. E. Roberts.]
The real secret of a transfigured life is a transmitted life—Somebody else living in us, with a capital
S for that Somebody, looking out of our eyes, giving His beauty to our faces, and His winningness to
our personality.2 [Note: S. D. Gordon.]

111. III
TheMotive
That ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
1. These remarkable words give the reason or motive why those to whom St. Paul wrote
should seek for such a change. The meaning of the words is this: that we may, each one in our own
experience, prove—that is, make proof of—that will of God which is good, and acceptable, and
perfect.
Good, acceptable, perfect. These adjectives may either qualify the “will of God” as in the Authorized
Version, or be in apposition to it, as in the Revised Version margin. The latter construction agrees
better with the rhythm of the sentence. The will of God is identified with what is “good” in the moral
sense; “acceptable,” well pleasing (that is, to God); and “perfect,” that is, ethically adequate or
complete.
You wish to know what is the will of God which you must follow amid the dark perplexities of your
life. Well, remember that the will of God is a living will. It develops from age to age. It moves within a
world of constantly changing circumstances, and amid conditions which, like man’s life upon the
earth, never CONTINUE in one stay. It is one thing to be sure that Jesus Christ dealt with the
various situations that confronted Him with the certain authority of a sovereign conscience. It is quite
another to examine His teaching in order to discover a moral code, or a system of casuistry which
will apply to every development of social and personal life. There are those who hope to settle each
matter that comes to them for decision by opening the sacred volume and accepting the first text on
which the eye falls as revealing the Divine Will. There is more reason in this method of consulting
the oracles of God than in that attitude towards it, still far too popular, which seems to regard it as a
sort of religious red book, where precepts of conduct are to be learned as though they were the
details of drill. Why, even the old Hebrews were taught that the way in which God reveals His mind
to His children is more intimate and spiritual than this. “The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in
thy heart.” The Word of God is not graven on stone; it is written on the tablets of the heart. Not
outward conformity to a system, but the inward response to the self-revealing Spirit is that secret of
the Lord which is with them that fear Him.1 [Note: J. G. Simpson.]
2. To see the great importance of this declaration let us inquire, in the first place, what it implies.
Now it implies two things.
(1) Our salvation is the will of God.—It is the will of God that we should be good, and holy, and
acceptable in His sight; that (to gather all into one word) we should be saved; and that, if we are not
saved, it is not because it is God’s will to leave us to perish, but in spite of God’s will, which would

112. have us saved.
The will of God is not an eccentric will, like that of His wayward creatures, neither is it an arbitrary
will, the will of one who is merely All-Power; but it is the will of Him who is Holiness, Wisdom, and
Love, just as much as Power. When, therefore, He wills our salvation, He wills it in a certain way: in
the way of truth, and wisdom, and love. He wills, that is, first, that we should truly be; that we should
be not mere machines through which He works, but reasonable beings—beings who can choose;
who can love Him; who can return love for love.1 [Note: S. Wilberforce.]
He told me that in the loneliness of his own room he had been thinking of his sinful and wretched
life, and feeling how impossible it was for him ever to be a different man, when all of a sudden, just
like a voice in his soul, he heard the announcement that Christ alone can take away the sins of a
man. In a FLASH he saw that he had nothing to do but surrender; that he was not to strive, but to
be grateful; that God was only asking him to believe, not to struggle, not to build up the ruins of his
life. “I simply gave myself to God,” he said quietly. “I don’t know how else to put it. I surrendered,
laid down my arms, and felt all through my soul that I was pardoned and restored.” That is nine
years ago. For nine years this man has not only been immune from drink, has not only made a
comfortable home for his children, has not only been a first-rate workman and a good citizen, but
throughout those nine years he has been, in Sister Agatha’s phrase, “a worker for Christ, beloved
by all, and a hiding-place for many.” If you could see the brightness of his face and feel the
overflowing happiness of his heart, you would better realize the miracle of conversion. The man is a
living joy.2 [Note: H. Begbie, In the Hand of the Potter, 266.]
(2) It is given to us to make trial of this will of God—to experience it; to prove it; to find it working in
us; to know that it is real, by its life within ourselves. This Will of God is on our side; it is not in word
and by accommodation, but indeed true, that He would have us perfect, acceptable, and blessed;
and if we will but seek to be renewed, we shall know that all this is indeed so, by His blessed power
day by day renewing us ourselves.
The primary meaning of the word “prove” in our text is to recognize, discern, discriminate. Hence we
find that to come thus into affinity with God is to evolve an organ of spiritual consciousness. We
cannot even know one another except through affinity. This is everywhere the key to intimacy with a
person. It is this that conducts us behind the veil, and admits us to the adytum—the holy place of
personality which is screened from the common gaze. The same law holds for the Divine. Love and
loyalty and likeness to God will admit us to the secret place of His will. “The secret of the Lord is
with them that fear him.”3 [Note: H. Howard.]
3. We have examined what the words imply. Let us now see some of the consequences which
follow.

113. (1) The danger of thwarting God’s will.—Here is the key to the secret history of every careless life
amongst us Christians, in its course and in its end. In its course—for such a life is a CONTINUOUS
striving against the will of God for us; against His gracious will that we should be good, and
perfect, and acceptable before Him.
(2) The assurance of success.—What an untold might would be ours in striving against sin, if we did
indeed believe it to be God’s will that we should overcome in the struggle! The first condition of
success is the expectation of succeeding. How it nerves the soldier’s arm to know that he fights
under a general who has always conquered. And so it is also in all the conflicts of our spiritual life.
The lack of such confidence is one of the most common grounds of our weakness. We do not
strengthen ourselves in God; we doubt His good will towards us; we practically shut Him out of our
thoughts; and we are lost.
(3) The reality imparted to the spiritual life.—The “proving” of God’s will is that which gives a sense
of true reality to all the spiritual world around us and within us. God’s word, prayer, the holy
Sacraments, all the ordinances of Christ’s Church, as well as the more hidden suggestions of the
blessed Spirit, through the heart and conscience—these are all full of a living reality for him who
knows that he is here training under the active loving energies of the Almighty Will.
I worship Thee, sweet Will of God!
And all Thy ways adore,
And every day I live, I seem
To love Thee more and more.
Thou wert the end, the blessèd rule
Of our Saviour’s toils and tears;
Thou wert the passion of His Heart
Those three-and-thirty years.

114. And He hath breathed into my soul
A special love of Thee,
A love to lose my will in His,
And by that loss be free.
He always wins who sides with God,
To him no chance is lost;
God’s Will is sweetest to him, when
It triumphs at his cost.
When obstacles and trials seem
Like prison-walls to be,
I do the little I can do,
And leave the rest to Thee.1 [Note: F. W. Faber.]
MACLAREN, “THESACRIFICEOF THEBODY
Rom_12:1.
In the former part of this letter the Apostle has been building up a massive fabric of doctrine, which
has stood the waste of centuries, and the assaults of enemies, and has been the home of devout
souls. He now passes to speak of practice, and he binds the two halves of his letter indissolubly

115. together by that significant ‘therefore,’ which does not only look back to the thing last said, but to the
whole of the preceding portion of the letter. ‘What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.’
Christian living is inseparably connected with Christian believing. Possibly the error of our
forefathers was in cutting faith too much loose from practice, and supposing that an orthodox creed
was sufficient, though I think the extent to which they did suppose that has been very much
exaggerated. The temptation of this day is precisely the opposite. ‘Conduct is three-fourths of life,’
says one of our teachers. Yes. But what about the fourth fourth which underlies conduct? Paul’s
way is the right way. Lay broad and deep the foundations of God’s facts revealed to us, and then
build upon that the fabric of a noble life. This generation superficially tends to cut practice loose
from faith, and so to look for grapes from thorns and figs from thistles. Wrong thinking will not lead
to right doing. ‘I beseech you, therefore, brethren, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.’
The Apostle, in beginning his practical exhortations, lays as the foundations of them all two
companion precepts: one, with which we have to deal, affecting mainly the outward life; its twin
sister, which follows in the next verse, affecting mainly the inward life. He who has drunk in the spirit
of Paul’s doctrinal teaching will present his body a living sacrifice, and be renewed in the spirit of his
mind; and thus, outwardly and inwardly, will be approximating to God’s ideal, and all specific virtues
will be his in germ. Those two precepts lay down the broad outline, and all that follow in the way of
specific commandments is but filling in its details.
I. We observe that we have here, first, an all-inclusive directory for the outward life.
Now, it is to be noticed that the metaphor of sacrifice runs through the whole of the phraseology of
my text. The word rendered ‘present’ is a technical expression for the sacerdotal action of offering.
A tacit contrast is drawn between the sacrificial ritual, which was familiar to Romans as well as
Jews, and the true Christian sacrifice and service. In the former a large portion of the sacrifices
consisted of animals which were slain. Ours is to be ‘a living sacrifice.’ In the former the offering was
presented to the Deity, and became His property. In the Christian service, the gift passes, in like
manner, from the possession of the worshipper, and is set apart for the uses of God, for that is the
proper meaning of the word ‘holy.’ The outward sacrifice gave an odour of a sweet smell, which, by
a strong metaphor, was declared to be fragrant in the nostrils of Deity. In like manner, the Christian
sacrifice is ‘acceptable unto God.’ These other sacrifices were purely outward, and derived no
efficacy from the disposition of the worshipper. Our sacrifice, though the material of the offering be
corporeal, is the act of the inner man, and so is called ‘rational’ rather than ‘reasonable,’ as our
Version has it, or as in other parts of Scripture, ‘spiritual.’ And the last word of my text, ‘service,’
retains the sacerdotal allusion, because it does not mean the service of a slave or domestic, but that
of a priest.
And so the sum of the whole is that the master-word for the outward life of a Christian is sacrifice.

116. That, again, includes two things-self-surrender and surrender to God.
Now, Paul was not such a superficial moralist as TO BEGIN at the wrong end, and talk about the
surrender of the outward life, unless as the result of the prior surrender of the inward, and that
priority of the consecration of the man to his offering of the body is contained in the very metaphor.
For a priest needs to be consecrated before he can offer, and we in our innermost wills, in the
depths of our nature, must be surrendered and set apart to God ere any of our outward activities
can be laid upon His altar. The Apostle, then, does not make the mistake of substituting external for
internal surrender, but he presupposes that the latter has preceded. He puts the sequence more
fully in the parallel passage in this very letter: ‘Yield yourselves unto God, and your bodies as
instruments of righteousness unto Him.’ So, then, first of all, we must be priests by our inward
consecration, and then, since ‘a priest must have somewhat to offer,’ we must bring the outward life
and lay it upon His altar.
Now, of the two thoughts which I have said are involved in this great keyword, the former is
common to Christianity, with all noble systems of morality, whether religious or irreligious. It is a
commonplace, on which I do not need to dwell, that every man who will live a man’s life, and not
that of a beast, must sacrifice the flesh, and rigidly keep it down. But that commonplace is lifted into
an altogether new region, assumes a new solemnity, and finds new power for its fulfilment when we
add to the moralist’s duty of control of the animal and outward nature the other thought, that the
surrender must be to God.
There is no need for my dwelling at any length on the various practical directions in which this great
exhortation must be wrought out. It is of more importance, by far, to have well fixed in our minds and
hearts the one dominant thought that sacrifice is the keyword of the Christian life than to explain the
directions in which it applies. But still, just a word or two about these. There are three ways in which
we may look at the body, which the Apostle here says is to be yielded up unto God.
It is the recipient of impressions from without. There is a field for consecration. The eye that looks
upon evil, and by the look has rebellious, lustful, sensuous, foul desires excited in the heart, breaks
this solemn law. The eye that among the things seen dwells with complacency on the pure, and
turns from the impure as if a hot iron had been thrust into its pupil; that in the things seen discerns
shimmering behind them, and manifested through them, the things unseen and eternal, is the
consecrated eye. ‘Art for Art’s sake,’ to QUOTE the cant of the day, has too often meant art for
the flesh’s sake. And there are pictures and books, and sights of various sorts, flashed before the
eyes of you young men and women which it is pollution to dwell upon, and should be pain to
remember. I beseech you all to have guard over these gates of the heart, and to pray, ‘Turn away
mine eyes from viewing vanity.’ And the other senses, in like manner, have need to be closely
connected with God if they are not to rush us down to the devil.

117. The body is not only the recipient of impressions. It is the possessor of appetites and necessities.
See to it that these are indulged, with constant reference to God. It is no small attainment of the
Christian life ‘to eat our meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God.’ In a hundred
directions this characteristic of our corporeal lives tends to lead us all away from supreme
consecration to Him. There is the senseless luxury of this generation. There is the exaggerated care
for physical strength and completeness amongst the young; there is the intemperance in eating and
drinking, which is the curse and the shame of England. There is the provision for the flesh, the
absorbing care for the procuring of material comforts, which drowns the spirit in miserable anxieties,
and makes men bond-slaves. There is the corruption which comes from drunkenness and from lust.
There is the indolence which CHECKS lofty aspirations and stops a man in the middle of noble
work. And there are many other forms of evil on which I need not dwell, all of which are swept clean
out of the way when we lay to heart this injunction: ‘I beseech you present your bodies a living
sacrifice,’ and let appetites and tastes and corporeal needs be kept in rigid subordination and in
conscious connection with Him. I remember a quaint old saying of a German schoolmaster, who
apostrophised his body thus: ‘I go with you three times a day to eat; you must come with me three
times a day to pray.’ Subjugate the body, and let it be the servant and companion of the devout
spirit.
It is also, besides being the recipient of impressions, and the possessor of needs and appetites, our
instrument for working in the world. And so the exhortation of my text comes to include this, that all
our activities done by means of brain and eye and tongue and hand and foot shall be consciously
devoted to Him, and laid as a sacrifice upon His altar. That pervasive, universally diffused reference
to God, in all the details of daily life, is the thing that CHRISTIAN MEN and women need most of
all to try to cultivate. ‘Pray without ceasing,’ says the Apostle. This exhortation can only be obeyed if
our work is indeed worship, being done by God’s help, for God’s sake, in communion with God.
So, dear friends, sacrifice is the keynote-meaning thereby surrender, control, and stimulus of the
corporeal frame, surrender to God, in regard to the impressions which we allow to be made upon
our senses, to the indulgence which we grant to our appetites, and the satisfaction which we seek
for our needs, and to the activities which we engage in by means of this wondrous instrument with
which God has trusted us. These are the plain principles involved in the exhortation of my text. ‘He
that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption.’ ‘I keep under my body, and bring it into
subjection.’ It is a good servant; it is a bad master.
II. NOTE , secondly, the relation between this priestly service and other kinds of worship.
I need only say a word about that. Paul is not meaning to depreciate the sacrificial ritual, from which
he drew his emblem. But he is meaning to assert that the devotion of a life, manifested through

118. bodily activity, is higher in its nature than the symbolical worship of any altar and of any sacrifice.
And that falls in with prevailing tendencies in this day, which has laid such a firm hold on the
principle that daily conduct is better than formal worship, that it has forgotten to ask the question
whether the daily conduct is likely to be satisfactory if the formal worship is altogether neglected. I
believe, as profoundly as any man can, that the true worship is distinguishable from and higher than
the more sensuous forms of the Catholic or other sacramentarian churches, or the more simple of
the Puritan and Nonconformist, or the altogether formless of the Quaker. I believe that the best
worship is the manifold activities of daily life laid upon God’s altar, so that the division between
things secular and things sacred is to a large extent misleading and irrelevant. But at the same time
I believe that you have very little chance of getting this diffused and all-pervasive reference of all a
man’s doings to God unless there are, all through his life, recurring with daily regularity, reservoirs
of power, stations where he may rest, kneeling-places where the attitude of service is exchanged for
the attitude of supplication; times of quiet communion with God which shall feed the worshipper’s
activities as the white snowfields on the high summits feed the brooks that sparkle by the way, and
bring fertility wherever they run. So, dear brethren, remember that whilst life is the field of worship
there must be the inward worship within the shrine if there is to be the outward service.
III. Lastly, note the equally comprehensive motive and ground of this all-inclusive directory
for conduct.
‘I beseech you, by the mercies of God.’ That plural does not mean that the Apostle is extending his
view over the whole wide field of the divine beneficence, but rather that he is contemplating the one
all-inclusive mercy about which the former part of his letter has been eloquent-viz. the gift of Christ-
and contemplating it in the manifoldness of the blessings which flow from it. The mercies of God
which move a man to yield himself as a sacrifice are not the diffused beneficences of His
providence, but the concentrated love that lies in the person and work of His Son.
And there, as I believe, is the one motive to which we can appeal with any prospect of its being
powerful enough to give the needful impetus all through a life. The sacrifice of Christ is the ground
on which our sacrifices can be offered and accepted, for it was the sacrifice of a death propitiatory
and cleansing, and on it, as the ancient ritual taught us, may be reared the enthusiastic sacrifice of
a life-a thankoffering for it.
Nor is it only the ground on which our sacrifice is accepted, but it is the great motive by which our
sacrifice is impelled. There is the difference between the Christian teaching, ‘present your bodies a
sacrifice,’ and the highest and noblest of similar teaching elsewhere. One of the purest and loftiest
of the ancient moralists was a contemporary of Paul’s. He would have re-echoed from his heart the
Apostle’s DIRECTORY , but he knew nothing of the Apostle’s motive. So his exhortations were
powerless. He had no spell to work on men’s hearts, and his lofty teachings were as the voice of

119. one crying in the wilderness. Whilst Seneca taught, Rome was a cesspool of moral putridity and
Nero butchered. So it always is. There may be noble teachings about self-control, purity, and the
like, but an evil and adulterous generation is slow to dance to such piping.
Our poet has bid us-
‘
Move upwards, casting out the beast,
And let the ape and tiger die.’
But how is this heavy bulk of ours to ‘move upwards’; how is the beast to be ‘cast out’; how are the
‘ape and tiger’ in us to be slain? Paul has told us, ‘By the mercies of God.’ Christ’s gift, meditated
on, accepted, introduced into will and heart, is the one power that will melt our obstinacy, the one
magnet that will draw us after it.
Nothing else, brethren, as your own experience has taught you, and as the experience of the
world CONFIRMS , nothing else will bind Behemoth, and put a hook in his nose. Apart from the
constraining motive of the love of Christ, all the cords of prudence, conscience, advantage, by which
men try to bind their unruly passions and manacle the insisting flesh, are like the chains on the
demoniac’s wrists-’And he had oftentimes been bound by chains, and the chains were snapped
asunder.’ But the silken leash with which the fair Una in the poem leads the lion, the silken leash of
love will bind the strong man, and enable us to rule ourselves. If we will open our hearts to the
sacrifice of Christ, we shall be able to offer ourselves as thankofferings. If we will let His love sway
our wills and consciences, He will give our wills and consciences power to master and to offer up
our flesh. And the great change, according to which He will one day change the body of our
humiliation into the likeness of the body of His glory, will be begun in us, if we live under the
influence of the motive and the commandment which this Apostle bound together in our text and in
his other great words, ‘Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your
body and spirit, which are His.’
PULPIT, “Spiritual transformation.
The Apostle Paul was great both in theoretical and in practical thought. Truth and duty were equally
his themes. He could introduce new ideas into men's minds, and that with a force which made the

120. ideas part of the minds into which they were introduced. And, at the same time, he could show the
bearing of the grandest ideas upon the commonest actions and the homeliest life. This is a
combination of qualities not always found even in the greatest of men. It was found in Paul; and
accordingly we go to him for the loftiest representations of Christian truth, for the most elaborate
expositions of Christian doctrine, and also for the counsel we need in circumstances of difficulty,
and the INSTRUCTIONS we need in the development of social and individual life. It was a grand
conception, that with which the apostle beans the practical part of this treatise. What devout heart
does not, upon having this conception brought before it, burn with an ardent desire to realize it—to
present the body, the self, the all, a living and holy sacrifice unto God? But then comes the question
—How is it to be done? And, indeed, what is it, precisely and actually, which is to be done? The
apostle proceeds to show us. And in translating the noble idea of the first verse into the language of
practical life, he proceeds wisely and carefully, first giving us the general rule and law, and then
drawing out from it the special APPLICATIONS in detailed duties of Christian morality. In
studying this chapter we must ever and anon revert to the great principles contained in the first and
second verses. The principle is barren without the precepts; the precepts are lifeless, flavourless,
and impossible without the principle. The verse contains—
I. A DISSUASION; i.e. from conformity to the world. Human character and life are treated as
something to be formed and fashioned by the personal will. We are dealt with as beings responsible
for the form and fashion we impart to character and life. The apostle does not take it for granted that
those living in a Christian community must, as a matter of course and necessity, attain to the Divine
ideal. There is a temptation, a danger, against which it is prudent to be warned. It was, no doubt,
easier to understand this dissuasion in the earliest days of Christianity than it is now. "This world!"
"this age!"—what a fulness, an awful fulness of meaning this expression must have had for a
Christian of the first century! Not the material world, of course, but the world of human society, of
pagan idolatry, and sensuality, and cruelty, and scepticism, and despair, was the world present to
the apostle's mind. Satan is termed in the New Testament "the prince of this world;" the unbelieving,
unchristian population are designated "the children of this world." "The disputer of this world," "the
wisdom of this world," apply to what is unspiritual and godless. The distinction between the heathen
world and the Church of Christ must then have been sharp indeed. And no reader could be at a loss
to understand Paul's advice to the Roman Christians not to be fashioned according to this world.
For in Rome, perhaps above all other places, this world was the acknowledged mistress and
sovereign of human society. And, as a matter of fact, the Christian community in this and in other
cities of the empire did live a life in utter, manifest, obtrusive contrast to that lived by the multitude of
ambitious, pleasure-loving, superstitious, cynical citizens, by whom they were surrounded. To make
this a practical matter, let us ask—How does this dissuasion apply to us? What is the world of
which we are to beware? Is there such a world in our England today? We meet with narrow and
prejudiced opinion on these questions. Some people think it worldly to have anything to do with
politics—especially on one side; others, to mix with general society; others, to take an interest in

121. painting, architecture, music, and even literature. To such objections it is enough to answer that, in
becoming a Christian, one does not cease to be a man, but rather learns to bring to bear upon
human interests and occupations the principles of the highest life and calling. We must beware of
narrow and merely technical definitions of "the world." In truth, to be "fashioned according to the
world" is to conform to sinful and prevalent practices. What is worldliness? It is injustice,
untruthfulness, impurity, avarice, slander. Some of these vices and sins are to BE FOUND
amongst those who are very scrupulous in preserving what they call the line between the Church
and the world. But bear in mind that a life devoted to selfish aggrandizement or pleasure, a life
lacking in love and sympathy, is a worldly life. The same idea is dwelt upon with urgency by the
other apostles. John admonishes, "Love not the world;" and Peter requires Christians "not to be
fashioned according to their former lusts in their ignorance."
II. A DIRECTION; i.e. to spiritual renewal. That the followers of Christ might present themselves "a
living sacrifice" to God, they were taught that they must become something very different from what
they had been in their unbelieving, unregenerate days. The admonition of the apostle is very full and
strong.
1. It is to a change. "Repent!" was the first Divine message to men—alike from the forerunner and
from the Messiah. Christians they could not be, whether Jews or Gentiles, until changed. Religion
cannot flatter, though priests may.
2. It is to renewal. How characteristic of the religion of the Lord Jesus is this counsel! We have a
new covenant, and we need a new nature; we need to become a new creation, that we may live in
newness of life, and so prepare to dwell in the new heavens and to join in the new song. Christianity
is a gospel of renewal. The fact implies the abandonment and death and crucifixion of the old—the
old nature, "the old man," as Paul calls it. Christ takes the individual, the society, in hand, and
moulds all afresh from the beginning; implants new principles, new laws, new aims, new hopes. He
makes one new man, one new humanity. What a gospel it is! It invites men to turn their back upon
their old and sinful ways, to abjure their old and sinful self; to enter upon a new course—to become
a new creation. Here, surely, is hope and promise for the downcast. Amendment may be
impossible, but not renewal and regeneration; for the Spirit of God is the mightiest of all powers to
transform.
3. It is to a mental, a spiritual renewal. We are invited to a renovation, which shall be not merely
outward and bodily, but shall commence with the very centre and spring and root of our being.
There is wisdom in this provision. It originates in the Author and Framer of our being, who knew
what was in man. Let the heart be renewed, and, the fountain being cleansed, sweet water shall
flow from it; and, the tree being made good, fruit ripe and wholesome shall be borne. Our Lord asks
for the heart, and the heart only will he accept. "Be renewed," says the apostle elsewhere, "in the

122. spirit of your mind." The Holy Spirit imparts new affections, new principles, new desires; encourages
to new associations, and inspires with new aims and hopes.
III. AN INDUCEMENT; viz. by following the apostolic instructions the Christian will prove what God's
will is. It seems a somewhat singular motive to present. Yet, to a believer in God, it must be a very
powerful motive. The great question which interests men's minds today is just this—Are there in the
universe signs of the presence, and energy, the moral character, and conscious purpose of Deity?
Is there, in a word, such a thing as God's will? and, if so, what is it? According to the apostle, the
consecrated and obedient Christian is in the way to settle this question in his own experience. It
seems almost presumptuous to propose the testing of God's will.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “And be not conformed to this world.
Conformation and transformation
1. “World” has various meanings.
(1) Time.
(2) An age--the Messianic, e.g., as contrasted with the Jewish, or the past as opposed to the
present or coming age.
(3) A state, as the present in distinction from the future in antagonism with the good.
(4) “Worldliness,” a spirit or principle of evil pervading the world. It is this to which we must not be
conformed.
2. It is well to define the term in order to avoid two extremes.
(1) That which regards the world as a mere abstraction, something incidental to those early
Christian ages, but of which nobody is in danger now.
(2) That exaggeration which confounds it with almost every transaction of our lives.
3. We must be vigilant against this spirit precisely where it is the most subtle and concealed, e.g.
(1) We may say that delight in the visible world is legitimate. “Surely this is not the world against

123. which the apostle warns us.” No; but suppose that nature becomes to us all in all, and cheats us
into the belief that there is nothing higher than that which serves our senses.
(2) We say indisputably that we ought to love our fellow-men; but what if with this there blends an
influence that moves us to defer to their customs, and live merely upon the level of their ideals!
(3) Even our religion may be worldly in its spirit. The objects of our faith in another state of existence
may be sensuous, and the grounds of our obedience to God mercenary.
4. “The world,” then, is a spirit, that is everywhere around us and within, and the injunction is most
needed precisely where this spirit is most likely to be confounded with something that is good and
true. Proceeding upon this assumption, let us examine the forms and achievements of our modern
civilisation.
I. Much of our modern civilisation is a process of conformation. Man is not the MASTER OF
nature. He learns to control its forces by submitting to its laws. His triumphs of art and mechanism
are simply a conformity to nature, not a mastery over it. He mitigates pain and conquers disease by
conforming to the laws of health. He has no wand of miracle to supersede law. Civilisation is simply
the adjustment of man to the conditions in which he is placed. Now, precisely here we may detect
an evil tendency. There is danger lest this habit of conformity fasten us down to a mere worldly
level, and saturate all our desires with worldly estimates. On the other hand, the great peculiarity of
the Christian method is transformation--not simply obedience to external conditions, but a renewing
of the mind. It is a great achievement for man to control new forces without; it is a greater
achievement when in the inmost recesses of his being there unfolds a law which forbids all sin,
even under the mask of the most splendid gain; when there is awakened a vitality of conscience
which inspires him to make only a beneficent application of mighty instruments; when there settles
in his soul a sublime patience by which if he cannot conquer pain he can bear it; and when in the
midst of all physical terrors he enjoys a spiritual vision which pierces through calamity and looks
beyond death.
II. Consider some points where the contrasts between the Christian method and the methods of this
world are more especially displayed.
1. Observe how largely men are influenced by excitement. There is a vast difference between the
noble steamship that holds its way, trembling the waves and challenging the gale, because it has an

124. inward force, and the poor vessel whose iron heart stands still, and that wallows the sport and victim
of the relentless sea. But there may be a difference as great between the man who determines his
action by reason and conscience and the man who is perpetually driven by the excitements of time
and place. How many people depend upon excitements as the aliment of their very being! They are
always whirling in the commotion of something new. And thus people lose true independence of
thought and life. Opinions and habits go with the tide. These men and women live as others live,
think as others think, do as others do. Nay, even religion may become too closely identified with
mere excitement. The method of Christianity is not excitement, but incitement. That man is best
qualified for the perils, yet not disqualified for the blessings of the world around him who is moved,
not by pressure from without, but by principle from within, who in the midst of these changing
tendencies holds a purpose, and whose personality does not dissolve in the social atmosphere
around him, but who preserves a rocky identity of faith and conviction, a moral loyalty to his own
ideal.
2. The power of our modern civilisation is the power of that which is visible and tangible. Present
good, immediate success, are its conspicuous results. What vast sovereignty, what subtle
temptation, in this possession of the present, in that visible dollar which I make by my compliance
compared with the inward blessing which follows my sacrifice; in the concrete fact which I can grasp
in my hand compared with the abstraction that only flits in transient vision before my inward eye!
Cancel space, outstrip time, bridge oceans with steam, twitch nations together with electric arteries.
Now no instructed Christian undervalues concrete facts and interests. The man who starts from
great principles is not one who is most apt to overlook the real interests of the world. But he also
regards a higher good. He believes that for the real purposes of this life we need something besides
steam and telegraph, and currency and ballot-boxes. We need that which delivers man from
sensual illusion and the lust of immediate attainment by fixing his eyes upon the glory of spiritual
rectitude, the victory of postponement, and the gain of sacrifice.
3. Civilisation produces its most marked effect without. The best thing accomplished by it is
adjustment to the world. Its tests and fruits are better outward conditions, a better social state, better
houses, lands, and means of communication. Nevertheless, man’s real life is not in outward things.
It cannot be changed merely by external agents. In its wants and capacities it is the same as it was
six thousand years ago. Strip the man of the nineteenth century of these externals, and how much
is he like the man of ages since! With the telescope we see farther, but do we really see more than
Abraham at the door of his tent, or Job gazing upon the Pleiades? If we do, whatever of larger
vision or substantial good has come to us has come within--in more comprehensive truth, in more
consecrated love, in more perfect assurance of final good. And wherever these results are wrought
within us we can dispense with much that is merely outward and palpable. The time comes when
the world to us will be as nothing. But while it crumbles we shall not fail. We shall perish with no
perishing thing, being “not conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of the mind.”

125. (E. H. Chapin, D.D.)
Conformed and transformed
I. The man who is in conformity with this world is not the man who understands it best, or who
admires its beauties most; nor can he adapt himself best to all its circumstances. He is too much a
slave of the things he sees to look into the meaning of them; too much shut up in the habits of the
society into which he is thrown, to have any power of entering into what lies beyond. The word
“conformed” implies that he takes his form from the things about him, that they are the mould into
which his mind is cast. Now this St. Paul will not for an instant admit to be the form which any man
is created to bear. Man is created in the image of God; and the form of his mind is to be derived
from Him and not from the things which are put in subjection under Him. The heathen was resisting
the conscience which told him that he was God’s offspring, and the very things he saw which
testified to the invisible power of God in worshipping and serving the creature more than the
Creator. But we who have been redeemed out of this worship are striving far more directly and
consciously against; this spirit; we are choosing a false way when we admit the world to govern and
fashion our minds according to its pleasure, when we submit to receive its image and
superscription. That image and superscription will vary in each new age, in each new locality; it is
the very nature of the world to be continually changing. That is the reason why it is so ignominious a
thing for a man to be conformed to it; he must become merely a creature of to-day; he must be
fluctuating, capricious, insincere--a leaf carried about by every gale, floating down every current.
How is it possible that such a one can know anything of the will of God, which is fixed and eternal?
What signifies it that you give to such a one the Bible and persuade him it is a Divine book? You
may persuade him of that as easily as of anything else; if it is the current opinion of course he
receives it until the fashion alters, and then he will scoff at it. But while he embraces it what does he
gather from it? Just what his worldly spirit wishes to gather and no more.
II. The deliverance from all this is transformation, and such transformation, instead of
unfitting a man for the world, is that which alone can enable him to live in it, to appreciate the
worth of it, to exercise an influence over it. It was this which enabled the prophet to see the
trees and the floods breaking forth into singing; which enabled St. Paul to become all things
to all men; which enabled St. John to see the kingdom of God and of His Christ emerging out
of the kingdoms of this world. For they beheld all things in God’s light, not in the false lights

126. of this world. They saw the world as He had made it, not as men had made it by rebelling
against Him. They had received the true form of men, they could therefore use the forms of
the world, accommodating themselves readily to Jewish, Greek, Roman customs--never
being brought into bondage by any. They were in communion with the eternal, so they could
contemplate the great drama of history, not as a succession of shifting scenes, but as a
series of events tending to the fulfilment of that will which is seeking good and good only.
III. The process of this transformation is the renewing of the mind. Such a phrase at once
suggests the change which takes place when the foliage of spring covers the bare boughs of
winter. The substance is not altered, but it is quickened. The alteration is the most wonderful
that can be conceived of, but it all passes within. The power once given works secretly,
probably amidst many obstructions from sharp winds and keen frosts. Still that beginning
contains in it the sure prophecy of final accomplishment. The man will be renewed according
to the image of his Creator and Father, because the Spirit of his Creator and Father is
working in him. (F. D. Maurice, M.A.)
Conformed and transformed
If we pour into a mould a quantity of heated metal, that metal as it becomes cool takes the shape of
that mould. If we soften a lump of wax, and then press a signet upon it, on its surface is left the
impression of the seal. Just so our nature, susceptible at present of being moulded to one character
or another, is now undergoing this process. According to the tastes we cultivate, the acts we do, the
society we keep, the subjects that engross our interest, we are becoming conformed to the world or
to Christ; we are being made into “vessels unto dishonour,” or into“vessels meet for the Master’s
use.” The process may be very gradual; but it is not on that account the less fatal and the less sure.
Like that insidious disease consumption, the first beginnings of it are hardly perceptible; but though
it only destroys life as it were by inches, the raging fever is not in the end more deadly. How many
are there who, because they are not raging in the fever-fits of open sin, never dream that they are
dying of worldly conformity, and who consider, though the Bible and their consciences sometimes
speak to the contrary, that there can be no great harm in living to the world a little, provided that
they keep within bounds! But the Word of God says plainly, “Be not conformed to this world.” And if
we would, fall in with this requirement we must strive to be “transformed by the renewing of our
mind.” We all know what a complete change is signified by the word “metamorphosis,” which is the
one here used. In describing this process we must go back one step further in the metaphors than
in the case to which we before alluded. We must suppose the metal to have been cast into some

127. faulty shape first, and then to have been melted down and re-cast. Just so our hearts, our wills, our
tastes, in short our whole “mind” must be first of all softened by God’s Spirit; then we must be
transformed into a “vessel made to honour,” and finally “sealed unto the day of redemption.” In vain
shall we seek to transform ourselves; we may give up this or that worldly pleasure or worldly pursuit;
but unless we really, earnestly, perseveringly seek by prayer the power of God’s Spirit we never
shall be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.” (W. H. Etchers, M.A.)
Conformity to the world
I. What is the world? The mass of unrenewed men as distinguished from the people of God. It is
Satan’s kingdom. It has laws and maxims. Its manners and customs are determined by its reigning
spirit. It has its consummation, which is perdition.
II. What is it to re conformed to the world?
1. To be inwardly like men of the world in the governing principle of our lives, i.e., to have a worldly
spirit, a spirit occupied with worldly things, mercenary, earthly.
2. To be so ruled by the world’s maxims that the question is not what is right or wrong, but what is
the custom of society. What is the public sentiment?
3. To be indistinguishable from men of the world in our--
(1) Objects.
(2) Amusements.
(3) General conduct.
III. The consequences of this conformity.

128. 1. The destruction of all spirituality. It is impossible to live near to God and yet to be conformed to
the world. The Spirit is grieved and quenched.
2. The obliteration of the distinction between the Church and the world, and the consequent
enervation of the former. What becomes of Christian profession when Christians are as sordid, gay,
and unscrupulous as other men?
3. Identity of doom. They who choose the world will perish with it.
IV. By what rule are we to determine what is and what is not sinful conformity. This is more a
theoretical than a practical difficulty, and will not trouble a man who is filled with the Spirit of Christ
and devoted to His service.
1. We must avoid sinful things.
2. With regard to things indifferent.
(1) One man should not judge another, but determine for himself what is and is not injurious to his
spiritual interests.
(2) We should avoid things which are injurious to others though harmless to ourselves.
(3) We should shun things innocent in themselves, but which are connected in fact, or in the minds
of men with evil, as cards, dancing, the theatre, etc.
(4) The same rule as to dress and modes of living does not apply to all persons and places. It
depends on usage, rank, etc. There is great danger of becoming pharisaical, and making religion
consist in externals. (C. Hodge, D.D.)
Conformity to the world
I. Be not conformed--

129. 1. To its selfishness.
2. To its presumption.
3. To its superstition.
4. To its carnal policy.
5. To its earthly-mindedness.
II. This Divine requirement is presented here--
1. Negatively “Be not conformed,” etc., in--
(1) Affection.
(2) Principles or maxims.
(3) Conduct.
2. Positively--“But be ye transformed,” etc. True religion does not consist in simply abstaining,
avoiding, disliking, etc.; but also in being, doing, delighting, etc. We cannot be unconformed to the
world, unless we are in spirit conformed to God. Therefore the only way to be unworldly is to
become converted and spiritual (Gal_5:16, etc.). The Christian is not simply to be unlike the world;
he is to be like Christ. (Homilist.)
Conformity to the world
I. Its nature.
1. By “this world” is meant everything in it which is antagonistic to the truth or to the life of God in the
soul of man. You can form a correct estimate of a man’s character by his ruling principles. So you
can the spirit of “this world.” Here are some of its maxims--

130. (1) “Every man for himself”; there is the selfishness that draws in everything to itself, and keeps firm
grip of all it has, though the needy be perishing around!
(2) “Quietness is best “; there is the cowardice, the selfish prudence of the world which will not
stand forth and speak a word for God or man, lest trouble should come upon it!
(3) “Honesty is the best policy.” The man who is honest just because it is the best policy would for
the same reason have been dishonest!
2. Conformity to this world means the adoption of principles such as these, and practices founded
upon them, although there are great differences among men in respect of it.
II. Its causes. Apart from its first and great cause, there are secondary causes, e.g.,--
1. The proclivity to do as other people do. A child may act thus, but may a man? If so, where is his
independence? In the dust.
2. The fear of giving offence. There are people who are so dependent upon the good opinion of
others, that to gain it they will forfeit their own respect by doing things which otherwise they would
have left undone. They have interests of their own, but they are laughed or frowned out of them;
they have opinions of their own, but they modify and explain them away! Many a man may date his
destruction from the day he began to be afraid of losing the good opinion of bad men!
3. The inability to stand alone. When any public question is debated, the question is, “What side are
the respectable people on?” When a side must be taken, “Which is likely to win?” The “expediency”
men are many; the “principle” men are few.
II. Its cure.
1. The realising of our own personality and responsibility, refusing to live in the crowd, resolving that
by God’s grace we shall live the life He calls upon us to live.
2. The withdrawing of ourselves from under the power of that tendency within us which prevails with
us to disobey this command. Sometimes it is of very little use to fight, the only thing is to get away.

131. A young man is beginning to acquire a taste for low pursuits and company: how will you help him to
get above them? Not surely by leaving him to fight it out with them, but by creating within him a
taste for higher pleasures, and the society of the good. If we would not be conformed to the world,
we must rise above it.
3. Transformation by the renewing of the mind. Thus transformed, you will not be conformed:
another model will be realised by you in your lives: the world will lose its hold and Christ will be all in
all. (P. Rutherford.)
Conformity to the world
I. In what it consists. In cultivating--
1. Its spirit and temper.
2. Its maxims and principles.
3. Its company and conduct.
II. How it must be avoided.
1. By the renewing of our minds.
2. By the adoption of other--
(1) Principles.
(2) Rules.
(3) Ends.

132. III. Why it should be avoided. Because this is--
1. Good in itself.
2. Acceptable to God.
3. Beneficial to man. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Conformity to the world: its folly
A member of his congregation was in the habit of going to the theatre. Mr. Hill went to him and said,
“This will never do--a member of my Church in the habit of going to the theatre!” Mr. So-and-so
replied that it surely must be a mistake, as he was not in the habit of going there, although it was
true he did go now and then for a treat. “Oh!” said Rowland Hill, “then you are a worse hypocrite
than ever, sir. Suppose any one spread the report that I ate carrion, and I answered, ‘Well, there is
no wrong in that; I don’t eat carrion every day in the week, but I have a dish now and then for a
treat!’ Why, you would say, ‘What a nasty, foul, and filthy appetite Rowland Hill has, to have to go to
carrion for a treat!’ Religion is the Christian’s truest treat, Christ is his enjoyment.”
Nonconformity to the world
1. There is no command in Scripture about which there is more debate than this. Are we required to
separate ourselves from all who are not Christians, and avoid all employments except those of
devotion? This is manifestly impossible. Are we then to abstain from those practices which are
common among irreligious persons? Then the question arises, What practices? Where shall we
draw the line? Many draw for themselves a line within which they keep; but unfortunately each
person draws it differently. To some, this world means profligacy and sin; to others, great luxury; to
others, certain fashionable amusements, or dress; to others, the use of secular music, or the
reading of light literature. Each believes himself in the right, and blames his neighbours for going
beyond or not coming up to the line he has drawn for himself. Each is alternately accuser and
accused; while the ungodly consequently declare that it is quite impossible to say what is and what
is not worldly.
2. Now all this arises from overlooking the fact that the precepts of the gospel are addressed to our
new and inner nature; that they supply principles and motives on which we are to act always, not
laws applying to any particular act or set of acts. “Be not conformed to the world” is defined by “Be
ye transformed,” etc. It is clear, then, that that conformity is forbidden which interferes with our being

133. transformed. Now that into which we are transformed is the image of God (2Co_3:18).
3. Now, the rule of the renewed man is simple, always applicable--“The one thing I am to seek is
conformity to God’s image, and in order to that, constant communion with God; whatever, then, I
find to interfere with this, however good it may seem, is the world to me.” Now the application of this
rule is matter of personal experience, and it is impossible to draw a line; for what is the world to one
person is not the world to another; and the question is not so much where you are as what you are.
To lay down a rule for all lives is as difficult as to prescribe a diet for all constitutions. If you ask us
whether certain food will agree with you, we answer--That depends upon your constitution; we can
only give you the broad rule--eat nothing that you find to disagree with you. So we lay down the
broad rule--whatever disagrees with your soul’s health you must avoid.
4. This is a rule which we would plead with worldly people. Christians are often perplexed when
asked--Why do you not join in this or that amusement?
(1) If they answer--Because they are sinful, they say what they cannot prove. Sin is the
transgression of a law, and they can cite no law which expressly forbids such things. And then if we
call them sins, we may induce others to consider sins as not much worse than amusements.
(2) If they say, we object to these things because they are worldly, then they will be asked, What is
the essential difference between the amusement in question, and some other which they hold
lawful?
(3) Now if in all such cases the Christian would be content to say--I refrain because I find I cannot
enjoy it and afterwards have communion with God, he would give an answer which, if not
understood, could certainly not be gainsaid. To ask for a law when this reason is given would be as
unmeaning as to ask for a law of the land forbidding all imprudence in our diet, or exposure to the
weather, or to the risk of infection. We cannot prove these acts to be crimes, but they are
dangerous, and all come under the general principle which makes it wrong for a man to INJURE
himself.
5. In this way we should deal with all cavillers on this subject. Worldly men set down the objections
of ministers to prejudice or envy. “Of course, clergymen abuse theatres, etc., but where is the
harm? Where are they forbidden in Scripture?” We answer this question by another: “What is the
state of your soul? Are you the possessor of a spiritual life? If not, then you cannot possibly
understand our objection; for we object to these things as injurious to that which you tell us you
have not got, namely--life in the soul. To understand a spiritual precept you must be spiritual
yourself.

134. 6. But there are those in whom this spiritual life is as the TENDER blade, or as the just kindling
fire, who ask, anxiously, What is the danger? To show this, we will take--
(1) The theatre. If we are asked, Is there any sin in a theatrical representation? We answer--There
is no more sin in a person presenting to your eyes a certain character than there is in writing a
description or painting a picture of it. But what we have to consider is, not the abstract idea of a
theatre, but what it practically is. Now not to enlarge upon the evils connected with the stage, to
which you give your countenance and aid by attendance and payment for admission: we will admit
that these are not essential to the stage, though somehow they are always found connected with it.
We are willing to allow all that can be said for it, and will not ask whether, in the course of the play,
vice is not often made attractive, and whether the recollection of the pleasure of sin does not outlast
the impressions made by the moral at the end, when the vicious characters meet with that
punishment which we so rarely see them visited with in real life. We will suppose every play to have
its moral, and the audience to be duly impressed with it. Yet we must ask, What character would
you be conformed to if you followed out the lessons there taught? Would it be to the image of God?
Is the good man of the stage the good man of Scripture? Who would venture to produce upon the
stage one in whom was the mind of Christ? Would such a character crowd houses? Men would
throng to the playhouse to hear sentiments which they do not care to study in their Bibles, or to
witness a display of qualities which, in real life, they hold in contempt. Our objection to the stage,
then, is this: it sets up a false and worldly standard of morality; and he who desires to be
transformed to the image of God will find here another image set before him.
(2) The card table. Is there any sin in moving about pieces of painted pasteboard? Certainly not.
And yet it becomes a cause of sin; because, however small the stake, it excites, in however slight a
degree, that desire of gain which is of this world. In proof of this note the greater zest with which
men enjoy the game when some small stake is played for, “just to give an interest to the game.” And
by indulging in this we hinder that renewing of our mind which we should cultivate so carefully.
(3) The ball-room. Is there any harm in the act of dancing? No more than in any marching to the
sound of music. But is there not temptation there for the indulgence of vanity, frivolity, envy, and evil
speaking? We ask whether one renewed in the image of God would find himself a welcome guest
there?--whether his spiritual life would be strengthened, and his conformity to Christ increased, by
constant attendance?--and whether the guest as he returns is in that frame of mind which best fits
him for communion with God? In short, in all these matters we ask you simply to use your own
judgment. Try honestly the effect of these amusements upon your own spiritual life; and if you be
really renewed in the spirit of your mind, you will find that their atmosphere is injurious to the new
life, which you desire to cherish.
7. But we must not forget that the principle may be applied in an opposite direction. There are

135. others who need to be told that what is forbidden is worldliness of heart; viz., those who are sure
they do not conform to the world, because they never enter a theatre, etc. Their idea of
unworldliness is the abstaining from these things, and a few others, e.g., display in entertainments
and equipage. Add to this, becoming members of religious associations, frequenting religious
society, and attending a gospel ministry, and their definition of unworldliness is complete. Now it is
possible to do all this, and more, and yet still be conformed to the world. Worldliness can no more
be excluded by a fence of conventional rules and habits than a fog or a miasma by a high wall: it is
in the atmosphere. They avoid the theatre, and eschew fiction: to what purpose, if they are daily
acting out the characters they will not see represented, or read depicted? They will not GAMBLE .
Are they the better for this, if they indulge the covetous spirit elsewhere? They will not frequent the
ball-room. Are they any gainers, if they indulge the same spirit of display,etc., in a quiet party, or in a
religious meeting? They will not wear fashionable dresses; to what purpose, if they are secretly as
proud of their plain dress? Conclusion: To attack at once the worldliness of the religious and the
irreligion of the world, is to risk the displeasure of both. But the world and the fashions of it are
passing fast away; a few short years, and we shall all be where the applause or censure of men
shall be alike indifferent to us--upon our dying beds. Then the question to be decided shall be, not
how far may I go in my enjoyment of the world, or where must I fix a limit to my pleasures, for the
world can be enjoyed no longer, and death is fixing the last limits to its pleasures, and there remains
but one act more of conformity to the world--that last act in which all flesh conforms itself to the law
of dissolution; but this shall be the great question:--Am I fitted for that world which I am about to
enter? Am I, or am I not “transformed in the renewing of my mind”? Ask yourselves this question
now, as you must ask it then. (Abp. Magee.)
Nonconformity to the world
may be seen--
I. In the transformation of the worldly virtues. There are graces which are sometimes seen
more in the world than in the Church, and here we cannot go wrong in conforming to the
world. Yet it is possible for an unworldly spirit to transfigure them. And unless occasionally
so transfigured they would be corrupted and lost. One high heroic instance of truth, justice,
or courage is worth a hundred lesser cases--the world is startled by it. But remember in
proportion to the dignity given by an unworldly spirit to a worldly virtue is the mischief
wrought by the absence of worldly virtues in those who call themselves unworldly. They are
salt which has lost its savour. There is no greater stumbling-block than want of candour,

136. justice, and generosity in those who profess to be “not of the world.” But the soldier who is
more brave because of a higher than earthly courage; the judge who is more scrupulously
just because he has before him a higher than earthly tribunal, the men of business who “ply
their daily task with busier feet, because their souls a holy strain repeat,” are instances of
what the apostle means by being “transfigured through the renewal of our minds.”
II. In the exhibition of qualities which are unworldly in themselves.
1. Humility. In pagan times there was no name for this grace. The very word is a new creation of the
gospel. Nor does the thing now exist in worldly minds. You may prove this by telling an average
man of his faults and watching the result.
2. Independence of the world’s opinion. “With me it is a small thing to be judged of man’s judgment.
He that judgeth me is the Lord”--is a true unworldly maxim. It is safe, prudent, to conform to the
fashion of the world, to swim with the stream, to desert the sinking vessel, to avoid the stricken deer
or howl with the wolves. That is the world’s way; but there is a way which is not the way of the world.
The old Christian virtue of chivalry still lingers amongst us--the leaning to the weaker side because it
is weaker, the desire to protect the weak and repress the strong, etc., may run to excess, but even
Quixotism is refreshing. How invigorating to see men dependent on God, though independent of
man, stand up against professional clamour and popular prejudice, to see men resist the tyranny of
public opinion which will not hear the other side, and refuse the popular and give the unpopular
praise!
3. Purity.
4. Resignation. (Dean Stanley.)
Nonconformity to the world
I. What abe we to understand by the world (1Jn_2:16).
1. The lust of the flesh (Tit_2:12).

137. 2. The lust of the eye (Ecc_5:11).
3. The pride of life (Rom_1:30).
II. What is it not to re conformed to it?
1. Not to approve of it (1Jn_2:15).
2. Not to imitate it (1Pe_4:4).
3. To use it as if we used it not (1Co_7:30-31).
III. Why should we not be conformed?
1. We are separated from the world to God (1Pe_2:9-12).
2. We have put on Christ.
3. All that is in the world is not of the Father (1Jn_2:16), and is contrary to the love of Him
(1Jn_2:15).
4. The fashion of this world passeth away (1Co_7:31).
Conclusion: Conform not to this world.
1. You have higher things to mind (Col_3:1-3; Php_3:20).
2. This world cannot satisfy you (Ecc_1:8).
3. You must give an account of what you do here. (Bp. Beveridge.)
Nonconformity to the world

138. I. Its nature.
1. Not ceremonial.
2. Not civil.
3. But moral. Be not conformed--
(1) To the spirit of the world.
(2) In your rules of life.
(3) In your company.
(4) In your practices.
II. Some reasons for its prohibition.
1. Duty.
2. Profession.
3. Self-love.
4. Love of your neighbour.
5. The commands of Scripture.
III. How it may be prevented. By--
1. The renovation of your natures.
2. The exercise of daily prayer.

139. 3. Guarding against temptation.
4. A constant dependence upon God. (Biblical Museum.)
Nonconformity to the world
There will arise in the Christian’s course, from time to time, occasions on which he will be in doubt
as to some points of his duty in relation to social intercourse and amusements. Well, in such cases
be turns to his chart--on that chart (his Bible) though he find not every rock and shoal and
quicksand, marked down by name--he finds it laid down plainly and decisively that the whole coast
is dangerous, i.e, he finds a general principle, “Be not conformed to this world”--“The friendship of
the world is enmity with God.” By whom is the amusement patronised? Are they these who are the
votaries of other and less dubious pleasures? Are they those who wear the world’s badge and have
its mark stamped on their foreheads? Then let the Christian pause--let him fear to find himself
surrounded by crowds of worldlings, drinking with them of the same cup. It must be at best but a
suspicious cup that meets tastes which should be opposite--it must be at best a suspicious path in
which, even for a moment, the Christian walks hand in hand with the man of this world. Be quite
sure the world would not be drinking of that cup, if it were not in some way spiced to their taste.
Alas! it is far, far more likely that the Christian should have stepped out of his narrow path, than that
the worldling should have forsaken his, to walk, even for a moment, with the Christian. And
remember that in such cases there is great need that you watch against self-deception. The remark
of Jeremy Taylor is but too true: “Most men choose the sin, if it be once disputed whether it be a sin
or no.” Although grace teaches and inclines you to distaste the world, yet corruption remains, and to
that corruption sin and the world are but too palatable. See to it, then, that while you are professing
to inquire into the lawfulness or unlawfulness of such an action, your mind is not biased beforehand,
and you have not a secret desire to find the Word of God on your side--a secret determination to
make it out, if possible to be so. Beware, too, of that religion which is anxious to take up its lodging
next door to the world. If you are determined to go as far as you can you are not safe--you will very
soon be on the other side of the line. And if, after all, a given case seemed doubtful, remember,
religion, not the world, is to have the benefit of the doubt. It is better to abstain from mistaken
scrupulosity from a hundred lawful things than to run the risk of one unlawful act of conformity to the
world, or of throwing one stumbling-block in the way of another. (Canon Miller.)
Nonconformity to the world

140. There are two words for world, áé̓ ù́í and êḯóìïò . The former regards time, the latter space. Once
they are combined (Eph_2:2), “in accordance with the time-state of this matter-world.” The
direction, therefore, is, “Be not like the men of this world, whose all is the present. Wear not the garb
of time: live for eternity.” (Dean Vaughan.)
Nonconformity to the world--inward
As the mother of pearl fish lives in the sea without receiving a drop of salt water, and as towards the
Chelidonian Islands springs of fresh water may be found in the midst of the sea, and as the fire-fly
passes through the flames without burning its wings, so a vigorous and resolute soul may live in the
world without being infected with any of its burnouts, may discover sweet springs of piety amidst its
salt waters, and fly among the flames of earthly concupiscence without burning the wings of the holy
desires of a devout life. (Francis de Sales.)
Nonconformity to the world--outward
The BIRD OF PARADISE , which has such a dower of exquisitely beautiful feathers, cannot fly
with the wind; if it attempts to do so, the current being much swifter than its flight, so ruffles its
plumage as to impede its progress, and finally to terminate it: it is, therefore, compelled to fly
against the wind, which keeps its feathers in their place, and thus it gains the place where it would
be. So the Christian must not attempt to go with the current of a sinful world: if he does, it will not
only hinder, but end his religious progress; but he must go against it, and then every effort of his
soul will be upward, heavenward, Godward. (M. Davies, D.D.)
The world
is fallen human nature acting itself out in the human family; moulding and fashioning the framework
of human society in accordance with its own tendencies. It is fallen human nature making the
ongoings of human thought, feeling, and action its own. It is the reign or kingdom of the carnal mind,
which is enmity against God. Wherever that mind prevails, there is the world. (R. S.Candlish, D.D.)

141. The world an atmosphere
It is like the dense atmosphere which on a November day hangs over your vast metropolis, the
product of its countless homes and the proof of its vast industrial efforts; and yet the veil which
shuts out from it the light of heaven, destroys the colour on its works of art--the dark unwholesome
vapour which clogs vitality and undermines health, and from which a Londoner escapes at intervals
with a light heart, that he may see the sun, and the trees, and the face of nature as God made them,
and feel for a few months what it is to live. Even thus the world hangs like a deadly atmosphere over
every single human soul, brooding over it, flapping its wings like the monstrous evil bird in the fable,
or penetrating and entering into it like a subtle poison, to sap the springs and sources of its vigour
and its life. (Canon Liddon.)
The world, danger of
As you love your souls, beware of the world: it has slain its thousands and ten thousands. What
ruined Lot’s wife?--the world. What ruined Achan?--the world. What ruined Haman?--the world.
What ruined Judas?--the world. What ruined Simon Magus?--the world. What ruined Demas?--the
world: And “what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
The world: difficult to define
The world cannot be clearly marked out as if it were a kingdom on a map, and every year makes it
more difficult to draw any line of demarcation or to lay down any hard and fast lines upon the
subject, because society is being leavened by Christian principles, the moral conscience of the
nation quickened, and a public opinion, on the whole of a healthy character, making itself powerfully
felt. And, further, what is the world to one person is not the world to another. The fact that the world
cannot be defined as to locality is an advantage, not a disadvantage: for it calls forth from us a
constant spirit of inquiry and watchfulness before we enter upon our pursuits, form our connections,
or enter into society. The believer should at all times test every relationship into which he is brought,
to see whether beneath its possibly plausible and pleasant surface there may not lurk the lust of the
flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. The Christian, too, should examine not only what is
without, to see whether the place he is entering is the world, but also what is within himself, and
whether he is not converting even what is the kingdom of God into the world by the worldly spirit
which he brings with him. We may infect as well as be infected. (C. Neil, M.A.)

142. The world: spirit of
The spirit of the world is for ever altering, impalpable; for ever eluding, in fresh forms, your attempts
to seize it. In the days of Noah the spirit of the world was violence. In Elijah’s day it was idolatry. In
the day of Christ it was power, concentrated and condensed in the government of Rome. In ours,
perhaps, it is the love of money. It enters in different proportions into different bosoms; it is found in
a different form in contiguous towns, in the fashionable watering-places, and in the commercial city;
it is this thing at Athens, and another in Corinth. This is the spirit of the world, a thing in my heart
and yours to be struggled against, not so much in the case of others as in the silent battle done
within our own souls. (F. W. Robertson, M.A.)
Worldliness: its spirit permanent, its forms changeful
The world in our days is not a heathen world, as it was in the days of the apostle; but it is not a whit
less “the world that lieth in wickedness.” The outward developments are different, but the inward
character, principles, and spirit are the very same: changing a few of the mere external
circumstances, the apostle’s description of the “world” of his own day is equally applicable to the
“world” of ours. There are now, indeed, no idolatrous banquets, no savage gladiatorial conflicts in
the blood-stained arena of the amphitheatre, no midnight orgies to some disgraceful deity. The
world, perhaps, now, at least the world of the upper classes of society, is not quite so rough, but
more polished in its sinfulness; but its scenes of amusement, its theatres, its luxurious tastes and
habits, its nightly revels, and too lavish entertainments, partake as essentially of the elements of
worldliness as the less advanced indulgences of a ruder age. In its thirst after wealth, in its restless
strivings after fame and glory, in its grasping selfishness, in its love of splendour and show, we
question whether the world, as it presents itself to the Christian of the nineteenth century wears any
materially different aspect from that of the world of the apostle’s days. But, when we speak of
worldliness, either as it is developed in business or pleasure, let it not be for a moment supposed
that worldliness exists only in these developments: these are only indices or marks of an inward and
rooted principle, innate in every man born into this world, and dominant in every man, without
exception, who has not been “born again of water and of the Spirit.” (W. H. Etchers, M.A.)
But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.--
Transformation

143. This word is used to denote the Lord’s transfiguration, when His body was seen invested with the
glory in which He is to appear at His second coming. You will then see Him thus transfigured, and
the result will be your own transfiguration (Php_3:21). For He is to “CHANGE YOUR vile
bodies,” etc. But there is a transfiguration in the life that now is (2Co_3:18) also into the image of
the Lord; and therefore it is a transformation into glory, but not into the glory that was seen on the
Mount, but what was seen in the manger, in the wilderness, in Gethsemane, and on the Cross.
Note:--
I. The manner of it. Christ was transformed by becoming man; you are to be transformed by
becoming new men in Him. The renewing of your mind is your being brought to have the same mind
which Christ had. “I come to do Thy will, O God,” is the language of the Son in the very act of taking
the new nature; the renewing of your mind is your making that language your own. Note the
closeness of the analogy.
1. The agency is the same--the Holy Ghost. It is He alone who can make the Son partaker of your
human nature, without making Him to be as fallen man; it is He alone who can make you partakers
of the Son’s Divine nature, without making you to be as God.
2. These two operations fit into one another: the one effecting that supernatural birth by which the
Son becomes a servant, the other that supernatural birth by which the servants become sons. The
one transformation is the cause of the other: not only as being that without which the other could not
have been, but also as being the means of the other. It is through your believing and appropriating
His transformation, that you are yourselves transformed. For the transformation in either case is a
union. His being transformed is His being united by a new creation with you; your being transformed
is your being united by a new creation to Him.
3. To the Son Himself His being born of the Spirit brought a new mind. It was a new thing for Him to
have the mind of a servant, and to say, “I come to do Thy will, O God.” And it is a new mind in you
when, as sons, you say the same. Naturally, self-will is the ruling principle of your mind.
Insubordination to God is that “fashion of the world” to which you are not to be conformed.
4. The transformation effected in the case of Christ, when He humbled Himself to do the will of God,
was voluntary on His part; otherwise His humiliation and obedience unto death could have had no
efficacy. Equally voluntary must be the change on your part: “Be ye.” You must say, with renewed
minds, entering into His mind, “I come to do Thy will, O my God.” It is true, that in order to your thus
acting, you must be acted upon by the Holy Spirit. But you are not acted upon as inert matter may

144. be acted upon.
5. Note two practical applications.
(1) If the transformation in you is thus like the transformation in Him--see to it that it be very
complete. It was so in the case of Christ; it must be in yours. He emptied Himself. Do you also
empty yourselves. He laid aside His natural position of equality with God. Do you also lay aside your
usurped position of seeking to be equal with God.
(2) That you may be thus transformed into the image of your Lord--appropriate as available for you
your Lord’s transformation into your image. Behold Him transformed for you; and be you, after a
corresponding manner, transformed in Him. He becomes a servant, continuing still to be the Son;
you become sons in Him, feeling yourselves now, for the first time really, to be servants. He, being
the Son, comes to do the will of God as a servant; you, being servants, come to do the will of God
as sons.
II. The end of this transformation. “That you may prove,” etc. The will of God needs to be proved. It
can be known only by trial. Essentially, the will of God is and must be the expression of His nature.
But the nature of God far transcends the comprehension of finite minds; and therefore His will may
well be expected to be incomprehensible too. But in that formal aspect of it as the assertion of the
authority of God, let His will be put to the test of actual trial, and then will its real character as the
expression of His nature come out; for while neither God Himself nor His will can be grasped in the
speculative understanding, both He and it can be grasped in the obedient and loving heart. But
apart from any inquiry into the reason of it, the fact is pregnant with important consequences. For
one thing, it partly explains the economy of probation, and tends to show how trial must be both
summary and decisive summary, that it may be ascertained once for all whether the authority of
God is to be acknowledged or disowned; and decisive, for if His will is acknowledged, the way is
opened for proving it as the expression of His nature to be “good and acceptable,” etc.; whereas, if
disowned, all opportunity of knowing its real character is hopelessly lost.
1. The probation of man turns upon the willingness of man to put the will of God to the proof. The
will of God, as it was announced in paradise, was not such as to command either approbation or
consent on the part of our first parents. The command not to eat of the fruit did not obviously
commend itself as “good,” etc. Doubtless, if they had kept it, they would have found by experience--
(1) That it was in itself “good” as the seal of God’s covenant of life, and as the preparation for the
unfolding of His higher providence.

145. (2) Acceptable. Suited to their case and circumstances, deserving of their acceptance, sure to
become more and more well-pleasing as they entered more and more into its spirit.
(3) Perfect. That thus only could God’s perfection be vindicated--the perfection of His sovereign
right to rule; that thus only could the perfection of the creature be wrought out in an onward and
upward path of loyalty and love. All this our first parents would have learned concerning the will of
God, if only they had consented to prove it; but this they would not do; they passed judgment upon it
unproved; they refused to give it a fair trial; they chose rather to make the opposite experiment, and
they have left this experiment as their sad legacy to their descendants, so many of whom are now
occupied in proving, trying, how they may be best conformed to the world so as to make the most of
it; proving, in short, what is the will of this world and this world’s prince.
2. The probation of Christ proceeds upon the very same principle. He is tried as the first Adam was
tried, and upon she same issue, namely, His willingness to prove the will of God; and in His case
also the will of God may be so presented to His human soul as to appear neither reasonable nor
desirable. In such a light, accordingly, Satan tries to put it before Him. The pain, shame, weariness,
and blood awaiting Him, the tempter ingeniously contrasts with the shorter road to glory which he
would have Him to take. The Second Adam will not, like the first, accept Satan’s representation; He
will prove it for Himself; and so He “learns obedience by the things which He suffers.” But He proved
it, and in the proving of it He found it to be “good and acceptable and perfect.” He tasted the delight
of obedience, as He learned it.
3. It is into this image of Jesus, thus “proving that will of God,” that you are now to be
“transformed,” etc. You are to prove God’s will--
(1) In what must be the first act of your obedience--namely, your believing on Him whom He has
sent. What this will of God is as an expression of His nature you cannot know until you prove it. You
must “taste and see” how good the Lord is, etc. You would fain have all made quite clear to you
before you surrender yourselves to the gospel call. Nay, you stand aloof, and start objections and
difficulties. You do not see how this aspect of the gospel call can be incompatible with that. Nay, try
this dipping in the Jordan. It may seem to you an unlikely mode of cure; but at any rate try it. In the
embrace of Christ, not while you are standing out in the attitude of rebellion, all difficulties vanish.
(2) Then ever after, following on the path of your new obedience, you are to be proving “what is that
good,” etc. At every step it will be a trial to you. It may be very hard sometimes to believe that the
will of God concerning you is “good, and acceptable,” etc. But give it a full and fair trial; and you will
soon find that in the very “keeping of God’s commandments there is great reward.” Conclusion:
Mark--

146. 1. How opposite are the two habits, namely, being “conformed to this world,” and being
“transformed,” etc. There are here two types, of one or other of which you must take the fashion. To
be conformed to the world is to take things as they are and make the best of them. The opposite
habit is to try things as they should be.
2. How complete the transformation must be if, instead of being conformed to this world, you are to
“prove,” etc. You must make full proof of God’s will. But that you cannot do if you yield a forced
submission. A son yielding obedience to his father’s will reluctantly, never can be acquainted with its
true character and blessedness; but let him throw himself heart and soul into the doing of it, then will
he prove it of what sort it is. To have the mind to do so implies a great change, a new creation, a
new heart.
3. Now, so long as the fashion of this world lasts, so long as that second transformation which
awaits you is postponed, this proving of the will of God must throughout be more or less an effort.
But take courage, O child of God! “The fashion of this world passeth away.” You “look for new
heavens and a new earth.” The fashion of that new world and the will of God will not be opposed to
one another. The proving of the will of God, then, with your whole nature changed into the image of
the heavenly, what a joyous exercise of liberty and love will it be!
4. In the meantime, a signal encouragement as motive. The more you prove the fashion of this
world, the less you feel it to be “good,” etc. It looks fair at the first, but who that has ever lived long
but re-echoes the wise man’s complaint--“All is vanity”? The will of God looks worse at the
beginning; but on, on, child of God, and you will find a growing light, encouragement, and joy. “The
path of the just is as the shining light, etc.; and in the trial of them you find that “wisdom’s ways are
ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” (R. S. Candlish, D.D.)
Transformation
I. What is it to be transformed? To be new creatures (2Co_5:17).
1. In our judgment concerning--
(1) God (Mat_19:17).

147. (2) Christ (Php_1:21; Php_3:8).
(3) The world (Ecc_1:1-2).
2. Our thoughts (Psa_1:2).
3. Consciences (Act_24:16).
4. Wills (Lam_3:24).
5. Affections (Col_3:2).
(1) Love and hatred (Mat_22:37).
(2) Desire and abhorrence.
(3) Joy and grief (Psa_42:1-2).
(4) Hope and fear (Psa_27:1).
(5) Anger and meekness (Mat_11:29).
6. Words (Mat_12:36).
7. Actions (1Pe_1:15-16). Towards God and men (Act_24:16).
II. Why are we to be transformed. Till transformed--
1. We are altogether sinful (Pro_15:8).
2. We can enjoy no happiness here nor be capable of happiness hereafter (Heb_12:14; 1Co_2:14).
III. Examine whether you be transformed or no. Look to your heads (2Co_13:5); your hearts
(Pro_4:23); your lives (Mat_12:33). Note the reasons for this examination.

148. 1. Many are mistaken about it, and think they are renewed, because turned--
(1) From one sin to another.
(2) From one sect to another.
(3) From debauchery to mere morality.
2. This is the most dangerous of all mistakes.
3. If you never examine yourselves, you have the more cause to fear your condition.
IV. Signs of our being transformed. All our actions proceed--
1. From new principles.
(1) Obedience to God (1Sa_15:22).
(2) A desire to please Him (1Th_4:1; Heb_11:5).
2. After a new manner.
(1) Not hypocritically but sincerely (2Co_1:12).
(2) Not proudly, but humbly (Luk_17:10).
(3) Not interruptedly, but constantly (Luk_1:75).
3. To a new end (1Co_10:31; Mat_5:16).
V. Means.
1. Read the word written (Jam_1:21).
2. Hear it preached.

149. 3. Meditate upon it.
4. Pray (Psa_51:10).
5. Receive the sacrament.
Conclusion:
1. By renovation you become again as you were created (Gen_1:26).
2. God Himself will change to you.
(1) His anger to love (Isa_66:2).
(2) All His actions to your good (Rom_8:28).
3. If now transformed from the world to God, hereafter you shall be transformed from misery to
happiness. (Bp. Beveridge.)
The Christian life a transfiguration
In the preceding verse the apostle gathers the whole sum of Christian duty into one word. And so in
this. As all is to be sacrifice, so all is to be transformation. Mark:--
I. Where Paul begins--with an inward renewal
1. He goes deep down, because he had learned in His school who said: “Make the tree good and
the fruit good.” To tinker at the outside with a host of red-tape restrictions, and prescriptions, is all
waste time and effort. You may wrap a man up in the swaddling bands of specific precepts until you
can scarcely see him, and he cannot move, and you have not done a bit of good. The inner man
must be dealt with first, and then the outward will come right in due time. Many of the plans for the
social and moral renovation of the world are as superficial as a doctor’s treatment would be, who
would direct all his attention to curing pimples when the patient is dying of consumption.

150. 2. There has to be a radical change in the middle. “Mind” seems to be equivalent to the thinking
faculty, but, possibly, includes the whole inner man. The inner man has got a wrong twist somehow;
it needs to be moulded over again. It is held in slavery to the material; it is a mass of affections fixed
upon the transient; a predominant self-regard characterises it and its actions.
3. This new creation of the inner man is only possible as the result of the communication of a life
from without; the life of Jesus, put into your heart, on condition of your opening the door of your
heart by faith, and saying, “Come in, Thou blessed of the Lord.” And He comes in, bearing in His
hands a germ of life which will mould and shape our “mind” after His own blessed pattern.
4. That new life, when given, needs to be fostered and cherished. It is only a little spark that has to
kindle a great heap of green wood, and to turn it into its own ruddy likeness. We have to keep our
two hands round it, for fear it should be blown out by the rough gusts of passion and of
circumstance. It is only a little seed that is sown in our hearts; we have to cherish and cultivate it, to
water it by our prayers, and to watch over it, lest either the fowls of the air with light wings should
carry it away, or the heavy wains of the world’s business and pleasures should crush it to death, or
the thorns of earthly desires should spring up and choke it.
II. What he expects from the inward change--a life “transfigured,” the same word as is employed in
the account of our Lord’s transfiguration. In that event our Lord’s indwelling divinity came up to the
surface and became visible.
3For by the grace given me I say to every one of
you: Do not think of yourself more highly than
you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober
judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith
God has given you.
BAR ES, “For I say - The word “for” shows that the apostle is about to introduce
some additional considerations to enforce what he had just said, or to show how we may
evince a mind that is not conformed to the world.

151. Through the grace - Through the favor, or in virtue of the favor of the apostolic
office. By the authority that is conferred on me to declare the will of God as an apostle;
see the note at Rom_1:5; see also Gal_1:6, Gal_1:15; Gal_2:9; Eph_3:8; 1Ti_1:14.
Not to think ... - Not to over-estimate himself, or to think more of himself than he
ought to. What is the true standard by which we ought to estimate ourselves he
immediately adds. This is a caution against pride; and an exhortation not to judge of
ourselves by our talents, wealth, or function, but to form another standard of judging of
ourselves, by our Christian character. The Romans would probably be in much danger
from this quarter. The prevailing habit of judging among them was according to rank, or
wealth, or eloquence, or function. While this habit of judging prevailed in the world
around them, there was danger that it might also prevail in the church. And the
exhortation was that they should not judge of their own characters by the usual modes
among people, but by their Christian attainments. There is no sin to which people are
more prone than an inordinate self-valuation and pride. Instead of judging by what
constitutes true excellence of character, they pride themselves on that which is of no
intrinsic value; on rank, and titles, and external accomplishments; or on talents,
learning, or wealth. The only true standard of character pertains to the principles of
action, or to that which constitutes the moral nature of the man; and to that the apostle
calls the Roman people.
But to think soberly - Literally, “to think so as to act soberly or wisely.” So to
estimate ourselves as to act or demean ourselves wisely, prudently, modestly. Those who
over-estimate themselves are proud, haughty, foolish in their deportment. Those who
think of themselves as they ought, are modest, sober, prudent. There is no way to
maintain a wise and proper conduct so certain, as to form a humble and modest estimate
of our own character.
According as God hath dealt - As God has measured to each one, or apportioned
to each one. In this place the faith which Christians have, is traced to God as its giver.
This act, that God has given it, will be itself one of the most effectual promoters of
humility and right feeling. People commonly regard the objects on which they pride
themselves as things of their own creation, or as depending on themselves. But let an
object be regarded as the gift of God, and it ceases to excite pride, and the feeling is at
once changed into gratitude. He, therefore, who regards God as the source of all
blessings, and he only, will be an humble man.
The measure of faith - The word “faith” here is evidently put for religion, or
Christianity. Faith is a main thing in religion. It constitutes its first demand, and the
Christian religion, therefore, is characterized by its faith, or its confidence, in God; see
Mar_16:17; compare Heb. 11; Rom. 4. We are not, therefore, to be elated in our view of
ourselves; we are not to judge of our own characters by wealth, or talent, or learning, but
by our attachment to God, and by the influence of faith on our minds. The meaning is,
judge yourselves, or estimate yourselves, by your piety. The propriety of this rule is
apparent:
(1) Because no other standard is a correct one, or one of value. Our talent, learning,
rank, or wealth, is a very improper rule by which to estimate ourselves. All may be wholly
unconnected with moral worth; and the worst as well as the best people may possess
them.
(2) God will judge us in the day of judgment by our attachment to Christ and his cause
Matt. 25; and that is the true standard by which to estimate ourselves here.
(3) Nothing else will secure and promote humility but this. All other things may
produce or promote pride, but this will effectually secure humility. The fact that God has
given all that we have; the fact that the poor and obscure may have as true an elevation of

152. character as ourselves; the consciousness of our own imperfections and short-comings in
the Christian faith; and the certainty that we are soon to be arraigned to try this great
question, whether we have evidence that we are the friends of God; will all tend to
promote humbleness of mind and to bring down our usual inordinate self-estimation. If
all Christians judged themselves in this way, it would remove at once no small part of the
pride of station and of life from the world, and would produce deep attachment for those
who are blessed with the faith of the gospel, though they may be unadorned by any of the
wealth or trappings which now promote pride and distinctions among men.
CLARKE, “Through the grace given unto me - By the grace given St. Paul most
certainly means his apostolical office, by which he had the authority, not only to preach
the Gospel, but also to rule the Church of Christ. This is the meaning of the word, ᅧ χαρις,
in Eph_3:8 : Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given - is
conceded this office or employment immediately by God himself; that I should preach
among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Not to think - more highly - Μη ᆓπερφρονειν, Not to act proudly; to arrogate
nothing to himself on account of any grace he had received, or of any office committed to
him.
But to think soberly - Αλλα φρονειν εις το σωφρονειν. The reader will perceive here a
sort of paronomasia, or play upon words: φρονειν, from φρην, the mind, signifies to
think, mind, relish, to be of opinion, etc.; and σωφρονειν from σοος, sound, and φρην, the
mind, signifies to be of a sound mind; to think discreetly, modestly, humbly. Let no man
think himself more or greater than God has made him; and let him know that what ever
he is or has of good or excellence, he has it from God; and that the glory belongs to the
giver, and not to him who has received the gift.
Measure of faith - Μετρον πιστεως. It is very likely, as Dr. Moore has conjectured,
that the πιστις, faith, here used, means the Christian religion; and the measure, the
degree of knowledge and experience which each had received in it, and the power this
gave him of being useful in the Church of God. See Rom_12:6.
GILL, “For I say, through the grace given unto me,.... The Ethiopic version reads,
the grace of God: and so two of Stephens's copies. By which the apostle intends, not that
internal grace which was wrought in his soul; nor the Gospel of the grace of God, which
he preached; nor the gifts of grace, which qualified him for that service; but the grace of
apostleship, or that authoritative power, which he, as the apostle, received from Christ to
say, command, give orders and instructions to churches, and particular persons:
to every man that is among you: every member of the church, in whatsoever state or
condition, whether in office or not; of whatsoever abilities or capacity, having gifts,
whether more or less; the manifestation of the Spirit being given to everyone to profit
with, for his own and the good of others:

153. not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; that is, either not to
arrogate to himself what does not belong to him, and detract from others, who may have
equal, if not superior, abilities to him; or not to glory in what he has, as if he had not
received it, and as if it was altogether owing to his own sagacity, penetration, diligence,
and industry; or not to search into things too high for him that are out of his reach, and
beyond his capacity; though this is not to be understood as discouraging a search into the
Scriptures of truth, the more difficult parts of it, and the more knotty points of
controversy; but as forbidding inquiry into things not lawful to be searched into, or, if
lawful, as requiring such a scrutiny to be made with modesty, and an humble
dependence on superior light and assistance, and a discovery of it with humility and
lowliness of mind;
but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure
of faith: such ought to consider that what gifts, abilities, light, and knowledge they have,
they have then, not of themselves, but from God; that they have not all faith, and all
knowledge, or do not know the whole of the faith of the Gospel only a measure of it,
which is dealt out, divided, and parted to every man, some having a greater degree of
evangelical light than others; and that all have some, but none all. The Syriac version
renders it, "faith in measure"; one of Stephens's copies reads, "the measure of grace"; see
Eph_4:7.
HE RY, “Concerning our duty which respects ourselves; this is sobriety.
1. A sober opinion of ourselves, Rom_12:3. It is ushered in with a solemn preface: I
say, through the grace given unto me: the grace f wisdom, by which he understood the
necessity and excellency of this duty; the grace of apostleship, by which he had authority
to press and enjoin it. “I say it, who am commissioned to say it, in God's name. I say it,
and it is not for you to gainsay it.” It is said to every one of us, one as well as another.
Pride is a sin that is bred in the bone of all of us, and we have therefore each of us need to
be cautioned and armed against it. - Not to think of himself more highly than he ought
to think. We must take heed of having too great an opinion of ourselves, or putting too
high a valuation upon our own judgments, abilities, persons, performances. We must not
be self-conceited, nor esteem too much our own wisdom and other attainments, not
think ourselves to be something, Gal_6:3. There is a high thought of ourselves which we
may and must have to think ourselves too good to be the slaves of sin and drudges to this
world. But, on the other hand, we should think soberly, that is, we must have a low and
modest opinion of ourselves and our own abilities, our gifts and graces, according to
what we have received from God, and not otherwise. We must not be confident and hot
in matters of doubtful disputation; not stretch ourselves beyond our line; not judge and
censure those that differ from us; not desire to make a fair show in the flesh. These and
the like are the fruits of a sober opinion of ourselves. The words will bear yet another
sense agreeable enough. Of himself is not in the original; therefore it may be read, That
no man be wise above what he ought to be wise, but be wise unto sobriety. We must not
exercise ourselves in things too high for us (Psa_131:1, Psa_131:2), not intrude into those
things which we have not seen (Col_2:18), those secret things which belong not to us
(Deu_29:29), not covet to be wise above what is written. There is a knowledge that puffs
up, which reaches after forbidden fruit. We must take heed of this, and labour after that
knowledge which tends to sobriety, to the rectifying of the heart and the reforming of the
life. Some understand it of the sobriety which keeps us in our own place and station,
from intruding into the gifts and offices of others. See an instance of this sober modest

154. care in the exercise of the greatest spiritual gifts, 2Co_10:13-15. To this head refers also
that exhortation (Rom_12:16), Be not wise in your own conceits. It is good to be wise,
but it is bad to think ourselves so; for there is more hope of a fool than of him that is wise
in his own eyes. It was an excellent thing for Moses to have his face shine and not know
it. Now the reasons why we must have such a sober opinion of ourselves, our own
abilities and attainments, are these: -
(1.) Because whatever we have that is good, God hath dealt it to us; every good and
perfect gift comes from above, Jam_1:17. What have we that we have not received? And,
if we have received it, why then do we boast? 1Co_4:7. The best and most useful man in
the world is no more, no better, than what the free grace of God makes him every day.
When we are thinking of ourselves, we must remember to think not how we attained, as
though our might and the power of our hand had gotten us these gifts; but think how
kind God hath been to us, for it is he that gives us power to do any thing that is good, and
in him is all our sufficiency.
(2.) Because God deals out his gifts in a certain measure: According to the measure of
faith. Observe, The measure of spiritual gifts he calls the measure of faith, for this is the
radical grace. What we have and do that is good is so far right and acceptable as it is
founded in faith, and flows from faith, and no further. Now faith, and other spiritual gifts
with it, are dealt by measure, according as Infinite Wisdom sees meet for us. Christ had
the Spirit given him without measure, Joh_3:34. But the saints have it by measure; see
Eph_4:7. Christ, who had gifts without measure, was meek and lowly; and shall we, that
are stinted, be proud and self-conceited?
JAMISO , “For I say — authoritatively
through the grace given unto me — as an apostle of Jesus Christ; thus
exemplifying his own precept by modestly falling back on that office which both
warranted and required such plainness towards all classes.
to every man that is among you, not to think, etc. — It is impossible to convey
in good English the emphatic play, so to speak, which each word here has upon another:
“not to be high-minded above what he ought to be minded, but so to be minded as to be
sober-minded” [Calvin, Alford]. This is merely a strong way of characterizing all undue
self-elevation.
according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith — Faith is
here viewed as the inlet to all the other graces, and so, as the receptive faculty of the
renewed soul - that is, “as God hath given to each his particular capacity to take in the
gifts and graces which He designs for the general good.”
CALVI ,”3.For I say, through the grace, etc. If you think not the causal particle superfluous, this
verse will not be unsuitably connected with the former; for since he wished that our whole study
should be EMPLOYED in investigating the will of God, the next thing to this was, to draw us
away from vain curiosity. As however the causal particle is often used redundantly by Paul, you may
take the verse as containing a simple affirmation; for thus the sense would also be very
appropriate.
But before he specifies his command, he reminds them of the authority which had been given to
him, so that they might not otherwise attend to his voice than if it was the voice of God himself; for

155. his words are the same, as though he had said, “ speak not of myself; but, as God’ ambassador, I
bring to you the commands which he has entrusted to me.” By “grace ” (as before) he means the
Apostleship, with respect to which he exalts God’ kindness, and at the same time intimates, that he
had not crept in through his own presumption, but, that he was chosen by the calling of God. Having
then by this preface SECURED authority to himself, he laid the Romans under the necessity of
obeying, unless they were prepared to despise God in the person of his minister.
Then the command follows, by which he draws us away from the investigation of those things which
can bring nothing but harassment to the mind, and no edification; and he forbids every one to
assume more than what his capacity and calling will allow; and at the same time he exhorts us to
think and meditate on those things which may render us sober-minded and modest. For so I
understand the words, rather than in the sense given by [Erasmus ] who thus renders them, “ no
one think proudly of himself;” for this sense is somewhat remote from the words, and the other is
more accordant with the context. The clause, Beyond what it behooves him to be wise, shows what
he meant by the former verb ὑπερφρόνειν to be above measure wise; that is, that we exceed the
measure of wisdom, if we engage in those things concerning which it is not meet that we should be
anxious. (381) To be wise unto sobriety is to attend to the study of those things by which you may
find that you learn and gain moderation.
To every one as God has distributed, etc. ( Unicuique ut divisit Deus There is here an inversion of
words, instead of — As to every one God has distributed (382) And here a reason is given for that
sober-minded wisdom which he had mentioned; for as distribution of graces is various, so every one
preserves himself within the due boundaries of wisdom, who keeps within the limits of that grace of
faith bestowed on him by the Lord. Hence there is an immoderate affectation of wisdom, not only in
empty things and in things useless to be known, but also in the knowledge of those things which are
otherwise useful, when we regard not what has been given to us, but through rashness and
presumption go beyond the measure of our knowledge; and such outrage God will not suffer to go
unpunished. It is often to be seen, with what insane trifles they are led away, who, by foolish
ambition, PROCEED beyond those bounds which are set for them.(383)
The meaning is, that it is a part of our reasonable sacrifice to surrender ourselves, in a meek and
teachable spirit, to be ruled and guided by God. And further, by setting up faith in opposition to
human judgment, he restrains us from our own opinions, and at the same time specifies the due
measure of it, that is, when the faithful humbly keep themselves within the limits allotted to
them. (384)
(381) “Ne supra modum sapiat,” so the Vulgate and [Beza ] ; µὴ ὑπερθρόνειν “ne supra modum de
se sentiat — let him not think immoderately of himself,” [Mede ]; “ to arrogate to himself,”
[Doddridge ]; “ to overestimate himself,” [Stuart ]. This and the following clause may be thus
rendered, “ to think highly above what it behooves him to think,” that is, of himself. Then what
follows may admit of this rendering, “ to think so as to think rightly,” or modestly, ( εἰς τὸ σωφρόνειν)
The last verb occurs elsewhere five times; thrice it means “ be of a sane mind,” Mar_5:15; and twice
it means “ act prudently,” Titus 2:6; 1Pe_4:7; or, it may be, in the last passage, “ live temperately.”
As it refers here to the mind, it must mean such an estimate of one’ self as is sound, just, and right,
such as becomes on who is sound and sane in his mind. Pride is a species of insanity; but humility
betokens a return to a sane mind: and an humble estimate of ourselves, as Professor [Hodge ]
observes, is the only sound, sane, and right estimate. — Ed.
(382) We find a similar transposition in 1Co_3:5. — Ed.
(383) “ is better,” says [Augustine ], “ doubt respecting hidden things, than to contend about things
uncertain.” — Ed.

156. (384) The expression “ measures of faith ,” µέτρον πίστεως is differently explained. Some, as
[Beza ] and [Pareus ], consider “” here as including religion or Christian truth, because faith is the
main principle, “ God has divided to each the measure of Christian truth or knowledge.” Others
suppose with [Mede ], that “” here is to be taken for those various gifts and endowments which God
bestowed on those who believed or professed the faith of the gospel; “ God has divided to each the
measure of those gifts which come by faith, or which are given to those who believe.” The last view
is most suitable to the context. We may, however, take, “” here for grace, and consider the meaning
JOH PIPER, “Meditation on Romans 12:3
In my message on Romans 12:3-8, I argued from verse 3 that God gives
varying measures of faith to his people. Paul says that we ought "to think so
as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith."
In the context this is not a limited reference to the unique spiritual gift of
faith (1 Corinthians 12:9). For Paul says, "I say to everyone among you not
to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to
have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith." "To
each" refers back to "everyone among you." God has given all Christians
varying measures of faith. This is the faith with which we receive and use
our varying gifts. It is the ordinary daily faith by which we live and minister.
In the context, Paul is concerned that people were "thinking of themselves
more highly than they ought to think." His final remedy for this pride is to
say that not only are spiritual gifts a work of God's free grace in our lives,
but so also is the very faith with which we use those gifts. This means that
every possible ground of boasting is taken away. How can we boast if even
the qualification for receiving gifts is also a gift?
That's how important humility is in God's eyes. This is exactly the same aim
of God mentioned in Ephesians 2:8-9 where Paul stresses that saving faith is
a gift: "By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, so that no one may boast."
Faith is a gift from God, so that no one may boast. Or, as Romans 12:3 says,
So that we will not think too highly of ourselves. The last bastion of pride is
the belief that we are the originators of our faith.
Paul knew that the abundant grace of God was the source of his own faith.
He said in 1 Timothy 1:13-14, "I was formerly a blasphemer and a
persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted
ignorantly in unbelief; but the grace of our Lord overflowed [for me] with
the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus." He was an unbeliever. But then

157. grace overflowed to him with faith.
So he knew this was the case with every other believer too. He said to the
Philippians, "To you it has been given for Christ's sake, not only to believe
in Him, but also to suffer for His sake" (Philippians 1:29). This is why he
thanked God and not human resourcefulness for the faith he saw in his
churches: "We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brethren, as is
fitting, because your faith is greatly enlarged" (2 Thessalonians 1:3). We
thank God for the enlargement of faith because "God has allotted to each
[his own] measure of faith" (Romans 12:3).
This truth has a profound impact on how we pray. Jesus gives us the
example in Luke 22:31-32. Before Peter denies him three times Jesus says to
him, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat; but
I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you
have turned again, strengthen your brothers." Jesus prays for Peter's faith to
be sustained even through sin, because he knows that God is the one who
sustains faith.
So we should pray for ourselves and for others this way. Thus the man with
the epileptic boy cried out, "I believe; help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24). This is
a good prayer. It acknowledges that without God we cannot believe as we
ought to believe. Similarly the apostles pray to Jesus, "Increase our faith!"
(Luke 17:5). They pray this way because Jesus is the one who can do that.
This teaching about faith being a gift of God raises many questions. God has
answers for them all. Even if we don't, let us seek to put the teaching to its
practical Biblical use: namely, the humbling of our pride, and the
stimulation of our prayers. In other words, let us pray daily: "O Lord, thank
you for my faith. Sustain it. Strengthen it. Deepen it. Don't let it fail. Make it
the power of my life, so that in everything I do you get the glory as the great
Giver. Amen"
Pastor John
PULPIT, “For I say, through the grace given unto me (the grace of apostleship to the Gentiles
(cf. Rom_1:5; Rom_15:15). He is about to warn against either neglecting or exceeding the special
graces given to each person; and he may, perhaps, mean to imply here that he himself, in giving
these admonitions, is exercising, without exceeding, his own special grace) to every man that is
among you (this is emphatic. The pretensions to superiority of some at Corinth who possessed
more showy gifts than others had shown how the admonition might need to be pressed on all; and
in a community like that of the Romans there might well be a special tendency to assumption on the

158. part of some), not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly (rather,
as in the Revised Version so to think as to think soberly, or, more literally, to be minded so as to be
sober-minded), according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. Why of faith? One
might have expected the expression to be, "of grace," as in Rom_12:6, "according to the grace that
is given to us;" or as in Eph_4:7, "according to the measure [µέτρον , as here] of the gift of Christ." It
seems to be because by faith we become receptive of the grace given to each of us. Hence the
faith ASSIGNED by God to each is regarded as "the regulative standard; the subjective
condition" (Meyer)of the several gifts or graces. Cf. also Mat_17:20 and 1Co_13:2, where
miraculous powers are spoken of as dependent on the amount of faith. Tholuck explains thus:
"Faith in an unseen Christ brings man into connection with a world unseen, in which he moves
without distinctly apprehending it; and in proportion as he learns to look with faith to that world, the
more is the measure of his spiritual powers elevated."
CHARLES SIMEO , “SOBRIETYOF MINDENJOINED
Rom_12:3. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think
of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to
every man the measure of faith.
IN order to obtain just views of any passage of Scripture, we must pay the strictest attention to the
context. It is by the context that the precise import of the words before us must be determined. It
sometimes happens, however, that the misconstruction of a single word—by which I mean, the
taking of a word in its more common acceptation, when it is used by the inspired writer in a more
peculiar sense—will involve the whole passage in the greatest obscurity. The word translated “for” is
generally used to introduce a reason for something immediately preceding: but in my text, as in
many other parts of the Apostle’s writings, I apprehend it means “moreover;” for the Apostle is
passing on to a subject unconnected with that which he had spoken of in the preceding words,
except merely as he descends from a general exhortation to the mention of some particulars.
Having recommended, in the two preceding verses, the cultivation of general piety, as the proper
improvement to he made of all the doctrines which he had before established, he descends to some
particulars, which, in the state of the Roman Church at that time, he deemed of peculiar importance.
There were at Rome, as well as at Corinth, many who were possessed of miraculous gifts: and
some were ready to value themselves too highly on ACCOUNT of those gifts; forgetting that they
had received them from God, and that, not for their own aggrandizement, but for the benefit of the
Church to which they belonged. It should seem that these gifts were put forth by a special exercise
of faith; and that persons were enabled to exercise them at those seasons, and in those degrees to
which they were prompted by a special communication of faith to their souls [Note:
Compare 1Co_13:2. Jam_5:15. Mat_17:20.]. The meaning therefore of our text is, ‘Pride not
yourselves on any gifts which you possess; but thankfully acknowledge God as the author of them,
and improve them humbly for his glory.’ In this view, the words before us are precisely similar to that
more ENLARGED statement which the Apostle gives in his First Epistle to the Corinthians [Note:
ver. 6. with 1Co_12:4-11.]; and the word ‘faith,’ in our text, is equivalent to that expression in the
Epistle to the Ephesians: “To every one of us is grace given, according to the measure of the gift of
Christ [Note: Eph_4:7.].”

159. But, as miraculous gifts have long since ceased, and as the caution in my text is equally applicable
to gifts of every kind, I shall take this more enlarged view of the words, and consider,
I. The caution here given—
It is well known that gifts, of whatever kind they be, are too commonly made an occasion of pride—
[It is difficult for any one to possess any particular quality, whether of mind or body, and not feel a
measure of self-admiration and self-preference on ACCOUNT of it. How great a snare to a
person’s own mind superior beauty is, is well known: and so is every other bodily endowment, in
proportion as it is admired by the world at large. Talent, too, will puff up the possessor of it with a
conceit of his importance, and cause him to arrogate to himself a more than ordinary homage from
those around him. And glad should we be if the same kind of conceit were never founded on
attainments of a moral or religious nature: but it is a fact, that morality itself is made, by almost all
who possess it, a ground for self-preference, and that, too, even before God himself; insomuch, that
persons who have been preserved from great and flagrant transgressions, treat almost with
contempt the provisions of the Gospel, from a conceit, that they need not to humble themselves like
a poor publican, but that they may justly expect from God some peculiar favour on ACCOUNT of
their own inherent righteousness. This was the habit of the Apostle’s mind, previous to his
conversion; and it is that which is at this day the greatest obstacle to the conversion of thousands.
Even spiritual gifts, too, are often, through the suggestions of our great adversary, made occasions
of self-preference and self-complacency; when every sentiment which the Gospel contains has a
direct tendency to humble us in the dust.]
But modesty and sobriety should, under all circumstances, regulate our self-esteem—
[We are all members of one body: and, whatever gifts we possess, they are bestowed by God for
the good of the whole. The kind and measure of them are determined by the Donor himself; and the
person possessing them has no more right to pride himself upon them, than the eye or ear has to
arrogate to itself any merit above the hand or foot. All that any man has to do, is, to improve his
talents for the good of the whole, precisely as the various members of our body do. The eye sees
not for itself; nor does the ear hear for itself; nor does the hand or foot consult its own exclusive
welfare in its motions and acts. So we, “having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to
us,” must employ them all for the ends for which they have been bestowed. Whether our gift be of a
higher or lower order, we are not to concern ourselves about that, either in a way of self-elevation or
of self-depression; but we must diligently, according to our ability, improve it, to the glory of God,
and the edification of his Church and people.]

160. To every one of you, therefore, I address the caution in our text—
[There is no one who does not need it: there is no one who has not occasion for it: there is no one
who has not, in his own conceit at least, something whereof to glory, and something which gives
him an ideal superiority over others of his own rank, and age, and circumstances. But, in all, pride is
alike hateful, and alike unreasonable: for, granting that we do differ from others, “what have we that
we have not received? And, if we have received it, how absurd is it to glory as if we had not
received it [Note: 1Co_4:7.]!”]
But that this caution may be laid to heart, I will proceed to point out,
II. The importance of it—
This is marked with very peculiar force in the passage before us. In the preceding verses, where the
Apostle had exhorted the Roman converts to piety in a general view, he had addressed them as
“Brethren,” and used the language of entreaty; but in the text, where he particularizes the duty of
humility, he assumes the authority of an Apostle, and in a most solemn way lays thestrictest
injunctions upon every individual amongst them [Note: When he says, “Through the grace that is
given unto me,” he refers to his apostolic office: Rom_1:5.]. And the very terms he uses are so
strong, so marked, so peculiar, as scarcely to be capable of being translated into any other
language, and such as were admirably calculated to make the deepest impression on their
minds [Note: Mark the repetition of the word
ö ñ ï í å ῖ í . ì ὴ ὑ ð å ñ ö ñ ï í å ῖ í ð á ñ ʼ ὃ ä å ῖ ö ñ ï í å ῖ í — ἀ ë ë ὰ ö ñ ï í å ῖ í å ἰ ò ô ὸ ó ù ö ñ ï í
å ῖ í .].
Attend, then, carefully to this injunction,
1. For your own honour—
[Nothing renders a man more contemptible than vanity: it invariably defeats its own ends, and sinks
us in the estimation of all whose applause we covet. But, independent of that, the more we arrogate
to ourselves, the less will people be disposed to concede to us: and, if they cannot refuse us some
degree of CREDIT on those points wherein we excel, they will be sure to search out some faults
to put into the BALANCE against it; so that, on the whole, we shall be gainers to as small an
amount as possible. On the other hand, modesty gives effect to all our other excellencies: and the
more meekly we bear our honours, the more liberal will even the most envious of our rivals be in the
bestowment of them. To “prefer others in honour before ourselves [Note: ver. 10 and Php_2:3.],” is
the way to disarm their hostility, to allay their jealousies, to conciliate their regard; so that, even if we
had no better object in view than the advancement of ourselves in the estimation of man, we should

161. seek it, not by self-conceit and self-preference, but by sobriety in self-estimation, and by modesty in
our whole deportment. To this effect, the wisest of men has taught us, “To seek our own glory, is not
glory [Note: Pro_25:27.]:” on the contrary, “when pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the
lowly is wisdom [Note:Pro_11:2.].”]
2. For the honour of God—
[It is an insult to God to make his gifts a pedestal for the exaltation of self. You will remember, that
he complains of his people of old, because they appropriated his corn, and his wine, and hisoil,” to
the honouring of others who were his rivals in their esteem [Note: Hos_2:5; Hos_2:8-9.]. And this is
the very thing which every man does, who takes to himself the honour of those gifts which have
been conferred upon him by God. And how indignant Jehovah is at such treatment, we may see in
his expostulations with Sennacherib: “I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria,
and the glory of his high looks. For he saith, By the strength of my hands I have done it, and
by my wisdom; for I am prudent; and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed
their treasures; and I have put down their inhabitants, like a valiant man: and my hand hath found,
as a nest, the riches of the people; and, as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the
earth: and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.” Now, hear
Jehovah’s reply to this soliloquy: “Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or
shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against
them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood [Note: Isa_10:12-15.].”
Tell me, I pray you, what would you have been above the beasts, if God had not endowed you with
reason? or, what had you differed from the meanest of the human race, if God had not made you to
differ? Your distinctive powers afford you ground enough for gratitude; but none for self-applause:
and if, like Herod, you take to yourselves the credit which your ignorant or partial friends may accord
to you, like Herod you shall become monuments of God’s just and fiery indignation. You may not be
eaten up with worms in this life: but you shall surely bear his displeasure in the world to come. “God
is a jealous God:” and “his glory will he not give to another [Note: Exo_20:5. Isa_42:8.].” “From him
does every good and perfect gift proceed [Note: Jam_1:17.];” and to him must all the glory of it be
ascribed: “He that glorieth, must glory only in the Lord [Note: Jer_9:23 and 1Co_4:7.].”]
3. For the benefit of your own souls—
[“Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him
[Note: Pro_26:12.].” To what purpose will you possess gifts, if they prove only a curse unto you? But
such they really are, to all who pride themselves in them: for “God scorneth the scorners; but giveth
grace unto the lowly [Note: Pro_3:34. with 1Pe_5:5.].” If your talents be improved for God, they will
bring from him a recompence proportioned to the increase [Note: Mat_25:20-21.]. Thus, both here
and in the eternal world, will you be gainers, if with meekness and modesty you employ for God the

162. blessings he has imparted to you. To every one, then, that is among you, I say,]
1. Consider your gifts as conferred on you by God—
[Never, for a moment, lose sight of this truth. Let Him be acknowledged, in every bounty of his
providence, and in every blessing of his grace. There is no need that you should be blind to what
God has done for you, or wrought in you: but, if at any time you are constrained to say, “I laboured
more abundantly than they all,” be sure to add immediately, “Yet not I; but the grace of God that
was with me [Note: 1Co_15:10.].”]
2. Improve them diligently, for the glory of his name—
[Forget yourselves altogether. Moses saw not his own glory, when it shone; though it was so
resplendent, that none of his brethren could sustain the sight. O that you also might be so intent on
the work assigned you, as to have your attention wholly taken from yourselves! Consider only what
talent you possess, and what improvement can be made of it: and if you find that God has given you
a capacity for great and arduous services, be willing to undertake them, whatever difficulties they
may be attended with, and whatever self-denial may be required for the performance of them. On
the contrary, if you have but one talent, “wrap it not in a napkin,” but improve it for your God. Let it
be said of every one amongst you, “He hath done what he could [Note: Mar_14:8.].” Then, whether
your powers be great or small, you shall be approved of your God, and hear him at last say unto
you, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”]
Waggoner, “
How to Think of Self. The exhortation to every man is not to think of himself more
highly than he ought to think. How highly ought one to think of himself? "Put them
in fear, O Lord; that the nations may know themselves to be but men." Ps. 9:20.
"Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help." Ps.
146:3. "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be
accounted of?" Isa. 2:22. "Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity."
Ps. 39:5. "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." "The Lord knoweth
the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." 1 Cor. 3:19, 20. "What is your life? It is
even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." James

163. 4:14. "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags;
and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."
Isa. 64:6. "In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." Phil.
2:3.
Faith and Humility. Pride is the enemy of faith. The two can not live together. A
man can think soberly and humbly only as the result of the faith that God gives.
"Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him; but the just shall live by
his faith." Hab. 2:4. The man who has confidence in his own strength and wisdom,
will not depend upon another. Trust in the wisdom and power of God comes only
when we recognize and acknowledge our own weakness and ignorance.”
Waggoner, “
Faith Given to Every Man. Every man is exhorted to think soberly, because God hath
dealt to every man the measure of faith. Many people have a notion that they are so
constituted that it is impossible for them to believe. That is a grave error. Faith is just as
easy, and just as natural, as breathing. It is the common inheritance of all men, and the
one thing wherein all are equal. It is as natural for the child of the infidel to believe as it
is for the child of the saint. It is only when men build up a barrier of pride about
themselves (Ps. 73:6) that they find it difficult to believe. And even then they will
believe; for when men disbelieve God, they believe Satan; when they disbelieve the truth,
they greedily swallow the most egregious falsehoods.
In What Measure? We have seen that faith is given to every man. This may be known
also by the fact that salvation is offered to every man, and placed within his grasp, and
salvation is only by faith. If God had not given faith to every man, he could not have
brought salvation within the reach of all.
The question is, In what measure has God given every man faith? This is really answered
in the fact already learned, that the faith which he gives is the faith of Jesus. The faith of
Jesus is given in the gift of Jesus himself, and Christ is given in his fulness to every man.
He tasted death for every man. Heb. 2:9. "Unto every one of us is given grace according
to the measure of the gift of Christ." Eph. 4:7. Christ is not divided; therefore to every
man is given all of Christ and all of his faith. There is but one measure.
God gives faith in different measures, and so some have great faith and others very
weak faith, and it is God’s design so that all members of the body are not the same
trying to do the same functions, for this would lead to terrible competition and
fighting. If all have the same gift there would be endless debate on who should do
the job.
Beet, “A man's faith determines his Christian rank. To each. We must

164. remember that each Christian has a portion of that faith which is
the measure of Christian life. God has divided, etc. Our faith is a
result of God's word, and of divine influences which bring it to bear
upon us. Therefore whatever faith we have is God's gift, i. 8. But
the degree of our faith depends upon ourselves, i,e,, upon the degree
to which we yield to the divine influences. The measure of faith
includes both the strength of our assurance and the amount of
truth embraced by it. Comp. i Th. iii. 10. All self-conceit is
destroyed by a remembrance that our spiritual stature is measured,
not by our intellect or worldly influence, but simply by the degree
of our faith ; and that this faith is God's gift to us, a gift possessed
in some degree by ill Christians.
. For, etc; another reason against high thoughts, a reason
suggested by the emphatic words *to each one.' In one body: a
comparison peculiar, among the sacred writers, to Paul ; and with
him very frequent and important. To be discussed under i Cor.
xii. 12. Members: as in vi. 13. The many : comp. v. 15, 19. In
Christ, In consequence of our individual union with Christ, we
stand to each other in a relation similar to that of the various
members of a human body. All high thoughts of self imply an
under-estimate of others. But we cannot under-estimate those
bound to us by a tie of common interest similar to that of the
various members of a living body. Comp. carefully the argt. of
I Cor. Xii. 12 — 31.
MACLARE , “SOBER THINKING
Rom_12:3.
It is hard to give advice without seeming to assume superiority; it is hard to take it, unless the giver
identifies himself with the receiver, and shows that his counsel to others is a law for himself. Paul
does so here, led by the delicate perception which comes from a loving heart, compared with which
deliberate ‘tact’ is cold and clumsy. He wishes, as the first of the SPECIFIC duties to which he
invites the Roman Christians, an estimate of themselves based upon the recognition of God as the
Giver of all capacities and graces, and leading to a faithful use for the general good of the ‘gifts
differing according to the grace given to us.’ In the first words of our text, he enforces his counsel by
an appeal to his apostolic authority; but he so presents it that, instead of separating himself from the
Roman Christians by it, he unites himself with them. He speaks of ‘the grace given to me,’ and
in Rom_12:6 of ‘the grace given to us.’ He was made an Apostle by the same giving God who has
bestowed varying gifts on each of them. He knows what is the grace which he possesses as he

165. would have them know; and in these counsels he is assuming no superiority, but is simply using the
special gift bestowed on him for the good of all. With this delicate turn of what might else have
sounded harshly authoritative, putting prominently forward the divine gift and letting the man Paul to
whom it was given fall into the background, he counsels as the first of the social duties
which CHRISTIAN MEN owe to one another, a sober and just estimate of themselves. This sober
estimate is here regarded as being important chiefly as an aid to right service. It is immediately
followed by counsels to the patient and faithful exercise of differing gifts. For thus we may know
what our gifts are; and the acquisition of such knowledge is the aim of our text.
I. What determines our gifts.
Paul here gives a precise standard, or ‘measure’ as he calls it, according to which we are to
estimate ourselves. ‘Faith’ is the measure of our gifts, and is itself a gift from God. The strength of a
Christian man’s faith determines his whole Christian character. Faith is trust, the attitude of
receptivity. There are in it a consciousness of need, a yearning desire and a confidence of
expectation. It is the open empty hand held up with the assurance that it will be filled; it is the empty
pitcher let down into the well with the assurance that it will be drawn up filled. It is the precise
opposite of the self-dependent isolation which shuts us out from God. The law of the Christian life is
ever, ‘according to your faith be it unto you’; ‘believe that ye receive and ye have them.’ So then the
more faith a man exercises the more of God and Christ he has. It is the measure of our capacity,
hence there may be indefinite increase in the gifts which God bestows on faithful souls. Each of us
will have as much as he desires and is capable of containing. The walls of the heart are elastic, and
desire expands them.
The grace given by faith works in the line of its possessor’s natural faculties; but these are
supernaturally reinforced and strengthened while, at the same time, they are curbed and controlled,
by the divine gift, and the natural gifts thus dealt with become what Paul calls charisms. The whole
nature of a Christian should be ennobled, elevated, made more delicate and intense, when the
‘Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus’ abides in and inspires it. Just as a sunless landscape is smitten
into sudden beauty by a burst of sunshine which heightens the colouring of the flowers on the river’s
bank, and is FLASHED back from every silvery ripple on the stream, so the faith which brings the
life of Christ into the life of the Christian makes him more of a man than he was before. So, there
will be infinite variety in the resulting characters. It is the same force in various forms that rolls in the
thunder or gleams in the dewdrops, that paints the butterfly’s feathers or flashes in a star. All
individual idiosyncrasies should be developed in the Christian Church, and will be when its
members yield themselves fully to the indwelling Spirit, and can truly declare that the lives which
they live in the flesh they live by the faith of the Son of God.
But Paul here regards the measure of faith as itself ‘dealt to every man’; and however we may

166. construe the grammar of this sentence there is a deep sense in which our faith is God’s gift to us.
We have to give equal emphasis to the two conceptions of faith as a human act and as a divine
bestowal, which have so often been pitted against each other as contradictory when really they are
complementary. The apparent antagonism between them is but one instance of the great antithesis
to which we come to at last in reference to all human thought on the relations of man to God. ‘It is
He that worketh in us both to will and to do of His own good pleasure’; and all our goodness is God-
given goodness, and yet it is our goodness. Every devout heart has a consciousness that the faith
which knits it to God is God’s work in it, and that left to itself it would have remained alienated and
faithless. The consciousness that his faith was his own act blended in full harmony with the twin
consciousness that it was Christ’s gift, in the agonised father’s prayer, ‘Lord, I believe, help Thou
mine unbelief.’
II. What is a just estimate of our GIFTS .
The Apostle tells us, negatively, that we are not to think more highly than we ought to think, and
positively that we are to ‘think soberly.’
To arrive at a just estimate of ourselves the estimate must ever be accompanied with a distinct
consciousness that all is God’s gift. That will keep us from anything in the nature of pride or over-
weening self-importance. It will lead to true humility, which is not ignorance of what we can do, but
recognition that we, the doers, are of ourselves but poor creatures. We are less likely to fancy that
we are greater than we are when we feel that, whatever we are, God made us so. ‘What hast thou
that thou didst not receive? Now, if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not
received it?’
Further, it is to be noted that the estimate of gifts which Paul enjoins is an estimate with a view to
service. Much self-investigation is morbid, because it is self-absorbed; and much is morbid because
it is undertaken only for the purpose of ascertaining one’s ‘spiritual condition.’ Such self-examination
is good enough in its way, and may sometimes be very necessary; but a testing of one’s own
capacities for the purpose of ascertaining what we are fit for, and what therefore it is our duty to do,
is far more wholesome. Gifts are God’s summons to work, and our first response to the summons
should be our scrutiny of our gifts with a distinct purpose of using them for the great end for which
we received them. It is well to take stock of the loaves that we have, if the result be that we bring
our poor provisions to Him, and put them in His hands, that He may give them back to us so
multiplied as to be more than adequate to the needs of the thousands. Such just estimate of our
gifts is to be attained mainly by noting ourselves at work. Patient self-observation may be important,
but is apt to be mistaken; and the true test of what we can do is what we do do.
The just estimate of our gifts which Paul enjoins is needful in order that we may ascertain what God

167. has meant us to be and do, and may neither waste our strength in trying to be some one else, nor
hide our talent in the napkin of ignorance or false humility. There is quite as much harm done to
Christian character and Christian service by our failure to recognise what is in our power, as by
ambitious or ostentatious attempts at what is above our power. We have to be ourselves as God
has made us in our natural faculties, and as the new life of Christ operating on these has made us
new creatures in Him not by changing but by ENLARGING our old natures. It matters nothing
what the special form of a Christian man’s service may be; the smallest and the greatest are alike to
the Lord of all, and He appoints His servants’ work. Whether the servant be a cup-bearer or a
counsellor is of little moment. ‘He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.’
The positive aspect of this right estimate of one’s gifts is, if we fully render the Apostle’s words, as
the Revised Version does, ‘so to think as to think soberly.’ There is to be self-knowledge in order to
‘sobriety,’ which includes not only what we mean by sober-mindedness, but self-government; and
this aspect of the apostolic exhortation opens out into the thought that the gifts, which a just
estimate of ourselves pronounces us to possess, need to be kept bright by the CONTINUAL
suppression of the mind of the flesh, by putting down earthly desires, by guarding against a selfish
use of them, by preventing them by rigid control from becoming disproportioned and our masters.
All the gifts which Christ bestows upon His people He bestows on condition that they bind them
together by the golden chain of self-control.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “For I say to every man.
., not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.
Needful counsel
I. We must not think too highly of ourselves, especially of--
1. Our knowledge (Jer_9:23; 1Co_8:1). We know little either in--
(1) Naturals, of which we know but few, and then largely by conjectures.
(2) Spirituals. We know but little of God (Hos_4:1; Jer_9:3); of Christ (1Co_2:2); of our souls; of our
estate as to God (2Co_13:5); as to the world to come, and all knowledge we owe to God
(Mat_11:25).

168. 2. Our gifts.
(1) None can perform their duty aright (Ecc_7:20; 2Co_3:5).
(2) What gifts we have we are bound to God for (1Co_4:7).
(3) We can do no good with it without God (Joh_15:5; 1Co_3:6).
3. Our graces.
(1) Few have all.
(2) Those we have are imperfect (Php_3:11-13).
(a) Love to God (Mat_22:37).
(b) Faith in Christ (Luk_17:5).
(c) Repentance of sin (2Co_7:10).
(d) Justice to our neighbour (Mat_7:12).
(e) Charity to the poor (1Co_16:2; 2Co_9:6).
(3) If we think too highly of them, they are no true graces (Mat_11:29; 1Ti_1:15; Eph_3:8).
II. What cause, then, is there not to be proud--
1. Of strength (Jer_9:23),
(1) Wherein the beasts excel us.
(2) Whereof we may any moment be deprived (Isa_2:22).
2. Of riches.
(1) Which cannot make us happy.

169. (2) But keep us from happiness (Mat_19:23; Mat_19:26).
(3) Which we must part with before we can be eternally happy.
3. Honours.
(1) Which depend on the thoughts of others.
(2) May deprive us of true honours (Joh_12:43).
III. Study humility.
1. Towards God (Mic_6:8; Isa_57:17; Isa_66:2). Considering--
(1) How many sins you are guilty of (Psa_19:12).
(2) How many you are defiled with (Isa_1:5-6).
2. Towards men. Consider--
(1) You know not but they are better and more dear to God than yourselves (Rom_14:3-
4; Php_2:3).
(2) If you excel them in some things, they may excel you in others (Rom_12:4).
(3) The more proud you are, the less cause have you to be proud; pride causing--
(a) Division among men (Pro_13:10).
(b) Separation from God (1Pe_5:5). (Bp. Beveridge.)
Church membership and ministry

170. I. In the work of mutual ministry within the Church there is something:for every member to perform.
The appeal is “to every man that is among you.” The Church is “one body in Christ,” “every one”
being a “member” of some kind, and having his proper office. Every member, organ, nerve, vein,
bone, ligament has its proper function in the natural body; and as soon as any one fails, there
ensues that disturbance of the harmonic activity which we call disease. In the Church, Christ is the
Head, the Centre of life, intelligence, and authority, and His Holy Spirit the organic principle. But
every individual believer has his own proper sphere of influence and activity for the general good
(Eph_4:15-16). If he neglects that ministry, not only will he himself suffer damage or excision, but
the body also will suffer loss thereby.
II. In order that every man may do his own proper work, he must form a sober, practical estimate of
his own ability. The work must be thoughtfully done. But the thought, to be productive, must be
sober. The worker is admonished “not to be high-minded above that which he ought to he minded,
but to be so minded as to be sober-minded.” For--
1. If a man thinks more highly of himself than he ought to think, he will probably despise the service
to which the Master has called him, and seek to undertake work for which be has not the adequate
powers. This will, in all likelihood, be marred, and himself humiliated, while that will fall to more
worthy hands. All such aspiring persons world do well to ponder the warning words(Mar_10:43-45).
In Christ’s Church the surest way towards honourable promotion is that of prompt, earnest, humble
service in that which is close at hand.
2. If a man under-estimates his ability, and thinks that he can do nothing, or nothing of profit to the
Master, then he will do nothing, and the Church will lose his service and he will lose his reward
(Mat_25:14-30; Luk_19:12-27). Therefore--
3. The apostle supplies a standard for the measurement of thought in the work of self-estimation.
Let every man “think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith”--
i.e., the confidence which a man has in Christ, and in himself by the grace of Christ, that he has
competent ability for service. The man who has faith in himself generally succeeds; while a better
man, if full of doubt and hesitation, fails. I must not so under-estimate my gifts as to decline any
service; for some power has most certainly been imparted. But I must not attempt service for which I
am unfit in the fanatical confidence that I shall obtain supernatural aid. Nor need I stand in doubt as
to whether or not I have a Divine call to the work; the ability and opportunity ought to be sufficient.

171. III. The service, and the spirit and manner in which it should be discharged (Rom_12:6-8).
1. The ministry of the Word: he that “prophesieth,” “teacheth,” “exhorteth.” The New Testament
prophet was pre-eminently the preacher: and he must preach or prophesy according to the
proportion of faith. But there are those who are not called to this ministry, who can nevertheless
speak words of warning, exhortation, or comfort, either in the intercourse of daily life, the
prayermeeting, or the village sanctuary; and any Church which does not encourage these gifted
ones is sadly defective. There are others again who, though neither apt to exhort, nor able to
preach, have, notwithstanding, the gift of teaching. They can instruct in the Sabbath school. Let
none of these neglect the gift that is in him. Let none ambitiously aspire to an office for which he is
not equal; and, on the other hand, let none refuse to employ his one talent because he has not
more and higher gifts.
2. There is also the ministry of finance and benevolence. That the apostle here speaks of the official
diaconate is morally certain, because that it is mentioned in the midst of other offices which are
expressly specified as such (1Co_12:28-30). To them, therefore, would fall the work of
superintending and directing the active charities of the Church. He who gave would be, not the
disburser of, but the contributor to, the relief fund; and he who showed mercy might be either a
person appointed to the special work of relieving the sick and poor, or one who engaged in the good
work out of his own impulse. These ministries; though not confined to official persons, were
sanctioned by the properly appointed officers. Conclusion: Warning may be here given against two
evils.
1. That of those who render very small, if any, service to the cause of Christ, but who criticise those
who do. This is a crying evil, and a Christian ought to be ashamed of it.
2. That of over-estimating some particular department of service. (W. Tyson.)
Measurements of manhood
When persons are under the influence of wine, they often entertain the most extravagant notions of
themselves, of which they are heartily ashamed when they come to their sober reason. And it is this
figure latent that the apostle employs. Think not extravagantly well of yourselves. Form an estimate
that is reasonable and in accordance with fact.

172. I. These words assume that men should have some opinion of their own character and worth, but
that they are liable to faulty estimates. It is impossible not to have some opinion of one’s self. And
the only question is, whether it shall be an idea shaped according to good rules and through right
influences, or whether it shall be casually left to chance feeling.
1. There be those who say that the best way to think of yourself is not to think at all; and there is a
sense in which this is true. Men may think too much of themselves, on the one hand, and too little
on the other. But these dangers do not take away the wisdom of attempting a correct judgment of
ourselves. There is a duty of self-knowledge, for otherwise how shall one know whether he be
following the commands of his Master, or simply the impulses of his own selfish nature? How shall
there be aspiration? Is it needful for the husbandman to know the extent of his territory, and which
part is rich and which part is poor, and is spiritual husbandry to be founded in pretentious
ignorance? You are commanded to think in conformity with facts and things as they exist. Not that
we should carry self-consciousness with us every hour, and attempt to keep our hand upon the
pulse of the heart or of the life. Yet one may come to a general estimate that shall be the foundation
of all the processes of moral culture which he is to follow out.
2. The measurements of feeling are to be avoided; and yet those are, in many instances, the only
estimates which men make. If one be constitutionally proud, he thinks a hundred times better of
himself than anybody else thinks of him. It is said that greatness of mind is inconsistent with vanity;
but many men of eminent genius have been men of pre-eminent vanity.
3. The estimate of those qualities which suit our circle, and which reflect from it upon ourselves, is a
false way of measuring. This is not having any knowledge of yourselves, but is simply knowing
when you are pleased, without any regard to moral condition.
4. The measurement of ourselves simply in executive functions furnishes a very imperfect
knowledge of what we really are. Men may have the most exaggerated ideas of their excellence or
weakness who simply think of themselves as factors in society, as business men, etc. Skill is
certainly a matter which a man ought not to be ashamed of, and which a man may sometimes well
be proud of; but judging simply from this view is not enough. It is not wrong for a man to know
whether he is a good lawyer or not. It is not necessary to humility that a man who stands second to
none at the bar should say of himself, “I always feel myself to be a very poor lawyer!” A man has a
right, and it is his duty, to think of himself as he is. This estimate is not incompatible with true
humility. Indeed, it is indispensable to true humility. If God has given a man great power, must he
make believe that he does not carry power? Must Milton, in order to be modest, believe that he did
not speak in immortal numbers?

173. 5. Men make a false estimate in judging of themselves also by selecting the best things in the best
moods, and slurring over the rest. We select those excellencies which are apparent, and we usually
exaggerate them. And we are inclined to omit co-ordinate qualities. If a man be strong, there are a
thousand inflections of feeling which are not taken ACCOUNT of. He may be strong, but not
gentle. A man has a blunt lip, and calls it honesty, fidelity to the truth. But where are the co-ordinate
qualities of meekness, gentleness and love? The virtues which we have not we do not usually
require of ourselves. We leave out of view, too, the great evil tendencies which exist in us. Our
characters are dressed for inspection, as APPLES are when they are sent to market. There are
all sorts in the middle of the barrel, and the best ones are put on the top to face off with. We deceive
ourselves, not only by arranging our good qualities in the most favourable manner, but by
heightening their colour a little. You have seen apple-women take a cloth and rub their apples until
every one of them shines, and put them in the most tempting aspects. And do not men do the same
thing with their good qualities? If there is a speck, that is turned round inside; but you will find it out
after you have bought the apple and cut it. I do not say that a man should make everything put on
its worst face. I say simply this: Let every man think of himself as he ought to think. A man may think
himself to be far better than he is by judicious selection. I have seen my garden when the season
was empty of flowers, and yet, by a skilful garnering from this nook and that, I could gather a
handful of flowers that would lead to the supposition that the garden was in its summer glory. A man
may select good qualities in himself and make up a bouquet of his fancy, which shall make it seem
as though it were a paradise there, by a judicious picking and arranging. But the great mistake
which men make is that of selecting only the secondary elements of their character, and leaving out
the primary ones. A symmetrical whole is very seldom thought of in self-estimation.
II. No man knows how to measure himself who has failed to understand where true manhood
is--where the diameter is--where the equator is. And this is what the apostle gives us: “I say
to every man to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of
faith.”
1. It is where the spiritual elements dwell in man, at that point where he understands and touches
the divine, that you must measure him. You must measure, not your animal-hood, but your
manhood. Now, if we over-reach our fellow-men, if we use them for our own purposes, we think
ourselves strong and great men. But the feeling is malign and satanic. That only is Divine which
seeks others’ happiness, if need be at one’s own expense. He who knows what conscience, faith,
love, patience, and gentleness are, knows something about himself. And everybody is ignorant of
himself who has not an estimate which is founded upon the gauge of these qualities.
2. Nor should we leave out the relation of man to the world to come. For a man may be very strong

174. as regards this life, and very weak as regards the other life. And as we are here to prepare for the
life to come, he misses his manhood and the significance of it who only lives for a time and is unfit
to live for the spiritual and eternal. It is painful to think how much the grave strains out of that which
men do and earn in this life. It is the work of men’s hands that they are proud of mostly. But you
shall take through the shadowy door nothing but what is spiritual; and how much of that have you to
take through? If you were to efface from many men that which makes them great in influence in the
day in which they live, then millionaires might come out paupers. And only he can measure himself
aright who knows how much of himself he can carry through and beyond. “The last shall be first,
and the first last.”
3. Let every man, then, measure himself, not according to his vanity, but as under the eye of God.
Let one think of himself as an heir of immortality; let him believe himself to be a son of God; and
then let him apply to himself the measures which belong to this transcendent conception of life and
of character. Measuring yourselves thus, you will not think of yourselves, more highly than you
ought to. This is true humility. It is humility to think, not that you are less than somebody else, but
that you are less than you ought to be. (H. W. Beecher.)
The notion of pride stated, and the pretensions to it examined
1. It is a common observation that however forward men may be to repine at the unequal portion
which God has allotted them of worldly blessings, yet they are generally well satisfied with their
share of inward endowments: it being as hard to meet with a person who humbly thinks he has too
little sense and merit, as it is to find one who fancies he has too great riches and honours. What
makes men uneasy in their circumstances is that they are continually setting to view the bright side
of themselves and the dark side of their condition in life; the first to find out their own grievances,
and the last to discern their own faults and follies. Whereas if they took a contrary method they
would perceive that God had been kinder to the worst of men than the very best of men could
deserve.
2. Among the many imputations which we are willing to fasten upon these whom we have an
aversion to, that of pride is, I think, one of the most common. Now, if we would examine the
innermost recesses of the mind, I doubt we should often find that our own pride is the cause why
we TAX others with it. Men elate with the thoughts of their own sufficiency are ever imagining that
others are wanting in their regard to them, and therefore very apt to conclude that pride must be the
cause why they withhold from them that respect which they have an unquestioned right to in their
own opinion.

175. I. The notion of pride. Our happiness, as well as knowledge, arises from sensation and reflection,
and may be reduced to these two articles, viz., that of pleasing sensations, and that of agreeable
thoughts. Now as to a desire of indulging the former without check or control, are owing lust,
drunkenness, and intemperance; so from a desire of indulging the latter beyond measure, pride
takes its original. It does not consist, in the bare consciousness that we have some
accomplishments, as, for instance, good sense, beauty, great abilities; but in that exultation of mind
which is frequent upon that consciousness, unallayed by self-dissatisfaction arising from a SURVEY
of our sins and frailties. The difference between humility and pride consists in this, that the
humble man, whatever talents he is possessed of, considers them as so many trusts reposed in him
by God, which are so far from raising his pride that they excite his caution; as knowing that to
“whom much is given, of him much will be required”; whereas the proud values himself as if he were
not only the subject but the author of the good qualities, and so makes an idol of himself, instead of
adoring and thanking God for them. Pride, then, is the thinking too highly of ourselves. To obviate
mistakes it will be necessary to observe that pride is not merely to think favourably of ourselves; for
then indeed pride, as some late authors have maintained, would be an universal vice, everybody
being more or less biassed in his own favour. But pride is to think so favourably of ourselves as to
exclude a modest diffidence of ourselves, and a salutary sense of the number of human frailties, the
imperfection of our virtues, the malignity of our crimes, and our dependence on God for everything
good in us and for us.
II. The unreasonableness of this vice. Are we proud of riches? Riches cannot alter the nature
of things, they cannot make a man worthy that is worthless in himself; they may command
an insipid complaisance, a formal homage, and ceremonious professions of respect, and
teach a servile world to speak a language foreign to their hearts; but where a largeness of
soul is wanting they can never procure grateful sentiments and an undissembled love, the
willing tribute of a generous heart to merit only. Do we value ourselves upon our power? No;
what is remarked by somebody or other is a great truth, viz., that there is no good in power,
but merely the power of doing good. Upon our worldly prudence? Those who are acquainted
with history know how often the best-laid designs have proved abortive. Are you proud of
your distinguished virtue? He who is proud of distinguished abilities, learning, and wealth, is
not the less able, learned, and wealthy, because he is proud of them. But he who is proud of
distinguished virtue ceaseth to be virtuous by his being so. For the man that is pleased with
any degree of virtue, merely because it is uncommon, would be sorry if what he values
himself upon as a singular mark of distinction should become common, and all mankind
should rise to the same eminence as himself in morality. Now this temper argues a want of

176. benevolence, and consequently of virtue. But if human virtue affords no just grounds for
pride, much less does human knowledge, which bears no proportion to our ignorance. The
greatest and the least objects equally baffle bur inquiries. True knowledge is one of the
strongest fences against pride. When good sense and reason speak, they come like their
great Author, God, in “the still small voice,” without any empty voice or loquacity, or
overbearing pretensions. And those who keep the best sense within seldom hang out the
sign of knowledge. Men of this stamp will own their entire ignorance in many things and their
imperfect knowledge in all the rest. Whereas the ignorant are sometimes positive in matters
quite above their sphere, and, like some creatures, are the bolder for being blind. In a word,
the ingenuous will confess the weakness of their reason, and the presumptuous betray it by
their being so. After all, what signifies all the learning in the world without a just discernment
and penetration? And what is the result of our penetration but that we see through the
littleness of almost everything, and our own especially? That we discern, and are disgusted
with, several follies and absurdities which are hid from persons of a slower apprehension?
So that our superior sagacity resembles the pretended second-sightedness of some people,
by which they are said to see several uncomfortable and dismal objects which escape the
rest of the world. Some may perhaps value themselves upon the strength of their genius, the
largeness of their heart, even as the sand upon the seashore, and the brightness of their
parts. Alas! the strength of the passions, and the quickness of the appetites, generally keep
pace with the brightness of the imagination. And hence it comes to pass that those who
have, with an uncommon compass of thought, inculcated excellent rules of morality in their
writings have sometimes broke through them all in their practice: the brightness of their
parts enabling them to lay down fine precepts, and the strength of their passions tempting
them to transgress them. To a man of strong sensations every delight that is gentle seems
dull, and everything but what is high seasoned flat and tasteless. The consequence of which
is, that, disdaining common blessings, and not able to enjoy himself without something out
of the usual road, he overleaps these bounds which confine meaner mortals, and
precipitates himself into an endless train of inconveniences. But let us suppose, what is not
a very common case, that a brightness of imagination and a well-poised judgment are
happily united in the same person; yet the brightest genius, the greatest man that ever lived
may say, “O my God! that I live, and that I please, if ever I please, is owing to Thee. May it be,
then, my uppermost view to do Thy pleasure, from whom I have the ability to please.” Dost
thou value thyself upon popular applause and a great name? Think how many that have
made a distinguished figure in the world are dead and unregarded as if they never had been,
their deaths unlamented, their vacancy filled up, their persons missed no more than a drop
of water when taken from the whole ocean. And is it worth our while to strive to please a vain
fantastic world which will soon disregard us and think itself full as well without us, instead of
laying out our endeavours to please that Almighty Being whose inexhaustible power and
goodness will make His servants happy to all eternity? (J. Seed, M.A.)

177. Self-appreciation
1. Whatever is important is difficult. And it is exceedingly important and difficult to every man to take
a right estimate of himself.
2. The cause of this difficulty is--
(1) That a man’s mind is too near a man’s mind for a man’s mind to see it clearly:
(2) That in this court the judge, the witness, and the person examined are all one and the same.
Note--
I. Two great dangers.
1. Of over-estimating ourselves.
(1) A man lives so much with himself and in himself.
(2) Or is so fond of comparing himself with certain persons whom he likes to select for that purpose.
(3) Or is so apt to compare himself with what he used to be.
(4) Or is always seeing himself so entirely as a certain little loving circle sees him.
(5) Or takes himself at the measure of what he is always hoping and intending to be.
(6) Or has unworthy standards of what a man ought to be.
(7) Or is always so fixing his eyes on his good parts, and intentionally turning away from his bad
ones.
2. Of depreciating ourselves. Many, no doubt, do this simply in affectation. They “think” proudly,
while they speak humbly. But besides these, there are others who “think of themselves” in a way
that--

178. (1) Is not true.
(2) Brings with it much depression and distress.
(3) Often incapacitates them for the very work which God sets them to do.
(4) This darkens the grace of God in them, and His purposes are frustrated.
II. The text steers us between these two rocks.
1. Before God we are, all of us, utterly bad. There is nothing in us that comes up to His standard.
The memory of the past is one great humiliation; the sense of the present is all conscious
weakness; the anticipation of the future is overwhelming every man who sees only himself.
2. But we should come to a false conclusion if we rested here. In every one who is born of God
there are now two natures. The old one is there to abase and confound all, to drive all to Jesus
Christ. In this new nature there are numberless degrees. Either God has been pleased by His
sovereignty to give to one man more than He has seen fit to give to another; or some have
cultivated them more than others have; and so it comes to pass that there are real distinctions
between man and man.
(1) Now, with these distinctions God tells us that it is so far from being a proud or wrong thing that
one man should be conscious that he has more than another, that no man can take a true view of
himself, or be prepared for his duties in life, unless he takes it; because every man is to “think
soberly”--i.e., accurately--of himself, “according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of
faith.” We have all different degrees of everything in life. We have different degrees of stature,
beauty, wealth, and intellectual gifts; and it would be utterly silly if a clever or rich man pretended to
be ignorant of his superiority in these respects. Why then should it be less so with a man’s spiritual
possessions? Is not one man greater in his spiritual possessions than another? And are they not all
equally the gifts of God?
(2) And here I must put in a caution. We are never told to gauge other men’s states, or to gauge
ourselves in comparison to other men’s states; but to gauge ourselves. Of course, it is impossible to
do this altogether without reference to our fellow-creatures, for every man in this world is what he is
comparatively to another; but we must not do it for the sake of comparison with a fellow-creature.

179. (3) Every man’s view of himself, then, is to be according to the facts of the case, neither degrading
himself too low nor vaunting himself too high; but “thinking of himself” what he really is, and just as
God has been pleased to make him.
E.g.
(1) Your mind, perhaps, has been raising the question whether you are a child of God. Now you
must not think there is any virtue in saying, “Oh! I am so bad! I cannot be a child of God!” You
should examine the matter with a calm judgment. When you find some proofs in favour of one view,
and some in favour of the other, then prayerfully, and with the Bible in your hand, set the one over
against the other, and make your decision just as you would deal with any matter of business.
(2) Or you want to know whether you are entitled to a particular promise, as, e.g., “Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Does that mean a person absolutely without any evil thoughts
or passions? Or does it mean one who is under the purifying influence of grace, who strives after
purity, who is pure in Christ. Then how is it with me in this? Can I appropriate it?
(3) Or supposing you have a distinct opportunity now opening to you. You must not at once put it
away and say, “Oh, no! I am not called to that work.” You must consider with yourself, “Is this a
providential opening? What degree of knowledge and what degree of spiritual strength will it take?
Have I so much? If not, can I obtain it? Has God been preparing me for this work, and this work for
me?”
(4) To guide you in such-like investigations, the apostle gives one rule--“to think according to the
measure of faith.” It is not, “Judge of yourselves according to your attainments,” but “the measure of
faith”; because everything that is good in a man’s heart is “faith,” and every other good thing, being
proportioned to the “faith” we have, is the measure of everything that a man has or can attain, and
so becomes the measure of the man--i.e., is the man. (J. Vaughan, M.A.)
Presumption and ambition
I. The spirit of presumption consists in thinking ourselves adorned with accomplishments which we
have not, in magnifying those which we have, and in preferring ourselves to others on account of

180. these qualities, real or imaginary.
1. The first character of presumption is to imagine ourselves endued with virtues and good qualities,
of which we have not the substance, but only the shadow and the false appearance. Of all the
blessings which are bestowed upon the good, there is none perhaps more expedient, or more to be
requested of God, than a spirit of impartiality with respect to ourselves, together with that accurate
discernment, that care to distinguish between real probity and the false appearance of it, and that
caution not to be imposed upon by hypocrisy and dissimulation, which we usually exert when we
scan the actions and the pretensions of other people.
2. The second character of presumption is the magnifying those good qualities which we have. And
here presumption is the more dangerous, because it is not the mere effect of extravagant fancy, but
hath some foundation, something real, to trust to and to build upon. It is a common observation in
the learned world, that a man’s genius and skill can only be estimated when his thoughts and his
inventions are laid before the public; and that many a person who hath been cried up beyond
measure by his friends and dependents, or by party zeal, hath fallen short of expectation. The same
remark holds true in the moral qualities of the heart and mind. Hath a man resolutely exposed
himself to dangers in a just cause? He is, then, a man of courage. Hath he rejected the tempting
opportunities of growing great and rich by dishonest methods? He is a man of integrity. Is he
uniformly just, equitable, charitable, modest, and temperate? and doth he behave himself to others
as his relation to them, his station and situation require? Then may it be truly said that his virtues
are real.
3. A third character of presumption is to ascribe to the qualities which we possess an eminence and
an excellence that belong not to them. In general, all the qualities of mind and body, and all the
external advantages which are commonly called gifts of fortune, all these are so far valuable as they
are useful to ourselves and others, and no farther; so that, by being misapplied, they become
pernicious.
II. Ambition is the natural effect of presumption, and may be called “a desire to obtain the rewards,
which we think to be due to us.”
1. The first object of ambition is glory, esteem, reputation; and, in the desire of these things, there
seems to be nothing irregular and vicious. To despise them may be a kind of stupid brutality. But
there are excellent rules to be observed on this occasion.
(1) We must never prefer the esteem of men to the approbation of God.

181. (2) Nothing is truly glorious unless it be truly good and conformable to the will of God. Then, though
men condemn us, our conscience supports us. But if God condemns us, human applause can make
us no amends.
(3) When virtue is attended with disgrace, we must despise such contempt, and not be deterred by
it from our duty.
(4) We must not love virtue for the bare sake of reputation and human esteem: “Let your light so
shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
2. The second object of ambition is an honourable rank and station, and places of power, trust, and
profit.
(1) No man should set his heart overmuch upon rising and bettering his condition, because it is ten
times more probable that he shall be disappointed than that he shall succeed.
(2) No man should highly value any temporal advantages, because they are temporal, and because
there are higher objects which demand our more serious attention.
(3) No man should desire eminent stations without comparing his strength with the burden, and
having reason to hope that he shall be able to acquit himself as the laws of God and man require.
(4) No man should be puffed up with power and prosperity, because it is a dangerous state and an
envied state. (J. Jortin, D.D.)
A true ideal
A man who looks up all the time is never a great man to himself. Are you a poet? Then do not get
poetasters to read and say, “I write better poems than they do, and therefore I am a better poet.”
Read Milton, read Shakespeare, read Homer. Go to the old Englishmen of immortal thought, whose
drums and trumpets have sounded clear down through the ages to this day. Go to the grandest and
noblest of our thinkers and writers, sit in council with them, and then see if you are not a dwarf, a
pigmy. It will make you humble to have high ideals. But a man who for ever measures himself by
pigmies and dwarfs, and thinks he is better than they--what is he but a mountebank among pigmies
and dwarfs? A true ideal tends to cure the conceit of men, and to rank them. Says the apostle, “Let
every man think of himself as he ought to think, soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man

182. the measure of faith.” The measure of faith? What is faith? It is the sight of invisible excellence. It is
the sight of noble qualities unseen. It is the sight of ideal grandeur. Let every man measure himself
by that conception, and then think of himself as he ought to think; let him think of himself as lowly,
and poor, and needy; and he may well call out for help and for grace. (H. W. Beecher.)
Odiousness of conceit
Conceit is a very odious quality. It loses a man more friends and gains him more enemies than any
other foible, perhaps vice, in the world. It makes him harsh to his inferiors and disrespectful to his
betters. It causes him to live at right angles with the world. It makes him believe that he alone is in
the right; it warps his opinions in all things, makes him viciously sceptical, and robs him of the most
glorious inheritance of faith, while it distorts his hope and totally destroys his charity. (Gentle Life.)
Conceit, ignorance of
A certain worthy of our acquaintance, being out of a situation, made application to a friend to
recommend him to a place, and remarked that he would prefer a somewhat superior position, “for
you know, Tomkins,” said he, “I am not a fool, and I ain’t ignorant.” We would not insinuate that the
brother was mistaken in his own estimate, but the remark might possibly excite suspicion, for the
case is similar to that of a timid pedestrian at night alone, hurrying along a lonesome lane, when a
gentleman comes out of the hedge just at the turning by Deadman’s Corner, and accosts him in the
following reassuring language, “I ain’t a garrotter, and I never crack a fellow’s head with this here
life-preserver.” The outspoken self-assertion of the brother QUOTED above is but the expression
of the thought of the most, if not all of us. “I am not a fool, and I ain’t ignorant,” is the almost
universal self-compliment, which is never out of season; and this is the great barrier to our
benefiting by good advice, which we suppose to be directed to the foolish and ignorant world in
general, but not to our elevated selves. The poet did not say, but we will say it for him, “All men
think all men faulty but themselves.” It would be a great gain to us all if we had those elegant
quizzing glasses of ours silvered at the back so that the next time we stick them in our eyes, in all
the foppery of our conceit, we may be edified and, let us hope, humbled, by seeing ourselves.
(C. H. Spurgeon.)
Self-knowledge

183. 1. Destroys pride.
2. Encourages humility.
3. Promotes the glory of God.
4. Is only acquired through grace. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Self-knowledge, importance of
He (Socrates) did occupy himself with physics early in his career. In after life he regarded such
speculations as trivial. “I have not leisure for such things,” he is made to say by Plato; “and I will tell
you the reason: I am not yet able, according to the Delphic inscription, to know myself, and it
appears to me very ridiculous, while ignorant of myself, to inquire into what I am not concerned in.
Self-knowledge, value of
To know one’s self to be foolish is to stand upon the doorstep of the temple of wisdom: to
understand the wrongness of any position is half-way towards amending it; to be quite sure that our
self-confidence is a heinous sin and folly, and an offence against God, and to have that thought
burned into us by God’s Holy Spirit, is going a great length towards the absolute casting our self-
confidence away, and the bringing of our souls in practice, as well as in theory, to rely wholly upon
the power of God’s Holy Spirit. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Pride, the RESULT of ignorance
The prouder a man is, the more he thinks he deserves; and the more he thinks he deserves, the
less he really does deserve. A proud man--the whole world is not big enough to serve him. The little
he gets he looks upon with contempt because it is little. The much that he does not get he regards
as evidence of the marvellous inequality of things in human life. He walks a perpetual self-adulator,
expecting until experience has taught him not to expect, and then he goes for ever murmuring at
what he looks upon as partiality in God’s dealings with men. Such men are like old hulks that make
no voyages, and leak at every seam. They are diseased with pride. They have the craving appetite
of dyspepsia in their disposition. (H. W. Beecher.)

184. But to think soberly.--
Humility, Christian
I. Its nature includes--
1. A just estimate of ourselves.
2. A due esteem for others.
3. A constant recognition of Divine grace.
II. Its source. Consciousness--
1. Of dependence upon others.
2. That our gifts are but a small part of the fulness of the body of Christ.
III. Its evidence. In the--
1. Ready.
2. Patient.
3. Faithful consecration of our ability to the service of the Church. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Humility and knowledge

185. I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility doubt of his own
power or hesitation of speaking his opinions, but a right understanding of the relation between what
he can do and say and the rest of the world’s sayings and doings. All great men not only know their
business, but usually know that they know it, and are not only right in their main opinions, but they
usually know that they are right in them, only they do not think much of themselves on that account.
Arnolfo knows he can build a good dome at Florence; Albert Durer writes calmly to one who has
found fault with his work, “It cannot be better done”; Sir Isaac Newton knows that he has worked out
a problem or two that would have puzzled anybody else; only they do not expect their fellow-men,
therefore, to fall down and worship them. They have a curious under-sense of powerlessness,
feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them; that they could not do or be anything
else than God made them; and they see something Divine and God-made in every other man they
meet, and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful. (J. Ruskin.)
According as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.--
The measure of faith
The water we draw from a well depends upon the size of the bucket; God provides us with the
bucket as well as the water in the well of salvation. Or, again, gifts may be compared to the air we
breathe, and faith to the lungs, by which we inhale and exhale; then the strength of the lungs would
be represented by the measure of faith. (C. Neil, M.A.)
VWS, “Not to think, etc.
The play upon φρονεሏν to think and its compounds is very noticeable. “Not to be
high-minded (hyperphronein) above what he ought to be minded (phronein), but to be
minded (phronein) unto the being sober-minded (sophronein). See on 1Pe_4:7.
The measure of faith (µέµέµέµέτροντροντροντρον πίπίπίπίστεωςστεωςστεωςστεως)
An expression which it is not easy to define accurately. It is to be noted: 1. That the
point of the passage is a warning against an undue self-estimate, and a corresponding
exhortation to estimate one's self with discrimination and sober judgment. 2. That Paul
has a standard by which self-estimate is to be regulated. This is expressed by ᆞς as,
according as. 3. That this scale or measure is different in different persons, so that the
line between conceit and sober thinking is not the same for all. This is expressed by
ᅚµέρισεν hath imparted, distributed, and ᅛκάστሩ to each one. 4. The character of this
measure or standard is determined by faith. It must be observed that the general
exhortation to a proper self-estimate is shaped by, and foreshadows, the subsequent
words respecting differences of gifts. It was at this point that the tendency to self-conceit
and spiritual arrogance would develop itself. Hence the precise definition of faith here

186. will be affected by its relation to the differing gifts in Rom_12:6. Its meaning, therefore,
must not be strictly limited to the conception of justifying faith in Christ, though that
conception includes and is really the basis of every wider conception. It is faith as the
condition of the powers and offices of believers, faith regarded as spiritual insight, which,
according to its degree, qualifies a man to be a prophet, a teacher, a minister, etc.; faith
in its relation to character, as the only principle which develops a man's true character,
and which, therefore, is the determining principle of the renewed man's tendencies,
whether they lead him to meditation and research, or to practical activity. As faith is the
sphere and subjective condition of the powers and functions of believers, so it furnishes a
test or regulative standard of their respective endowments and functions. Thus the
measure applied is distinctively a measure of faith. With faith the believer receives a
power of discernment as to the actual limitations of his gifts. Faith, in introducing him
into God's kingdom, introduces him to new standards of measurement, according to
which he accurately determines the nature and extent of his powers, and so does not
think of himself too highly. This measure is different in different individuals, but in every
case faith is the determining element of the measure. Paul, then, does not mean precisely
to say that a man is to think more or less soberly of himself according to the quantity of
faith which he has, though that is true as a fact; but that sound and correct views as to
the character and extent of spiritual gifts and functions are fixed by a measure, the
determining element of which, in each particular case, is faith.
4Just as each of us has one body with many
members, and these members do not all have the
same function,
Paul is saying the obvious here, for we all know that the feet have a different
function than the hands, and both have a different function from that of the eyes,
and all of them differ from the function of the nose, and we could go on an on about
how each part of the body has a different role to play. People need to grasp this so
they do not feel inferior because they are not leaders, and speakers, and people with
more power and authority, or more gifts. Christians can be envious of others with
more prominent gifts, and they can feel cheated when they cannot be what some
other believer is. The first thing all of need to accept is our limitations. If we are not
gifted in come areas, we need to accept that reality and live on the level that we have
gifts to achieve. ot accepting ourselves as we are can lead to a poor self image, and
to conflict because of envy of others. Self-acceptance is taking what God has given to
us and developing it to its full potential. It does not try to be what it is not, and go
after roles that others have who are gifted for those roles. It is accepting that any
role in the body is an important role, and if you can fill that role and do it well, it

187. will be to the glory of God, and the benefit of the body of Christ. obody can be
everything in the body, but everybody can be something that is needed, and when
you are content to be that something you are gifted to do, you are a blessing.
Barclay, “Paul is here saying that a man must accept himself; and, even if he finds
that the contribution he has to offer will be unseen, without praise and without
prominence, he must make it, certain that it is essential and that without it the
world and the Church can never be what they are meant to be.”
BAR ES, “For - This word here denotes a further illustration or proof of what he had
just before said. The duty to which he was exhorting the Romans was, not to be unduly
exalted or elevated in their own estimation. In order to produce proper humility, he
shows them that God has appointed certain orders or grades in the church; that all are
useful in their proper place; that we should seek to discharge our duty in our appropriate
sphere; and thus that due subordination and order would be observed. To show this, he
introduces a beautiful comparison drawn from the human body. There are various
members in the human frame; all useful and honorable in their proper place; and all
designed to promote the order, and beauty, and harmony of the whole. So the church is
one body, consisting of many members, and each is suited to be useful and comely in its
proper place. The same comparison he uses with great beauty and force in 1Co. 12:4-31;
also Eph_4:25; Eph_5:30. In that chapter the comparison is carried out to much greater
length, and its influence shown with great force.
Many members - Limbs, or parts; feet, hands, eyes, ears, etc.; 1Co_12:14-15.
In one body - Constituting one body; or united in one, and making one person.
Essential to the existence, beauty, and happiness of the one body or person.
The same office - The same use or design; not all appointed for the same thing; one
is to see, another to hear, a third to walk with, etc.; 1Co_12:14-23.
CLARKE, “For as we have many members - As the human body consists of many
parts, each having its respective office, and all contributing to the perfection and support
of the whole; each being indispensably necessary in the place which it occupies, and each
equally useful though performing a different function;
GILL, “For as we have many members in one body,.... The apostle illustrates
what he said last concerning God's dealing to every man the measure of faith, by
comparing the church of Christ to an human body, which is but one, and has many
members in union with it, and one another; and which are placed in an exact symmetry
and proportion, and in proper subserviency to each other, and for the good of the whole:
and all members have not the same office, or "action"; they do not exercise the

188. same function, and perform the same operation, but each that which is peculiar to itself:
the eye only sees, but does not hear, nor taste, nor smell; the ear only hears, but neither
sees, or does any of the aforesaid things; the palate tastes, the nose smells, the hand
handles, the foot walks, and the same may be observed of the other members of the body,
which have not the same, but their particular offices, and all and each of them their
usefulness.
HE RY, “Because God has dealt out gifts to others as well as to us: Dealt to
every man. Had we the monopoly of the Spirit, or a patent to be sole
proprietors of spiritual gifts, there might be some pretence for this
conceitedness of ourselves; but others have their share as well as we. God is
a common Father, and Christ a common root, to all the saints, who all drive
virtue from him; and therefore it ill becomes us to lift up ourselves, and to
despise others, as if we only were the people in favour with heaven, and
wisdom should die with us. This reasoning he illustrates by a comparison
taken from the members of the natural body (as 1Co_12:12; Eph_4:16): As
we have many members in one body, etc., Rom_12:4, Rom_12:5. Here
observe, [1.] All the saints make up one body in Christ, who is the head of the
body, and the common centre of their unity. Believers lie not in the world as
a confused disorderly heap, but are organized and knit together, as they are
united to one common head, and actuated and animated by one common
Spirit. [2.] Particular believers are members of this body, constituent parts,
which speak them less than the whole, and in relation to the whole, deriving
life and spirits from the head. Some members in the body are bigger and
more useful than others, and each receives spirits from the head according
to its proportion. if the little finger should receive as much nourishment as
the leg, how unseemly and prejudicial would it be! We must remember that
we are not the whole; we think above what is meet if we think so; we are but
parts and members. [3.] All the members have not the same office
(Rom_12:4), but each hath its respective place and work assigned it. The
office of the eye is to see, the office of the hand is to work, etc. So in the
mystical body, some are qualified for, and called to, one sort of work; others
are, in like manner, fitted for, and called to, another sort of work.
Magistrates, ministers, people, in a Christian commonwealth, have their
several offices, and must not intrude one upon another, nor clash in the
discharge of their several offices. [4.] Each member hath its place and office,
for the good and benefit of the whole, and of every other member. We are
not only members of Christ, but we are members one of another, Rom_12:5.
We stand in relation one to another; we are engaged to do all the good we
can one to another, and to act in conjunction for the common benefit. See
this illustrated at large, 1Co_12:14, etc. Therefore we must not be puffed up
with a conceit of our own attainments, because, whatever we have, as we
received it, so we received it not for ourselves, but for the good of others.
2. A sober use of the gifts that God hath given us. As we must not on the one hand be
proud of our talents, so on the other hand we must not bury them. Take heed lest, under
a pretence of humility and self-denial, we be slothful in laying out ourselves for the good
of others. We must not say, “I am nothing, therefore I will sit still, and do nothing;” but,
“I am nothing in myself, and therefore I will lay out myself to the utmost in the strength
of the grace of Christ.” He specifies the ecclesiastical offices appointed in particular
churches, in the discharge of which each must study to do his own duty, for the

189. preserving of order and the promotion of edification in the church, each knowing his
place and fulfilling it. Having then gifts. The following induction of particulars supplies
the sense of this general. Having gifts, let us use them. Authority and ability for the
ministerial work are the gift of God. - Gifts differing. The immediate design is different,
though the ultimate tendency of all is the same. According to the grace, Charismata kata
tēn charin. The free grace of God is the spring and original of all the gifts that are given to
men. It is grace that appoints the office, qualifies and inclines the person, works both to
will and to do. There were in the primitive church extraordinary gifts of tongues, of
discerning, of healing; but he speaks here of those that are ordinary. Compare 1Co_12:4;
1Ti_4:14; 1Pe_4:10. Seven particular gifts he specifies (Rom_12:6-8), which seem to be
meant of so many distinct offices, used by the prudential constitution of many of the
primitive churches, especially the larger. There are two general ones here expressed by
prophesying and ministering, the former the work of the bishops, the latter the work of
the deacons, which were the only two standing officers, Phi_1:1. But the particular work
belonging to each of these might be, and it should seem was, divided and allotted by
common consent and agreement, that it might be done the more effectually, because that
which is every body's work is nobody's work, and he despatches his business best that is
vir unius negotii - a man of one business. Thus David sorted the Levites (1Ch_23:4,
1Ch_23:5), and in this wisdom is profitable to direct. The five latter will therefore be
reduced to the two former.
JAMISO , “For as we have many members, etc. — The same diversity and yet
unity obtains in the body of Christ, whereof all believers are the several members, as in
the natural body.
CALVI , “4.For as in one body, etc. The very thing which he had previously said of limiting the
wisdom of each according to the measure of faith, he now CONFIRMS by a reference to the
vocation of the faithful; for we are called for this end, that we may unite together in one body, since
Christ has ordained a fellowship and connection between the faithful similar to that which exists
between the members of the human body; and as men could not of themselves come together into
such an union, he himself becomes the bond of this connection. As then the case is with the human
body, so it ought to be with the society of the faithful. By applying this similitude he proves how
necessary it is for each to consider what is suitable to his own nature, capacity, and vocation. But
though this similitude has various parts, it is yet to be chiefly thus applied to our present subject, —
that as the members of the same body have distinct offices, and all of them are distinct, for
no MEMBER possesses all powers, nor does it appropriate to itself the offices of others; so God
has distributed various gifts to us, by which diversity he has determined the order which he would
have to be observed among us, so that every one is to conduct himself according to the measure of
his capacity, and not to thrust himself into what peculiarly belongs to others; nor is any one to seek
to have all things himself, but to be content with his lot, and willingly to abstain from usurping the
offices of others. When, however, he points out in express words the communion which is between
us, he at the same time intimates, how much diligence there ought to be in all, so that they may
contribute to the common good of the body according to the faculties they possess. (385)

190. (385) The Apostle pursues this likeness of the human body much more at large in 1Co_12:12.
There are two bonds of union; one, which is between the believer and Christ by true faith; and the
other, which is between the individual member of a church or a congregation and the rest of the
members by a professed faith. It is the latter that is handled by the Apostle, both here and in the
Epistle to the Corinthians. — Ed.
PULPIT, “For as in one body we have many MEMBERS , but all the members
have not the same office; so we, the many, are one body in Christ, and every one
members one of another. The
mutual dependence on each other of the several members of the Church with their several GIFTS
and functions, and the importance of all for the well-being of the whole, is further carried out
in 1Co_12:12, seq. In Eph_1:22 and Eph_4:15, Eph_4:16, Christ is regarded, somewhat differently,
as the exalted Head over the Church which is his body. Here and in 1Co_12:1-31., the head is not
thus distinguished from the rest of the body (see 1Co_12:21); the whole is "one body in Christ," who
is the living Person who unites and animates it.
CHARLES SIMEO , “CHRISTIANSARE ALL MEMBERSOF ONE BODY
Rom_12:4-8. As we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:
so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then
gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether PROPHECY , let us prophesy
according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on
teaching; or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that
ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.
TO have the mind well INSTRUCTED in religious principles is good: but we must never forget
that the end of principle is practice; and that all the knowledge, whether of men or angels, will be of
no service, if it do not operate to the renovation of our souls after the Divine image. Hence St. Paul,
having established with irresistible force all the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, proceeds to
urge upon the Church at Rome a practical improvement of them. The first improvement of them is,
to surrender up ourselves unfeignedly and unreservedly to God in a way of devout affection. The
next is, to employ ourselves diligently for him in every office whereby we can benefit his Church and
people. To the former of these the Apostle calls us in the first verse of this chapter: and to the latter,
in the words which we have just read. But to this latter we are yet further called by the relation which
we bear to the Church of God, whereof we are members: and in this view it is inculcated by the
Apostle in our text.
Let us then consider,
I. The relation which we bear to one another—
As descendants of Adam, we are all members of one family, of which God is the universal Parent:
but, as the redeemed of the Lord, we are brought into the nearest union with Christ, so as to be

191. members of his body, and consequently to be “members also one of another.” To elucidate more
fully this important truth, we will distinctly notice,
1. Our general connexion—
[All true Christians are parts of one great whole, even as the different members of our corporeal
body are. All have their appropriate sphere of action, and ought to fulfil the peculiar duties for which
they are fitted. Those who have a higher office in this mystical body have no ground for pride,
seeing that “they have nothing which they have not received:” their place in the body, and their
faculties, having been foreordained and given by Him “who divideth to every man severally as he
will [Note: 1Co_12:4-11.].” On the other hand, they who have the lowest office have no reason for
discontent: for they, in their place, are as necessary to the perfection of the whole, as any other
member whatever. If they have a lower office than others, they have comparatively less
responsibility: and, if they discharge their office conscientiously for the good of the whole and the
glory of God, their improvement of their one talent will as certainly be acknowledged and rewarded
by God, as the improvement which others may make of their ten talents.]
2. Our mutual dependence—
[No man is independent: no man is sufficient for his own welfare: no man can say to any other, I
have no need of you [Note: 1Co_12:14-23.]. Every one is in want of many things that must be sub-
plied by others: the eye needs the foot, as much as the foot needs the eye. No member possesses
any thing for itself alone: the eye sees not for itself, nor does the ear hear for itself: it is for the whole
that every member’s faculties are given; and for the whole must they be employed. If any member
be afflicted, all the rest must sympathize with it, and administer to it: and if any member be
particularly benefited, all the others must be partakers of its joy. Every one must consider the
concerns of others as its own [Note: 1Co_12:25-26. with Php_2:4.]: nor must any one draw back
from the most self-denying offices for the good of others. Is a hand bruised? the feet, the eye, the
tongue, the ear, must all exert their respective talents to procure relief. No one must refuse to do
what in him lies for the good of the others. The same members that now put forth their powers for
the relief of one that is afflicted, may soon need from it a return of the same kind offices: and if any
should say, I will give myself no trouble about this afflicted member, he will soon be made to see,
that, by producing a schism in the body, he does the greatest injury to himself; it being impossible
either to impart, or to withhold, the required assistance, without participating in the effects of its own
conduct.]
3. Our individual interest—
[The interest of every individual member is, to get its own powers invigorated and ENLARGED .

192. The more penetrating the eye, or the more expert the hand, the more it will be able to advance the
good of the whole. Now every member of the Church being united unto Christ as his living Head, he
should seek from Christ such gracious communications as may fit him more for the discharge of
every office to which he is called. Whatever situation the member may hold in the body, its duty, and
its interest also, is the same. It will not be advanced by-intruding into the offices of another, but by
fulfilling its own, and getting a greater measure of activity and vigour in the discharge of them. In
truth, each is advanced only in proportion as it contributes to the welfare of others. The feet, whilst
keeping the whole body in health, enjoy health themselves: the hands, whilst they procure
sustenance for the whole body, are themselves strengthened: and in seeking the good of the whole,
each advances most the glory of that blessed Saviour, whose members they are
[Note: 1Co_10:24.]. The Saviour’s glory and the welfare of the Church are so identified, that they
cannot be separated from each other [Note: 1Co_10:27. with Eph_4:15-16.].
Thus we see the truth and propriety of the comparison in our text: for as all the members of our
body are united to the head, and to each other by the head; as they also receive life and
nourishment from the head, and act in subserviency to it and by its direction; and finally, as they all
have precisely the same interests, and have a perfect communion with each other in all that relates
to their welfare; so it is with the Church of God: all are united to Christ by faith: all, by virtue of their
union with him, are united to each other in him: all have their separate endowments for the good of
the whole: all should look upon each other as members of their own body, as much as his hands or
feet are: and all should feel with, and act for, every other member, precisely as for himself. O that
this our relation to Christ and to each other were felt and realized among the saints of every
communion under heaven!]
But our view of this relation will ANSWER no good end, unless we attend to,
II. The duties arising from it—
The offices mentioned in our text, were, if not wholly, yet in a measure distinct, in the apostolic age.
There were two great leading offices; the “prophesying,” or preaching of the word of God [Note: So
the word frequently means; and does not necessarily include miraculous gifts. 1Th_5:20.]; and
“ministering” to the temporal necessities of the Church, as the deacons did [Note: The Greek word
shews this.]. Under these two classes all the remainder may be arranged. Connected with those
who prophesied were those also who “taught” and “exhorted:” and connected with the deacon’s
office were those who “ruled,” or superintended the temporal concerns of the Church, “giving,” and
dispensing its alms, and “shewing mercy” to those whose afflictions called for more than ordinary
tenderness and compassion. But it is obvious that these various offices, even admitting that some of
them were in the first instance associated with miraculous powers, are, in substance, of perpetual
use and authority in the Church of Christ: there must still be persons to administer both spiritual

193. instruction and temporal relief; and in many instances, the offices are most advantageously united.
Without entering into any minute distinctions of this kind, we will content ourselves with saying in
general, that, whatever station any of us hold in the Church of Christ, or whatever office we be
called to execute, we should execute it,
1. With care and diligence—
[Certainly “prophesying,” or preaching the word of God, ought to be prosecuted with all imaginable
care and diligence. We should, as “stewards of the mysteries of God,” administer to every one his
portion in due season. We should “give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine,” “that so we
may save both ourselves and them that hear us.” We should “take heed to our ministry that we fulfil
it.” In like manner, if we perform any other office, visiting the sick, instructing the ignorant, relieving
the necessitous, we should bestow much attention on the work, to execute it most for the benefit of
the Church and the glory of God. It requires no small care to act so as most to counteract the effect
of prejudice, and to render our efforts most beneficial to those for whom they are used. We must
take care “not to let our good be evil spoken of,” and not to defeat by imprudence what, by a due
attention to times and circumstances, might have been advantageously accomplished
[Note: Mat_7:6.].]
2. With patience and perseverance—
[We must expect to meet with difficulties in every service which we are called to perform. But we
must not be discouraged by them. We must go forward, like St. Paul, “not moved by any trials,” “nor
counting our lives dear to us,” if we be called to sacrifice them in the way of duty. Whatever we may
meet with, we must “not faint or be weary in well doing,” but, “by patient CONTINUANCE in it,”
approve ourselves faithful unto death. Sometimes the difficulties will arise from one quarter, and
sometimes from another: sometimes they will assume the garb of humility, and make us pretend
unfitness for the work we have undertaken. But we must guard against this delusion: it may be true
enough, that we are unfit; but that unfitness may proceed from our own sloth and want of spirituality;
in which case it is not an excuse for us, but an aggravation of our guilt. We should rise to the
occasion: “If the axe be blunt, we should put to the more strength [Note: Ecc_10:10.]:” and if we feel
ourselves beginning to faint, we must entreat of God to “strengthen us with might in our inward
man,” and to “give us always all-sufficiency in all things.” We do not mean by this to encourage any
to undertake offices for which they are altogether unfit; but to guard you against “putting your hand
to the plough, and looking back again:” for “if any man draw back, my soul, says God, shall have no
pleasure in him.” Possibly a want of success may be pleaded by us as an excuse: but that is no
excuse. If, like Hosea, we were to labour for seventy years with little apparent benefit, it would be no
reason for abandoning the Lord’s work. “To plant and water,” is our part; “to give the increase,” is
God’s: and whether we have any success or not, our duty is the same, both to Christ our Head, and

194. to all the members of his body. It should be sufficient for us to know, that we have laboured to do
the will of God. If we see the fruit of our labours, well; we have reason to be thankful for it: but, if not,
then we must be satisfied with the assurance, that, “though Israel be not gathered, yet shall God be
glorious,” yea, and our reward also shall be equally great: for “every man shall receive,” not
according to his success, but “according to his own labour [Note: 1Co_3:8.].”]
3. With love and cheerfulness—
[We must do “nothing grudgingly or of necessity; for God loveth in all things a cheerful giver.” It may
be that the conduct of those whose benefit we seek, may be less amiable than might be wished. In
every department, whether the more public one of preachers, or the more private one of visiting the
sick, we may find much perverseness and ingratitude. But our delight must be in our work: we
must ENTER upon it readily, and perform it cheerfully; and heap coals of fire on the heads of
those who render evil for good. By kindness we may remove prejudice and conciliate regard: and by
a want of it we may defeat our own most benevolent purposes. Study then a suavity of manner: if
called to “speak the truth,” speak it “in love;” and, as the Apostle says, “Let all your things be done
with charity.”
If it he said, that to practise this is difficult; true, it is so; yea, and impossible to those who know not
their relation to Christ, and to one another: but to those who look to Christ as their living Head, and
who receive out of his fulness, nothing is impossible: “Through Christ strengthening us we can do all
things.” Nor, if we regard our brother as a member of our own body, shall we find this so difficult: for
who ever was backward to assuage his own pains, or relieve his own necessities? If, moreover, we
consider the Lord Jesus Christ himself as relieved in the relief conferred on his distressed members,
shall we then need any stimulus to exertion? No: it will be our joy to perform towards him every
office of love. Thus think ye then, and thus act; and know, that “not even a cup of cold water shall
lose its reward.”]
Beet, “That I have one faculty and my neighbour has
another is the gift to him and to me of the undeserved favoiu- and
infinite wisdom of God. Therefore, to boast over the less brilliant

195. faculties of others is to call in question the wisdom and kindness of
Him who chose for, and gave to each, the powers he possesses.
MACLARE , “MANYAND ONE
Rom_12:4- Rom_12:5.
To Paul there was the closest and most vital connection between the profoundest experiences of
the Christian life and its plainest and most superficial duties. Here he lays one of his most mystical
conceptions as the very foundation on which to rear the great structure of Christian conduct, and
links on to one of his profoundest thoughts, the unity of all Christians in Christ, a comprehensive
series of practical exhortations. We are accustomed to hear from many lips: ‘I have no use for these
dogmas that Paul delights in. Give me his practical teaching. You may keep the Epistle to the
Romans, I hold by the thirteenth of First Corinthians.’ But such an unnatural severance between the
doctrine and the ethics of the Epistle cannot be effected without the destruction of both. The very
principle of this Epistle to the Romans is that the difference between the law and the Gospel is, that
the one preaches conduct without a basis for it, and that the other says, First believe in Christ, and
in the strength of that belief, do the right and be like Him. Here, then, in the very laying of the
foundation for conduct in these verses we have in concrete example the secret of the Christian way
of making good men.
I. The first point to notice here is, the unity of the derived life.
Many are one, because they are each in Christ, and the individual relationship and derivation of life
from Him makes them one whilst continuing to be many. That great metaphor, and nowadays much
forgotten and neglected truth, is to Paul’s mind the fact which ought to mould the whole life and
conduct of individual Christians and to be manifested therein. There are three most significant and
instructive symbols by which the unity of believers in Christ Jesus is set forth in the New Testament.
Our Lord Himself gives us the one of the vine and its branches, and that symbol suggests the silent,
effortless process by which the life-giving sap rises and finds its way from the deep root to the
furthest tendril and the far-extended growth. The same symbol loses indeed in one respect its value
if we transfer it to growths more congenial to our northern climate, and instead of the vine with its
rich clusters, think of some great elm, deeply rooted, and with its firm bole and massive branches,
through all of which the mystery of a common life penetrates and makes every leaf in THE CLOUD
of foliage through which we look up participant of itself. But, profound and beautiful as our Lord’s

196. metaphor is, the vegetative uniformity of parts and the absence of individual characteristics make it,
if taken alone, insufficient. In the tree one leaf is like another; it ‘grows green and broad and takes
no care.’ Hence, to express the whole truth of the union between Christ and us we must bring in
other figures. Thus we find the Apostle adducing the marriage tie, the highest earthly example of
union, founded on choice and affection. But even that sacred bond leaves a gap between those who
are knit together by it; and so we have the conception of our text, the unity of the body as
representing for us the unity of believers with Jesus. This is a unity of life. He is not only head as
chief and sovereign, but He is soul or life, which has its seat, not in this or that organ as old physics
teach, but pervades the whole and ‘filleth all in all.’ The mystery which concerns the union of soul
and body, and enshrouds the nature of physical life, is part of the felicity of this symbol in its
Christian application. That commonest of all things, the mysterious force which makes matter live
and glow under spiritual emotion, and changes the vibrations of a nerve, or the undulations of the
grey brain, into hope and love and faith, eludes the scalpel and the microscope. Of man in his
complex nature it is true that ‘clouds and darkness are round about him,’ and we may expect an
equally solemn mystery to rest upon that which makes out of separate individuals one living body,
animated with the life and moved by the Spirit of the indwelling Christ. We can get no further back,
and dig no deeper down, than His own words, ‘I am . . . the life.’
But, though this unity is mysterious, it is most real. Every Christian soul receives from Christ the life
of Christ. There is a real implantation of a higher nature which has nothing to do with sin and is alien
from death. There is a true regeneration which is supernatural, and which makes all who possess it
one, in the measure of their possession, as truly as all the leaves on a tree are one because fed by
the same sap, or all the members in the natural body are one, because nourished by the same
blood. So the true bond of Christian unity lies in the common participation of the one Lord, and the
real Christian unity is a unity of derived life.
The misery and sin of the Christian Church have been, and are, that it has sought to substitute other
bonds of unity. The whole weary history of the divisions and alienations between Christians has
surely sufficiently, and more than sufficiently, shown the failure of the attempts to base Christian
oneness upon uniformity of opinion, or of ritual, or of purpose. The difference between the real unity,
and these spurious attempts after it, is the difference between bundles of faggots, dead and held
together by a cord, and a living tree lifting its multitudinous foliage towards the heavens. The bundle
of faggots may be held together in some sort of imperfect union, but is no exhibition of unity. If
visible churches must be based on some kind of agreement, they can never cover the same ground
as that of ‘the body of Christ.’
That oneness is independent of our organisations, and even of our will, since it comes from the
common possession of a common life. Its enemies are not divergent opinions or forms, but the evil
tempers and dispositions which impede, or prevent, the flow into each Christian soul of the uniting

197. ‘Spirit of life in Christ Jesus’ which makes the many who may be gathered into separate folds one
flock clustered around the one Shepherd. And if that unity be thus a fundamental fact in the
Christian life and entirely apart from external organisation, the true way to increase it in each
individual is, plainly, the drawing nearer to Him, and the opening of our spirits so as to receive fuller,
deeper, and more CONTINUOUS inflows from His own inexhaustible fullness. In the old Temple
stood the seven-branched candlestick, an emblem of a formal unity; in the new the seven
candlesticks are one, because Christ stands in the midst. He makes the body one; without Him it is
a carcase.
II. The diversity.
‘We have many members in one body, but all members have not the same office.’ Life has different
functions in different organs. It is light in the eye, force in the arm, music on the tongue, swiftness in
the foot; so also is Christ. The higher a creature rises in the scale of life, the more are the parts
differentiated. The lowest is a mere sac, which performs all the functions that the creature requires;
the highest is a man with a multitude of organs, each of which is definitely limited to one office. In
like manner the division of labour in society measures its advance; and in like manner in the Church
there is to be the widest diversity. What the Apostle designates as ‘gifts’ are natural characteristics
heightened by the Spirit of Christ; the effect of the common life in each ought to be the intensifying
and manifestation of individuality of character. In the Christian ideal of humanity there is place for
every variety of gifts. The flora of the Mountain of God yields an endless multiplicity of growths on its
ascending slopes which pass through every climate. There ought to be a richer diversity in the
Church than anywhere besides; that tree should ‘bear twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every
month for the healing of the nations.’ ‘All flesh is not the same flesh.’ ‘Star differeth from star in
glory.’
The average Christian life of to-day sorely fails in two things: in being true to itself, and in tolerance
of diversities. We are all so afraid of being ticketed as ‘eccentric,’ ‘odd,’ that we oftentimes stifle the
genuine impulses of the Spirit of Christ leading us to the development of unfamiliar types of
goodness, and the undertaking of unrecognised forms of service. If we trusted in Christ in ourselves
more, and took our laws from His whispers, we should often reach heights of goodness which tower
above us now, and discover in ourselves capacities which slumber undiscerned. There is a dreary
monotony and uniformity amongst us which impoverishes us, and weakens the testimony that we
bear to the quickening influence of the Spirit that is in Christ Jesus; and we all tend to look very
suspiciously at any man who ‘puts all the others out’ by being himself, and letting the life that he
draws from the Lord dictate its own manner of expression. It would breathe a new life into all our
Christian communities if we allowed full scope to the diversities of operation, and realised that in
them all there was the one Spirit. The world condemns originality: the Church should have learned
to PRIZE it. ‘One after this fashion, and one after that,’ is the only wholesome law of the

198. development of the manifold graces of the Christian life.
III. The harmony.
‘We being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.’ That expression
is remarkable, for we might have expected to read rather members of the body, than of each other;
but the bringing in of such an idea suggests most emphatically that thought of the mutual relation of
each part of the great whole, and that each has offices to discharge for the benefit of each. In the
Christian community, as in an organised body, the active co-operation of all the parts is the
condition of health. All the rays into which the spectrum breaks up the pure white light must be
gathered together again in order to produce it; just as every instrument in the great orchestra
contributes to the volume of sound. The Lancashire hand-bell ringers may ILLUSTRATE this
point for us. Each man picks up his own bell from the table and sounds his own note at the moment
prescribed by the score, and so the whole of the composer’s idea is reproduced. To suppress
diversities results in monotony; to combine them is the only sure way to secure harmony. Nor must
we forget that the indwelling life of the Church can only be manifested by the full exhibition and
freest possible play of all the forms which that life assumes in individual character. It needs all, and
more than all, the types of mental characteristics that can be found in humanity to mirror the infinite
beauty of the indwelling Lord. ‘There are diversities of operations,’ and all those diversities but
partially represent that same Lord ‘who worketh all in all,’ and Himself is more than all, and, after all
manifestation through human characters, remains hinted at rather than declared, suggested but not
revealed.
Still further, only by the exercise of possible diversities is the one body nourished, for each member,
drawing life directly and without the intervention of any other from Christ the Source, draws also
from his fellow-Christian some form of the common life that to himself is unfamiliar, and needs
human intervention in order to its reception. Such dependence upon one’s brethren is not
inconsistent with a primal dependence on Christ alone, and is a safeguard against the cultivating of
one’s own idiosyncrasies till they become diseased and disproportionate. The most slenderly
endowed Christian soul has the double charge of giving to, and receiving from, its brethren. We
have all something which we can contribute to the general STOCK . We have all need to
supplement our own peculiar gifts by brotherly ministration. The prime condition of Christian vitality
has been set forth for ever by the gracious invitation, which is also an imperative command, ‘Abide
in Me and I in you’; but they who by such abiding are recipients of a communicated life are not
thereby isolated, but united to all who like them have received ‘the manifestation of the Spirit to do
good with.’
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “For as we have many members in one body.

199. St. Paul’s view of life
How comprehensively he SURVEYS the whole range of human action and conduct! He starts
from the consideration of men as constituting “many members in one body,” and he proceeds to
direct them in their various offices. He passes in review the private and public duties to which they
might be called--ministering, teaching, exhorting, giving, ruling, and obeying; he depicts the spirit of
the Christian in business and in rest, in joy and in sorrow, in hope and in tribulation, towards friends
and towards enemies, in peace and in wrath; and he lays down the Christian principles of civil
government and obedience. It is a picture of life in its length and breadth, and even in all its lights
and shadows, transfigured as the landscape by the sun, under the renovating influence of those
spiritual rays of love which illuminated and warmed the apostle’s soul. (H. Wace, D.D.)
Many members: one body
1. The early Church, like the latter, seems to have been deformed by many dissensions. Those who
had the least conspicuous endowments envied those who had the more, in place of using such gifts
as they had. In order to show the unreasonableness and the evil of this state of things, St. Paul
often drew his illustrations from the human body, the parts of which had different offices; but no part
of which could be dispensed with without injury to all the rest. So the Church was composed of
many members, some of which were, comparatively, without honour, but none were without use;
each had functions essential to the general well-being.
2. Observe what close links there are between the several classes in the community, and how the
breaking of any one would dislocate the whole social system. “The king himself is served by the
field.” The throne is connected with the soil; and the proud occupant of the one is dependent on the
tiller of the other. When you look on a community like our own, with its nobles, merchants, teachers,
men of science, artificers, you may perhaps think little of the peasantry. But were the peasantry to
cease from their labours, there would be an immediate arrest on the pursuits of the community, and,
from the throne downward, society would be panic-stricken. There, can, therefore, be no more
pitiable spectacle than that of a haughty individual, who looks superciliously on those who occupy
stations inferior to his own. And it would be a just method of rebuking his arrogance to require him
to trace the production and progress of all that wealth or rank which ministers to his pride, till he
finds it originate in the bone and muscle of these objects of his scorn.
3. “That the poor shall never cease out of the land,” is one of those wise and benevolent

200. arrangements of Providence which so eminently distinguish the moral government of this world.
One of the most fatal and common tendencies of our nature is to selfishness--the forgetting others,
and the caring only for ourselves. And who can fail to see that the having amongst us objects which
continually appeal to our compassion is wonderfully adapted for counteracting that tendency. It may
be perfectly true that the indigent cannot do without the benevolent; but it is equally true that the
benevolent cannot do without the indigent; and whenever you give ear to a tale of distress, and you
contribute according to your ability to the relief of the suppliant, you are receiving as well as
conferring a benefit. The afflicted being whom you succour, keeps, by his appeal, the charities of
your nature from growing stagnant, and thus may be said to requite the obligation.
4. Observe how applicable is the principle of our text to the several classes of society. Of what avail
would be the skill and courage of the general who had no troops to obey his command? what the
ingenuity of the mechanic if there were no labourers to make use of his invention? what the wisdom
of the legislator if there were no functionaries to carry his measures into force? In these and a
thousand instances, the hand and the foot would be but of little use unless they were directed by the
eye and the head; and the eye and the head would themselves be of little use if they were not
connected with the hand and the foot. So true is it that we are “every one members, one of another.”
5. Turn to the Church, a community knit together by spiritual ties. And here the interests of the
various CLASSES ARE so interwoven that it can only be through wilful ignorance that any
suppose themselves independent of the others. It may be true that ministers may be likened, in the
importance of their office, to the more important parts of body, to the eye or the head; but in
prosecuting their honourable and difficult employment, they are dependent on the very lowest of
their people. Recur to what we said about the humanising power of the appointed admixture of the
poor with the rich. If the actual presence of suffering be the great antagonist to selfishness, then the
poor of his flock must be the clergyman’s best auxiliaries, seeing that they help to keep the rest from
that moral hardness which would make them impervious to his most earnest remonstrances. You
are to add to this that there is a worth in the prayers of the very meanest of Christians impossible to
overrate. A rich man may feel attachment to his minister; and he has a thousand ways in which he
may give vent to his feelings. But the poor man has little to offer but prayer, and therefore will he
throw all the vehemence of his gratefulness into unwearied petitions for blessings on his benefactor.
6. On this great principle we uphold the dignity of the poor man, and the beneficial influence which
he exerts in the world. Poverty will never degrade a man--nothing but vice can do that; poverty will
never disable a man from usefulness, seeing that it cannot change his office in the body, and there
is no office but what is material to the general health and strength. Why, then, are not our honest
and hardworking poor to lift up their heads in the midst of society, in all the consciousness of having
an important part to perform, and in all the satisfaction of feeling that they perform it faithfully and
effectually?

201. 7. We are “every one members, one of another”; and forasmuch as no man ever hated his own
flesh, let it be seen that we are all animated with the spirit of charity. It is with reference to this
principle that we are to be tried at the last. If we are all members of one body, Christ is the Head of
that body; and, consequently, He accounts as done to Himself what is done to the meanest of His
members. (H. Melvill, B.D.)
The Church compared to the body
I. In its unity.
II. In the plurality of its members.
III. In the diversity of their functions.
IV. In their mutual relation and dependence.
V. In the possession of one spirit. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Christian unity and diversity
I. Diversity underlying unity.

202. 1. “We have many members in” the “one” natural “body”; and just so we, being diverse Christian
members of His redeemed flock, “are one” mystical “body in Christ.”
2. In the natural body every part is not so much a distinct unit in itself as a fraction of one great
whole; and so in the Church (Joh_17:20-21), not the individuality of the member, but the oneness of
the whole community, is to demonstrate the truth of Christ’s mission.
3. This unity can only be realised by having a governing Head. Only as we abide in real heart and
life fellowship with Christ do we form a body that is “at unity in itself.” If not bound together in the
“unity of the Spirit,” the body must decay and dissolve into a mass of lifeless, separate members.
II. Diversity consistent with unity.
1. That diversity is consistent with unity is shown by the analogy of our frame.
2. Diversity of vocation and function is consistent in Christians (1Co_12:1-31.). The Divine will is
that each member should have a special function, but that all should work together for mutual help.
3. Diversity in unity is the foundation of all true beauty and usefulness (see laws of nature, waves of
the sea, winds, CLOUDS , human nature, etc.).
Learn in conclusion--
1. We all belong to one another. None may say, “I have nothing to do with thee,” nor plead, “Am I
my brother’s keeper?” Therefore every Christian should try--
(1) To help his neighbour, to heal differences, and to strengthen the life and work of all Christ’s
people.
(2) To refrain from speaking or doing anything that may HURT or vex any member of the body,
since the Head is thereby pained (Act_9:4) and the whole body shocked (1Co_12:26).
2. We are all necessary to each other--the rich to the poor and the poor to the rich; the sick to the
hale as well as the hale to the sick. All can derive help from others, and all can give somewhat to
others. All depend on each other in the wondrous “compacting together by that which every joint
supplieth.” (Homilist.)

203. Every one has his place
A row of richly-gilded pipes, stately and massive, reaching to the ceiling, stares majestically down
upon us as we gather in our place of worship. They seem to say all the melody and music of the
instrument is gathered within us, and we are the musical genii of the place, and when the keys are
swept by a skilled artist how rich and grand are the tones evolved! They seem to be fairly alive, and
our souls are stirred to the depths by the harmony. Desiring to know their relations to the hidden
modest reeds, that we could faintly discern in the darkened chamber behind, we asked our organist
what relation did they bear to their unseen companions, and what was their relative power
compared with the small pipes. His reply was: “All front pipes speak with force and power, but they
would be utterly valueless, so far as music was concerned, unless backed up and supported by the
delicate reeds that are hidden within.” How blessed the lesson taught the modest Christian workers
in every Church! They look upon the few who occupy a prominent position as leaders, and in their
timidity hide themselves, not allowing their own power to be felt, forgetful of the fact that all disciples
are workers together with the Lord. In these days, when a few leading spirits are marvellously
blessed by God, we must remember that their power is vastly increased by the sympathy and
prayers of those whose names are only known to God. As the organ is incomplete if a single pipe is
missing, and as it is thrown out of tune by a single reed not acting in harmony, so the Church is
hindered from receiving a blessing, and its action impeded, if a single disciple is negligent of his or
her duty. So let us in our quiet field toil on, pray on, knowing that he who is faithful unto death will
receive the crown.
Individuality
The practical aim of each man should be to perfect his own variety, not ape another’s. A Luther
could not be a Melanchthon. By no process could an Owen be made into a Milton. Individuality is
indestructible. I am afraid that teachers and learners are often at fault in overlooking what is so very
plain. You sometimes have ideal characters described and put before you for imitation, which never
were and never will be realised, because they combine incompatibilities. Qualities are taken from
men constitutionally different from each other, and you are told to be all that is represented in some
unnatural amalgam. But God requires of you no such impossibility. Be yourself--that is the Divine
will. Mature and perfect by His grace the gifts He has bestowed. Resist all easily besetting sins, and
cultivate all possible good. Not excusing yourself for only doing what pleases you; for omitting acts
of self-denial; for being one-sided, self-indulgent, and peculiar; strive to be as comprehensive in
excellence as you can, without attempting to obliterate the stamp of your own individuality. Bunyan
was a wise man, and therefore did not crush all imaginable good qualities into his Christian, but
distributed them amongst a number of individuals; painting the picture of different pilgrims, and

204. assigning to them varied offices of wisdom and love. (J.Stoughton, D.D.)
Mutual relations in life
Consider--
I. The relation which we bear to one another.
1. Our bond of union.
2. Our mutual dependence.
3. Our individual interest.
II. The duties arising out of this relation. Mutual--
1. Love.
2. Sympathy.
3. Help.
III. The manner in which these duties should be performed. With--
1. Care and diligence.
2. Patience and perseverance.
3. Love and cheerfulness. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

205. Spiritual order
There arose a fierce contention in the human body; every member sought another place than the
one it found itself in, and was fitted for. After much controversy it was agreed to refer the whole
matter to one whose name was Solomon Wise-in-his-own-conceit. He was to arrange and adjust
the whole business, and to place every bone in its proper position. He received the appointment
gladly, and was filled with joy and confidence. He commenced with finding a place for himself. His
proper post was the heel, but where do you think he found it? He must needs be the golden bowl in
which the brains are DEPOSITED . The natural consequences followed. The coarse heel bone
was not of the right quality nor of the suitable dimensions to contain the brains, nor could the vessel
intended for that purpose form a useful or comely part of the foot. Disorder ensued in foot, head,
face, legs, and arms. By the time Solomon Wise-in-his-own-conceit had reconstructed the body, it
could neither walk, nor speak, nor hear, nor smell, nor see. The body was, moreover, filled with
intolerable agony, and could find no rest, every bone crying for restoration to its own place--that is to
say, every one but the heel bone; that was mightily pleased to be in the head, and to have custody
of the brains. (Christmas Evans.)
Church fellowship: its privileges and duties
I. The oneness of the Church.
1. There is one source of activity and life in every human body, and so there is in the Church. There
are various spheres in which we live and act. Those who possess natural and intellectual life can
enjoy the beauties of nature, the endearments of friendship, the activities of business, the quiet of
home, but all the while they may have no sympathy with that which is heavenly; but those who
are possessed of spiritual life rise to a higher existence in which love prompts to unwearied activity
in the service of God; and the source of this life is Christ. But our Lord came not only that we might
have life, but that we might have it more abundantly; and, aware of the influence of association and
sympathy, He gathers together His followers into a society in which they may help one another. But,
just as with the individual, so with the Church. It is not the most scriptural doctrine, or the most
apostolic discipline, or the most impassioned preaching, or the most crowded assemblies that can
ensure the greatest prosperity, but the presence of Christ.
2. In this one body there must be harmony of character, or it would resemble the image of

206. Nebuchadnezzar. There will be differences of gifts because there are differences of functions, but
there must also be fitness for association, and to form a secure union all the members must be
renewed by the Holy Spirit, be joined to Christ by a living faith, and exhibit the beauties of a
consistent character.
3. In this oneness of the Church there is identity of interest. If one member of the body suffer, all the
members suffer with it; and if one member is in health, all the members rejoice with it. Suppose a
kingdom begins generally to decline, and there should be one profession which, for a time,
continues prosperous, this cannot last long. And so in the Church. If discord springs up between
those who ought to be bound together in the purest love, if error thrusts aside the doctrine of the
Cross, if apathy spread over the people, if prayers are frozen and heartless, there may be members
who will retain their spirituality for a time, but by and by they will yield to the general influence. But if
peace binds Christians together--if the truth is maintained in its integrity, etc.
then each member will enjoy the benefit of the prosperity of the whole, and will find how blessed it is
for them all to have one interest. And yet how frequently Church members seem to take but little
interest in one another! They will see the declension of a brother and never warn him, the suffering
of a brother and never sympathise with him, the want of employment of the gifts of a brother and
never suggest to him that he should employ his gifts. And where there is this want of reciprocal
benefit a Church rapidly declines.
4. The Church ought to have one aim. The body is created to show forth the glory of God. You see
His glory in the works of nature around, in His word of truth, but chiefly in the grand work of
redemption. But then, if a multitude of mankind never study this work of redemption, they cannot
see its glory; and, for the most part, people will say, “We judge of the value of that system of
redemption by its fruits”; and therefore ought we both by life and lip to recommend the gospel.
II. Each individual member has his appropriate duties to perform. It is by division of labour that so
much can be done. One seems more fitted to advise, another to execute; one to warn and terrify,
and another to cheer and comfort; and so all are called upon to employ their powers for some useful
purpose.
1. All members must feel that they have joined the Church not only to receive good, but to do good.
2. Each member should strive to concentrate his efforts on the particular Church to which he
belongs. Wherever there is diffusion there is a waste of power. Concentration is strength, and when
God points out in His providence the particular Church to which we are to belong, He thereby points

207. out the particular field in which we are to work.
3. The member who is doing nothing is worse than useless. When a limb is paralysed it only
impedes the body. And let every person in Church fellowship remember that he cannot be simply
neutral. If he is not doing good he is doing harm. His coldness benumbs, his example discourages
others.
4. Every real member is essential to the completeness of the body. Every member of the human
frame, however apparently insignificant, is essential. We are sometimes very poor judges of who is
the best member. We are thankful for men of rank, wealth, influence, and talents, but we thank God
also for the humblest spiritual Christian, whom, perhaps, God may see to be doing a greater work
than those who seem great in the eye of the world.
5. All the members bear a close spiritual relationship to each other. Surely, then, there ought to be
great sympathy and affection between them, because, when we have a common object and
character, we generally feel sympathy and love.
6. If we are members one of another, there ought to be the absence of pride and of all assumption.
God has ordained the different ranks in society, and He does not wish those ranks to be obliterated.
The believing servant is not to show want of respect to the believing master, and the believing
master is not to oppress the believing servant. But as members of the same Church all worldly
distinctions disappear. We are all one in Christ.
7. As members one of another we ought always to aim at one another’s benefit. “Bear ye one
another’s burdens,” etc. (J. C. Harrison.)
Communion of saints
What the circulation of the blood is to the human body, that the Holy Spirit is to the body of Christ
which is the Church. Now, by virtue of the one life-blood, every limb of the body holds fellowship
with every other, and as long as life lasts that fellowship is inevitable. If the hand be unwashed the
eye cannot refuse communion with it on that ACCOUNT ; if the finger be diseased the hand
cannot, by binding a cord around it, prevent the life-current from flowing. Nothing but death can
break up the fellowship; you must tear away the member, or it must of necessity commune with the
rest of the body. It is even thus in the body of Christ; no laws can prevent one living member of
Christ from fellowship with every other; the pulse of living fellowship sends a wave through the
whole mystical frame; where there is but one life, fellowship is an inevitable consequence. Yet some

208. talk of restricted communion, and imagine that they can practise it. If they be alive unto God they
may in mistaken conscientiousness deny their fellow Christians the outward sign of communion, but
communion itself falls not under any rule or regulation of theirs. Tie a red tape round your thumb,
and let it decree that the whole body is out of fellowship with it; the thumb’s decree is either
ridiculously inoperative, or else it proves injurious to itself. God has made us one, one Spirit
quickens us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus; to deny fellowship
with any believer in Jesus is to refuse what you must of necessity give, and to deny in symbol what
you must inevitably render in reality. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
5so in Christ we who are many form one body,
and each member belongs to all the others.
The pastor belongs to me, for he is gifted by God to teach me and guide me in the
knowledge and will of God. The song leader belongs to me to choose music that will
lift my spirit to praise God. The singers belong to me to inspire and motive me with
the beauty of their songs. The greeters are mine to make me feel welcome in the
body. All who serve belong to me, and I belong to them to add what I can to the
total function of the body. We are all members of the one body, and so we all belong
to one another, and we are all to make some contribution to the common good.
BAR ES, “So we, being many - We who are Christians, and who are numerous as
individuals.
Are one body - Are united together, constituting one society, or one people, mutually
dependent, and having the same great interests at heart, though to be promoted by us
according to our special talents and opportunities. As the welfare of the same body is to
be promoted in one manner by the feet, in another by the eye, etc.; so the welfare of the
body of Christ is to be promoted by discharging our duties in our appropriate sphere, as
God has appointed us.
In Christ - One body, joined to Christ, or connected with him as the head; Eph_1:22-
23, “And gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body;” compare
Joh_15:1-7. This does not mean that there is any physical or literal union, or any
destruction of personal identity, or any thing particularly mysterious or unintelligible.
Christians acknowledge him as their head. that is, their Lawgiver; their Counsellor,
Guide, and Redeemer. They are bound to him by especially tender ties of affection,
gratitude, and friendship; they are united in him, that is, in acknowledging him as their
common Lord and Saviour. Any other unions than this is impossible; and the sacred
writers never intended that expressions like these should be explained literally. The

209. union of Christians to Christ is the most tender and interesting of any in this world, but
no more mysterious than what binds friend to friend, children to parents, or husbands to
their wives; compare Eph_5:23-33. (See the supplementary note at Rom_8:17.)
And every one members one of another - Compare 1Co_12:25-26. That is, we
are so united as to be mutually dependent; each one is of service to the other; and the
existence and function of the one is necessary to the usefulness of the other. Thus, the
members of the body may be said to be members one of another; as the feet could not,
for example, perform their functions or be of use if it were not for the eye; the ear, the
hand, the teeth, etc., would be useless if it were not for the other members, which go to
make up the entire person. Thus, in the church, every individual is not only necessary in
his place as an individual, but is needful to the proper symmetry and action of the whole.
And we may learn here:
(1) That no member of the church of Christ should esteem himself to be of no
importance. In his own place he may be of as much consequence as the man of learning,
wealth, and talent may be in his.
(2) God designed that there should be differences of endowments of nature and of
grace in the church; just as it was needful that there should be differences in the
members of the human body.
(3) No one should despise or lightly esteem another. All are necessary. We can no
more spare the foot or the hand than we can the eye; though the latter may be much
more curious and striking as a proof of divine skill. We do not despise the hand or the
foot any more than we do the eye; and in all we should acknowledge the goodness and
wisdom of God. See these thoughts carried out in 1Co_12:21-25.
CLARKE, “So we, being many - We who are members of the Church of Christ, which
is considered the body of which he is the head, have various offices assigned to us,
according to the measure of grace, faith and religious knowledge which we possess; and
although each has a different office, and qualifications suitable to that office, yet all
belong to the same body; and each has as much need of the help of another as that other
has of his; therefore, let there be neither pride on the one hand, nor envy on the other.
The same metaphor, in nearly the same words, is used in Synopsis Sohar, page 13. “As
man is divided into various members and joints, united among themselves, and raised by
gradations above each other, and collectively compose one body; so all created things are
members orderly disposed, and altogether constitute one body. In like manner the law,
distributed into various articulations, constitutes but one body.” See Schoettgen.
GILL, “So we being many are one body in Christ,.... This is the application of the
above simile. The chosen of God, the redeemed of Christ, and those that are justified by
his righteousness, and sanctified by his Spirit; though they are but few in comparison of
the men of the world, but considered in themselves are many, and yet make up but one
body, the church, of which Christ is the head: and though this general assembly; or
church universal, may be distinguished into several congregational churches, and
distinct communities, yet each community, consisting of divers persons, is but one body
"in Christ", united and knit together by joints and bands, under him their head, Lord,

210. and King; in him, and not in Caesar, or any earthly monarch, to distinguish this body
from bodies politic, or any civil community among men:
and everyone members one of another; as in union with Christ their head, so to
one another in love, walking in holy fellowship together, sympathizing with, and serving
each other.
JAMISO , “For as we have many members, etc. — The same diversity and yet
unity obtains in the body of Christ, whereof all believers are the several members, as in
the natural body.
6We have different gifts, according to the grace
given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use
it in proportion to his[ ]faith.
BAR ES, “Having then gifts - All the endowments which Christians have are
regarded by the apostle as gifts. God has conferred them; and this fact, when properly
felt, tends much to prevent our thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think,
Rom_12:3. For the use of the word rendered “gifts,” see Rom_1:11; Rom_5:15-16;
Rom_6:23; Rom_11:29; 1Co_7:7; 1Co_12:4, 1Co_12:9,1Co_12:28, etc. It may refer to
natural endowments as well as to the favors of grace; though in this place it refers
doubtless to the distinctions conferred on Christians in the churches.
Differing - It was never designed that all Christians should be equal. God designed
that people should have different endowments. The very nature of society supposes this.
There never was a state of perfect equality in any thing; and it would be impossible that
there should be, and yet preserve society. In this, God exercises a sovereignty, and
bestows his favors as he pleases, injuring no one by conferring favors on others; and
holding me responsible for the right use of what I have, and not for what may be
conferred on my neighbor.
According to the grace - That is, the favor, the mercy that is bestowed on us. As all
that we have is a matter of grace, it should keep us from pride; and it should make us
willing to occupy our appropriate place in the church. True honor consists not in
splendid endowments, or great wealth and function. It consists in rightly discharging the
duties which God requires of us in our appropriate sphere. If all people held their talents
as the gift of God; if all would find and occupy in society the place for which God
designed them, it would prevent no small part of the uneasiness, the restlessness, the

211. ambition, and misery of the world.
Whether prophecy - The apostle now proceeds to specify the different classes of
gifts or endowments which Christians have, and to exhort them to discharge aright the
duty which results from the rank or function which they held in the church. “The first is
prophecy.” This word properly means to predict future events, but it also means to
declare the divine will; to interpret the purposes of God; or to make known in any way
the truth of God, which is designed to influence people. Its first meaning is to predict or
foretell future events; but as those who did this were messengers of God, and as they
commonly connected with such predictions, instructions, and exhortations in regard to
the sins, and dangers, and duties of people, the word came to denote any who warned, or
threatened, or in any way communicated the will of God; and even those who uttered
devotional sentiments or praise. The name in the New Testament is commonly
connected with teachers; Act_13:1, “There were in the church at Antioch certain
prophets, and teachers, as Barnabas, etc.;” Act_15:32, “and Judas and Silas, being
prophets themselves, etc.;” Act_21:10, “a certain prophet named Agabus.” In 1Co_12:28-
29, prophets are mentioned as a class of teachers immediately after apostles, “And God
hath set some in the church; first apostles, secondly prophets; thirdly teachers, etc.”
The same class of persons is again mentioned in 1Co_14:29-32, 1Co_14:39. In this
place they are spoken of as being under the influence of revelation, “Let the prophets
speak two or three, and let the other judge. If anything be revealed to another that sitteth
by, let the first hold his peace. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the
prophets;” 1Co_14:39, “Covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues.” In this
place endowments are mentioned under the name of prophecy evidently in advance even
of the power of speaking with tongues. Yet all these were to be subject to the authority of
the apostle. 1Co_14:37. In Eph_4:11, they are mentioned again in the same order; “And
he gave some apostles; and some prophets; and some evangelists; and some pastors, and
teachers, etc.” From these passages the following things seem clear in relation to this
class of persons:
(1) They were an order of teachers distinct from the apostles, and next to them in
authority and rank.
(2) They were under the influence of revelation, or inspiration in a certain sense.
(3) They had power of controlling themselves, and of speaking or keeping silence as
they chose. They had the power of using their prophetic gifts as we have the ordinary
faculties of our minds, and of course of abusing them also. This abuse was apparent also
in the case of those who had the power of speaking with tongues, 1Co_14:2,
1Co_14:4,1Co_14:6, 1Co_14:11, etc.
(4) They were subject to the apostles.
(5) They were superior to the other teachers and pastors in the church.
(6) The office or the endowment was temporary, designed for the settlement and
establishment of the church; and then, like the apostolic office, having accomplished its
purpose, to be disused, and to cease. From these remarks, also, will be seen the propriety
of regulating this function by apostolic authority; or stating, as the apostle does here, the
manner or rule by which this gift was to be exercised.
According to the proportion - This word ᅊναλογίαν analogian is no where else used
in the New Testament. The word properly applies to mathematics (Scheusner), and
means the ratio or proportion which results from comparison of one number or
magnitude with another. In a large sense, therefore, as applied to other subjects, it
denotes the measure of any thing. With us it means analogy, or the congruity or
resemblance discovered between one thing and another, as we say there is an analogy or

212. resemblance between the truths taught by reason and revelation. (See Butler’s Analogy.)
But this is not its meaning here. It means the measure, the amount of faith bestowed on
them, for he was exhorting them to Rom_12:3. “Think soberly, according as God hath
dealt to every man the measure of faith.” The word “faith” here means evidently, not the
truths of the Bible revealed elsewhere; nor their confidence in God; nor their personal
piety; but the extraordinary endowment bestowed on them by the gifts of prophecy.
They were to confine themselves strictly to that; they were not to usurp the apostolic
authority, or to attempt to exercise their special function; but they were to confine
themselves strictly to the functions of their office according to the measure of their faith,
that is, the extraordinary endowment conferred on them. The word “faith” is thus used
often to denote that extraordinary confidence in God which attended the working of
miracles, etc., Mat_17:26; Mat_21:21; Luk_17:6. If this be the fair interpretation of the
passage, then it is clear that the interpretation which applies it to systems of theology,
and which demands that we should interpret the Bible so as to accord with the system, is
one that is wholly unwarranted. It is to be referred solely to this class of religious
teachers, without reference to any system of doctrine, or to any thing which had been
revealed to any other class of people; or without affirming that there is any resemblance
between one truth and another. All that may be true, but it is not the truth taught in this
passage. And it is equally clear that the passage is not to be applied to teachers now,
except as an illustration of the general principle that even those endowed with great and
splendid talents are not to over-estimate them, but to regard them as the gift of God; to
exercise them in subordination to his appointment and to seek to employ them in the
manner, the place, and to the purpose that shall be according to his will. They are to
employ them in the purpose for which God gave them; and for no other.
CLARKE, “Having then gifts differing, etc. - As the goodness of God, with this
view of our mutual subserviency and usefulness, has endowed us with different gifts and
qualifications, let each apply himself to the diligent improvement of his particular office
and talent, and modestly keep within the bounds of it, not exalting himself or despising
others.
Whether prophecy - That prophecy, in the New Testament, often means the gift of
exhorting, preaching, or of expounding the Scriptures, is evident from many places in the
Gospels, Acts, and St. Paul’s Epistles, see 1Co_11:4, 1Co_11:5; and especially 1Co_14:3 :
He that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort.
This was the proper office of a preacher; and it is to the exercise of this office that the
apostle refers in the whole of the chapter from which the above quotations are made. See
also Luk_1:76; Luk_7:28; Act_15:32; 1Co_14:29. I think the apostle uses the term in the
same sense here - Let every man who has the gift of preaching and interpreting the
Scriptures do it in proportion to the grace and light he has received from God, and in no
case arrogate to himself knowledge which he has not received; let him not esteem
himself more highly on account of this gift, or affect to be wise above what is written, or
indulge himself in fanciful interpretations of the word of God.
Dr. Taylor observes that the measure of faith, Rom_12:3, and the proportion of faith,
Rom_12:6, seem not to relate to the degree of any gift considered in itself, but rather in
the relation and proportion which it bore to the gifts of others; for it is plain that he is
here exhorting every man to keep soberly within his own sphere. It is natural to suppose
that the new converts might be puffed up with the several gifts that were bestowed upon
them; and every one might be forward to magnify his own to the disparagement of
others: therefore the apostle advises them to keep each within his proper sphere; to

213. know and observe the just measure and proportion of the gift intrusted to him, not to
gratify his pride but to edify the Church.
The αναλογια της πιστεως, which we here translate the proportion of faith, and which
some render the analogy of faith, signifies in grammar “the similar declension of similar
words;” but in Scriptural matters it has been understood to mean the general and
consistent plan or scheme of doctrines delivered in the Scriptures; where every thing
bears its due relation and proportion to another. Thus the death of Christ is
commensurate in its merits to the evils produced by the fall of Adam. The doctrine of
justification by faith bears the strictest analogy or proportion to the grace of Christ and
the helpless, guilty, condemned state of man: whereas the doctrine of justification by
Works is out of all analogy to the demerit of sin, the perfection of the law, the holiness of
God, and the miserable, helpless state of man. This may be a good general view of the
subject; but when we come to inquire what those mean by the analogy of faith who are
most frequent in the use of the term, we shall find that it means neither more nor less
than their own creed; and though they tell you that their doctrines are to be examined by
the Scriptures, yet they give you roundly to know that you are to understand these
Scriptures in precisely the same way as they have interpreted them. “To the law and to
the testimony,” says Dr. Campbell, “is the common cry; only every one, the better to
secure the decision on the side he has espoused, would have you previously resolve to put
no sense whatever on the law and the testimony but what his favourite doctrine will
admit. Thus they run on in a shuffling, circular sort of argument, which, though they
studiously avoid exposing, is, when dragged into the open light, neither more nor less
than this; ‘you are to try our doctrine by the Scriptures only; but then you are to be very
careful that you explain the Scripture solely by our doctrine.’ A wonderful plan of trial,
which begins with giving judgment, and ends with examining the proof, wherein the
whole skill and ingenuity of the judges are to be exerted in wresting the evidence so as to
give it the appearance of supporting the sentence pronounced before hand.” See Dr.
Campbell’s Dissertations on the Gospels, Diss. iv. sect. 14, vol. i, page 146, 8vo. edit.,
where several other sensible remarks may be found.
GILL, “Having then gifts, differing,.... As in a natural body, the various members of
it have not the same office, and do not perform the same actions, thus they have not the
same, but different faculties; one has one faculty, another another; the eye has the faculty
of seeing, the ear of hearing, &c. thus in the spiritual body the church, as there are
different members, these members have not the same work and business assigned them;
some are employed one way, and some another; also they have diversities of gifts for
their different administrations and operations, and all from Christ their head, by the
same Spirit, and for the service of the whole body,
according to the grace that is given unto us; for all these gifts are not the effects of
nature, the fruits of human power, diligence, and industry, but flow from the grace of
God, who dispenses them when, where, and to whom he pleases in a free and sovereign
manner; and therefore to be acknowledged as such, and used to his glory, and for the
good of his church and people. Wherefore
whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith. The
offices here, and hereafter mentioned, are not of an extraordinary, but ordinary kind,

214. such as are lasting, and will continue in the church unto the end of time: and are divided
into two parts, which are after subdivided into other branches. The division is into
"prophesying" and "ministering". By "prophesying" is meant, not foretelling things to
come, thought this gift was bestowed upon some, as Agabus, and others in the Christian
church; but this, as it is of an extraordinary nature, so it is not stinted and limited
according to the proportion of faith; but preaching the Gospel is here designed, which is
the sense of the word in many places of Scripture, particularly in 1Co_13:2. Now such
who have this gift of prophecy, or of opening and explaining the Scriptures, ought to
make use of it, and constantly attend toil: "let us prophesy"; diligently prepare for it by
prayer, reading and meditation, and continually exercise it as opportunity offers; nor
should any difficulty and discouragement deter from it: or whereas this last clause is not
in the original text, it may be supplied from Rom_12:3; thus, "let us think soberly", who
have this gift, and not be elated with it, or carry it haughtily to those who attend on the
exercise of it: but behave with sobriety, modesty, and humility, in the discharge thereof:
"according to the proportion of faith". There must be faith, or no prophesying; a man
must believe, and therefore speak, or speak not at all; a Gospel minister ought not to be a
sceptic, or in doubt about the main principles of religion; such as concern the three
divine persons, the office, grace, and righteousness of Christ, and the way of salvation by
him: he should be at a point in these things, should firmly believe, and with assurance
assert them, nor fear to be called dogmatical on that account: he is to preach according to
his faith, the proportion of it: which may be the same with the measure of it, Rom_12:3.
And so the Syriac version reads it, ‫דהימנותה‬ ‫משוחתא‬ ‫,איך‬ "according to the measure of his faith";
to which the Arabic version agrees; that is, according to the measure of the gift of Christ he has
received; according to the abilities bestowed on him; according to that light, knowledge, faith,
and experience he has; he ought to preach up unto it, and not in the least come short of it; or by
"the proportion", or "analogy of faith", may be meant a scheme of Gospel truths, a form of sound
words, a set of principles upon the plan of the Scriptures, deduced from them, and agreeably to
them; and which are all of a piece, and consistent with themselves, from which the prophesier or
preacher should never swerve: or the Scriptures themselves, the sure word of prophecy, the rule
and standard of faith and practice: the scope of the text is to be attended to, its connection with
the preceding or following verses, or both; and it is to be compared with other passages of
Scripture, and accordingly to be explained: and this is to follow the rule directed to.
HE RY, “ Prophecy. Whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the
proportion of faith. It is not meant of the extraordinary gifts of foretelling
things to come, but the ordinary office of preaching the word: so
prophesying is taken, 1Co_14:1-3, etc.; 1Co_11:4; 1Th_5:20. The work of the
Old Testament prophets was not only to foretel future things, but to warn
the people concerning sin and duty, and to be their remembrancers
concerning that which they knew before. And thus gospel preachers are
prophets, and do indeed, as far as the revelation of the word goes, foretel
things to come. Preaching refers to the eternal condition of the children of
men, points directly at a future state. Now those that preach the word must
do it according to the proportion of faith - katakatakatakata tētētētēn analogiann analogiann analogiann analogian tētētētēssss pisteōpisteōpisteōpisteōssss, that is,

215. [1.] As to the manner of our prophesying, it must be according to the
proportion of the grace of faith. He had spoken (Rom_12:3) of the measure
of faith dealt to every man. Let him that preaches set all the faith he hath on
work, to impress the truths he preaches upon his own heart in the first
place. As people cannot hear well, so ministers cannot preach well, without
faith. First believe and then speak, Psa_116:10; 2Co_4:13. And we must
remember the proportion of faith - that, though all men have not faith, yet a
great many have besides ourselves; and therefore we must allow others to
have a share of knowledge and ability to instruct, as well as we, even those
that in less things differ from us. “Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself; and
do not make it a ruling rule to others, remembering that thou hast but thy
proportion.” [2.] As to the matter of our prophesying, it must be according
to the proportion of the doctrine of faith, as it is revealed in the holy
scriptures of the Old and New Testament. By this rule of faith the Bereans
tried Paul's preaching, Act_17:11. Compare Act_26:22; Gal_1:9. There are
some staple-truths, as I may call them, some prima axiomata - first axioms,
plainly and uniformly taught in the scripture, which are the touchstone of
preaching, by which (though we must not despise prophesying) we must
prove all things, and then hold fast that which is good, 1Th_5:20, 1Th_5:21.
Truths that are more dark must be examined by those that are more clear;
and then entertained when they are found to agree and comport with the
analogy of faith; for it is certain one truth can never contradict another. See
here what ought to be the great care of preachers - to preach sound doctrine,
according to the form of wholesome words, Tit_2:8; 2Ti_1:13. It is not so
necessary that the prophesying be according to the proportion of art, the
rules of logic and rhetoric; but it is necessary that it be according to the
proportion of faith: for it is the word of faith that we preach. Now there are
two particular works which he that prophesieth hath to mind-teaching and
exhorting, proper enough to be done by the same person at the same time,
and when he does the one let him mind that, when he does the other let him
do that too as well as he can. If, by agreement between the ministers of a
congregation, this work be divided, either constantly or interchangeably, so
that one teaches and the other exhorts (that is, in our modern dialect, one
expounds and the other preaches), let each do his work according to the
proportion of faith. First, let him that teacheth wait on teaching. Teaching is
the bare explaining and proving of gospel truths, without practical
application, as in the expounding of the scripture. Pastors and teachers are
the same office (Eph_4:11), but the particular work is somewhat different.
Now he that has a faculty of teaching, and has undertaken that province, let
him stick to it. It is a good gift, let him use it, and give his mind to it. He that
teacheth, let him be in his teaching; so some supply it, HoHoHoHo didaskōdidaskōdidaskōdidaskōnnnn, enenenen tētētētē
didaskaliadidaskaliadidaskaliadidaskalia. Let him be frequent and constant, and diligent in it; let him abide
in that which is his proper work, and be in it as his element. See 1Ti_4:15,
1Ti_4:16, where it is explained by two words, en toutois isthien toutois isthien toutois isthien toutois isthi, and epimene autoisepimene autoisepimene autoisepimene autois,
be in these things and continue in them. Secondly, Let him that exhorteth
wait on exhortation. Let him give himself to that. This is the work of the
pastor, as the former of the teacher; to apply gospel truths and rules more
closely to the case and condition of the people, and to press upon them that
which is more practical. Many that are very accurate in teaching may yet be
very cold and unskilful in exhorting; and on the contrary. The one requires a

216. clearer head, the other a warmer heart. Now where these gifts are evidently
separated (that the one excels in the one and the other in the other) it
conduces to edification to divide the work accordingly; and, whatsoever the
work is that we undertake, let us mind it. To wait on our work is to bestow
the best of our time and thoughts upon it, to lay hold of all opportunities for
it, and to study not only to do it, but to do it well.
JAMISO 6-8, “Having then gifts differing according to the grace given to us
— Here, let it be observed, all the gifts of believers alike are viewed as communications of
mere grace.
whether — we have the gift of
prophecy — that is, of inspired teaching (as in Act_15:32). Anyone speaking with
divine authority - whether with reference to the past, the present, or the future - was
termed a prophet (Exo_7:1).
let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith — rather, “of our faith.”
Many Romish expositors and some Protestant (as Calvin and Bengel, and, though,
hesitatingly, Beza and Hodge), render this “the analogy of faith,” understanding by it
“the general tenor” or “rule of faith,” divinely delivered to men for their guidance. But
this is against the context, whose object is to show that, as all the gifts of believers are
according to their respective capacity for them, they are not to be puffed up on account of
them, but to use them purely for their proper ends.
VWS, “Prophecy
See on prophet, Luk_7:26. In the New Testament, as in the Old, the prominent idea
is not prediction, but the inspired delivery of warning, exhortation, instruction, judging,
and making manifest the secrets of the heart. See 1Co_14:3, 1Co_14:24, 1Co_14:25. The
New-Testament prophets are distinguished from teachers, by speaking under direct
divine inspiration.
Let us prophesy
Not in the Greek.
According to the proportion of faith (κατᆭ τᆱκατᆭ τᆱκατᆭ τᆱκατᆭ τᆱνννν ᅊναλογίᅊναλογίᅊναλογίᅊναλογίαναναναν τᇿτᇿτᇿτᇿςςςς πίπίπίπίστεωςστεωςστεωςστεως)
ᅓναλογία proportion, occurs only here in the New Testament. In classical Greek it is
used as a mathematical term. Thus Plato: “The fairest bond is that which most
completely fuses and is fused into the things which are bound; and proportion
(ᅊναλογία) is best adapted to effect such a fusion” (“Timaeus,” 31). “Out of such elements,
which are in number four, the body of the world was created in harmony and proportion”
(“Timaeus,” 32). Compare “Politicus,” 257. The phrase here is related to the measure of
faith (Rom_12:3). It signifies, according to the proportion defined by faith. The meaning
is not the technical meaning expressed by the theological phrase analogy of faith,
sometimes called analogy of scripture, i.e., the correspondence of the several parts of
divine revelation in one consistent whole. This would require ᅧ πίστις the faith, to be
taken as the objective rule of faith, or system of doctrine (see on Act_6:7), and is not in
harmony with Rom_12:3, nor with according to the grace given. Those who prophesy
are to interpret the divine revelation “according to the strength, clearness, fervor, and

217. other qualities of the faith bestowed upon them; so that the character and mode of their
speaking is conformed to the rules and limits which are implied in the proportion of their
individual degree of faith” (Meyer).
CALVI , “6.Having gifts, etc. Paul speaks not now simply of cherishing among ourselves
brotherly love, but commends humility, which is the best moderator of our whole life. Every one
desires to have so much himself, so as not to need any help from others; but the bond of mutual
communication is this, that no one has sufficient for himself, but is constrained to borrow from
others. I admit, then that the society of the godly cannot exist, except when each one is content with
his own measure, and imparts to others the gifts which he has received, and allows himself by turns
to be assisted by the gifts of others.
But Paul especially intended to beat down the pride which he knew to be innate in men; and that no
one might be dissatisfied that all things have not been bestowed on him, he reminds us that
according to the wise counsel of God every one has his own portion given to him; for it is necessary
to the common benefit of the body that no one should be furnished with fullness of gifts, lest he
should heedlessly despise his brethren. Here then we have the main design which the Apostle had
in view, that all things do not meet in all, but that the gifts of God are so distributed that each has a
limited portion, and that each ought to be so attentive in imparting his own gifts to the edification of
the Church, that no one, by leaving his own function, may trespass on that of another. By this most
beautiful order, and as it were symmetry, is the safety of the Church indeed preserved; that is, when
every one imparts to all in common what he has received from the Lord, in such a way as not to
impede others. He who inverts this order fights with God, by whose ordinance it is appointed; for the
difference of gifts PROCEEDS not from the will of man, but because it has pleased the Lord to
distribute his grace in this manner.
Whether prophecy, etc. By now bringing forward some examples, he shows how every one in his
place, or as it were in occupying his station, ought to be engaged. For all gifts have their own
defined limits, and to depart from them is to mar the gifts themselves. But the passage appears
this end in view, will rightly preserve themselves within their own limits.
But this passage is variously understood. There are those who consider that by prophecy is meant
the gift of predicting, which prevailed at the commencement of the gospel in the Church; as the Lord
then designed in every way to commend the dignity and excellency of his Church; and they think
that what is added, according to the analogy of faith, is to be applied to all the clauses. But I prefer
to follow those who extend this word wider, even to the peculiar gift of revelation, by which any one
skillfully and wisely performed the office of an interpreter in explaining the will of God. Hence
prophecy at this day in the Christian Church is hardly anything else than the right understanding of
the Scripture, and the peculiar faculty of explaining it, inasmuch as all the ancient prophecies and all
the oracles of God have been completed in Christ and in his gospel. For in this sense it is taken by
Paul when he says,
“ wish that you spoke in tongues, but rather that ye prophesy,”
(1Co_14:5;)
“ part we know and in part we prophesy,”
(1Co_13:9.)

218. And it does not appear that Paul intended here to mention those miraculous graces by which Christ
at first rendered illustrious his gospel; but, on the contrary, we find that he refers only to ordinary
gifts, such as were to CONTINUE perpetually in the Church. (387)
Nor does it seem to me a solid objection, that the Apostle to no purpose laid this injunction on those
who, having the Spirit of God, could not call Christ an anathema; for he testifies in another place
that the spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets; and he bids the first speaker to be silent, if
anything were revealed to him who was sitting down, (1Co_14:32;) and it was for the same reason it
may be that he gave this admonition to those who prophesied in the Church, that is, that they were
to conform their prophecies to the rule of faith, lest in anything they should deviate from the right
line. Byfaith he means the first principles of religion, and whatever doctrine is NOT FOUND to
correspond with these is here condemned as false. (388)
As to the other clauses there is less difficulty. Let him who is ordained a minister, he says, execute
his office in ministering; nor let him think, that he has been admitted into that degree for himself, but
for others; as though he had said, “ him fulfill his office by ministering faithfully, that he may answer
to his name.” So also he immediately adds with regard to teachers; for by the word teaching, he
recommends sound edification, according to this import, — “ him who excels in teaching know that
the end is, that the Church may be really INSTRUCTED ; and let him study this one thing, that he
may render the Church more informed by his teaching:” for a teacher is he who forms and builds the
Church by the word of truth. Let him also who excels in the gift of exhorting, have this in view, to
render his exhortation effectual.
But these offices have much affinity and even connection; not however that they were not different.
No one indeed could exhort, except by doctrine: yet he who teaches is not therefore endued with
the qualification to exhort. But no one prophesies or teaches or exhorts, without at the same time
ministering. But it is enough if we preserve that distinction which we find to be in God’ gifts, and
which we know to be adapted to produce order in the Church. (389)
(386) The ellipsis to be supplied here is commonly done as in our version, adopted from [Beza ].
The supplement proposed by [Pareus ] is perhaps more in unison with the passage; he repeats
after “” the words in verse 3, changing the person, “ us think soberly,” or “ us be modestly wise.”
— Ed.
(387) It is somewhat difficult exactly to ascertain what this “” was. The word “” ‫,נביא‬ means evidently
two things in the Old Testament and also in the New — a foreteller and a teacher, or rather an
interpreter of the word. Prophecy in the New Testament sometimes signifies PREDICTION , its
primary meaning. Act_2:17; 2Pe_1:21; Rev_1:3; but most commonly, as it is generally thought, the
interpretation of prophecy, that is, of prophecies contained in the Old Testament, and for this work
there were some in the primitive Church, as it is supposed, who were inspired, and thus peculiarly
qualified. It is probable that this kind of prophecy is what is meant here.
See 1Co_12:10; 1Co_13:2; 1Co_14:3; 1Th_5:20
That is was a distinct function from that of apostles, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, is evident
from Eph_4:11; and from the interpretation of tongues, as it appears from 1Co_12:10; and from
revelation, knowledge, and doctrine, as we find from 1Co_14:6. It also appears that it was more
useful than other extraordinary gifts, as it tended more to promote edification and comfort,1Co_14:1.
It is hence most probable that it was the gift already stated, that of interpreting the Scriptures,
especially the prophecies of the Old Testament, and applying them for the edification of the Church.
“” are put next to “” in Eph_4:11. — Ed.

219. (388) “Secundum analogiam fidei,” so [Pareus ] ; κατὰ τὴν ἀναλογίαν της πίστεως “pro proportione
fidei — according to the proportions of faith,” [Beza ], [Piscator ]; that is, as the former explains the
phrase, “ to the measure or extent of the individual’ faith;” he was not to go beyond what he knew or
what had been communicated to him by the Spirit. But the view which [Calvin ] takes is the most
obvious and consistent with the passage; and this is the view which [Hammond ] gives, “ to that
form of faith or wholesome doctrine by which every one who is sent out to preach the gospel is
appointed to regulate his preaching, according to those heads or principles of faith and good life
which are known among you.” The word ἀναλογία means properly congruity, conformity, or
proportion, not in the sense of measure or extent, but of equality, as when one thing is equal or
comformable to another; hence the analogy of faith must mean what is conformable to the faith. And
faith here evidently signifies divine truth, the object of faith, or what faith receives.
See Rom_10:8; Gal_3:23; Titus 1:4; Jud_1:3. — Ed.
(389) Critics have found it difficult to distinguish between these offices. The word διακονία ministry
is taken sometimes in a restricted sense, as meaning deaconship, an office appointed to manage
the temporal affairs of the Church, Act_6:1; 1Ti_3:8; and sometimes in a general sense, as
signifying the ministerial office, 2Co_6:3; Eph_3:7; Col_1:23. As the “” and “” are mentioned, some
think that the deaconship is to be understood here, and that the Apostle first mentioned the highest
office, next to the apostleship — prophecy, and the lowest — the deaconship, and afterwards
named the intervening offices — those of teachers and exhorters.
But what are we to think of those mentioned in the following clauses? [Stuart ] thinks that they were
not public officers, but private individuals, and he has sustained this opinion by some very cogent
reasons. The form of the sentence is here changed; and the Apostle, having mentioned the
deaconship, cannot be supposed to have referred to the same again. The word that seems to stand
in the way of this view is what is commonly rendered “” or, “ who rules:” but ὁ προϊστάµενος as our
author shows, means a helper, an assistant, (see Rom_16:2,) as well as a ruler; it means to stand
over, either for the purpose of taking care of, assisting, protecting others, or of presiding over, ruling,
guiding them. Then ἐν σπουδὣ with promptness or diligence, will better agree with the former than
with the latter idea. The other two clauses correspond also more with this view than with the other. It
has been said, that if a distributor of alms had been intended, the word would have been διαδιδοὺς
and not µεταδιδοὺς See Eph_4:28. The expression ἁπλότητι means “ liberality, or liberally.”
See 2Co_8:2; 2Co_9:11; Jas_1:5. — Ed.
HAWKER 6-18, “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is
given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion
of faith; (7) Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth,
on teaching; (8) Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him
do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that showeth mercy,
with cheerfulness. (9) Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is
evil; cleave to that which is good. (10) Be kindly affectioned one to another
with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another; (11) Not slothful in
business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; (12) Rejoicing in hope; patient
in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; (13) Distributing to the
necessity of saints; given to hospitality. (14) Bless them which persecute
you: bless, and curse not. (15) Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep
with them that weep. (16) Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind
not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your
own conceits. (17) Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest
in the sight of all men. (18) If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live

220. peaceably with all men.
Here are gracious directions, which arise out of a life of grace in the heart, and such as
are suited to the whole members of Christ’s mystical body; both to the ministers and
people. And what is necessary to be observed, they were not given for the Church in that
age only, but had respect to the Church of God in all ages. I mention this the rather,
because it might be supposed from what the Apostle saith about prophecy, that as the
gift of prophecy, or fortelling future events, hath long since ceased, as being no longer
necessary, this exhortation is done away. But the prophecy the Apostle seems to have
had in view, when writing to the Church in common, as in this instance, had no reference
whatever to that sense of prophesying which means predictions. Prophesying is
sometimes used for preaching, see Mat_7:22. And the Apostle recommended the Church
at Corinth, to follow after charity, and to desire spiritual gifts, but father that they might
prophesy. By which may be supposed he meant preaching, if the Lord should call them to
it, 1Co_14:1.
In like manner, when the Apostle in this exhortation, recommends the Church not to be
slothful in business; it cannot be supposed that he meant worldly business, and the
concerns of this life. For, although it would be at all times reproachful for men to neglect
the laudable and honest concerns of themselves and families, for the maintenance in the
station of life where the Lord in his providence hath placed them; yet, for the most part,
men are too much alive, and even the Lord’s people also, to the pursuits of things
temporal, to need exhortations on this point to worldly cares, it is plain that Paul, when
he said, not slothful in business, meant spiritual business, for he immediately added,
fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. And this became a sweet and gracious
recommendation of the Apostle, and a proof of his feeling in himself what he had said to
others just before, of being kindly affectioned. But had Paul been living in the present
hour of the Church, what would he have said to that cold indifference which marks the
age in the lukewarm, Laodicean spirit, so painful to the real follower of the Lord Jesus,
and so highly reproved by Christ himself! Rev_3:15-16.
There is not only a great loveliness in the Christian graces which the Apostle hath
enumerated in those verses, but also a beautiful order in the manner in which he hath
marked them down. Rejoicing in hope, is very suitably placed before the being patient in
tribulation. And the rejoicing with the happy, before the weeping with them that Weep.
For until the child of God is himself established in the grace of hope, he cannot know
how to minister to others the consolation. Neither can one mingle the tear of grace with
the mourner, unless he himself hath had his own tears mingled with the spiced wine of
the pomegranate. I refer the Reader to my Commentary on these points for the right
apprehension, according to my view, of those sweet and gracious employments,
Rom_5:1-5; Mat_5:1-12.
PULPIT, “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us,
whether PROPHECY , according to the proportion of our faith; or ministry, in
our ministry; or he that teacheth, in his teaching; or he that exhorteth, in his
exhortation; he that giveth, in simplicity; he that ruleth, with (literally, in) diligence;
interposed for elucidation in the Authorized Version. There are two ways in which the

221. construction of the passage might possibly be understood.
(1) Taking ἔχοντες δὲ in Rom_12:6 as dependent on ἐσµεν in Rom_12:5, and κατὰ τὴν
ἀναλογίαν τῆς πίστεως , not as hortatory, but as parallel to κατὰ τὴν χάριν τὴν δοθεῖσαν
ἡµῖν , and understanding in a like sense the clauses that follow. Thus the general meaning
would be—we are all one body, etc., but having our several gifts, to be used in
accordance with the purpose for which they are severally given.
(2) As in the Authorized Version, which is decidedly preferable, hortation being
evidently intended from the beginning of Rom_12:6. The drift is that the various
members of the body having various gifts, each is to be content to exercise his own gift in
the line of usefulness it fits him for, and to do so well. The references are not to distinct
orders of ministry, in the Church, but rather to gifts and consequent capacities of all
Christians. The gift of prophecy, which is mentioned first, being of especial value and
comfort" (1Co_14:3), for "convincing," and for "making manifest the secrets of the heart"
(1Co_14:24, 1Co_14:25). tie that has this special gift is to use it "according to the
proportion of his faith;" for the meaning of which expression see on µέτρον
πίστεωςabove (Rom_12:3). According to the prophet's power of faith to be receptive of
this special gift, and to apprehend it if granted to him, would be the intensity and truth of
its manifestation. It would seem that prophets might be in danger of mistaking their own
ideas for a true Divine revelation (cf. Jer_23:28); and also that they might speak hastily
and with a view to self-display (see1Co_14:29-33), and that there was a further gift
of διάκρισις πνευµάτων required for distinguishing between true and imagined
inspiration (see 1Co_12:10; 1Co_14:29). Further, the spirits of the prophets were subject
to the prophets (1Co_14:32); they were not carried away, as the heathen µάντις was
supposed to be, by an irresistible Divine impulse; they retained their reason and
consciousness, and were responsible for rightly estimating and faithfully rendering any
revelation ( ἀποκάλυψις , 1Co_5:1-13 :30) granted to them. Delusion, inconsiderate
utterance, extravagance, as well as repression of any real inspiration may be meant to be
first by Thomas Aquinas.) The gift of ministry ( διακονία ) must be understood in a
general sense, and not as having exclusive reference to the order of deacons (Act_6:1-
6; Php_1:1; 1Ti_3:8; Rom_16:1), who were so called specifically because their office
was one of διακονία . The words διακονεῖν διακονία διάκονος , though sometimes
denoting any kind of ministry, even of the highest kind, were used and understood in a
more specific sense with reference to subordinate ministrations, especially in temporal
matters (cf.Act_6:2, "It is not reason that we should leave the Word of God,
and serve tables ( διακονεῖν τραπέζως )"). If any had a gift for any such kind of
administrative work under others, they were to devote themselves to it, and be content if
they could do it well. Teaching ( διδασκαλία ) may denote a gift for mere instruction in
facts or doctrines, catechetical or otherwise, different from that of the inspired eloquence

222. of prophecy. Exhortation (as παράκλησις , which bears also the sense
of consolation, seems here to be rightly rendered) may be understood with reference to
admonitory addresses, in the congregation or in private, less inspired and rousing than
prophetic utterances. In Act_13:15 the word παράκλησις denotes the exhortation which
any person in the synagogue might be called upon by the rulers to address to the people
after the reading ( ἀνάγνωσιν ) of the Law and the prophets; cf. 1Ti_4:13, where Timothy
is told to give attendance toreading ( ἀνάγνωσιν ), to exhortation ( παράκλησιν ), and
to teaching ( διδασκαλίαν ). He that giveth ( οὁ µεταδιδοὺς ) points to the gift of
liberality, to the endowment with which both means supplied by Providence and a spirit
of generosity might contribute. The almsgivers of the Church had their special gift and
function; and they must exercise them in simplicity ( ἐν ἀπλότητι ), which may perhaps
mean singleness of heart, without partiality, or ostentation, or secondary aims. But
in 2Co_8:2; 2Co_9:11, 2Co_9:13, the word seems to have the sense of liberality, and this
may be the meaning here. "Uti Deus dat, Jac. 2Co_1:5" (Bengel). In the 'Shepherd of
Hermas' (written, it is supposed, not later than the first half of the second
century) ἁπλῶς is explained thus: Πᾶσιν ὑστερουµένοις δίδου ἁπλῶς µὴ διστάζων τίνι
δῷς ἠ τίνι µὴ δῷς πᾶσι δίδου ('Hermae Pastor,' mandatum 2.). Possibly this gives the true
original conception, from which that of general liberality would follow. [The idea that the
almoners of the Church, rather than the almsgivers, are intended, viz. the deacons
(Act_6:3, seq.), is inconsistent with the general purport of the passage, as explained
above. Besides, µεταδιδόναι means elsewhere to give up what is one's own, not to
have thought, exclusively the presbyters. Such are not to presume on their position of
superiority so as to relax in zealous attention to its duties. He that showeth mercy ( ὁ
ἐλεῶν ) is one who is moved by the Spirit to devote himself especially to works of mercy,
such as visiting the sick and succouring the distressed. Such a one is to allow no austerity
or gloominess of demeanour to mar the sweetness of his charity. On the general subject
of these gifts for various administrations (cf. 1Co_12:1-31., seq.; 1Co_14:1-
40.; Eph_4:11, seq.) it is to be observed that in the apostolic period, though presbyters
and deacons, under the general superintendence of the apostles, seem to have been
appointed in all organized Churches for ordinary ministrations
(Act_11:30; Act_14:23; Act_15:2, seq.; Act_16:4; Act_20:17; Act_21:18; Php_1:1; 1Ti_
3:1-16. l, 8; 1Ti_5:17; Tit_1:5), yet there were other spiritual agencies in activity,
recognized as divinely empowered. The "prophets and teachers" at Antioch (Act_13:1)
who, moved by the Holy Ghost, separated and ordained Barnabas and Saul for apostolic
ministry, do not appear to have been what we should now call the regular clergy of the
place, but persons, whether in any definite office or not, divinely inspired with the gifts
of προφητεία and διδασκαλία . In like manner, the appointment of Timothy to the office
he was commissioned to fill, though he was formally ordained by the laying on of hands
divinely inspired, or supposed to be so, appear, as time went on, to have visited the
various Churches, claiming authority—some, it would seem, even the authority
of apostles; the term "apostle" not being then confined exclusively to the original twelve;

223. else Barnabas could not have been called one, as he is (Act_14:14), or indeed even Paul
himself. But such claims to inspiration were not always genuine; and against false
prophets we find various warnings
(cf.2Co_11:3, seq.; Gal_1:6, seq.; Gal_3:1; 1Jn_4:1, seq.; 2Jn_1:10; Rev_2:2). Still, these
extraordinary agencies and ministrations, in addition to the ordinary ministry of the
Afterwards, as is well known, the episcopate, in the later sense of the word as denoting an
order above the general presbytery, succeeded the apostolate, though how soon this
system of Church government became universal is still a subject of controversy. It
appears, however, from 'The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles' ( ∆ιδαχὴ τῶν ∆ώδεκα
Ἁποστόλων ), recently brought to light by Archbishop Bryennius (the date of which
not follow that it was so everywhere), after the original apostles had passed away. For in
this early and interesting document, while directions are given for the ordination (or
election; the word isχειροτονήσατε , the same as in Act_14:23) of bishops and deacons in
the several Churches, there is no allusion to an episcopate of a higher order above them,
but marked mention ofteachers, apostles, and prophets (especially the last
two, apostles being also spoken of as prophets), who appear to have been itinerant,
visiting the various Churches from time to time, and claiming authority as "speaking in
the Spirit." To these prophets great deference is to be paid; they are to be maintained
during their sojourn; they are to be allowed to celebrate the Eucharist in such words as
they will (cf. 1Co_14:16); while speaking in the Spirit they are not to be tried or proved
( οὐδὲ διακρινεῖτε ; cf. δια κρίσεις πνευµάτων , 1Co_14:10; and οἱ ἄλλοι
διακρινέτωσαν ,Rom_14:1-23 :29), lest risk be run of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
Still, among these itinerants there might often be false prophets, and the Churches are to
than two days; if they asked in the Spirit for worldly goods for themselves; if their
manner of life was not what it should be;—they were false prophets, and to be rejected,
Similarly, in the 'Shepherd of Hermas' like directions are given for distinguishing
between true and false prophets, between those who had τὸ Πνεῦ , α τὸ Θεῖον and those
whose πνεῦµα was ἐπίγειον (mandatum 11.). And even in the 'Apostolical Constitutions'
(a compilation supposed to date from the middle of the third to the middle of the fourth
century) there is a passage corresponding to what is said in the Teaching about
distinguishing between true and false prophets or teachers who might visit Churches
(Rom_7:1-25 :28). The Teaching seems to denote a state of things, after the apostolic
period, in which the special charismata of that period were believed to be still in activity,
compilation of the Teaching; but that it was so, at any rate in some parts, seems evident;
and hence some light is thrown on the system of things alluded to in the apostolical
Epistles. It is quite consistent with the evidence of the Teaching to suppose that in
Churches which had been organized by St. Paul or other true apostles, the more settled
order of government which soon afterwards became universal, and the transition to which

224. seems to be plainly marked in the pastoral Epistles, already prevailed.
MACLAREN, “GRACE AND GRACES
Rom_12:6 - Rom_12:8.
The Apostle here proceeds to build upon the great thought of the unity of believers in the one body
a series of practical exhortations. In the first words of our text, he, with characteristic delicacy,
identifies himself with the Roman Christians as a recipient, like them, of ‘the grace that is given to
us,’ and as, therefore, subject to the same precepts which he commends to them. He does not
stand isolated by the grace that is given to him; nor does he look down as from the height of his
apostleship on the multitude below, saying to them,-Go. As one of themselves he stands amongst
them, and with brotherly exhortation says,-Come. If that had been the spirit in which all Christian
teachers had besought men, their exhortations would less frequently have been breath spent in
vain.
We may note
I. The grace that gives the gifts.
The connection between these two is more emphatically suggested by the original Greek, in which
the word for ‘gifts’ is a derivative of that for ‘grace.’ The relation between these two can scarcely be
verbally reproduced in English; but it may be, though imperfectly, suggested by reading ‘graces’
instead of ‘gifts.’ The gifts are represented as being the direct product of, and cognate with, the
grace bestowed. As we have had already occasion to remark, they are in Paul’s language a
designation of natural capacities strengthened by the access of the life of the Spirit of Christ. As a
candle plunged in a vase of oxygen leaps up into more brilliant flame, so all the faculties of the
human soul are made a hundred times themselves when the quickening power of the life of Christ
enters into them.
It is to be observed that the Apostle here assumes that every Christian possesses, in some form,
that grace which gives graces. To him a believing soul without Christ-given gifts is a monstrosity. No
one is without some graces, and therefore no one is without some duties. No one who considers the
multitude of professing Christians who hamper all our churches to-day, and reflects on the modern
need to urge on the multitude of idlers forms of Christian activity, will fail to recognise signs of
terribly weakened vitality. The humility, which in response to all invitations to work for Christ pleads
unfitness is, if true, more tragical than it at first seems, for it is a confession that the man who

225. alleges it has no real hold of the Christ in whom he professes to trust. If a Christian man is fit for no
Christian work, it is time that he gravely ask himself whether he has any Christian life. ‘Having gifts’
is the basis of all the Apostle’s exhortations. It is to him inconceivable that any Christian should not
possess, and be conscious of possessing, some endowment from the life of Christ which will fit him
for, and bind him to, a course of active service.
The universality of this possession is affirmed, if we note that, according to the Greek, it was ‘given’
at a special time in the experience of each of these Roman Christians. The rendering ‘was given’
might be more accurately exchanged for ‘has been given,’ and that expression is best taken as
referring to a definite moment in the history of each believer namely, his conversion. When we ‘yield
ourselves to God,’ as Paul exhorts us to do in the beginning of this chapter, as the commencement
of all true life of conformity to His will, Christ yields Himself to us. The possession of these gifts of
grace is no prerogative of officials; and, indeed, in all the exhortations which follow there is no
reference to officials, though of course such were in existence in the Roman Church. They had their
special functions and special qualifications for these. But what Paul is dealing with now is the grace
that is inseparable from individual surrender to Christ, and has been bestowed upon all who are His.
To limit the gifts to officials, and to suppose that the universal gifts in any degree militate against the
recognition of officials in the Church, are equally mistakes, and confound essentially different
subjects.
II. The graces that flow from the grace.
The Apostle’s catalogue of these is not exhaustive, nor logically arranged; but yet a certain loose
order may be noted, which may be profitable for us to trace. They are in number seven-the sacred
number; and are capable of being divided, as so many of the series of sevens are, into two portions,
one containing four and the other three. The former include more public works, to each of which a
man might be specially devoted as his life work for and in the Church. Three are more private, and
may be conceived to have a wider relation to the world. There are some difficulties of construction
and rendering in THE LIST , which need not concern us here; and we may substantially follow the
Authorised Version.
The first group of four seems to fall into two pairs, the first of which, ‘PROPHECY ’ and ‘ministry,’
seem to be bracketed together by reason of the difference between them. Prophecy is a very high
form of special inspiration, and implies a direct reception of special revelation, but not necessarily of
future events. The prophet is usually coupled in Paul’s writings with the apostle, and was obviously
amongst those to whom was given one of the highest forms of the gifts of Christ. It is very beautiful
to note that by natural contrast the Apostle at once passes to one of the forms of service which a
vulgar estimate would regard as remotest from the special revelation of the prophet, and is confined
to lowly service. Side by side with the exalted gift of prophecy Paul puts the lowly gift of ministry.

226. Very significant is the juxtaposition of these two extremes. It teaches us that the lowliest office is as
truly allotted by Jesus as the most sacred, and that His highest gifts find an adequate field for
manifestation in him who is servant of all. Ministry to be rightly discharged needs spiritual character.
The original seven were men ‘full of faith and of the Holy Ghost,’ though all they had to do was to
hand their pittances to poor widows. It may be difficult to decide for what reason other than the
emphasising of this contrast the Apostle links together ministry and prophecy, and so breaks a
natural sequence which would have connected the second pair of graces with the first member of
the first pair. We should have expected that here, as elsewhere, ‘prophet,’ ‘teacher,’ ‘exhorter,’
would have been closely connected, and there seems no reason why they should not have been so,
except that which we have suggested, namely, the wish to bring together the highest and the lowest
forms of service.
The second pair seem to be linked together by likeness. The ‘teacher’ probably had for his function,
primarily, the narration of the facts of the Gospel, and the setting forth in a form addressed chiefly to
the understanding the truths thereby revealed; whilst the ‘exhorter’ rather addressed himself to the
will, presenting the same truth, but in forms more intended to influence the emotions. The word here
rendered ‘exhort’ is found in Paul’s writings as bearing special meanings, such as consoling,
stimulating, encouraging, rebuking and others. Of course these two forms of service would often be
associated, and each would be imperfect when alone; but it would appear that in the early Church
there were persons in whom the one or the other of these two elements was so preponderant that
their office was thereby designated. Each received a special gift from the one Source. The man who
could only say to his brother, ‘Be of good cheer,’ was as much the recipient of the Spirit as the man
who could connect and elaborate a systematic presentation of the truths of the Gospel.
These four graces are followed by a group of three, which may be regarded as being more private,
as not pointing to permanent offices so much as to individual acts. They are ‘giving,’ ‘ruling,’
‘showing pity,’ concerning which we need only note that the second of these can hardly be the
ecclesiastical office, and that it stands between two which are closely related, as if it were of the
same kind. The gifts of money, or of direction, or of pity, are one in kind. The right use of wealth
comes from the gift of God’s grace; so does the right use of any sway which any of us have over
any of our brethren; and so does the glow of compassion, the exercise of the natural human
sympathy which belongs to all, and is deepened and made tenderer and intenser by the gift of the
Spirit. It would be a very different Church, and a very different world, if Christians, who were not
conscious of possessing gifts which made them fit to be either prophets, or teachers, or exhorters,
and were scarcely endowed even for any special form of ministry, felt that a gift from their hands, or
a wave of pity from their hearts, was a true token of the movement of God’s Spirit on their spirits.
The fruit of the Spirit is to BE FOUND in the wide fields of everyday life, and the vine bears many
clusters for the thirsty lips of wearied men who may little know what gives them their bloom and
sweetness. It would be better for both giver and receiver if Christian beneficence were more clearly

227. recognised as one of the manifestations of spiritual life.
III. The exercise of the graces.
There are some difficulties in reference to the grammatical construction of the words of our text, into
which it is not necessary that we should ENTER here. We may substantially follow the
Authorised and Revised Versions in supplying verbs in the various clauses, so as to make of the
text a series of exhortations. The first of these is to ‘prophesy according to the proportion of faith’; a
commandment which is best explained by remembering that in the preceding verse ‘the measure of
faith’ has been stated as being the measure of the gifts. The prophet then is to exercise his gifts in
proportion to his faith. He is to speak his convictions fully and openly, and to let his utterances be
shaped by the indwelling life. This exhortation may well sink into the heart of preachers in this day. It
is but the echo of Jeremiah’s strong words: ‘He that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.
What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord. Is not my word like as fire, saith the Lord, and like a
hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?’ The ancient prophet’s woe falls with double weight on
those who use their words as a veil to obscure their real beliefs, and who prophesy, not ‘according
to the proportion of faith,’ but according to the expectations of the hearers, whose faith is as vague
as theirs.
In the original, the next three exhortations are alike in grammatical construction, which is
represented in the Authorised Version by the supplement ‘let us wait on,’ and in the Revised
Version by ‘let us give ourselves to’; we might with advantage substitute for either the still more
simple form ‘be in,’ after the example of Paul’s exhortation to Timothy ‘be in these things’; that is, as
our Version has it, ‘give thyself wholly to them.’ The various gifts are each represented as a sphere
within which its possessor is to move, for the opportunities for the exercise of which he is carefully
to watch, and within the limits of which he is humbly to keep. That general law applies equally to
ministry, and teaching and exhorting. We are to seek to discern our spheres; we are to be occupied
with, if not absorbed in, them. At the least we are diligently to use the gift which we discover
ourselves to possess, and thus filling our several spheres, we are to keep within them, recognising
that each is sacred as the manifestation of God’s will for each of us. The divergence of forms is
unimportant, and it matters nothing whether ‘the Giver of all’ grants less or more. The main thing is
that each be faithful in the administration of what he has received, and not seek to imitate his
brother who is diversely endowed, or to monopolise for himself another’s gifts. To insist that our
brethren’s gifts should be like ours, and to try to make ours like theirs, are equally sins against the
great truth, of which the Church as a whole is the example, that there are ‘diversities of operations
but the same Spirit.’
The remaining three exhortations are in like manner thrown together by a similarity of construction
in which the personality of the doer is put in the foreground, and the emphasis of the commandment

228. is rested on the manner in which the grace is exercised. The reason for that may be that in these
three especially the manner will show the grace. ‘Giving’ is to be ‘with simplicity.’ There are to be no
sidelong looks to self-interest; no flinging of a gift from a height, as a bone might be flung to a dog;
no seeking for gratitude; no ostentation in the gift. Any taint of such mixed motives as these infuses
poison into our gifts, and makes them taste bitter to the receiver, and recoil in HURT upon
ourselves. To ‘give with simplicity’ is to give as God gives.
‘Diligence’ is the characteristic prescribed for the man that rules. We have already pointed out that
this exhortation includes a much wider area than that of any ecclesiastical officials. It points to
another kind of rule, and the natural gifts needed for any kind of rule are diligence and zeal. Slackly-
held reins make stumbling steeds; and any man on whose shoulders is laid the weight of
government is bound to feel it as a weight. The history of many a nation, and of many a family,
teaches that where the rule is slothful all evils grow apace; and it is that natural energy and
earnestness, deepened and hallowed by the Christian life, which here is enjoined as the true
Christian way of discharging the function of ruling, which, in some form or another, devolves on
almost all of us.
‘He that showeth mercy with cheerfulness.’ The glow of natural human sympathy is heightened so
as to become a ‘gift,’ and the way in which it is exercised is defined as being ‘with cheerfulness.’
That injunction is but partially understood if it is taken to mean no more than that sympathy is not to
be rendered grudgingly, or as by necessity. No sympathy is indeed possible on such terms; unless
the heart is in it, it is nought. And that it should thus flow forth spontaneously wherever sorrow and
desolation evoke it, there must be a CONTINUAL repression of self, and a heart disengaged from
the entanglements of its own circumstances, and at leisure to make a brother’s burden its very own.
But the exhortation may, perhaps, rather mean that the truest sympathy carries a bright face into
darkness, and comes like sunshine in a shady place.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to
us.
Gifts of grace
1. Their common source.
2. Diverse character.
3. Liberal distribution.

229. 4. Faithful exercise.
5. Happy influence. (J. Lyth D.D.)
Gifts: their Divine source
As many vapours, rising from the sea, meet together in one CLOUD , and that cloud falls down
divided into many drops, and those drops run together, making rills of water, which meet in
channels, and those channels run into brooks, and those brooks into rivers, and those rivers into the
sea; so it either is or should be with the gifts and graces of the Church. They all come down from
God, divided severally as He will to various Christians. They should flow through the channels of
their special vocations into the common streams of public use for church or commonwealth, and
ultimately return into the great ocean of His glory, from whence they originally came. (Bp. Hall.)
God’s GIFTS to the Church to be used for His service
I. Those of whom the apostle speaks. Members of Christ’s body, i.e., the Church (Eph_1:22-23).
1. But what is the Church? Ask Roman Catholics, the members of the Greek Church, some
members of our own Church, or the various sects, they would claim each for themselves the title of
the Church. Now these are equally wrong. The Church here spoken of is no particular ecclesiastical
government whatsoever, but the spiritual Church of God’s elect throughout the whole world.
2. Here is the test of Church membership--“the measure of faith.” No person is a member of this
Church but a true believer, nor can he exercise the gifts here spoken of except he has “the gift” of
faith. The apostle’s illustration of the human body is totally inapplicable to the nominal Church. No
such sympathy can be exercised unless men be mentally and morally conformed to God. Again, the
string of spiritual duties inculcated in the text cannot be performed by mere nominal Christians. If
you want a description of real Church members, read the opening address of almost every Epistle.

230. II. The persons of whom the apostle speaks are all possessed of gifts.
1. The time would fail me to tell of the gifts of God to individual members of His Church--outward
gifts, such as station, property, influence, talent; official gifts, gifts of PROPHECY , of instruction,
or those more directly spiritual gifts accumulated in the Church.
2. But the point of the passage is its reference to the diversity of gifts. Sometimes they almost
appear to be capricious; one man rich, another poor; one richly gifted, another next akin to idiotcy;
some with dispositions very amiable, others just the reverse. Spiritual gifts are not equally given to
all. Some have such views of truth, such contemplations of heavenly things, that they seem to be
admitted within the veil. Others seem just the reverse, going on heavily, and oftentimes cast down.
So it is with all spiritual knowledge and attainments. This point is illustrated under the figure of the
human body. What harmony, yet what diversity there! There is the head, the seat of wisdom; the
countenance, of feeling and animation; then the various limbs or members of the body, more or less
honourable; yet is the whole fitly framed together, each part marvellously adjusted to the other, and
all mutually dependent.
3. But the most striking thought is that all are gifts of God. Money we may have earned by our own
intelligence and diligence, but God gave us that diligence and intelligence. So with regard to our
station in life. So most preeminently with His spiritual gifts. If we have any knowledge of the
Scriptures, it is revealed to us by the Spirit of God.
4. Mark the lessons.
(1) The least of God’s gifts are talents entrusted to us, and should not be despised. Do not despise
the day of small things, and say, “I have nothing,” or “I can do nothing.” Perhaps, too, there is a
greater danger of our despising small gifts in others.
(2) These talents being the gift of God, we must not be unduly elated by them (verse 3; 1Co_4:7).
How humbling the thought that we have nothing we can call our own!
(3) The lowest gifts are as much God’s as the highest. He that planted the sun in the firmament
taught the little glow-worm to shine on the summer bank. He that raises up the most talented to fill
with honour distinguished situations is the same God that puts the candle in the cottage and bids it
shine there. How encouraging is this to the weakest, the poorest, the youngest!
III. It is their duty and privilege to consecrate those gifts to the service of God. As masters and

231. servants, parents and children, brothers and sisters, as individual members of Christ’s universal
Church, we have each gifts entrusted to us; and whether our talents be few or many, feeble or
strong, they are the gifts of God, and must be thrown by us into the common treasury of the Church
for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. (Dean Close.)
Varied GIFTS
There is not greater variety of colour and qualities in plants and flowers, with which the earth, like a
carpet of needlework, is variegated, for the delight and service of man, than there is of gifts natural
and spiritual in the minds of men, to render them useful to one another, both in civil society and
Christian fellowship. (W. Gurnall.)
Gifts, diversity of
Every man has received some gift--no man has all gifts; and this, rightly considered, would keep all
in a more even temper; as, in nature, nothing is altogether useless, so nothing is self-sufficient.
This, duly considered, would keep the meanest from repining and discontent, even him that hath the
lowest rank in most respects; yet something he hath received that is not only a good to himself, but
rightly improved, may be so to others likewise. And this will curb the loftiness of the most advanced,
and teach them not only to see some deficiencies in themselves, and some gifts in far meaner
persons which they want; but, besides the simple discovery of this, it will put them upon the use of
lower persons, not only to stoop to the acknowledgment, but even withal to the participation and
benefit of it; not to trample upon all that is below them, but to take up and use things useful, though
lying at their feet. Some flowers and herbs that grow very low are of a very fragrant smell and
healthful use. (Abp. Leighton.)
Unity and diversity
Diversity without unity is disorder; unity without diversity is death. (J. P. Lange, D.D)
Unity in diversity

232. The spirit resolves the variety into unity, introduces variety into the unity, and reconciles unity to
itself through variety. (Baur.)
The requirements of true religion
I. Faithfulness in the church. Our gifts must be improved for the common edification (verses 6-8).
II. Love to the brethren--it must be faithful, yet kind.
III. Consistency in the world.
1. Diligence.
2. Fervour.
3. Cheerfulness.
4. Patience.
5. Prayer.
IV. Kindness to all men.
1. To the saints.
2. To enemies.
3. To all according to their need.

233. V. Humility.
1. In our intercourse with others.
2. In our aims.
3. In our judgments. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Usefulness, the least Christian to aim at
Many true saints are unable to render much service to the cause of God. See, then, the gardeners
going down to the pond and dipping in their watering-pots to carry the refreshing liquid to the
flowers. A child comes into the garden and wishes to help, and yonder is a little watering-pot for
him. Note well the little water-pot, though it does not hold so much, yet carries the same water to the
plants; and it does not make any difference to the flowers which receive that water, whether it came
out of the big pot or the little pot, so long as it is the same water, and they get it. You who are as
little children in God’s Church, you who do not know much, but try to tell to others what little you
know; if it be the same gospel truth, and be blessed by the same Spirit, it will not matter to the souls
who are blessed by you whether they were converted or comforted under a man of one or ten
talents. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith.
The gift of prophecy
I. Its nature and requisites.

234. II. Its design.
1. The edification of the Church.
2. The spread of truth.
3. Salvation of souls.
III. Its use.
1. According to the analogy of faith.
2. In faith. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
The proportion of faith
1. “Prophet” means one who is the interpreter of another’s thought. In the Hebrew word there is
involved the idea of a fountain bubbling up as from between rocks, subjected to pressure from
without. The prophet often declared future events; but we must not limit his function to the
prediction. He brought messages to men pertaining to the present practical duty of life.
2. “According to the proportion of faith.” The sense is made clearer by inserting “the” or “our
faith,” i.e., the objective system of truth, the gospel. It is a vast, vital, co-ordinated system, built up a
unity, like the root, the stem, and branch, or the wall, the tower, and spire of a building. The balance
of every part with every other part is hinted at. What is it that God’s Word brings?
I. Great doctrines.
1. The eternal personality of God--a thought the pagan mind did not grasp. And science is dwarfed
when it hides this pivotal thought.
2. His providential goodness and redeeming grace. His hand is in history. The history of the race is

235. the history of redemption. It was God who led Paul to Damascus, Augustine to Rome, Savonarola to
Florence, and Luther to Worms, His creative power, His providence and grace, like the mysterious
trinity of Being to which they are related, fill us with adoring wonder. The Bible lifts the race, exalting
its intellectual as well as its moral capacity.
II. The law of God which is as great as the doctrine of God. It is high above the codes of
uninspired teachers. Love to God and man are the essential elements. Every element of life
is reached and ruled by it. As one sunshine floods the breadth of the sea and the face of the
smallest flower, so the law touches alike the mightiest and the meanest. It enters into the
whole man. Courtesy in manner is philanthropy in a trait, and heroism of character is shown
in the patience of love. In a word, the law is matched to the doctrine in its supernal character
and reach.
III. A Saviour as great as either. He was announced by angels; a star led worshippers to His
cradle; at His baptism a voice proclaimed Him the well-beloved of the Father. He laid claims
on man’s service--blasphemous were He not God. He put Himself between parent and child,
wife and husband; or, rather, above them all, in supreme authority. By His pierced hands,
Christ, the crucified and risen Redeemer, has been guiding the course of empires, and is
bringing in millennial eras. Really, though often unconsciously, has the world in its
advancing civilisation reflected the glory of this majestic Prince of Life. He shall yet see of
the travail of His soul and be satisfied. On His head will rest “many crowns.”
IV. A universal spiritual kingdom is coincident in majesty and might with the foregoing
elements. The idea of such a kingdom is unique and grand. To the Greeks other nations were
but barbarians. Rome made other peoples her captives, without extinguishing their enmity or
assimilating their life. But Christ founded His throne in the love of His redeemed people. All
genius shall be developed, and all wealth shall be consecrated under the supremacy of
Christ. Christianity shall be the glory of the nations.
V. Great warnings. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” Here is, then,
the “proportion of faith,” the harmony of truth, the “analogy” which knits all together in a

236. definite unity. These are the substructural truths of revelation, which are to be studied and
proclaimed, each in its time, place, and proportion. Conclusion:
1. As we infer the genius of the architect from the grandeur of the building, the genius of the poet
from his verse, or that of the statesman and jurist from what emanates from each, so we infer the
sublime greatness of God from this revelation of truth. Can any one say that the Scriptures are the
product of the Jewish mind? As well might we say that the Atlantic came from the upsetting of a
child’s breakfast-cup!
2. Attacking one point of this revelation is an attack on the whole. If one part be in error the value of
the whole is vitiated, the entire edifice tumbles to pieces. All these facts of our common faith stand
or fall together, as heart and brain are united. If one be paralysed, the whole suffers. If one stone be
plucked from the arch, they all tumble in one heap; but in their entirety they reflect the Divine unity
and eternity.
3. We rise into sympathy with God as we come into fuller comprehension of His truth. How unwise it
is for one to try to banish God’s Word from his thoughts! Here is the romance of the world. The
imagination, as well as the conscience of the race, is exalted by the truth of God. It ennobles the
whole man. It enriches the life that is, as well as the life that is to come. (R. S. Storrs, D.D.)
Right proportions of truth
I. What is “faith” here?
1. If we are to understand the trust of the heart towards God, then the passage will mean, that “if
any man prophesy,” or preach, he must do it “according to the spiritual experience which God has
given him.” The measure of the faith is the measure of the life; and if we wish to raise the standard
of our life, we must begin by elevating our faith. We cannot go beyond our faith; and we must not fall
short of it. The great business of life is to square our words and actions to the faith which God has
given us.
2. But we are to take “faith” here rather as signifying not the belief, but the things believed--our
creed--“the faith once delivered to the saints.”

237. II. We must keep the general symmetry of the whole body of “the truth as it is in Jesus.”
1. There is no greater danger than disproportion--the source of almost all error. For the enemy of
truth to present what is palpably false would at once startle and offend! But he secures his end
much better, by putting before us what is in itself perfectly true, but which becomes false when not
balanced by another and equal truth.
2. God has been pleased to give us a revelation; but He has given us also common sense. The
Bible was never intended to be cut up into isolated texts. No book would bear it. If you take single
sentences you may prove Socinianism, Popery, anything. What we have to do is to know all; to
collate all; and to gather, from the Bible, in its integrity, the mind of God.
III. One or two things in which it is most important to keep “the proportion of faith.”
1. Each Person in the Blessed Trinity has His own prerogative, office, and dispensation. Some
persons’ religion is all of the Father, others’ all of the Son, others’ all of the Spirit. See, however,
how the works of each stand related to each other in the proportion of faith. The Father loved the
world, and gave His Son to save it. The Son wrought out for us a complete salvation, and with Him
we have union by faith. That union is our strength, and our life. That union once made, the Holy
Spirit flows into us as the blood flows into a member of the body; or, as the sap flows into a branch,
grafted into the tree. So that it is impossible to say to which we owe most.
2. According to “the proportion of faith,” there is a wide distinction between the process of our
justification and our sanctification. We are justified at once, and perfectly, by a single act of faith; hut
we are sanctified by degrees with effort, and even painfulness. (J. Vaughan, M.A.)
The doctrine of proportion
Proportion means things in their right place, i.e., when one object does not unduly attract our
attention above another. A well-proportioned figure, e.g., is where the head is not too large, or the
hands and feet too small for the body. A well-proportioned building is that in which nothing is out of
place or too large or small for its place. Apply this doctrine to--

238. I. Christian practice.
1. It is not enough to ask what is right in itself, but what is right under the circumstances. It is a great
thing to have right men in right places, but it is also a great thing to have the right man doing
the right thing in the right place, in the right way. A right thing done in a wrong way is often more
mischievous than a thing done wrong altogether. A saying most true loses all its savour if said at a
wrong time; and it is no defence to argue that it was good years ago or miles away. Is it good for us
here and now?
2. Congruity, fitness, proportion, are the graces required for the spiritual as well as the material
temple. We are not mere isolated blocks of stone, but “living stones, built up into a spiritual house.”
What in one station or age is a grace, in another is a deformity. “To everything there is a
season,” etc., says the preacher in that ancient discourse on the doctrine of proportion. How many
good plans have come to nought, not from wickedness or opposition, but because men have
exalted a virtue or custom out of proportion, and so have driven men into an equal disproportion on
the other side--over strictness leading to over laxity, excessive rashness to excessive caution, etc.
3. And so the apostle tells us to act “according to the gifts given to us.” He that is endowed with the
gift of preaching is to exercise his gift not in any other line, but in that. He that has the gift of
practical work is not to rush out of his way in prophesying. Each has his own special calling; let us
not waste our time or mar our usefulness by intruding into provinces disproportioned to our powers.
Any one faculty indulged in excess becomes a curse, e.g., music, study, mechanical pursuits. How
fatal to Louis XVI., who in the crisis of the French monarchy devoted himself to his favourite craft
rather than to the task of saving the state; how useful to Peter the Great, who made it the means of
civilising his barbarian empire!
4. In the defence of Lucknow the courage, subordination and zeal of each individual was sustained
by the consciousness that on him rested the safety of the whole--a single outpost lost would be the
loss of all. So if the fortress of goodness and truth is to be saved, it must be by every one doing at
his own post the work that belongs to him alone. What discipline effects in the army is effected in
our moral duties by a sense of the apostolical doctrine of proportion. Each one has his own work
assigned him by the Captain of his salvation. Allow in others, claim for yourselves a division of
labour and responsibility. A good master, servant, soldier, teacher, is made in no other way but by
“waiting” on his place.
II. Christian method.

239. 1. “He that giveth with simplicity.” How greatly the value of a gift depends on the manner of giving!
“He gives twice who gives soon”; so he who gives with simplicity, i.e., with singleness of purpose,
gives a hundredfold more than he who gives grudgingly, late, or ostentatiously. A thousand gifts ill
given are hardly better than none.
2. “He that ruleth, with diligence.” He that has charge of a household, school, or commonwealth,
may rule imperiously, and so that the institution may go on in apparent prosperity; and yet there
may be wanting that peculiar method which will give life and substance to the whole. What is
wanted is that he should rule with diligence, i.e. with heart and soul. This is the true secret of
influence.
3. “He that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness.” How easy to show mercy in such a way that it shall
be no mercy! What is wanted is the bright smile, the playful word.
III. Christian truth.
1. It is important for the teacher to teach according to the proportion of his own faith; not to assume
feelings which are not his own, not to urge truths of which he does not feel the value, but to teach
according to his own knowledge and experience.
2. It is important for us all so to seek, find, and teach all truth, so as not to forget what are the due
proportions of the truth itself. Christian truth is not of one kind only. It has lights and shades,
foregrounds and distances, lessons of infinitely various significance. Woe be to us if instead of
“rightly dividing the word of truth,” we confound all its parts together. We may believe correctly on
every single point, yet if we view these points out of their proper proportions our view may be as
completely wrong as if on every point we had been involved in error. (Dean Stanley.)
The danger of exaggerations in religion
1. Lord Bacon compares religion to the sun, which invigorates and cheers live animal substances,
but turns the dead to corruption. Similarly religion invigorates a sound mind, and cheers a sound
heart, while in a morbid mind it breeds superstitions, scruples, and monstrous fancies. We have
only to SURVEY the history of Christianity to see how just their comparison is. What follies,
superstitions, licentious doctrines, have been founded on the Bible! This has arisen from a certain

240. morbid tendency in the human mind to caricature truths presented to it.
I. Every heresy has been a caricature of some one point of Christian truth--an exaggeration
by which the fair proportion of the faith has been distorted.
1. The truth upon which the Quaker founds his system, is that the New Dispensation is spiritual. No
truth can well be more vital, and through the subtle encroachments of formalism it is necessary for
all of us every now and then to ask ourselves whether we are properly awake to the fact that the
law, under which Christians live, is “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” written on the fleshy
table of the heart, and that God is a Spirit, and therefore to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. The
Quakers would have deserved the warmest thanks if they had done nothing more than bring these
truths forward. But, unhappily, they caricatured them, and robbed the Church of her sacraments.
2. The fundamental truth of our religion is that “God is love,” and that He has shown His love by the
sacrifice of His dear Son. Now certain divines have perceived this truth clearly, and it is impossible
to perceive it too clearly, or proclaim it too loudly. But to say that anger is inconsistent with love, or
that justice is inconsistent with compassion, and to acknowledge no relations with God as a Judge,
because He stands to us in the relation of a Father, is to caricature the faith and mar its fair
proportions. God loves me deeply, but He hates my sin, and will never consent to save me from its
guilt without saving me from its power.
3. And where there is no actual heresy, this tendency may lead to a vast amount of unsuspected
mischief. In many spiritual books a strain is put upon certain precepts which caricatures them, sets
them at issue with other precepts, and cramps the mind which should strive after obedience to
them. Take an example. When St. Francis of Sales was dying, he said to one of his attached
disciples, “Bishop, God has taught me a great secret, and I will tell it you, if you will put your head
closer.” The bishop did so, anxious to know what Francis considered as thecrowning lesson of a life
of holiness. “He has taught me,” said the dying man, who was acutely suffering, “to ask nothing, and
to refuse nothing.” Now at this a sentimental pietism might perhaps whisper, “What beautiful
resignation!” But is it in conformity to the Word of God, and the mind of Christ? We admit that we
should refuse nothing which comes from our Father’s hand. But where has God taught His people
to ask nothing? Did not our Lord pray, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me”? Good St.
Francis erred by exaggeration, and caricatured the grace of resignation. Resignation is a heavenly
and Christ-like grace; but if you will push it to every length, it becomes absolutely mischievous. Thus
one might conceive a beggar doing nothing to improve his condition, on the plea that such was the
will of God, and that mendicancy was the state of life to which tie had been called; forgetting that
there is a maxim which says that “if any man would not work, neither should he eat.” In the lives of

241. the Scriptural saints nothing is so remarkable as their perfect naturalness, and freedom from all
overstrained spirituality. The great Apostle of the Gentiles, after a miraculous escape from
shipwreck, gathers a bundle of sticks, and puts them on the fire (for St. Paul was not above feeling
cold and wet); and when writing under the affiatus of the Holy Ghost, he bids Timothy bring the
cloak which be left at Troas with Carpus, in anticipation of an approaching winter, “and the books,
but especially the parchments”; for what studious man can bear to be without his books and
papers? Among the early disciples you would have seen nothing overcharged in character or
manner; nay, you would have seen little foibles, of temper, of superstition, of prejudice--you might
have heard sharp words passing between great apostles, and you might have seen a damsel,
recently engaged with others in prayer, in such a joyful trepidation of nerves when the answer
arrived, that she opened not the gate for gladness.
II. How, then, shall the devout man keep his mind free from exaggerations both in doctrine and
practice? By an impartial study of the whole of Scripture. Pray for the Bereans’ nobleness of mind
who brought even the doctrine of apostles to the test of inspiration, and searched the Scriptures
daily, whether these things were so. How much more, when men are not apostles, must their
doctrine be thus searched and sifted! (Dean Goulburn.)
The proportion of faith
It has been a matter of controversy whether “the faith” is to be understood in its objective or
subjective sense, in other words, whether the caution is intended to guard the preacher against
violating the due relation existing between one and another of the truths of revelation; or whether he
does not rather use the word “faith” in its subjective meaning, and bid the Christian who is to
exercise the prophetic office so to regulate his teaching as may be in accordance with the measure
of faith attained by himself or his hearers. I can myself see no reason why we should not use the
words in both applications.
I. First, taking the text in its objective meaning, what shall we say is the true proportion which is to
guide us in our teaching? Surely in the first instance we must go to the Catholic creeds: these,
surely, in the first place, are the natural exponents to us of the revelation of the New Testament.
The great truth of the incarnation of the eternal Son lies, as we all should admit, at the root of all
sound teaching connected with man’s relation to God. It is the one great central truth round which a

242. theologian would group all the subsidiary truths, which we connect with the words “atonement,”
“reconciliation,” “pardon,” “justification,” and the like. A number of other points of teaching, whether
we count them matters of faith or of opinion, flow out of this central head. A clergyman--a scribe
instructed into the kingdom of heaven--ought to see this relation between the several parts of
revelation; but every clergyman even is not a formal theologian; and, deep as is the reverence still
amongst our people for the English Bible, St. Paul’s Epistles are mostly read for other purposes
than for that of tracing the interdependence of religious truth. We complain sometimes, and not
without reason, of the way in which a past generation so magnified one particular doctrine, which
they thought to be embodied in St. Paul’s writings, as to obscure altogether collateral and
complementary truths; so as to give a thoroughly distorted image of the apostle’s teaching
concerning the doctrine nearest to their own hearts. Our generation surely is not altogether clear
from the same error.
II. But I suggested that St. Paul’s words, where he speaks of the proportion of faith, might fairly bear
the subjective as well as the objective interpretation; in other words, he seems to imply that
prophecy, to be effective for the edification of the Church, must be exercised in subordination, not
only to the analogy of the faith of the Church itself, but also to the faith of the preacher, and I think
also of the hearer. Am I wrong in saying that the prophecy of our days has not been always mindful
of this rule? And has not this forgetfulness been one fruitful source of much of the disappointment
which has waited on the ministry of good and earnest men? And we hear a great deal about the
importance of defending the outworks from some who do not seem to understand altogether what is
the citadel which they suppose these outworks to defend. I do not at all mean that there is of
necessity any insincerity in all this, but there is, I think, a measure of unreality. The learner is not
attracted by very decided statements on the part of the teacher, so long as there is a certain secret
instinct in his own mind that the conviction of the speaker’s heart is not altogether in unison with the
strength of his language. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh--words not spoken
out of that abundance fall dead and powerless even upon the untaught ear. But there is a third, and
a different aspect of the whole question.
III. The proportion of faith which we have to take into account is the faith of our hearers as well as
the faith of the Church at large, and the force with which we ourselves have apprehended the
realities with which faith deals. The days in which we live are days of excitement, of controversy; I
must add also days of failure and disappointment to those who have the cure of souls. We have
gone out, many of us, full of expectation, and we have returned full of disappointment, “we have
sown much and we have brought in little,” and the bright lights of the early morning have ended in a

243. very sober grey. Doubtless there are many causes working up to this result. Our expectation has
been unreasonable, and it has been good for us that “tears, prayers, and watchings should fail.” But
I venture to think that there has been also a great forgetfulness of St. Paul’s precept among us
clergy. We have again and again looked for a sympathy amongst our people, which we had no right
to expect; we have failed to apprehend the very wide difference between their standpoint and our
own: we have expected to quicken their interest in religious truth, simply because our own has been
quickened: and that new, possibly important, phases of doctrine should commend themselves to the
spiritual apprehension of our people because they have so commended themselves to our own.
These things are doubtless in a measure inevitable. I suppose every clergyman, in reviewing his
own work and teaching, has found that he has fallen into many a mistake in his younger days from
attempting to build up a super-structure where there was no sufficient foundation already laid.
Sympathy with the spiritual and intellectual condition of others must of course be the result of
experience. In a word, as years go on, I believe the oldest and the simplest standards alike of faith,
and of devotion, and of practice satisfy us best. For dogmatic statements about the sacraments we
turn to the catechism of our childhood, and we learn to see that all the REFINEMENTS of
more elaborate definition have added not one whit to the clearness of our apprehension of what is
confessedly mystical. In like manner as the Lord’s prayer becomes to us the most complete and
satisfying formula of communion with God, each petition in its iteration becoming more and more
formal, but ever pregnant with fresh meaning and with new life, so also do the Catholic creeds
supply us with all that we want as a standard of faith. Curious and intricate questions about which
we were once very much inclined to speculate, we are content to leave where the creeds leave
them, implicitly contained perhaps in their statements of truth, but no more. It is in them that we
learn the true balance, the real proportion; and alike for our own soul’s guidance and for the
teaching of our people, we fall back upon truths learnt at our mother’s knee, and we find words
which once sounded a little cold and formal become ever instinct with a new life; for that indeed they
contain all that a Christian ought to know and “believe to his soul’s health,” the love of the Father,
the Incarnation of the Son, and the indwelling power of the Spirit of God. (Archdn. Pott.)
Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering.--
Waiting on our ministering needs extra grace
I was in Cologne on a very rainy day, and I was looking out for similes and metaphors, as I
generally am; but I had nothing on earth to look at in the square of the city but an old pump, and
what kind of a simile I could make out of it I could not tell. All traffic seemed suspended, it rained so
hard; but I noticed a woman come to the pump with a bucket. Presently I noticed a man come in
with a bucket; nay, he came with a yoke and two buckets. As I kept on writing and looking out every

244. now and then, I saw the same friend with the often-buckets and blue blouse coming to the same
pump again. In the course of the morning I think I saw him a dozen times. I thought to myself, “Ah,
yon do not fetch water for your own house, I am persuaded: you are a water-carrier; you fetch water
for lots of people, and that is why you come oftener than anybody else.” Now, there was a meaning
in that at once to my soul, that, inasmuch that I had not only to go to Christ for myself, but had been
made a water-carrier to carry the water of everlasting life to others, I must come a great deal oftener
than anybody else. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
He that teacheth, on teaching; or he that exhorteth, on exhortation.--
The faculties of teaching and exhorting
May be combined in the same individual; and indeed in these days, they are best laid upon one
person, the ordinary minister of a congregation. Yet the two faculties are so far separate, as in other
times to have given rise to separate functions; and accordingly, in the machinery of more churches
than one, have we read both of the doctor and the pastor as distinct office-bearers. The one
expounds truth; the other applies it, and presses it home on the case and conscience of every
individual. The didactic and the hortatory are two distinct things, and imply distinct powers--
insomuch, that, on the one hand, a luminous, logical, and masterly didactic may be a feeble and
unimpressive hortatory preacher; and, on the other, the most effective of our hortatory men may,
when they attempt the didactic, prove very obscure and infelicitous expounders of the truth. Both
are best; and we should conform more to the way of that Spirit who divideth His gifts severally as
He will, did we multiply and divide our offices so as to meet this variety. It were more consonant
both to philosophy and Scripture, did we proceed more on the subdivision of employment in things
ecclesiastical. (T. Chalmers, D.D.)
Requisites to faithful teaching
I. Study--to secure right material.
II. Method--or the right way of communicating the truth.

245. III. Diligence.
IV. Simplicity--Or a right aim.
V. Above all faith--Or dependence upon Divine help. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Duty of teachers and ministers
On Egypt’s far-off soil, away from friends and home, just as the morning beams lit up the Eastern
sky, an officer lay dying. With gallant daring he had led his followers through many a devious path,
guided alone by the pale starlight of the heavens, until at last they reached the enemy; and now the
strife is over, but he is wounded, mortally! As the general, his cheeks bedewed with tears, gazed
down with sadness on his face, a sudden radiancy illumined for a moment the youth’s countenance
as, looking up to Wolseley, he exclaimed, “General, didn’t I lead them straight?” and so he died.
“Oh, brothers, when O’er our eyes there steals the film of death, and when the soul flits solemnly
from time into eternity, may it be ours to say in truthful earnestness to Christ concerning those
committed to our care, “We led the people straight.” (H. D. Brown, B.A.)
He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity.--
The triple lesson
What is the great object of human life?
1. To prepare to die, say many, an answer which contains a small modicum of right, and an
overwhelming preponderance of wrong. To be prepared to meet death is, of course, a great object,
but it is not itself the great object of life. If it were, on the same principle the great object of a journey
would be to get home again; and of getting up in the morning to go to bed again at night, of a fire to

246. consume fuel, and of reading a book to get through its pages. These absurdities bring out the truth
that the fag end of a thing is not always the chief object of it.
2. The great object of life is to live, i.e., to do one’s duty as a Christian. And wherever this object is
fairly and fully followed out, the last stage of life will be safe and easy. What thought is there so
disheartening and disturbing as the thought that we must die, and we know not how soon? Let it be
chased away with the reflection that it is our present duty to live, and the text is suited exclusively to
living men; to men who will one day have to die, but whose business now is to live and do their duty.
I. To give “with simplicity.” The word simplicity is the opposite of duplicity. Let him do it with a single
eye and heart, and without any second or double meaning. Let there be no undercurrent of
unworthy motive, but one pure and simple desire of benefiting the recipients of his bounty
(Luk_6:35). The case of those who never, or scarcely ever, give anything, is not mentioned.
Perhaps the apostle left it as a case which carried its own condemnation with it, and therefore
required no special mention. But those who do give are to watch the motive of their giving. They
have been “bought with a price,” and they must give out of a feeling of gratitude to Him who hath
done so much for them. Whatever they have has been given to them by God, and sooner or later
they will have to give AN ACCOUNT of their stewardship. That they may do so with joy they
must aim at “simplicity” in the exercise of their trust.
II. To rule with diligence.
1. Persons in authority are too apt to forget or shelve their responsibilities; and there are numbers
who repudiate the idea of having any authority at all. But there are very few who do not exercise
some influence. Now the text drops a word of warning to all, from the queen downwards, and
condemns those who talk about taking it easy, and leaving things to take care of themselves.
2. Ruling is not a process which can be performed anyhow. It requires care, and thought, and
discretion. And if parents, masters, and mistresses will not take the trouble to look after their
dependents, or lack moral courage to do it, we may be sure of an unsatisfactory result sooner or
later. Wherever habits of idleness and indulgence, waste and extravagance, recklessness and
imprudence, of unbecoming finery in dress, and morbid delicacy in eating, go uncorrected, there the
seed of a fruitful crop of social evils is being sown broadcast. Such habits cling tenaciously to young
people, and in the case of servants, the humble fare of whose future HOMES may present a
painful contrast to the profusion of domestic service, such habits make them poor and keep them

247. so.
III. To show mercy with cheerfulness. There is a great deal in the way in which a thing is done. The
man who does a kind action, accompanying it with kind words and looks, doubles the favour which
he confers. The term “cheerfulness” refers particularly to looks. What a beautiful illustration of the
spirit of our religion, which seeks to bring our whole man, body as well as soul, our very looks as
well as our words and actions, into captivity to the obedience of Christ! How it carries us back to the
example of our Master, who never said an unkind word, or gave an unkind look, or did a favour
grudgingly. There is a good deal of kindness in the world, but the kindness we experience is not
always associated with “cheerfulness.” Who has not heard of the poor relation, and the dependent
friend, mourning in secret, not always over unkind actions, but over kind actions unkindly done?
(J. Mould, M.A.)
Giving
I. Is a Christian duty. Because--
1. An acknowledgment of our stewardship.
2. An expression of--
(1) Gratitude to God.
(2) Self-denial.
(3) Goodwill to man.
II. Should be performed with simplicity. With--
1. A generous heart.

248. 2. A single eye.
3. A clean hand. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Giving with simplicity
is giving just as if giving were so natural that when a man gave he did not think of changing his
countenance, manners, or air at all; but did it quietly, easily, beautifully. When you are going around
for proper help, some men give so that you are angry every time you ask them to contribute. They
give so that their gold and silver shoot you like a bullet. Others give with such beauty that you
remember it as long as you live; and you say, “It is a pleasure to go to such men.” There are some
men that give as springs do. Whether you go to them or not they are always full, and your part is
merely to put your dish under the ever-flowing stream. Others give just as a pump does where the
well is dry and the pump leaks! (H. W. Beecher.)
Giving, blessedness of
It is told of John Wesley that when he bestowed a gift or rendered any one a service he lifted his hat
as though he were receiving instead of conferring an obligation.
Giving, penalty of not
A lady who refused to give, after hearing a charity sermon, had her pocket picked as she was
leaving church. On making the discovery she said, “The parson could not find the way to my pocket,
but the devil did.”
Giving, a sign of perfectness
When wheat is growing it holds all its kernels tight in its own ear. But when it is ripe the kernels are
scattered every whither, and it is only the straw that is left. (H. W. Beecher.)
He that ruleth, with diligence.--

249. Ruling with diligence
I. The necessity of the ruler.
1. In the world.
2. In the Church.
II. The functions of the ruler
1. To maintain order.
2. Protect liberty.
3. Secure the common weal.
III. The duty of the ruler. Diligence, implying--
1. Self-sacrifice.
2. Attention to all. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
He that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness--
Showing mercy with cheerfulness
This instruction may mean--
1. That we should carry sunshine with us in our visits to the sick chamber or distressed home. In no
case is cheerfulness or brightness so needed or so welcome.

250. 2. That we should perform kind offices to the sick or sorrowful, not of constraint, but of a ready
mind, con amore; not because it is our business as the paid or voluntary staff of a Church, nor as a
matter merely of principle or habit, but of pleasure and privilege. That manner is something to
everybody, and everything to some, is a maxim we should act upon when consoling those claiming
our compassion. Besides, it is our privilege to show cheerfulness in soothing the sorrows of the
afflicted, for no task tends more than this, if entered upon in a right spirit, to banish gloom and
discontent from our own minds, and to enliven our own souls. (C. Neil, M.A.)
7If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let
him teach;
Barclay, “There is the gift of practical service (diakonia). It is surely significant that
practical service came to Paul's mind so high on the list. It may be that a man will
never have the privilege of standing forth in public and proclaiming Christ; but
there is no man who cannot every day show the love of Christ in deeds of service to
his fellow men.”
Barclay, “There is teaching. The message of Christ needs not only to be proclaimed;
it needs also to be explained. It may well be that one of the great failures of the
Church at this present time is just in this realm. Exhortation and invitation without
a background of teaching are empty things.”
BAR ES, “Or ministry - διακονίαν diakonian. This word properly means service of
any kind; Luk_10:40. It is used in religion to denote the service which is rendered to
Christ as the Master. It is applied to all classes of ministers in the New Testament, as
denoting their being the servants of Christ; and it is used particularly to denote that class
who from this word were called deacons, that is, those who had the care of the poor, who
provided for the sick, and who watched over the external matters of the church. In the
following places it is used to denote the ministry, or service, which Paul and the other
apostles rendered in their public work; Act_1:17, Act_1:25; Act_6:4; Act_12:25;
Act_20:24; Act_21:19; Rom_11:13; Rom_15:31; 2Co_5:18; 2Co_6:3; Eph_4:12;
1Ti_1:12. In a few places this word is used to denote the function which the deacons
fulfilled; Act_6:1; Act_11:29; 1Co_16:15; 2Co_11:8. In this sense the word “deacon”
διάκονος diakonos is most commonly used, as denoting the function which was
performed in providing for the poor and administering the alms of the church. It is not
easy to say in what sense it is used here. I am inclined to the opinion that he did not refer
to those who were appropriately called deacons, but to those engaged in the function of

251. the ministry of the word; whose business it was to preach, and thus to serve the
churches. In this sense the word is often used in the New Testament, and the connection
seems to demand the same interpretation here.
On our ministering - Let us be wholly and diligently occupied in this. Let this be
our great business, and let us give entire attention to it. Particularly the connection
requires us to understand this as directing those who ministered not to aspire to the
office and honors of those who prophesied. Let them not think of themselves more highly
than they ought, but be engaged entirely in their own appropriate work.
He that teacheth - This word denotes those who instruct, or communicate
knowledge. It is clear that it is used to denote a class of persons different, in some
respects, from those who prophesied and from those who exhorted. But in what this
difference consisted, is not clear. Teachers are mentioned in the New Testament in the
grade next to the prophets; Act_13:1; 1Co_12:28-29; Eph_4:11. Perhaps the difference
between the prophets, the ministers, the teachers, and the exhorters was this, that the
first spake by inspiration; the second engaged in all the functions of the ministry
properly so called, including the administration of the sacraments; the teachers were
employed in communicating instruction simply, teaching the doctrines of religion, but
without assuming the function of ministers; and the fourth exhorted, or entreated
Christians to lead a holy life, without making it a particular subject to teach, and without
pretending to administer the ordinances of religion.
The fact that teachers are so often mentioned in the New Testament, shows that they
were a class by themselves. It may be worthy of remark that the churches in New
England had, at first, a class of people who were called teachers. One was appointed to
this office in every church, distinct from the pastor, whose proper business it was to
instruct the congregation in the doctrines of religion. The same thing exists substantially
now in most churches, in the appointment of Sunday school teachers, whose main
business it is to instruct the children in the doctrines of the Christian religion. It is an
office of great importance to the church; and the exhortation of the apostle may be
applied to them: that they should be assiduous, constant, diligent their teaching; that
they should confine themselves to their appropriate place; and should feel that their
office is of great importance in the church of God; and remember that this is his
arrangement, designed to promote the edification of his people.
CLARKE, “Or ministry - ∆ιακονια simply means the office of a deacon; and what this
office was, see in the note on Act_6:4 (note), where the subject is largely discussed.
Or he that teacheth - The teacher, διδασκαλος, was a person whose office it was to
instruct others, who thereby catechizing, or simply explaining the grand truths of
Christianity.
GILL, “Or ministry, let us wait on our ministry,.... The word διακονια sometimes
signifies the whole ecclesiastical ministry, even the office of apostleship, as well as the
ordinary ministration of the Gospel; see Act_1:17; but here "deaconship", or the office of
ministering to the poor saints, as in Act_6:1, being a distinct office from prophesying: or

252. preaching the word, and should be used, exercised, and attended to with diligence, care,
and constancy; for such who are appointed to this office, are chosen not only to a place of
honour, but of service and business, in which they should behave with prudence,
sobriety, and humility:
or he that teacheth, on teaching. The gift of prophesying or preaching is subdivided
into "teaching" and "exhorting"; the one belongs to "teachers" or doctors, the other to
"pastors"; as the distinction is in Eph_4:11, not that different officers and offices are
intended, but different branches of the same office; and one man's talent may lie more in
the one, and another man's in the other; and accordingly each should in his preaching
attend to the gift which is most peculiar to him: if his gift lies in teaching, let him
constantly employ himself in that with all sobriety and "teaching" does not design an
office in the school, but in the church; it is not teaching divinity as men teach logic,
rhetoric, and other arts and sciences, in the schools; but an instructing of churches and
the members thereof in the doctrines of the Gospel, in order to establish and build them
up in their most holy faith; see 1Co_12:28; it chiefly lies in a doctrinal way of preaching,
in opening, explaining, and defending the doctrines of Christ, as distinct from the
practical part of the ministry of the word, and the administration of ordinances, in which
the pastor is employed as well as in this.
HE RY, “Ministry. If a man hath diakoniandiakoniandiakoniandiakonian - the office of a deacon, or
assistant to the pastor and teacher, let him use that office well - a
churchwarden (suppose), an elder, or an overseer of the poor; and perhaps
there were more put into these offices, and there was more solemnity in
them, and a greater stress of care and business lay upon them in the
primitive churches, than we are now well aware of. It includes all those
offices which concern the tatatata exōexōexōexō of the church, the outward business of the
house of God. See Neh_11:16. Serving tables, Act_6:2. Now let him on whom
this care of ministering is devolved attend to it with faithfulness and
diligence; particularly, [1.] He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity.
Those church-officers that were the stewards of the church's alms, collected
money, and distributed it according as the necessities of the poor were. Let
them do it enenenen aplotēaplotēaplotēaplotētitititi - liberally and faithfully; not converting what they
receive to their own use, nor distributing it with any sinister design, or with
respect of person: not froward and peevish with the poor, nor seeking
pretences to put them by; but with all sincerity and integrity, having no
other intention in it than to glorify God and do good. Some understand it in
general of all almsgiving: He that hath wherewithal, let him give, and give
plentifully and liberally; so the word is translated, 2Co_8:2; 2Co_9:13. God
loves a cheerful bountiful giver. [2.] He that ruleth with diligence. It should
seem, he means those that were assistants to the pastors in exercising
church-discipline, as their eyes, and hands, and mouth, in the government
of the church, or those ministers that in the congregation did chiefly
undertake and apply themselves to this ruling work; for we find those ruling
that laboured in the word and doctrine, 1Ti_5:17. Now such must do it with
diligence. The word denotes both care and industry to discover what is
amiss, to reduce those that go astray, to reprove and admonish those that
have fallen, to keep the church pure. Those must take a great deal of pains

253. that will approve themselves faithful in the discharge of this trust, and not
let slip any opportunity that may facilitate and advance that work. [3.] He
that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. Some think it is meant in general of
all that in any thing show mercy: Let them be willing to do it, and take a
pleasure in it; God loves a cheerful giver. But it seems to be meant of some
particular church-officers, whose work it was to take care of the sick and
strangers; and those were generally widows that were in this matter
servants to the church-deaconesses (1Ti_5:9, 1Ti_5:10), though others, it is
likely, might be employed. Now this must be done with cheerfulness. A
pleasing countenance in acts of mercy is a great relief and comfort to the
miserable; when they see it is not done grudgingly and unwillingly, but with
pleasant looks and gentle words, and all possible indications of readiness
and alacrity. Those that have to do with such as are sick and sore, and
commonly cross and peevish, have need to put on not only patience, but
cheerfulness, to make the work the more easy and pleasant to them, and the
more acceptable to God.
JAMISO , “Or ministry, let us wait on — “be occupied with.”
our ministering — The word here used imports any kind of service, from the
dispensing of the word of life (Act_6:4) to the administering of the temporal affairs of
the Church (Act_6:1-3). The latter seems intended here, being distinguished from
“prophesying,” “teaching,” and “exhorting.”
or he that teacheth — Teachers are expressly distinguished from prophets, and put
after them, as exercising a lower function (Act_13:1; 1Co_12:28, 1Co_12:29). Probably it
consisted mainly in opening up the evangelical bearings of Old Testament Scripture; and
it was in this department apparently that Apollos showed his power and eloquence
(Act_18:24).
VWS, “Ministering (διακονίᇮδιακονίᇮδιακονίᇮδιακονίᇮ)
Let us wait on is supplied. Lit., or ministry in our ministry. The word appears in the
New Testament always in connection with the service of the Christian Church, except
Luk_10:40, of Martha's serving; Heb_1:14, of the ministry of angels, and 2Co_3:7, of the
ministry of Moses. Within this limit it is used, 1. Of service in general, including all
forms of christian ministration tending to the good of the christian body (1Co_12:5;
Eph_4:13; 2Ti_4:11). Hence, 2. Of the apostolic office and its administration; (a)
generally (Act_20:24; 2Co_4:1; 1Ti_1:12); or (b) defined as a ministry of reconciliation,
of the word, of the Spirit, of righteousness (2Co_5:18; Act_6:4; 2Co_3:8, 2Co_3:9). It is
not used of the specific office of a deacon; but the kindred word διάκονος occurs in that
sense (Phi_1:1; 1Ti_3:8, 1Ti_3:12). As the word is employed in connection with both the
higher and lower ministrations in the Church (see Act_6:1, Act_6:4), it is difficult to fix
its precise meaning here; yet as it is distinguished here from prophecy, exhortation, and
teaching, it may refer to some more practical, and, possibly, minor form of ministry.
Moule says: “Almost any work other than that of inspired utterance or miracle-working
may be included in it here.” So Godet: “An activity of a practical nature exerted in action,
not in word.” Some limit it to the office of deacon.
Teaching

254. Aimed at the understanding.
RWP, “Let us give ourselves. There is no verb in the Greek. We must supply dōmen
heautous or some such phrase.
Or he that teacheth (eite ho didaskōn). Here the construction changes and no
longer do we have the accusative case like diakonian (general word for Christian service of
all kinds including ministers and deacons) as the object of echontes, but the nominative
articular participle. A new verb must be supplied of which ho didaskōn is the subject as
with the succeeding participles through Rom_12:8. Perhaps in each instance the verb is
to be repeated from the participle like didasketō here (let him teach) or a general term
poieitō (let him do it) can be used for all of them as seems necessary before “with
liberality” in Rom_12:8 (en haplotēti, in simplicity, for which word, see note on
Mat_6:22; note on 2Co_8:2; note on 2Co_9:11; and note on 2Co_9:13).
He that ruleth (ho proistamenos). “The one standing in front” for which see note on
1Th_5:12.
With diligence (en spoudēi). “In haste” as if in earnest (Mar_6:25; 2Co_7:11.,
2Co_8:8, 2Co_8:16), from speudō, to hasten. Again Rom_12:11.
With cheerfulness (en hilarotēti). Late word, only here in N.T., from hilaros
(2Co_9:7) cheerful, hilarious.
8if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is
contributing to the needs of others, let him give
generously; if it is leadership, let him govern
diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it
cheerfully.
Barclay, “Sharing is to be carried out with simple kindliness. The word that Paul
uses is haplotes, and it is difficult to translate, because it has in it the meaning both
of simplicity and of generosity. One great commentary quotes a passage from The
Testament of Issachar which perfectly illustrates its meaning. "And my father
blessed me, seeing that I walked in simplicity (haplotes). And I was not inquisitive in
my actions, nor wicked and envious towards my neighbor. I did not speak evil of

255. anyone or attack a man's life, but I walked with a single eye (literally, with haplotes,
of my eyes). To every poor and every afflicted man I provided the good things of
earth in simplicity (haplotes) of heart. The simple (haplous) man does not desire
gold, doth not ravish his neighbor, doth not care for all kinds of dainty meats, doth
not wish for diversity of clothing, doth not promise himself length of days, but
receiveth only the will of God. He walketh in uprightness of life and beholdeth all
things in simplicity (haplotes)." There is a giving which pries into the circumstances
of another as it gives, which gives a moral lecture along with the gift, which gives not
so much to relieve the need of the other as to pander to its own vanity and self-
satisfaction, which gives with a grim sense of duty instead of a radiant sense of joy,
which gives always with some ulterior motive and never for the sheer joy of giving.
Christian sharing is with haplotes, the simple kindliness which delights in the sheer
pleasure of giving for giving's sake.”
BAR ES, “He that exhorteth - This word properly denotes one who urges to the
practical duties of religion, in distinction from one who teaches its doctrines. One who
presents the warnings and the promises of God to excite men to the discharge of their
duty. It is clear that there were persons who were recognised as engaging especially in
this duty, and who were known by this appellation, as distinguished from prophets and
teachers. How long this was continued, there is no means of ascertaining; but it cannot
be doubted that it may still be expedient, in many times and places, to have persons
designated to this work. In most churches this duty is now blended with the other
functions of the ministry.
He that giveth - Margin, “imparteth.” The word denotes the person whose function it
was to distribute; and probably designates him who distributed the alms of the church,
or him who was the deacon of the congregation. The connection requires that this
meaning should be given to the passage: and the word rendered “giveth” may denote one
who imparts or distributes that which has been committed to him for that purpose, as
well as one who gives out of his private property. As the apostle is speaking here of
offices in the church, the former is evidently what is intended. It was deemed an
important matter among the early Christians to impart liberally of their substance to
support the poor, and provide for the needy: Act_2:44-47; Act_4:34-37; Act_5:1-11;
Gal_2:10; Rom_15:26; 2Co_8:8; 2Co_9:2, 2Co_9:12. Hence, it became necessary to
appoint persons over these contributions, who should be especially charged with the
management of them, and who would see that they were properly distributed; Act_6:1-6.
These were the persons who were denominated deacons; Phi_1:1; 1Ti_3:8, 1Ti_3:12.
With simplicity - see Mat_6:22, “If thine eye be single,” etc.; Luk_11:34. The word
“simplicity” ᅋπλοτής haplotēs is used in a similar sense to denote singleness, honesty of
aim, purity, integrity, without any mixture of a base, selfish, or sinister end. It requires
the bestowment of a favor without seeking any personal or selfish ends; without
partiality; but actuated only by the desire to bestow them in the best possible manner to
promote the object for which they were given; 2Co_8:2; 2Co_9:11, 2Co_9:13; 2Co_1:12;
Eph_6:5; Col_3:22. It is plain that when property was intrusted to them, there would be
danger that they might be tempted to employ it for selfish and sinister ends, to promote
their influence and prosperity; and hence, the apostle exhorted them to do it with a
single aim to the object for which it was given. Well did he know that there was nothing
more tempting than the possession of wealth, though given to be appropriated to others.

256. And this exhortation is applicable not only to the deacons of the churches, but to all who
in this day of Christian benevolence are intrusted with money to advance the kingdom of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
He that ruleth - This word properly designates one who is set over others, or who
presides or rules, or one who attends with diligence and care to a thing. In 1Th_5:12, it is
used in relation to ministers in general: “And we beseech you, brethren, to know them
which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord;” 1Ti_3:4-5, 1Ti_3:12, it is applied
to the head of a family, or one who diligently and faithfully performs the duty of a father:
“One that ruleth well his own house;” 1Ti_5:17, it is applied to “elders” in the church:
“Let the elders that rule well, etc.” It is not used elsewhere except in Tit_3:8, Tit_3:14, in
a different sense, where it is translated “to maintain good works.” The prevailing sense of
the word, therefore, is to rule, to preside over, or to have the management of. But to what
class of persons reference is had here, and what was precisely their duty, has been made
a matter of controversy, and it is not easy to determine. Whether this refers to a
permanent office in the church, or to an occasional presiding in their assemblies
convened for business, etc. is not settled by the use of the word. It has the idea of ruling,
as in a family, or of presiding, as in a deliberate assembly; and either of these ideas
would convey all that is implied in the original word; compare 1Co_12:28.
With diligence - This word properly means haste Mar_6:25; Luk_1:39; but it also
denotes industry, attention, care; 2Co_7:11, “What carefulness it wrought in you;”
2Co_7:12, “That our care for you in the sight of God, etc.;” 2Co_8:7-8, (Greek) Heb_6:11.
It means here that they should be attentive to the duties of their vocation, and engage
with ardor in what was committed to them to do.
He that showeth mercy - It is probable, says Calvin, that this refers to those who
had the care of the sick and infirm, the aged and the needy; not so much to provide for
them by charity, as to attend on them in their affliction, and to take care of them. To the
deacons was committed the duty of distributing alms, but to others that of personal
attendance. This can hardly be called an office, in the technical sense; and yet it is not
improbable that they were designated to this by the church, and requested to perform it.
There were no hospitals and no almshouses. Christians felt it was their duty to show
personal attention to the infirm and the sick; and so important was their function, that it
was deemed worthy of notice in a general direction to the church.
With cheerfulness - The direction given to those who distributed alms was to do it
with simplicity, with an honest aim to meet the purpose for which it was intrusted to
them. The direction here varies according to the duty to be performed. It is to be done
with cheerfulness, pleasantness, joy; with a kind, benign, and happy temper. The
importance of this direction to those in this situation is apparent. Nothing tends so much
to enhance the value of personal attendance on the sick and afflicted, as a kind and
cheerful temper. If any where a mild, amiable, cheerful, and patient disposition is
needed, it is near a sick bed, and when administering to the wants of those who are in
affliction. And whenever we may be called to such a service, we should remember that
this is indispensable. If moroseness, or impatience, or fretfulness is discovered in us, it
will pain those whom we seek to benefit, embitter their feelings, and render our services
of comparatively little value. The needy and infirm, the feeble and the aged, have enough
to bear without the impatience and harshness of professed friends. It may be added that
the example of the Lord Jesus Christ is the brightest which the world has furnished of
this temper. Though constantly encompassed by the infirm and the afflicted, yet he was
always kind, and gentle, and mild, and has left before us exactly what the apostie meant
when he said, “he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness.” The example of the good
Samaritan is also another instance of what is intended by this direction; compare

257. 2Co_9:7. This direction is particularly applicable to a physician.
We have here an account of the establishment, the order, and the duties of the
different members of the Christian church. The amount of it all is, that we should
discharge with fidelity the duties which belong to us in the sphere of life in which we are
placed; and not despise the rank which God has assigned us; not to think of ourselves
more highly than we ought; but to act well our part, according to the station where we
are placed, and the talents with which we are endowed. If this were done, it would put an
end to discontent, ambition, and strife, and would produce the blessings of universal
peace and order.
CLARKE, “Or he that exhorteth - ᆍ παρακαλων, The person who admonished and
reprehended the unruly or disorderly; and who supported the weak and comforted the
penitents, and those who were under heaviness through manifold temptations.
He that giveth - He who distributeth the alms of the Church, with simplicity - being
influenced by no partiality, but dividing to each according to the necessity of his case.
He that ruleth - ᆍ προιʷσταµενος, He that presides over a particular business; but as
the verb προιʷσταµαι also signifies to defend or patronize, it is probably used here to
signify receiving and providing for strangers, and especially the persecuted who were
obliged to leave their own homes, and were destitute, afflicted, and tormented. It might
also imply the persons whose business it was to receive and entertain the apostolical
teachers who traveled from place to place, establishing and confirming the Churches. In
this sense the word προστατις is applied to Phoebe, Rom_16:2 : She hath been a Succorer
of many, and of myself also. The apostle directs that this office should be executed with
diligence, that such destitute persons should have their necessities as promptly and as
amply supplied as possible.
He that showeth mercy - Let the person who is called to perform any act of
compassion or mercy to the wretched do it, not grudgingly nor of necessity, but from a
spirit of pure benevolence and sympathy. The poor are often both wicked and worthless:
and, if those who are called to minister to them as stewards, overseers, etc., do not take
care, they will get their hearts hardened with the frequent proofs they will have of
deception, lying, idleness, etc. And on this account it is that so many of those who have
been called to minister to the poor in parishes, workhouses, and religious societies, when
they come to relinquish their employment find that many of their moral feelings have
been considerably blunted; and perhaps the only reward they get for their services is the
character of being hard-hearted. If whatever is done in this way be not done unto the
Lord, it can never be done with cheerfulness.
GILL, “Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation,.... This is the other branch of
prophesying or preaching, and which is more practical, and lies in giving a word of
exhortation to the saints, as their particular cases call for; for as prophets were teachers,
Act_13:1; so also exhorters, Act_15:32; and one considerable branch of the ministry, and
which is more principally the pastor's work, as well as to teach, is to exhort all sorts of
persons, young and old, rich and poor, high and low, bond and free, under his care, with

258. all longsuffering and doctrine. The words will bear to be read, "he that comforteth, on
consolation"; and so the Syriac version renders them, ‫בבויאה‬ ‫הו‬ ‫דמביאנא‬ ‫,ואית‬ "and another
who is a comforter, in his consolation". Though all the ministers of the Gospel are to speak
comfortably to the saints, by preaching the doctrines of free justification by Christ's
righteousness, and remission of sins by his blood, by bringing the good news of salvation by him,
and by opening the exceeding great and precious promises of the Gospel; yet some have a greater
talent this way than others; some are "Boanergeses", sons of thunder, Mar_3:17, and others
"Barnabases", sons of consolation, Act_4:36; and each should attend to that with all diligence and
humility, he is best qualified for.
He that giveth,He that giveth,He that giveth,He that giveth, let him do itlet him do itlet him do itlet him do it with simplicitywith simplicitywith simplicitywith simplicity. Here begins the subdivision of the deacon's office
into its several branches, "giving", "ruling", and "showing mercy": by "giving" is meant, not giving of
his own, or performing: acts of charity, which is common to all the members of the church, who
ought liberally to contribute to the relief of the poor; but imparting or distributing the church's
money to proper objects, which is to be done "with simplicity"; with all faithfulness and integrity,
without fraud or embezzling the church's stock, with impartiality, and without respect of persons,
and liberally and bountifully, as the word here used signifies; see 2Co_8:2;
he that ruleth, with diligencehe that ruleth, with diligencehe that ruleth, with diligencehe that ruleth, with diligence; deacons are the "helps, governments", mentioned in 1Co_12:28,
who are assisting to the pastor in the government of the church; their business is, to observe the
conversations of the members of the church, and to warn them that are unruly and walk
disorderly, to compose differences, and prepare matters to lay before the church; a deacon is
προισταµενος, "one that goes before"; and leads on others by way of example in his
conduct and conversation; or as the Syriac renders it, ‫ברישא‬ ‫,דקאם‬ "that stands at the head"
of affairs in the church; in the management of which he ought to use all study, thoughtfulness,
care and diligence:
he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulnesshe that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulnesshe that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulnesshe that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness; which is not to be understood of showing compassion
to miserable objects in common, or of giving alms to necessitous persons, and which ought to be
done according to the Jewish (l) canons, ‫יפות‬ ‫פנים‬ ‫,בסבר‬ "with a cheerful countenance"; and is
what is highly pleasing to God, who "loves a cheerful giver": but of a branch of the deacon's office,
whose work, among other things, is to visit the sick and distressed, and communicate to them as
their wants require; all which should be done, not in a morose and frowning manner, but with a
pleasant look and cheerful countenance, which makes the visit and the gift more welcome,

259. acceptable, and useful.
JAMISO , “Or he that exhorteth — Since all preaching, whether by apostles,
prophets, or teachers, was followed up by exhortation (Act_11:23; Act_14:22; Act_15:32,
etc.), many think that no specific class is here in view. But if liberty was given to others to
exercise themselves occasionally in exhorting the brethren, generally, or small parties of
the less instructed, the reference may be to them.
he that giveth — in the exercise of private benevolence probably, rather than in the
discharge of diaconal duty.
with simplicity — so the word probably means. But as simplicity seems enjoined in
the next clause but one of this same verse, perhaps the meaning here is, “with liberality,”
as the same word is rendered in 2Co_8:2; 2Co_9:11.
he that ruleth — whether in the Church or his own household. See 1Ti_3:4, 1Ti_3:5,
where the same word is applied to both.
with diligence — with earnest purpose.
he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness — not only without grudging either
trouble or pecuniary relief, but feeling it to be “more blessed to give than to receive,” and
to help than be helped.
CALVIN, “8.Or he who gives, let him do so in simplicity, etc. From the former clauses we have
clearly seen, that he teaches us here the legitimate use of God’ gifts. By the µεταδιδούντοις, the
givers, of whom he speaks here, he did not understand those who gave of their own property, but
the deacons, who presided in dispensing the public charities of the Church; and by
the ἐλούντοις, those who showed mercy, he meant the widows, and other ministers, who were
appointed to take care of the sick, according to the custom of the ancient Church: for there were two
different offices, — to provide necessaries for the poor, and to attend to their condition. But to the
first he RECOMME DS simplicity, so that without fraud or respect of persons they were
faithfully to administer what was entrusted to them. He required the services of the other party to be
rendered with cheerfulness, lest by their peevishness (which often happens) they marred the favor
conferred by them. For as nothing gives more solace to the sick or to any one otherwise distressed,
than to see men cheerful and prompt in assisting them; so to observe sadness in the countenance
of those by whom ASSISTA CE is given, makes them to feel themselves despised.
Though he rightly calls those προϊστάµενους presidents, to whom was committed the government of
the Church, (and they were the elders, who presided over and ruled others and exercised
discipline;) yet what he says of these may be extended U IVERSALLY to all kinds of
governors: for no small solicitude is required from those who provide for the safety of all, and no
small diligence is needful for them who ought to watch day and night for the wellbeing of the whole
community. Yet the state of things at that time proves that Paul does not speak of all kinds of rulers,
for there were then no pious magistrates; but of the elders who were the correctors of morals.
GEORGE MATHESO
Our good actions
appear for the present to have a death in the

260. desert. You give a coin to a beggar who seems
to be starving. He thanks you profusely. You
watch his receding form, and see him vanish
into the first gin-shop. You say " my charity
has all gone for nothing." No; it is only your
money that has. Do not identify your money
with your charity. The one, through the force
of long habit, may be spent in an ale-house
within five minutes; the other may be laid up
in the heart for years, and bear rich interest
after many days. I have seen a kind advice
RETIREMENT 45
bring forth at the time only a storm of temper ;
but on the morrow it was weighed and accepted.
" Light is sown for the righteous " is a beauti-
ful phrase. It tells me that I must expect my
good deeds to lie underground a while. Like
the disciples, I must begin the journey to Em-
maus ere I have heard of the risen flower. Yet
my Christ shall overtake me on the way, and at
evening, when the day is far spent, the fruits of
the morning shall abide with me.
Lord, if Thou wilt go before me, I shall be
content that Thy goodness and mercy follow
me. I should not like to postpone obedience
to Thy command till I can see the good of it.
There are times when to me, as to Abraham,
there comes the mandate, " Get thee out of thy
country into a land which thou knowest not."
At such times I cry, like Moses, " I beseech
Thee, show me Thy glory ; let me see the gain of
Thy command before I go." But Thou sayest :

261. " No, my child, / go before; the gain follows.
I know there are things in the journey to appal
thee. I have pointed thee to the red heights
of Moriah ; I have spread for thee the stone pil-
low of Bethel; I have prepared for thee the
46 TIMES OF
lonely peak of Nebo. What then ? Wilt thou
insist beforehand on seeing the ram in the
thicket? Wilt thou insist on beholding in ad-
vance the ladder from heaven? Wilt thou in-
sist on having a previous view of the Promised
Land? Nay, let my voice to thee precede my
light. Plunge into the sea, and thy Christ will
follow. Dive into the night, and the morning
will follow. Stride into the desert, and the
world will follow. Thy glory shall come after
thee. Thy buried Christ shall meet thee in the
evening. Thou shalt drink at twilight of that
fountain which was sealed to thee at dawn."
Love
9Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to
what is good.
Barclay, “Love must be completely sincere. There must be no hypocrisy, no play-
acting, no ulterior motive. There is such a thing as cupboard love, which gives
affection with one eye on the gain which may result. There is such a thing as a
selfish love, whose aim is to get far more than it is to give. Christian love is cleansed

262. of self; it is a pure outgoing of the heart to others.”
Barclay, “We must hate that which is evil and cling to that which is good. It has
been said that our one security against sin lies in our being shocked by it. It was
Carlyle who said that what we need is to see the infinite beauty of holiness and the
infinite damnability of sin. The words Paul uses are strong. It has been said that no
virtue is safe which is not passionate. He must hate evil and love good. Regarding
one thing we must be clear--what many people hate is not evil, but the consequences
of evil. o man is really a good man when he is good simply because he fears the
consequences of being bad.”
BAR ES, “Let love - The apostle proceeds to specify the duties of Christians in
general, that they might secure the beauty and order of the church. The first which he
specifies is love. This word here evidently refers to benevolence, or to good-will toward
all mankind. In Rom_12:10 he specifies the duty of brotherly love; and there can be no
doubt that he here refers to the benevolence which we ought to cherish toward all people.
A similar distinction is found in 2Pe_1:7, “And to brotherly-kindness add charity,” that
is, benevolence, or good will, and kind feelings to others.
Without dissimulation - Without hypocrisy. Let it be sincere and unfeigned. Let it
not consist in words or professions only, but let it be manifested in acts of kindness and
in deeds of charity; 1Jo_3:18; compare 1Pe_1:22. Genuine benevolence is not what
merely professes attachment, but which is evinced by acts of kindness and affection.
Abhor that which is evil - The word “abhor” means to hate; to turn from; to avoid.
The word “evil” here has reference to malice, or unkindness, rather than to evil in
general. The apostle is exhorting to love, or kindness; and between the direction to love
all people, and the particular direction about brotherly love, he places this general
direction to abhor what is evil; what is evil in relation to the subject under discussion,
that is, malice or unkindness. The word “evil” is not infrequently used in this limited
sense to denote some particular or special evil; Mat_5:37, Mat_5:39, etc.; compare
Psa_34:14; 2Ti_2:19; Psa_97:10; 1Th_5:22.
Cleave to that which is good - The word rendered “cleave” to denotes properly the
act of gluing, or uniting firmly by glue. It is then used to denote a very firm adherence to
an object; to be firmly united to it. Here it means that Christians should be firmly
attached to what is good, and not separate or part from it. The good here referred to is
particularly what pertains to benevolence - to all people, and especially to Christians. It
should not be occasional only, or irregular; but it should be constant, active, decided.
CLARKE, “Let love be without dissimulation - ᅯ αγαπη ανυποκριτος· Have no
hypocritical love; let not your love wear a mask; make no empty professions. Love God
and your neighbor; and, by obedience to the one and acts of benevolence to the other,
show that your love is sincere.
Abhor that which is evil - Αποστυγουντες το πονηρον· Hate sin as you would hate
that hell to which it leads. Στυγεω signifies to hate or detest with horror; the preposition

263. απο greatly strengthens the meaning. Στυξ, Styx, was a feigned river in hell by which the
gods were wont to swear, and if any of them falsified this oath he was deprived of his
nectar and ambrosia for a hundred years; hence the river was reputed to be hateful, and
στυγεω signified to be as hateful as hell. Two MSS. read µισουντες, which signifies hating
in the lowest sense of the term. The word in the text is abundantly more expressive, and
our translation is both nervous and appropriate.
Cleave to that which is good - Κολλωµενοι τሩ αγαθሩ· Be Cemented or Glued to that
which is good; so the word literally signifies. Have an unalterable attachment to
whatever leads to God, and contributes to the welfare of your fellow creatures.
GILL, “Let love be without dissimulation,.... The apostle having given out suitable
exhortations to the officers of this church, ministers and deacons, proceeds to stir up to
the exercise of grace, and the discharge of such duties as were common to all the
members of the church; and begins with "love", which is the cement of saints, and the
bond of perfectness, without which all the gifts that men have, the profession they make,
and works they do are of no avail, and they themselves nothing. Here it is to be taken, in
the largest and most comprehensive sense, for love to God, Christ, the saints, and fellow
creatures, and ought, with respect to each, to "be without dissimulation"; or "hypocrisy":
love to God should be with all the heart, soul, and mind, otherwise the fear of him, and
obedience to him, will be only outward, formal, customary, and hypocritical; love to
Christ should be with sincerity, and so it is where it is right, hearty, and genuine; such
can appeal to him as the searcher of hearts, that from the heart they love him; and love to
one another should be not in word, and in tongue only, but in deed and in truth; yea, the
love professed to fellow creatures, ought never to be through fear of men or mercenary
views, but honest, upright, and sincere.
Abhor that which is evil; sin, both in its principle and in its actings; it being hateful to
God, Father, Son, and Spirit, contrary to the nature, being, and perfections of God, a
transgression of his righteous law, exceeding sinful in itself, and pernicious in its effects
and consequences; for all which it is to be abhorred by the saints: the word
αποστυγουντες, here used, designs the greatest aversation imaginable, a turning away
from it, as what is the most loathsome, detestable, and abominable; and such an hatred
of it with horror, as of the Stygian lake, or hell itself:
cleave to that which is good; to God, who is originally, infinitely, and immutably
good; who is good in his nature, and works, and to all his creatures, and especially his
chosen people, and therefore should be cleaved unto; to his will, his ways, and worship;
and to Christ the good shepherd of the sheep, the Lamb that is to be followed and cleaved
unto, whithersoever he goes; and to the good Spirit of God, after whom we should walk,
and not after the flesh; and to the good people of God, assembling with whom should not
be forsaken; and to the good Gospel of Christ, and the truths of it, which should be held
fast; and to the ordinances of the Gospel, which ought to be constantly attended on; and
to every good work, to which we should be ready, careful to maintain, and ever follow,
both among ourselves and all men: they should even be glued unto it, as the word here
signifies.

264. HE RY, “ Concerning that part of our duty which respects our brethren, of
which we have many instances, in brief exhortations. Now all our duty
towards one another is summer up in one word, and that a sweet work,
love. In that is laid the foundation of all our mutual duty; and therefore the
apostle mentions this first, which is the livery of Christ's disciples, and the
great law of our religion: Let love be without dissimulation; not in
compliment and pretence, but in reality; not in word and tongue only,
1Jo_3:18. The right love is love unfeigned; not as the kisses of an enemy,
which are deceitful. We should be glad of an opportunity to prove the
sincerity of our love, 2Co_8:8. More particularly, there is a love owing to
our friends, and to our enemies. He specifies both.
JAMISO , “Let love be without dissimulation — “Let your love be unfeigned” (as
in 2Co_6:6; 1Pe_2:22; and see 1Jo_3:18).
Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good — What a lofty tone of
moral principle and feeling is here inculcated! It is not, Abstain from the one, and do the
other; nor, Turn away from the one, and draw to the other; but, Abhor the one, and cling,
with deepest sympathy, to the other.
CALVI , “9.Let love be, etc. PROCEEDING now to speak of particular duties, he fitly begins
with love, which is the bond of perfection. And respecting this he enjoins what is especially
necessary, that all disguises are to be cast aside, and that love is to arise from pure sincerity of
mind. It is indeed difficult to express how ingenious almost all men are to pretend a love which they
really have not, for they not only deceive others, but impose also on themselves, while they
persuade themselves that those are not loved amiss by them, whom they not only neglect, but really
slight. Hence Paul declares here, that love is no other but that which is free from all dissimulation:
and any one may easily be a witness to himself, whether he has anything in the recesses of his
heart which is opposed to love. (390) The words good and evil, which immediately follow in the
context, have not here a general meaning; but evil is to be taken for that malicious wickedness by
which an INJURY is done to men; and good for that kindness, by which help is rendered to them;
and there is here an antithesis usual in Scripture, when vices are first forbidden and then virtues
enjoined.
As to the participle, ἀποστυγούντες I have followed neither [Erasmus ] nor the old TRANSLATORS
, who have rendered it “hating, ”( odio habentes ;) for in my judgment Paul intended to express
something more; and the meaning of the term “ away,” corresponds better with the opposite clause;
for he not only bids us to exercise kindness, but even to cleave to it.
(390) “” says an old author, “ the sum and substance of all virtues. Philosophers make justice the
queen of virtues; but love is the mother of justice, for it renders to God and to our neighbor what is
justly due to them.” — Ed.

265. EBC 9-21, “CHRISTIAN DUTY: DETAILS OF PERSONAL CONDUCT
ST. PAUL has set before us the life of surrender, of the "giving over" of faculty to God, in
one great preliminary aspect. The fair ideal (meant always for a watchful and hopeful
realisation) has been held aloft. It is a life whose motive is the Lord’s "compassions";
whose law of freedom is His will; whose inmost aim is, without envy or interference
towards our fellow servants, to "finish the work He hath given us to do." Now into this
noble outline are to be poured the details of personal conduct which, in any and every
line and field are to make the characteristics of the Christian.
As we listen again, we will again remember that the words are levelled not at a few, but at
all who are in Christ. The beings indicated here are not the chosen names of a Church
Calendar, nor are they the passionless inhabitants of a Utopia. They are all who, in Rome
of old, in England now, "have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," "have the
Spirit of God dwelling in them," and are living out this wonderful but most practical life
in the straight line of their Father’s will.
As if he could not heap the golden words too thickly together, St. Paul dictates here with
even unusual abruptness and terseness of expression. He leaves syntax very much alone;
gives us noun and adjective, and lets them speak for themselves. We will venture to
render as nearly verbatim as possible. The English will inevitably seem more rough and
crude than the Greek, but the impression given will be truer on the whole to the original
than a fuller rendering would be.
Your love, unaffected. Abominating the ill, wedded to the good. For your brotherly
kindness, full of mutual home affection. For your honour, your code of precedence,
deferring to one another. For your earnestness, not slothful. For the Spirit, as regards
your possession and use of the divine Indweller, glowing. For the Lord, bond serving. For
your hope, that is to say, as to the hope of the Lord’s Return, rejoicing. For your
affliction, enduring. For your prayer, persevering. For the wants of the saints, for the
poverty of fellow Christians, communicating; "sharing," a yet nobler thing than the mere
"giving" which may ignore the sacred fellowship of the provider and the receiver.
Hospitality-prosecuting as with a studious cultivation. Bless those who persecute you;
bless, and do not curse. This was a solemnly appropriate precept, for the community over
which, eight years later, the first great Persecution was to break in "blood, and fire, and
vapour of smoke." And no doubt there was abundant present occasion for it, even while
the scene was comparatively tranquil. Every modern mission field can illustrate the
possibilities of a "persecution" which may be altogether private, or which at most may
touch only a narrow neighbourhood; which may never reach the point of technical
outrage, yet may apply a truly "fiery trial" to the faithful convert. Even in circles of our
decorous English society is no such thing known as the "persecution" of a life "not
conformed to this world," though the assault or torture may take forms almost invisible
and impalpable, except to the sensibilities of the object of it? For all such cases, as well as
for the confessor on the rack, and the martyr in the fire, this precept holds expressly:
"Bless, do not curse." In Christ find possible the impossible; let the resentment of nature
die, at His feet, in the breath of His love.
To rejoice with the rejoicing, and to weep with the weeping; holy duties of the
surrendered life, too easily forgotten. Alas, there is such a phenomenon, not altogether
rare, as a life whose self-surrender, in some main aspects, cannot be doubted, but which
utterly fails in sympathy. A certain spiritual exaltation is allowed actually to harden, or at
least to seem to harden, the consecrated heart; and the man who perhaps witnesses for
God with a prophet’s ardour is yet not one to whom the mourner would go for tears and
prayer in his bereavement, or the child for a perfectly human smile in its play. But this is

266. not as the Lord would have it be. If indeed the Christian has "given his body over," it is
that his eyes, and lips, and hands, may be ready to give loving tokens of fellowship in
sorrow, and (what is less obvious) in gladness too, to the human hearts around him.
Feeling the same thing towards one another; animated by a happy identity of sympathy
and brotherhood. Not haughty in feeling, but full of lowly sympathies; accessible, in an
unaffected fellowship, to the poor, the social inferior, the weak and the defeated, and
again to the smallest and homeliest interests of all. It was the Lord’s example; the little
child, the wistful parent, the widow with her mite, the poor fallen woman of the street,
could "lead away" His blessed sympathies with a touch, while He responded with an
unbroken majesty of gracious power, but with a kindness for which condescension seems
a word far too cold and distant.
Do not get to be wise in your own opinion; be ready always to learn; dread the attitude of
mind, too possible even for the man of earnest spiritual purpose, which assumes that you
have nothing to learn and everything to teach; which makes it easy to criticise and to
discredit; and which can prove an altogether repellent thing to the observer from
outside, who is trying to estimate the Gospel by its adherent and advocate. Requiting no
one evil for evil; safe from the spirit of retaliation, in your surrender to Him "who when
He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, threatened not." Taking forethought
for good in the sight of all men; not letting habits, talk, expenses, drift into inconsistency;
watching with open and considerate eyes against what others may fairly think to be
unchristian in you. Here is no counsel of cowardice, no recommendation of slavery to a
public opinion which may be altogether wrong. It is a precept of loyal jealousy for the
heavenly Master’s honour. His servant is to be nobly indifferent to the world’s thought
and word, where he is sure that God and the world antagonise. But he is to be sensitively
attentive to the world’s observation where the world, more or less acquainted with the
Christian precept or principle, and more or less conscious of its truth and right, is
watching, maliciously or it may be wistfully, to see if it governs the Christian’s practice.
In view of this the man will never be content even with the satisfaction of his own
conscience; he will set himself not only to do right, but to be seen to do it. He will not
only be true to a monetary trust, for example; he will take care that the proofs of his
fidelity shall be open. He will not only mean well towards others; he will take care that
his manner and bearing, his dealings and intercourse, shall unmistakably breathe the
Christian air.
If possible, as regards your side (the "your" is as emphatic as possible in position and in
meaning), living at peace with all men; yes, even in pagan and hostile Rome. A peculiarly
Christian principle speaks here. The men who had "given over their bodies a living
sacrifice" might think, imaginably, that their duty was to court the world’s enmity, to tilt
as it were against its spears, as if the one supreme call was to collide, to fall, and to be
glorified. But this would be fanaticism; and the Gospel is never fanatical, for it is the law
of love. The surrendered Christian is not, as such, an aspirant for even a martyr’s fame,
but the servant of God and man. If martyrdom crosses his path, it is met as duty; but he
does not court it as eclat. And what is true of martyrdom is of course true of every lower
and milder form of the conflict of the Church, and of the Christian, in the world.
Nothing more nobly evidences the divine origin of the Gospel than this essential precept;
"as far as it lies with you, live peaceably with all men." Such wise and kind forbearance
and neighbourliness would never have been bound up with the belief of supernatural
powers and hopes, if those powers and hopes had been the mere issue of human
exaltation, of natural enthusiasm. The supernatural of the Gospel leads to nothing but
rectitude and considerateness, in short to nothing but love, between man and man. And

267. why? Because it is indeed divine; it is the message and gift of the living Son of God, in all
the truth and majesty of His rightfulness. All too early in the history of the Church "the
crown of martyrdom" became an object of enthusiastic ambition. But that was not
because of the teaching of the Crucified, nor of His suffering Apostles.
Not avenging yourselves, beloved; no, give place to the wrath; let the angry opponent, the
dread persecutor, have his way, so far as your resistance or retaliation is concerned.
"Beloved, let us love"; (1Jn_4:7) with that strong and conquering love which wins by
suffering. And do not fear lest eternal justice should go by default; there is One who will
take care of that matter; you may leave it with Him. For it stands written, (Deu_32:35)
"To Me belongs vengeance; I will recompense, saith the Lord." "But if" (and again he
quotes the older Scriptures, finding in the Pro_25:21-22 -the same oracular authority as
in the Pentateuch), "but if thy enemy is hungry, give him food; if he is thirsty, give him
drink; for so doing thou wilt heap coals of fire on his head"; taking the best way to the
only "vengeance" which a saint can wish, namely, your "enemy’s" conviction of his
wrong, the rising of a burning shame in his soul, and the melting of his spirit in the fire
of love. Be not thou conquered by the evil, but conquer, in the good, the evil.
"In the good"; as if surrounded by it, moving invulnerable, in its magic circle, through
"the contradiction of sinners," "the provoking of all men." The thought is just that of
Psa_31:18-19 : "How great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear
Thee, which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee before the sons of men! Thou
shalt hide them in the secret of Thy presence from the pride of man; Thou shalt keep
them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." "The good" of this sentence of St.
Paul’s is no vague and abstract thing; it is "the gift of God"; (Rom_6:23) it is the life
eternal found and possessed in union with Christ, our Righteousness, our Sanctification,
our Redemption. Practically, it is "not It but He." The Roman convert who should find it
more than possible to meet his enemy with love, to do him positive good in his need,
with a conquering simplicity of intention, was to do so not so much by an internal
conflict between his "better self" and his worse, as by the living power of Christ received
in his whole being; by "abiding in Him."
It is so now, and forever. The open secret of divine peace and love is what it was; as
necessary, as versatile, as victorious. And its path of victory is as straight and as sure as
of old. And the precept to tread that path, daily and hourly, if occasion calls, is still as
divinely binding as it ever was for the Christian, if indeed he has embraced "the mercies
of God," and is looking to his Lord to be evermore "transfigured, by the renewing of his
mind."
As we review this rich field of the flowers, and of the gold, of holiness, this now
completed paragraph of epigrammatic precepts, some leading and pervading principles
emerge. We see first that the sanctity of the Gospel is no hushed and cloistered
"indifferentism." It is a thing intended for the open field of human life; to be lived out
"before the sons of men." A strong positive element is in it. The saint is to "abominate the
evil"; not only to deprecate it, and deplore. He is to be energetically "in earnest." He is to
"glow" with the Spirit, and to "rejoice" in the hope of glory. He is to take practical,
provident pains to live not only aright, but manifestly aright, in ways which "all men" can
recognise. Again, his life is to be essentially social. He is contemplated as one who meets
other lives at every turn, and he is never to forget or neglect his relation to them.
Particularly in the Christian Society, he is to cherish the "family affection" of the Gospel;
to defer to fellow Christians in a generous humility; to share his means with the poor
among them; to welcome the strangers of them to his house. He is to think it a sacred
duty to enter into the joys and the sorrows round him. He is to keep his sympathies open

268. for despised people, and for little matters. Then again, and most prominently after all, he
is to be ready to suffer, and to meet suffering with a spirit far greater than that of only
resignation. He is to bless his persecutor; he is to serve his enemy in ways most practical
and active; he is to conquer him for Christ, in the power of a divine communion.
Thus, meanwhile, the life, so positive, so active in its effects, is to be essentially all the
while a passive, bearing, enduring, life. Its strength is to spring not from the energies of
nature, which may or may not be vigorous in the man, but from an internal surrender to
the claim and government of his Lord. He has "presented himself to God"; (Rom_6:13)
he has "presented his body, a living sacrifice". (Rom_12:1) He has recognised, with a
penitent wonder and joy, that he is but the limb of a Body, and that his Head is the Lord.
His thought is now not for his personal rights, his individual exaltation, but for the glory
of his Head, for the fulfilment of the thought of his Head, and for the health and wealth
of the Body, as the great vehicle in the world of the gracious will of the Head.
It is among the chief and deepest of the characteristics of Christian ethics, this passive
root below a rich growth and harvest of activity. All through the New Testament we find
it expressed or suggested. The first Beatitude uttered by the Lord (Mat_5:3) is given to
"the poor, the mendicant (πτωχοί) in spirit." The last (Joh_20:29) is for the believer, who
trusts without seeing. The radiant portrait of holy Love (1Co_13:1-13) produces its effect,
full of indescribable life as well as beauty, by the combination of almost none but
negative touches; the "total abstinence" of the loving soul from impatience, from envy,
from self-display, from self-seeking, from brooding over wrong, from even the faintest
pleasure in evil, from the tendency to think ill of others. Everywhere the Gospel bids the
Christian take sides against himself. He is to stand ready to forego even his surest rights,
if only he is hurt by so doing; while on the other hand he is watchful to respect even the
least obvious rights of others, yea, to consider their weaknesses, and their prejudices, to
the furthest just limit. He is "not to resist evil"; in the sense of never fighting for self as
self. He is rather to "suffer himself to be defrauded" (1Co_6:7) than to bring discredit on
his Lord in however due a course of law. The straits and humiliations of his earthly lot, if
such things are the will of God for him, are not to be materials for his discontent, or
occasions for his envy, or for his secular ambition. They are to be his opportunities for
inward triumph; the theme of a "song of the Lord," in which he is to sing of strength
perfected in weakness, of a power not his own "overshadowing" him. (2Co_12:9-10)
Such is the passivity of the saints, deep beneath their serviceable activity. The two are in
vital connection. The root is not the accident, but the proper antecedent of the product.
For the secret and unostentatious surrender of the will, in its Christian sense, is no mere
evacuation, leaving the house swept but empty; it is the reception of the Lord of life into
the open castle of the City of Mansoul. It is the placing in His hands of all that the walls
contain. And placed in His hands, the castle, and the city, will show at once, and
continually more and more, that not only order, but life, has taken possession. The
surrender of the Moslem is, in its theory, a mere submission. The surrender of the
Gospel is a reception also; and thus its nature is to come out in "the fruit of the Spirit."
Once more, let us not forget that the Apostle lays his main emphasis here rather on being
than on doing. Nothing is said of great spiritual enterprises; everything has to do with
the personal conduct of the men who, if such enterprises are done, must do them. This
too is characteristic of the New Testament. Very rarely do the Apostles say anything
about their converts’ duty, for instance, to carry the message of Christ around them in
evangelistic aggression. Such aggression was assuredly attempted, and in numberless
ways, by the primeval Christians, from those who were "scattered abroad" (Act_8:4)
after the death of Stephen onwards. The Philippians (Php_2:15-16) "shone as lights in

269. the world, holding out the word of life." The Ephesians (Eph_5:13) penetrated the
surrounding darkness, being themselves "light in the Lord." The Thessalonians
(1Th_1:8) made their witness felt "in Macedonia, and Achaia, and in every place." The
Romans; encouraged by St. Paul’s presence and sufferings, "were bold to speak the word
without." (Php_1:14) St. John (3Jn_1:7) alludes to missionaries who, "for the Name’s
sake, went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles."
Yet is it not plain that, when the Apostles thought of the life and zeal of their converts,
their first care, by far, was that they should be wholly conformed to the will of God in
personal and social matters? This Was the indispensable condition to their being, as a
community, what they must be if they were to prove true witnesses and propagandists
for their Lord.
God forbid that we should draw from this phenomenon one inference, however faint, to
thwart or discredit the missionary zeal now in our day rising like a fresh, pure tide in the
believing Church. May our Master continually animate His servants in the Church at
home to seek the lost around them, to recall the lapsed with the voice of truth and love.
May He multiply a hundredfold the scattered host of His "witnesses in the uttermost
parts of the earth,"’ through the dwelling places of those eight hundred millions who are
still pagan, not to speak of the lesser yet vast multitudes of misbelievers, Mahometan and
Jewish. But neither in missionary enterprise, nor in any sort of activity for God and man,
is this deep suggestion of the Epistles to be forgotten. What the Christian does is even
more important than what he says. What he is is the all-important antecedent to what he
does. He is "nothing yet as he ought to" be if, amidst even innumerable efforts and
aggressions, he has not "presented his body a living sacrifice" for his Lord’s purposes, not
his own; if he has not learnt, in his Lord, an unaffected love, a holy family affection, a
sympathy with griefs and joys around him, a humble esteem of himself, and the blessed
art of giving way to wrath, and of overcoming evil in "the good" of the presence of the
Lord.
PULPIT, “Let love be unfeigned (so is rendered elsewhere ἀνυπόκριτος in the Authorized
Version, cf. 2Co_6:6; 1Ti_1:5; 2Ti_1:5; 1Pe_1:22). Abhor (literally, abhorring) that which is
evil; cleave (literally,cleaving) to that which is good. The participles ἀποστυγοῦντες , etc.,
here and afterwards, may be understood as mildly imperative. Or perhaps the apostle connected
them in thought with ἡ ἀγάπη ἀνυπόκριτος , as if he had said, Love ye unfeignedly.
CHARLES SIMEO , “CHRISTIANDUTIESTO GOD ANDMANEXPLAINED
Rom_12:9-12. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to
another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; not slothful in business; fervent in
spirit; serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer.
THAT men, who wallow in all manner of uncleanness, should not like to hear the precepts of
religion, is easy to be ACCOUNTED for: but that persons professing godliness should be averse
to them, is surprising. Yet it is a fact, that many, whose lives, as far as we can see, are moral, pour

270. contempt upon moral instructions, as having no part in evangelical religion. But these persons are
directly at issue with that Apostle, whom they most exalt, and whom, in other respects, they affect to
follow. Who is more diffuse, who more minute, than the Apostle Paul, in the instructions which he
gives respecting Christian duties? Let us attend to those which are here inculcated. If we took them
singly, every one of them would furnish matter for a separate discourse: but, as the Apostle has
united them so closely together, we prefer taking them in their accumulated state; because, if by
means of it we lose somewhat in point of distinctness, that loss will be more than supplied by the
light which they will mutually reflect on each other, and the force that will be derived from a
combination of them all.
The Apostle here states the Christian’s duties,
I. In general—
[We must “abhor that which is evil, and cleave to that which is good.” The strength of these
expressions deserves particular attention. Had we been told to avoid what was evil, and to practise
what was good, it would have been sufficient for the regulation of our outward conduct. But religion
is to engage the heart; and is to rectify, not merely our acts, but our habits, our dispositions,
our taste [Note: Rom_8:5. ö ñ ï í ï ῦ ó é í .]. Sin must be hateful to us: and not gross sin only, but all
sin without exception. It is not merely to be formidable to us on ACCOUNT of its penal
consequences, but hateful on account of its odious qualities. As “God is of purer eyes than to
behold iniquity,” so are we to be of purer hearts than to regard it with any other feeling than that of
utter “abhorrence.” God calls it “that abominable thing which his soul hateth:” and in precisely the
same light should we view it. The circumstance of its being common, or fashionable, or profitable, or
pleasant, should make no difference in our feelings towards it; nor should we be at all more
reconciled to it, because the world choose to call it venial. Every deviation from God’s holy law,
every opposition to his revealed will, we should consider as debasing, defiling, damning; and every
temptation to depart so much as an hair’s breadth from the perfect line of rectitude, we should resist
even unto blood: “We should resist unto blood, striving against sin [Note: Heb_12:4.].”
In like manner, and to a like extent, we must “cleave unto that which is good,” or, as the word
imports, be glued unto it [Note: ê ï ë ë þ ì å í ï é , aggluminati. Beza.]. The effect of glue is to unite
things together with such a degree of tenacity, that they cannot afterwards be separated. Now in
this way should our souls, when once brought into contact with good, adhere to it, and form with it
an indissoluble union. Whether it be good principles or good practice that we are called to embrace,
we must never afterwards let them go: “We must buy the truth and sell it not.” Whatever force be
used to separate us from the thing which is really good, we must be firm and unmoved. If, like the
Hebrew Youths, we be menaced with a fiery furnace, we must be steadfast to our purpose, “not
counting our lives dear to us, so that we may but fulfil the will of God, and finish our course with joy

271. [Note: Act_20:24.].” To every one who would draw us from the path of duty, we must make this
reply, “Whether it be right to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye: for we cannot but do
what we know to be his will [Note: Act_4:19-20.].”]
The Apostle, having thus briefly declared our duty in general terms, proceeds to speak of it,
II. In a more specific manner—
Of those which he particularizes we shall be called to notice three; namely, the duties,
1. Of kindness—
[Here again the language is such as God alone could inspire. Such a sentiment as is here
expressed, we are well persuaded, never entered into the mind of an uninspired man: nor do we
conceive that it can be expressed with equal brevity and elegance in any other language under
heaven. Parents instinctively feel a most tender affection for their offspring. Even the brute creation
are penetrated with it perhaps as strongly as the human kind. It arises out of the relation in which
they stand to the object of their regards. Now such an ATTACHMENT we should feel towards all
the members of Christ’s mystical body: yea, we should not merely feel it, as from instinct,
but cultivate it from principle [Note: ö é ë ü ó ô ï ñ ã ï é .]. But, inasmuch as this may be only, as it
were, an animal feeling, we must have it tempered and REFINED “with brotherly love.” In
brotherly love there is an union proceeding from a correspondence of mind, and a reciprocation of
good offices and kind returns: and this feeling united with the former, knits together the hearts of
men in a way that cannot be expressed, nor indeed conceived by any, who are not themselves the
subjects of it. It exists not in nature: it is produced only by grace: but wherever it does exist, it raises
the object so high in our estimation, that we seem to ourselves low in comparison of him; and,
consequently, it makes us “prefer him in honour before ourselves.” This sentiment is always mutual:
each party casts a veil over the defects of the other, and views only his excellencies; whilst, on the
other hand, he is slow to admire his own virtues, and intent rather on humbling himself for his faults.
This disposition, I say, believers cultivate towards all who are of the household of faith; and all of
them thus meeting together upon the same ground, “each esteems the other better than himself
[Note: Php_2:3.].”
Now then we call upon you, brethren, to shew forth this fruit of the grace ye have received. This is
the kind of love, and this the measure, which you are to manifest towards all the children of God:
and in proportion only as you manifest it, have you any evidence that you belong to Christ
[Note: Joh_13:34-35 and 1Jn_3:14.]. “If you love him that begat, you cannot but love those who are
begotten of him.”]

272. 2. Of diligence—
[Religion is not a sentimental feeling only, but a practical and influential power. It produces energy
and activity in every soul in which it resides. It regards sloth as one of its most destructive
adversaries; and maintains against it an incessant warfare. Believer, hear your duty in relation to
this important matter: you must “not be slothful in business, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”
Whatever be the office which you have to perform, it is assigned you by the Lord Jesus Christ,
whose servant you are: and you must address yourself to it with an energy of mind, putting forth all
your vigour, to execute it as speedily and as completely as you can. You must shake off sloth and
listlessness; ever remembering, that “he who is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great
waster.” It is wisely ordained of God that “the idle soul shall suffer hunger, but that the diligent hand
shall make rich.” “Whatever therefore your hand findeth to do, do it with all your might.” The
consideration, that in all that you are called to do you serve the Lord Christ, should be a constant
stimulus to your mind. This is particularly and strongly set forth by the Apostle in relation to servants
[Note: Col_3:22-24.] — — — and it applies equally to every person under heaven. O, contemplate
that passage in reference to yourselves, and to all the duties of your place and station: and, whether
you have received more or less to trade with, labour to improve it to the utmost before the day of
reckoning shall arrive. But bear in mind, that your diligence will then only be regarded as a service
done to Christ, when you act from an immediate regard to his authority, and with a special view to
his glory.]
3. Of constancy—
[In your endeavours to serve the Lord, you will doubtless have to encounter many difficulties. There
will be “fightings without, and fears within.” But, whatever tribulation you may be called to suffer for
the Lord’s sake, you must look to the end for a sure and ample recompence of all your labours, and
patiently endure whatever God may see fit to lay upon you, calling upon him continually for mercy,
and for grace to help you in the time of need. This is the direction given you in our text; you are to
be “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, CONTINUING instant in prayer.” You are “never to
faint or be weary in well-doing;” but to take the promises of God as your support; and in humble
confidence that not one jot or tittle of them shall ever fail, you are to “hold fast the rejoicing of your
hope firm unto the end.” The husbandman plows in hope and sows in hope, and waits patiently for
the harvest: and thus must you do. There may be many a storm, and many a blighting wind; but you
must commit your every care to God, and expect from him a full, a rich, a sure reward: for Iris
unchanging promise is, that “in due season you shall reap, if you faint not.” At times you will find
prayer a most arduous task: there is in the heart of man a CONTINUAL proneness to draw back
from God, and to restrain prayer before him. But you must not yield to this sad propensity: you must
“continue instant in prayer;” knowing that, “if you ask not, you cannot have;” but if you persevere in
earnest and importunate supplications, you must, you cannot but, prevail; yea, you shall be “more

273. than conqueror over all” that can oppose your spiritual progress.]
See then from hence what true religion is;
1. How extensive in its offices!
[It comprehends the whole circle of good and evil; it prescribes a line of conduct for us in every thing
that relates either to God or man: it occupies, and calls forth into action, every faculty of the soul. Its
energies are universal, and without intermission. As reason sits at the helm, and directs the course
of the natural man, being so incorporated with him, as it were, as to regulate him unsolicited and
unperceived, so does religion preside in the soul of the spiritual man, and direct him in whatever
relates either to time or eternity. There is nothing, either great or small, on which it does not exert an
influence. O brethren, seek to have religion enthroned in your hearts, and performing in your minds
the same offices as reason executes in the minds of unconverted men. Let it be a living principle
within you, regulating your every action, word, and thought.]
2. How lovely in its operations!
[See religion putting Christ’s yoke upon rebellious man, and “bringing his every thought into captivity
to the obedience of Christ [Note: 2Co_10:5.]:” see it giving to man the very mind of Christ; making
him love what Christ loves, and hate what Christ hates, and walking in all things as Christ walked:
see it uniting in the bonds of tenderest love the whole family of Christ: see it stirring up every
member of that family to activity in all the duties of his place and station, that none shall have any
fault to find against him, or any negligence to lay to his charge: and lastly, see it bringing him into a
state of habitual fellowship with his God, and a blessed foretaste of the glory that shall be revealed.
Is not this good? is not this lovely? Yes, inexpressibly lovely is it: and if men “see not a beauty and a
comeliness in it for which it is to be desired,” it is because “they are blinded by the god of this world
[Note: 2Co_5:4.].” O beloved, seek to recommend the Gospel, by thus imbibing its spirit, and
exhibiting its efficacy in your lives. Let not your hatred of sin, or your love of holiness, be questioned
for one moment: but press forward in the habitual exercise of humble love, of unremitting diligence,
and of unshaken constancy; “that men, seeing your good works, may glorify your Father who is in
heaven.”]
GEORGE MATHESON, “"God is the strength of my heart"— Psalm lxxiii. 26.
WHY is God the strength of the heart ?

274. Because God is love. The strength
of the heart is not its steeling, but
its softening. How am I to bear the spectacle
of human sorrow ? I am often called to go into
such scenes, and it tries all my courage. What
shall be the ground of my courage; where shall
lie my strength for meeting the scene? Shall
I harden my heart? It is quite possible to do
so. But remember, to harden the heart is to
weaken the heart. You may purchase im-
munity from the pain of the spectacle; but it is
by the administration of chloroform. But I
will show you a more excellent way — the way,
not of the heart's weakness, but of its strength.
There is no power which strengthens the heart
like the fulness of its own love. There is noth-
ing which can bear scenes of misery like love
4* TIMES OF
itself. Why is this ? It is because all love has
hope in it. An inferior feeling would be less fit
to bear. Pity could not bear like love. Pity
does not mean hope; it sees only the dark side,
and so it often prompts to flight. But love has
no despair in it. There is ever a light in its
valley. It is always accompanied by its two
sisters — faith and hope; that is why it is the
strength of the heart.
Thou Christ of love, none could bear scenes
of sorrow like Thee. Thy disciples had less
love; therefore they were more easily over-
come. " Send her away, for she crieth after
us " was their plaint to Thee concerning the

275. suppliant woman. They had only the pain of
pity. Their nerves were irritated by the cry.
They wanted to shut their ears. Thou hadst
a deeper pain — love's pain — the pain that car-
ries promise in its bosom. They could not cast
out the sorrow by reason of their unbelief — un-
belief in the possibility of the cure. But Thou
hadst so much love that Thou couldst believe all
things. Why has the Lord " laid on Thee the
iniquities of us all " ? Because Thou hadst
more hardness than others? Nay; because
RETIREMENT 43
Thou hadst more love. The strength of Thy
heart was Thy tenderness; it was its "gentle-
ness that made Thee great." All the genera-
tions pressed upon the bridge, and the bridge
was not broken. Why? Not because it was
made of iron, but because it was made of velvet.
Thy love could bear all things because it could
believe all things. It could go before us into
Galilee — into all the Galilees of human pain.
It could outstrip us on the road to succour
earthly need, for it was, it is, the very strength
of God.
MACLARE , “LOVETHATCANHATE
Rom_12:9- Rom_12:10.
Thus far the Apostle has been laying down very general precepts and principles of Christian morals.
Starting with the one all-comprehensive thought of self-sacrifice as the very foundation of all
goodness, of transformation as its method, and of the clear knowledge of our several powers and

276. faithful stewardship of these, as its conditions, he here proceeds to a series of more specific
exhortations, which at first sight seem to be very unconnected, but through which there may be
discerned a sequence of thought.
The clauses of our text seem at first sight strangely disconnected. The first and the last belong to
the same subject, but the intervening clause strikes a careless reader as out of place and
heterogeneous. I think that we shall see it is not so; but for the present we but note that here are
three sets of precepts which enjoin, first, honest love; then, next, a healthy vehemence against evil
and for good; and finally, a brotherly affection and mutual respect.
I. Let love be honest.
Love stands at the head, and is the fontal source of all separate individualised duties. Here Paul is
not so much prescribing love as describing the kind of love which he recognises as genuine, and
the main point on which he insists is sincerity. The ‘dissimulation’ of the Authorised Version only
covers half the ground. It means, hiding what one is; but there is simulation, or pretending to be
what one is not. There are words of love which are like the iridescent scum on the surface veiling
the black depths of a pool of hatred. A Psalmist complains of having to meet men whose words
were ‘smoother than butter’ and whose true feelings were as ‘drawn swords’; but, short of such
consciously lying love, we must all recognise as a real danger besetting us all, and especially those
of us who are naturally inclined to kindly relations with our fellows, the tendency to use language
just a little in excess of our feelings. The glove is slightly stretched, and the hand in it is not quite
large enough to fill it. There is such a thing, not altogether unknown in Christian circles, as
benevolence, which is largely cant, and words of conventional love about individuals which do not
represent any corresponding emotion. Such effusive love pours itself in words, and is most
generally the token of intense selfishness. Any man who seeks to make his words a true picture of
his emotions must be aware that few harder precepts have ever been given than this brief one of
the Apostle’s, ‘Let love be without hypocrisy.’
But the place where this exhortation comes in the apostolic sequence here may suggest to us the
discipline through which obedience to it is made possible. There is little to be done by the way of
directly increasing either the fervour of love or the honesty of its expression. The true method
of SECURING both is to be growingly transformed by ‘the renewing of our minds,’ and growingly
to bring our whole old selves under the melting and softening influence of ‘the mercies of God.’ It is
swollen self-love, ‘thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think,’ which impedes the flow
of love to others, and it is in the measure in which we receive into our minds ‘the mind that was in
Christ Jesus,’ and look at men as He did, that we shall come to love them all honestly and purely.
When we are delivered from the monstrous oppression and tyranny of self, we have hearts capable
of a Christlike and Christ-giving love to all men, and only they who have cleansed their hearts by

277. union with Him, and by receiving into them the purging influence of His own Spirit, will be able to
love without hypocrisy.
II. Let love abhor what is evil, and cleave to what is good.
If we carefully consider this apparently irrelevant interruption in the sequence of the apostolic
exhortations, we shall, I think, see at once that the irrelevance is only apparent, and that the healthy
vehemence against evil and resolute clinging to good is as essential to the noblest forms of
Christian love as is the sincerity enjoined in the previous clause. To detest the one and hold fast by
the other are essential to the purity and depth of our love. Evil is to be loathed, and good to be clung
to in our own moral conduct, and wherever we see them. These two precepts are not mere
tautology, but the second of them is the ground of the first. The force of our recoil from the bad will
be measured by the firmness of our grasp of the good; and yet, though inseparably connected, the
one is apt to be easier to obey than is the other. There are types of CHRISTIAN MEN to whom it
is more natural to abhor the evil than to cleave to the good; and there are types of character of
which the converse is true. We often see men very earnest and entirely sincere in their detestation
of meanness and wickedness, but very tepid in their appreciation of goodness. To hate is,
unfortunately, more congenial with ordinary characters than to love; and it is more facile to look
down on badness than to look up at goodness.
But it needs ever to be insisted upon, and never more than in this day of spurious charity and
unprincipled toleration, that a healthy hatred of moral evil and of sin, wherever found and however
garbed, ought to be the CONTINUAL accompaniment of all vigorous and manly cleaving to that
which is good. Unless we shudderingly recoil from contact with the bad in our own lives, and refuse
to christen it with deceptive euphemisms when we meet it in social and civil life, we shall but feebly
grasp, and slackly hold, that which is good. Such energy of moral recoil from evil is perfectly
consistent with honest love, for it is things, not men, that we are to hate; and it is needful as the
completion and guardian of love itself. There is always danger that love shall weaken the
condemnation of wrong, and modern liberality, both in the field of opinion and in regard to practical
life, has so far condoned evil as largely to have lost its hold upon good. The criminal is pitied rather
than blamed, and a multitude of agencies are so occupied in elevating the wrong-doers that they
lose sight of the need of punishing.
Nor is it only in reference to society that this tendency works harm. The effect of it is abundantly
manifest in the fashionable ideas of God and His character. There are whole schools of opinion
which practically strike out of their ideal of the Divine Nature abhorrence of evil, and, little as they
think it, are thereby fatally impoverishing their ideal of God, and making it impossible to understand
His government of the world. As always, so in this matter, the authentic revelation of the Divine
Nature, and the perfect pattern for the human are to BE FOUND in Jesus Christ. We recall that

278. wonderful incident, when on His last approach to Jerusalem, rounding the shoulder of the Mount of
Olives, He beheld the city, gleaming in the morning sunshine across the valley, and forgetting His
own sorrow, shed tears over its approaching desolation, which yet He steadfastly pronounced. His
loathing of evil was whole-souled and absolute, and equally intense and complete was His cleaving
to that which is good. In both, and in the harmony between them, He makes God known, and
prescribes and holds forth the ideal of perfect humanity to men.
III. Let sincere and discriminating love be concentrated on CHRISTIAN MEN .
In the final exhortation of our text ‘the love of the brethren’ takes the place of the more diffused and
general love enjoined in the first clause. The expression ‘kindly affectioned’ is the rendering of a
very eloquent word in the original in which the instinctive love of a mother to her child, or the strange
mystical ties which unite members of a family together, irrespective of their differences of character
and temperament, are taken as an example after which CHRISTIAN MEN are to mould their
relations to one another. The love which is without hypocrisy, and is to be diffused on all sides, is
also to be gathered together and concentrated with special energy on all who ‘call upon Jesus
Christ as Lord, both their Lord and ours.’ The more general precept and the more particular are in
perfect harmony, however our human weakness sometimes confuses them. It is obvious that this
final precept of our text will be the direct result of the two preceding, for the love which has learned
to be moral, hating evil, and clinging to good as necessary, when directed to possessors of like
precious faith will thrill with the consciousness of a deep mystical bond of union, and will effloresce
in all brotherly love and kindly affections. They who are like one another in the depths of their moral
life, who are touched by like aspirations after like holy things, and who instinctively recoil with similar
revulsion from like abominations, will necessarily feel the drawing of a unity far deeper and sacreder
than any superficial likenesses of race, or circumstance, or opinion. Two men who share, however
imperfectly, in Christ’s Spirit are more akin in the realities of their nature, however they may differ on
the surface, than either of them is to another, however like he may seem, who is not a partaker in
the life of Christ.
This instinctive, Christian love, like all true and pure love, is to manifest itself by ‘preferring one
another in honour’; or as the word might possibly be rendered, ‘anticipating one another.’ We are
not to wait to have our place assigned before we give our brother his. There will be no squabbling
for the chief seat in the synagogue, or the uppermost rooms at the feast, where brotherly love
marshals the guests. The one cure for petty jealousies and the miserable strife for recognition,
which we are all tempted to engage in, lies in a heart filled with love of the brethren because of its
love to the Elder Brother of them all, and to the Father who is His Father as well as ours. What a
contrast is presented between the practice of Christians and these precepts of Paul! We may well
bow ourselves in shame and contrition when we read these clear-drawn lines indicating what we
ought to be, and set by the side of them the blurred and blotted pictures of what we are. It is

279. a PAINFUL but profitable task to measure ourselves against Paul’s ideal of Christ’s
commandment; but it will only be profitable if it brings us to remember that Christ gives before He
commands, and that conformity with His ideal must begin, not with details of conduct, or with
emotion, however pure, but with yielding ourselves to the God who moves us by His mercies, and
being ‘transformed by the renewing of our minds’ and ‘the indwelling of Christ in our hearts by faith.’
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “Let love be without dissimulation.
Christian legislation
Here are laws for--
I. Social intercourse. It must be--
1. Honest.
2. Pure.
3. Kind.
II. Business must be--
1. Diligent.
2. Conducted on Christian principles.
3. In the fear of God.
III. Temper.
1. Cheerful.

280. 2. Patient.
3. Prayerful.
IV. General behaviour.
1. Benevolent to all.
2. Humble.
3. Forbearing.
4. Peaceable. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Marks of the Christian character
I. Hatred of evil. “Abhor that which is evil.” Hate--
1. Trivial sins as well as great.
2. Secret as well as public.
3. Personal as well as social.
4. In thought as well as in act.
II. Steadfast goodness. “Cleave to that which is good.”
1. In temptation.

281. 2. In dishonour.
3. In persecution.
4. In suffering loss and danger.
III. Mutual love.
1. There is something to love in the worst of men.
2. Piety gives much to love and admire.
3. We must be stimulated by the love and example of Christ.
4. We ourselves want the love of all men.
5. Humility.
IV. Fervent industry.
1. Activity.
2. Piety.
3. Zeal.
V. Spiritual disposition.
1. Joy.
2. Patience.
3. Prayer.

282. 4. Hospitality.
5. Sympathy. (Family Churchman.)
Sincerity the best qualification of charity
Sincerity is an indispensable ingredient of goodness; it stamps a valuable character upon all our
actions, and recommends them to the favour both of God and man. It is an evidence of that respect
which we pay to our Creator, who is the great Discerner of the thoughts of our hearts; and an
instance of that justice which we owe to our fellow-creatures, who delight to converse with us with
freedom and security. Hypocrisy on the other side is the blackest of all transgressions, and bears
the badge of the original liar. It is directly injurious to the Divine nature, by pretending to elude His
infinite wisdom; and pernicious to human society, by deceitfully imposing upon their finite
understanding.
I. Let our love of God be without dissimulation. To love God without dissimulation is to love Him with
all our heart and mind and soul and strength; to rejoice in His presence, to be constant in His
service; and to let nothing share with Him in our hearts, so as to stand in competition with the duty
which we owe Him. Now there are two qualifications which will engage us to be thus sincere in
our affection. The one is the true value of the object of our love, and the other an assurance of
His TENDERNESS for us: but nowhere can we find these two strong inducements in so eminent
a degree as in almighty God; and therefore nowhere else can we possibly be obliged to pay so
hearty an affection as I just now mentioned.
II. Let our love of our neighbour be without dissimulation.
III. Let our love of ourselves be without dissimulation. To love ourselves without
dissimulation is carefully to consult our truest interest; to endeavour to advance by all
suitable means the real happiness both of our souls and bodies; to aim at the most lasting
and most solid enjoyments. (N..Brady.)

283. Religious affections
I. “let love be without dissimulation,” i.e. without any of that pretence which goes by the name of
acting. Actors represent characters which are not their own without intending to deceive; but in
proportion to the excellence of their performance is the degree of illusion in the beholder. Be sure
that you are not merely acting a part in your kindness to men or reverence to God. Feel what you
profess to feel. Think as you seem to think. Else is your life little other than stage play.
1. How do men commonly express their love of God? By prayers, praises, honouring God’s Word
and day and ordinances. But what if whilst they do all these things outwardly their hearts be far from
God?
2. As to our love towards each other: what can be more like acting than to conceal our dislike by
words of overstrained civility, or to offer a kindness which we wish never to have to do, or to inflict
chastisement on the plea of duty, when we are all the while gratifying revenge?
II. “abhor that which is evil.” Here we see what Christians are allowed to hate and how far they may
carry their hatred.
1. To wish that we might sin safely, to go as near to sin as seems anyhow allowable, and to envy
the wicked in their prosperity, and when out of fear or prudence we have left off their practices, how
far is this from abhorring evil?
2. Questions often arise as to whether it is fitting for a Christian to partake of this amusement, to
engage in that employment, or to enter into the other company. In such discussions many argue as
if it were desirable to take all the liberty they can. And frequently they act on the presumption that
what is easy to argue is safe also to do. But how different would be their conclusion if they would
but bear this text in mind! The mere suspicion that any conduct might possibly be wrong, should be
quite sufficient ground for us to desist. And where duty may seem to put us in temptation’s way, we
should at least take all the pains in our power to make it as little tempting to us as possible. We
inquire not, when we hear of plague or famine, of battle or murder, which road will take us most into
the way of them, but which will lead us altogether farthest off.

284. 3. To abhor evil in our food is to abominate excess; in our drinking, to detest drunkenness; in our
dress, to feel finery as great a burden to ourselves, as it is a folly in the eyes of others; in our
thoughts, to recoil from uncharitable suspicion and unkind intentions towards men, and from
unthankful regards to God; in our speech, to wish rather that our tongue should cleave unto our
mouth than utter one word of bitterness or deceit; in our business, to hate idleness, and yet to
loathe the very notion of heaping up hoards of wealth; in our dealings, to shrink with antipathy from
dishonesty or oppression, and from that love of this present world which is treason to our Saviour
Christ.
4. To abhor evil is not merely to avoid it because it is discreditable, not merely to fear to do it lest it
should bring us into trouble, but to hate it for its own sake, because God has forbidden it, and
especially because it was for the evil of our sins that Christ died on the Cross.
III. Cleave to that which is good.
1. Whatsoever our Lord has revealed to be believed, commanded to be done, given to be obtained
on earth, or promised to be enjoyed in heaven, this is that which is good; this is that which we
should so love as to cleave to it with the most fond and persevering affection. Constancy is the
highest excellence in love (Jam_1:8; Joh_13:1; Mat_24:13; Rom_2:7; 1Pe_5:9).
2. It is easy to think good thoughts for short seasons: but how easy to do evil between whiles! It is
easy to mean well: but how common to act ill! It is easy to form purposes of amendment; but how
seldom do these lead to a renewal of life! Let us, then, lay to heart this counsel of the text. When
once we have hold of any holy purpose let us never let it go. This is the only safe way to holiness
and heaven. We must serve God through Christ continually. (Canon Girdlestone.)
Love without dissimulation
I. What is this? Love should--
1. Proceed from the heart.

285. 2. Be expressed in the actions.
II. Why should we thus love? Otherwise it is--
1. Hypocrisy before God.
2. A deceiving of our neighbour.
3. No true love.
Conclusion: Love one another.
1. It is the fulfilling of the law (Rom_13:8-10).
2. The special command of Christ (Joh_13:34).
3. The principal mark of a true Christian (Joh_13:35). (Bp. Beveridge.)
Love without dissimulation
is sincere--
I. In feeling and motive.
II. In expression and deed; it abhors evil.
III. In its choice attachments; it cleaves to that which is good (J. Lyth, D.D.)

286. Dissimulating love
If disinterestedness is anywhere to be looked for, it is in love. Many of our faculties are known to be
venal. But one can hardly repress astonishment at the implication that this most princely of all the
soul’s attributes is, after all, bribable. Yet it is so; and love dissimulates whenever it expresses more
than it feels, and for an interested purpose. This we call blandishment. We trace this in--
I. The home. The gentle and unstudied ways of domestic love have nothing in the world to equal
them. But because of that they are counterfeited. The wife would fain stay the anger of the husband,
and she throws upon him an affection that she does not at all feel. He would fain charm away her
jealousy by an affectionateness of demeanour that has only a purpose in it, and not a heart. She
would subdue his obstinacy, and she throws round about him the arms of sweet caress, for the sole
purpose of changing his will and gaining her end. Is there no occasion, then, to say, “Let love be
without dissimulation”? If you would barter anything, let it not be the heart of love in man. I love the
sturdy honesty, the simplicity, the truthfulness of love; and I abhor the arts and wiles and gaieties of
love, that are mere baits.
II. The circle of friendship. Men are a thousand times more friendly than the capital of
friendship will allow. They behave to each other in a manner which is deceptive even where it
is a good-natured habit; but still more deceptive where it has an end in view, as constantly it
has. I do not refer to that general kindness which we ought to express toward all. I do not
criticise that etiquette, that kindly way, which real high breeding inspires. That is right. The
host should be glad to greet every guest; but what if he should impress upon every man the
feeling that he had the first place in the heart of his host? The artful addresses which are
continually made to the weaknesses of man as if they were virtues--the flattery of silence, of
surprise, of a well-timed start, of an interjection, of title and terms, is not honest. Although
there may be a half-consciousness in the victim that all this is feigned, yet it is too sweet to
be refused, and he is damaged by it as much as the person that uses it.
III. Coquetry. The dissembling some of the phases of love is a lure which both men and
women employ for the promotion of their personal pleasure and self-love. It is a common
trick to inspire those about you with an inordinate opinion of their worth in your eyes. To all

287. coquettes the apostle’s injunction should come most solemnly.
IV. Social life. There is a loathsome parasite which fastens on men and upon families--viz,
the toady. It is the business of such despicable creatures to suck out their own living by
assuming all the airs and practising all the blandishments of a true friendship. They praise
your words. They take your side in every quarrel. They are a false mirror in which you are
handsomer than you are really by nature. Such persons stop at no falseness. They wear all
the habiliments of affection only to soil them. They are the bloodsuckers of the heart. And
applied to such, the apostolic injunction is terribly pointed.
V. The world of business.
1. See the cunning confidential clerk, or confidential lawyer, that nestles under the wing of the rich
principal. See how in everything he praises him; how he avoids his anger; how he cripples every
element of manhood that he may still lie close to the favour of his rich patron--and all for his own
sake. Society is full of these despicable creatures.
2. But many a merchant will put on all the airs of a flatterer in order that he may manage a rebellious
creditor, or save a large debt, or prepare the way for a great success. A man comes down to the city
prepared to make LARGE PURCHASES . The one who gets that man gets a plum! And
straightway is anything too good for him? What are his vices? The clerk must feed them. He must
be invited home. Your noble-hearted wife resents it. The man’s character is questionable. “But,”
says the husband, “my interest depends upon our dining him. Mr. A. is going to dine him to-morrow,
and Mr, By next day; and he must come to our house to-day.” And hospitality has to be bribed, so
that when the man has been feasted and patted, it shall be easier to drive a good bargain with him.
And when the whole game has been played, the man smiles, and says, “I angled for him. He was
cautious, but rose to the bait, and I landed him!”
3. On what a large scale is this carried out! It is organised. Boards of direction carry out, as a part of
their schemes, the rites of hospitality. How are legislatures dined and wined! When rich, combined
capitalists wish to secure some great contract, or interest, how do they put on all the guises of
sympathy and intense consideration! How do they SPIN silver and golden webs upon men that
they laugh at behind their backs! And do men think that is wrong? It is said that “When a man is in
Rome, he must do as Romans do.” And when a man is in hell, I suppose, he must do as hellions do!
Business needs to hear God saying to it, “Let love be without dissimulation.”

288. VI. Politics. When once a man is bitten with the incurable fever of candidacy, see how first of all
things he begins to employ the language of strong personal regard toward every man that has a
vote. Before an election “condescension to men of low estate” seems to men to be the very fulness
of the Bible. A vote! a vote! Anything for a vote. But as soon as the vote has done its work, and the
office is secured, what a blessed balm of forgetfulness comes over him. He really does not know
anybody out of his own set. The hypocrite! (H. W. Beecher.)
Abhor that which is evil.
Abhorrence of evil
I. What evil.
1. Sin (1Jn_3:4).
2. Punishment (Isa_45:7).
II. What is it to abhor it?
1. Our settled judgment that it is evil.
2. A hatred to it for its own sake (Psa_119:113).
3. An aversion from it (Eze_33:11).
III. Why should we abhor it?

289. 1. It is contrary to God’s nature.
2. Repugnant to His laws (Joh_3:4).
3. Destructive to our souls.
IV. Means of exciting this abhorrence.
1. Always remember that you are Christians.
2. Avoid the occasions of sin (1Th_5:22).
3. Often think whom it displeases--the great God (Gen_39:9).
4. Live always as under His eye (Psa_139:7).
5. Remember that thou must answer for it (Ecc_11:9).
Conclusion:
1. Repent of sins already committed; for--
(1) By them you have incurred God’s displeasure (Psa_7:11).
(2) Made ourselves liable to punishment (Rom_6:23).
(3) There is no way to avoid either but by repentance (Luk_13:3).
2. Abhor it so as not to commit sin hereafter. Consider it is--
(1) the greatest folly (Psa_14:4; Psa_94:8).
(2) Slavery (Rom_6:20).
(3) Defilement (Jam_1:21; Mat_15:20; Job_15:16).

290. (4) Death of the soul (Rom_8:24; Eph_2:1).
3. Unless you abhor evil God will abhor you, and you will abhor, but ineffectually, evil and
yourselves too, to all eternity. (Bp. Beveridge.)
Abhorrence of evil
It is the peculiarity of Christianity that while it aims to exclude all sin from the heart, it does not
dismember the soul by excluding from it any faculty that is natural to it. Of these hatred is one--one
terribly liable to abuse, but rightly used a potent instrument in the suppression of evil.
I. What is evil? It is twofold. A hidden power in the soul--
1. Like the poison in the berry, or the deadly lightning hid in the thunder-cloud; and as it assumes a
concrete form in evil men, books, institutions, etc., i.e., evil appears in character and conduct. It is
guilt and pollution.
2. It is vice and crime; the one personal, the other social. Crimes sometimes shock us too much;
vices almost always too little.
II. What is it to abhor evil. Abhorrence is the opposite of love. Love seeks to possess the
object loved, and then to perpetuate it. Abhorrence casts the evil thing out of our heart, and
then seeks to chase it out of the world. It contains the ideas of separation and destruction.
III. Why we should abhor evil.
1. This is the very end for which Christ died--“to destroy the works of the devil.”
2. It is implied in sanctification which is separation to God, and therefore separation from evil in
thought, affection, purpose, practice.

291. 3. Your personal safety lies along that line, “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”
4. God employs the hatred of good men to sin as an instrument for its suppression in others.
5. No other course is open to us. We must not compromise with evil, we cannot utilise it, it is
impossible to control it; we must therefore either yield to it or cast it out.
IV. Difficulties and dangers.
1. Evil is associated with fine qualities. Don Juan and the Hebrew Lyrics are in the same volume.
There are paintings in the first style of art which would be best seen at midnight without a light.
Burke said, “Vice loses half its evil by losing all its grossness.”
2. Spurious charity. Ignorance, weakness may be used as a shield and pleaded as an excuse.
3. Social connections.
4. Self-interest.
5. Temperament. The violent and hasty, the easy and indolent are ever ready to extenuate or
condone evil.
6. Timidity which shrinks from the consequences of active strife against sin.
7. Familiarity with evil.
8. Diverging views.
9. Our innate love of evil. (W. Bell.)
The duty of abhorring evil
How many shun evil as inconvenient who do not abhor it as hateful; while yet the abhorrence of evil
here demanded of us implies a great deal more than that shunning which satisfies, as we often
think, every claim which can be made upon us. This vigorous abhorrence of evil has been the mark

292. of God’s saints and servants in all times, and from the very beginning. Let me rapidly gather a few
notable proofs. More than forty years had elapsed since that treacherous murder of the
Shechemites by Simeon and Levi; but with what a still lively abhorrence, as though it had been the
crime of yesterday, does the aged Israel, on his death-bed, disclaim any part or share in that bloody
act, and detect and denounce it:--“O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly,
mine honour, he not thou united.” Then, too, in a life which made many flaws, I mean in that of Lot,
the most honourable testimony which is anywhere borne to him is this, that he was “vexed with the
filthy conversation of the wicked”; that he “dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his
righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.” Still more plainly and signally does this
appear in David. Hear him, as he is speaking before a heart-searching God--“I hate the works of
them that turn aside”; “Do I not hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee?” with many more utterances to
the same effect. The same voice finds its utterance in other Psalms, which, though they be not
David’s, yet breathe the spirit of David. “How often, for example, and how strongly, in the 119th
Psalm--“I have vain thoughts”; or, again, “I beheld the transgressors and was grieved”; it was not,
that is, a thing indifferent to him, but pain and grief that men are breaking God’s law. And as with
these, so no less with the righteous kings of Judah in later times--the Asas, the Hezekiahs, the
Josiahs. What the others gave utterance to in word, these, as occasion offered, uttered and
expressed in deed. But most signally of all this abhorrence of evil comes out in Him of whom it is
written! “Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed
Thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” That “Get thee behind Me, Satan,” uttered once to
the adversary in the wilderness, was the voice of His heart at every instant, was the keynote to
which His whole life was set. If all holy men have felt this abhorrence of evil, it may be well worth
our while to inquire whether we have any of this righteous passion in our hearts.
1. And first, how fares it with us in regard of our temptations? Do we parley and dally with them, and
to have thus, as by a certain foretaste, some shadow of the pleasure of the sin without the guilt of
it? Do we plot and plan how near to the edge of the precipice we may go without falling over? Or do
we rise up against temptations so soon as once they present themselves to us, knowing them afar
off, indignant with ourselves that they should so much as once have suggested themselves to our
minds.
2. Again, the light in which a man regards the old sins into which he may have been betrayed is
instinctive, as furnishing an answer to this question, Does he really abhor what is evil?
3. But another important element is this self-examination, whether we be abhorrers of evil or no, is
this: In what language are we accustomed to talk of sin, and of the violations of God’s law? Have we
fallen into the world’s way, taken up the world’s language in speaking about all this?
4. But, once more, is the sin which is in the world around us a burden to our souls and spirits?

293. Could we with any truth take up that language of the Psalmist, “I beheld the transgressors, and was
grieved”? or, again, “Mine eyes run over with tears, because men keep not Thy law”? or that which
found its yet higher fulfilment in the Saviour Himself, “The reproaches of them that reproached Thee
are fallen upon me”? Or do we rather feel that if we can get pretty comfortably through life, and if
other men’s sins do not inconvenience or damage us, they are no great concern of ours, nothing
which it is any business of ours to fight against? If it be thus with us, we have not yet learned the
meaning of these words, “Abhor that which is evil.” One or two practical observations in conclusion.
Seeing then, that we ought to have this lively hatred of evil, that, tried by the tests that have been
suggested, there are probably few, if any, among us who have it to the extent we ought, how, we
may very fitly inquire, shall we obtain it? St. Paul tells us how, when in the same breath he bids us
to “abhor that which is evil,” and to “cleave to thatwhich is good.” It is only in nearer fellowship with
God, and by the inspiration of His Spirit, that we can learn our lesson of hating evil. It is in His light
only that we can see light or that we can see darkness. It is holiness that condemns unholiness; it is
only love which rebukes hate. Here, therefore, is the secret of abhorring evil, namely, in the dwelling
with or near the Good, and Him who is the Good. From Him we shall obtain weights and measures
of the sanctuary whereby to measure in just BALANCES the false and the true; from Him the
straight rule or canon which shall tell us what is crooked in our lives, what is crooked in the lives
around us. (Archbp. Trench.)
Abhorrence of evil
I. Every faculty has in itself a constitutional repugnance to that which to it is evil.
1. It is a part of its health that it should have this power of rebound. The lowest forms of this feeling
are simply those of dislike, then repugnance, then hatred, and then abhorrence. The very word, in
its etymology, signifies that kind of affright which causes the QUILL or the hair of an animal to
stand on end, and throws it into a violent tremor, and puts it into the attitude either of self-defence or
aggression, so that every part of it is stirred up with a consuming feeling.
2. Is it not a dangerous weapon to put into a man’s hands? It is a very dangerous weapon. So is
fire. We must therefore use it, and use it discreetly.
3. You must learn to be good haters--but not of men. Ah! there are hundreds of men that know how
to hate men, where there is one that knows how to love a man and hate evil. True, evil may in
extreme cases become so wrought into individual persons that we scarcely can distinguish the one

294. from the other; but ordinarily it is not so.
4. We are to hate all crimes against society. Whether these be within the express letter of the law or
not, whether they be disreputable in the greater measure or in the less is quite immaterial. We are
also to hate all qualities and actions which corrupt the individual; which INJURE manhood in
man; all that creates sorrow or suffering, or tends to do it.
II. The want of this moral rebound will be found to be ruinous. It destroys the individual to whom it is
lacking, and it is mischievous to the community in which it is lacking.
1. Hatred of evil is employed by God as one of those penalties by which evil is made to suffer in
such a way that it is intimidated and restrained. It makes evil hazardous. In a community where men
can do as they please, wickedness is bolder. Selfishness is hateful; and if men express their hatred
of it, selfish men are afraid to be as selfish as they want to be. Corrupt passions--the lava of the
soul, which overflows with desolating power at times in communities--are greatly restrained by
intimidations, by the threat of men’s faces, and by the thunder of men’s souls.
2. Abhorrence is indispensable to the purity of a man’s own self who is in the midst of a “perverse
and crooked generation.” Now, the expressions of this feeling are by reaction the modes in which
moral sense, the repugnance to evil is strengthened. And if you, for any reason, forbear to give
expression to the feeling, it goes out like fire that is smothered. A man is not worthy of the name of
man who has no power of indignation. I have heard it said of men that they died and had not an
enemy. Well, they ought to have died a great while before! For a true man, a man that knows how to
rebuke wickedness, finds enough of it to do in this world. Has a man lived forty or fifty or sixty years
and never rebuked wicked man enough to make that man hate him, so that you can put on his
tomb, “He has not left an enemy”? Why, I could put that on a cabbage field.
III. The lack of this abhorrence is pitiably seen--
1. In the pulpit. What are pulpits good for that go piping music over the heads of men who are guilty
of gigantic transgressions? It is sad to see pulpits that dare not call things by their right names. A
man had better be a John, and go into the wilderness clothed in camel’s hair, and eating locusts
and wild honey, than to be a fat minister in a fat pulpit, supporting himself luxuriously by betraying
God and playing into the hands of the devil.

295. 2. In public sentiment itself. It refuses to take high moral ground, and to be just and earnest. To a
certain extent the evil is less in newspapers, yet it is seen very glaringly there also. We are not
deficient in newspapers, which, when they are angry, avenge their prejudices and passions with
great violence. But to be calm, to be just, and then without fear or favour, discriminatingly but
intensely to mark and brand iniquity, and to defend righteousness--this is to make a newspaper a
sublime power over the community. Alas! that there should be so few such newspapers. I think it
high time that we should speak more frequently on this subject. The want of indignation at flagrant
wickedness is one of the alarming symptoms of our times. (H. W. Beecher.)
Abhorrence of evil
It needs no special meditation on natural history, if one meets a bear, a wolf, or a lion, to enable him
to determine what he shall do. There is no time for raising questions of fact. Men do not stop to say,
“After all, has not this leopard, that is so beautiful, been rather misunderstood? and may there not
be a way of treating him which shall win him to beauty within as fine as the beauty that is without?”
Men do not reason so about serpents, or scorpions, or tarantulas, or stinging creatures of any kind.
Men have a very short process of dealing with them; they treat them to the foot or to the hand
without hesitation; and they must, or accept annihilation, or else fly. Men are instant,
uncompromising in their action, at times, because there are certain great tendencies that stand
connected with a man’s life which, it has entered into the common sense of men, are so dangerous
that they are to be abhorred instantly. If one wants to carry a tarantula into the lecture-room for the
purpose of instruction in natural history, and wants to subject him to various experiments, that is one
thing; that is professional; but for common life, and for common folk, we kill such creatures.
(H. W. Beecher.)
Six should be hateful
Let me illustrate this very simply. Here is a knife with a richly-carved ivory handle, a knife of
excellent workmanship. Yonder woman, we will suppose, has had a dear child murdered by a cruel
enemy. This knife is hers, she is pleased with it, and prizes it much. How can I make her throw that
knife away? I can do it easily, for that is the knife with which her child was killed. Look at it; there is
blood still upon the handle. She drops it as though it were a scorpion; she cannot bear it. “Put it
away,” saith she, “it killed my child! Oh, hateful thing!” (C. H. Spurgeon.)

296. Cleave to that which is good.--
Cleaving to that which is good
I. What is good. That which has all things required to its perfection. There is--
1. Transcendent good, God (Luk_18:19).
2. Natural good, perfect in its nature (Gen_1:31).
3. Moral good, conformity to right reason (1Ti_2:3).
II. What is it to cleave to that which is good.
1. To approve of it.
2. To desire it.
3. To be constant in practising good works, so as to cleave to them and be one with them.
III. Why are we to cleave to that which is good. Because--
1. We are constantly receiving good from God.
2. We are commanded to be always doing good (Luk_1:75; Pro_23:17; Psa_119:96).
3. When we do not good we sin.
IV. How are we always to do good. To this is required--

297. 1. Faith in Christ.
(1) Nothing is in itself good, but what is done by His grace (Joh_15:5).
(2) Nothing accepted but by His merit (Isa_64:6; 1Pe_2:5).
2. It must be agreeable for the matter, to the Word of God (Isa_1:12).
3. Done in obedience to that Word (1Sa_15:22).
4. Understandingly (1Co_14:15).
5. Willingly (Psa_110:3).
6. Cheerfully (Psa_40:8).
7. With the utmost of our power (Ecc_9:10).
8. In faith (Rom_14:23).
9. Humbly.
(1) Not vainly thinking that good works come from thyself (2Co_3:5).
(2) Nor expecting salvation by them.
10. To the glory of God (Mat_5:16; 1Co_10:31).
V. Cleave to that which is good, so as always to do it. Consider:
1. How honourable an employment it is (1Sa_2:30). The work--
(1) Of angels (Heb_1:14).
(2) Of Christ (Act_10:38).
(3) Of God (Gen_1:1-31.).

298. 2. How pleasant.
(1) Thy conscience will hereby be void of offence (Act_24:16).
(2) Thy heart rejoicing in the love of God (Php_4:4).
3. How profitable. Hereby thou wilt gain--
(1) Honour to thy religion.
(2) God’s favour to thyself (Isa_66:2).
(3) An assurance of thy interest in Christ (Jam_2:26).
(4) The concurrence of all things to thy good (Rom_8:28).
(5) Eternal happiness (Mat_25:46). (Bp. Beveridge.)
Cleaving to theft which is good
We all know how the ivy clings to the wall or to the tree, casts out innumerable little arms and
tentacles by which it attaches and fastens itself to it, seeking to become one with it, to grow to it, so
that only by main force the two can be torn asunder. It is something of this kind which is meant here.
In such fashion cleave to that which is good; and if “to that which is good,” then, as the sole
condition of this, to Him that is good, who is the Good, the Holy, the Just One. (Abp. Trench.)
10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.

299. Honor one another above yourselves.
Barclay, “We must be affectionate to one another in brotherly love. The word Paul
uses for affectionate is philostorgos, and storge is the Greek for family love. We
must love each other, because we are members of one family. We are not strangers
to each other within the Christian Church; much less are we isolated units; we are
brothers and sisters, because we have the one father, God.”
BAR ES, “Be kindly affectioned - The word used here occurs no where else in the
New Testament. It properly denotes tender affection, such as what subsists between
parents and children; and it means that Christians should have similar feelings toward
each other, as belonging to the same family, and as united in the same principles and
interests. The Syriac renders this, “Love your brethren, and love one another;” compare
1Pe_2:17.
With brotherly love - Or in love to the brethren. The word denotes the affection
which subsists between brethren. The duty is one which is often presented in the New
Testament, and which our Saviour intended should be regarded as a badge of
discipleship; see the note at Joh_13:34-35, “By this shall all people know that ye are my
disciples, if ye have love one to another;” Joh_15:12, Joh_15:17; Eph_5:2; 1Th_4:9;
1Pe_1:22; 1Jo_2:7-8; 1Jo_3:11, 1Jo_3:23; 1Jo_4:20-21. The apostle Paul in this place
manifests his unique manner of writing. He does not simply enjoin brotherly love, but he
adds that it should be kindly affectioned. It should be with the tenderness which
characterizes the most endearing natural relationship. This he expresses by a word which
is made for the occasion (φιλοστοργοᆳ philostorgoi), blending love with natural affection,
and suffering it to be manifest in your contact with one another.
In honour - In showing or manifesting respect or honor. Not in seeking honor, or
striving after respect, but in showing it to one another.
Preferring one another - The word “preferring” means going before, leading,
setting an example. Thus, in showing mutual respect and honor, they were to strive to
excel; not to see which could obtain most honor, but which could confer most, or
manifest most respect; compare 1Pe_1:5; Eph_5:21. Thus, they were to be studious to
show to each other all the respect which was due in the various relations of life; children
to show proper respect to parents, parents to children, servants to their masters, etc.;
and all to strive by mutual kindness to promote the happiness of the Christian
community. How different this from the spirit of the world; the spirit which seeks, not to
confer honor, but to obtain it; which aims, not to diffuse respect, but to attract all others
to give honor to us. If this single direction were to be obeyed in society, it would put an
end at once to no small part of the envy, and ambition, and heartburning, and
dissatisfaction of the world. It would produce contentment, harmony, love, and order in
the community; and stay the progress of crime, and annihilate the evils of strife, and
discord, and malice. And especially, it would give order and beauty to the church. It
would humble the ambition of those who, like Diotrephes, love to have the pre-eminence
3Jo_1:9, and make every man willing to occupy the place for which God has designed
him, and rejoice that his brethren may be exalted to higher posts of responsibility and

300. honor.
CLARKE, “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love - It is
difficult to give a simple translation of the original: τᇽ φιλαδελφιᇮ εις αλληλους
φιλοστοργοι. The word φιλαδελφια signifies that affectionate regard which every Christian
should feel for another, as being members of the same mystical body: hence it is
emphatically termed the love of the brethren. When William Penn, of deservedly famous
memory, made a treaty with the Indians in North America, and purchased from them a
large woody tract, which, after its own nature and his name, he called Pennsylvania, he
built a city on it, and peopled it with Christians of his own denomination, and called the
city from the word in the text, φιλαδελφια, Philadelphia; an appellation which it then
bore with strict propriety: and still it bears the name.
The word φιλοστοργος, which we translate kindly affectioned, from φιλος and στοργη,
signifies that tender and indescribable affection which a mother bears to her child, and
which almost all creatures manifest towards their young; and the word φιλος, or φιλεω,
joined to it, signifies a delight in it. Feel the tenderest affection towards each other, and
delight to feel it. “Love a brother Christian with the affection of a natural brother.”
In honor preferring one another - The meaning appears to be this: Consider all
your brethren as more worthy than yourself; and let neither grief nor envy affect your
mind at seeing another honored and yourself neglected. This is a hard lesson, and very
few persons learn it thoroughly. If we wish to see our brethren honored, still it is with the
secret condition in our own minds that we be honored more than they. We have no
objection to the elevation of others, providing we may be at the head. But who can bear
even to be what he calls neglected? I once heard the following conversation between two
persons, which the reader will pardon my relating in this place, as it appears to be rather
in point, and is worthy of regard. “I know not,” said one, “that I neglect to do any thing in
my power to promote the interest of true religion in this place, and yet I seem to be held
in very little repute, scarcely any person even noticing me.” To which the other replied:
“My good friend, set yourself down for nothing, and if any person takes you for
something it will be all clear gain.” I thought this a queer saying: but how full of meaning
and common sense! Whether the object of this good counsel was profited by it I cannot
tell; but I looked on it and received instruction.
GILL, “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love,.... This is one
branch of that love, before advised to, which should be unfeigned, and without guile and
deceit. The objects of this grace are "brethren", not in such sense as all the descendants
of Adam are, or men of the same country be, or as such who are born of the same parents
in a natural sense are; to each of whom love is due under their respective characters and
relations: but such who are so in a spiritual sense, who are born of God, are of his
household, belong to his family, are the brethren of Christ, and one another; and are
either members of the same church, incorporated together in the same church state, or at
least members of Christ, and of the church universal. Now love to these should be kind,

301. tender, and affectionate, reciprocal and mutual; such should love one another; there
should be no love wanting on either side; and it ought to be universal, and reach to all
the saints, though of different gifts, light, knowledge and experience, or whether high or
low, rich or poor; and should show itself by bearing one another's burdens, bearing with,
and forbearing each other, forgiving one another, and by edifying one another in their
most holy faith, and praying with, and for one another.
In honour preferring one another; saints should think honourably of one another,
and entertain an honourable esteem of each other; yea, should esteem each other better
thou themselves; and not indulge evil surmises, and groundless jealousies of one
another, which is contrary to that love that thinks no evil. They should speak honourably
of each other in Christian company, and discourage that evil practice of whisperings,
backbitings, and innuendos; they should treat each other with honour and respect in
their common conversation, and especially when met together as a church of Christ.
They should go before each other in giving honour, and showing respect, as the word
προηγουµενος, signifies: they should set each other an example; and which also may be
taken into the sense of the word, should prevent one another, not waiting until respect is
shown on one side to return it again. Nor does this rule at all break in upon that order
that should subsist, and be maintained in bodies civil and ecclesiastical, which requires
superior honour to be given to persons according to their character, office, and station in
which they are.
HE RY, “To our friends. He that hath friends must show himself friendly.
There is a mutual love that Christians owe, and must pay.
(1.) An affectionate love (Rom_12:10): Be kindly affectioned one to another, with
brotherly love, philostorgoi - it signifies not only love, but a readiness and inclination to
love, the most genuine and free affection, kindness flowing out as from a spring. It
properly denotes the love of parents to their children, which, as it is the most tender, so it
is the most natural, of any, unforced, unconstrained; such must our love be to one
another, and such it will be where there is a new nature and the law of love is written in
the heart. This kind affection puts us on to express ourselves both in word and action
with the greatest courtesy and obligingness that may be. - One to another. This may
recommend the grace of love to us, that, as it is made our duty to love others, so it is as
much their duty to love us. And what can be sweeter on this side heaven than to love and
be beloved? He that thus watereth shall be watered also himself.
(2.) A respectful love: In honour preferring one another. Instead of contending for
superiority, let us be forward to give to others the pre-eminence. This is explained,
Phi_2:3, Let each esteem other better than themselves. And there is this good reason for
it, because, if we know our own hearts, we know more evil by ourselves than we do by
any one else in the world. We should be forward to take notice of the gifts, and graces,
and performances of our brethren, and value them accordingly, be more forward to
praise another, and more pleased to hear another praised, than ourselves; tē timē
proēgoumenoi - going before, or leading one another in honour; so some read it: not in
taking honour, but in giving honour. “Strive which of you shall be most forward to pay
respect to those to whom it is due, and to perform all Christian offices of love (which are
all included in the word honour) to your brethren, as there is occasion. Let all your
contention be which shall be most humble, and useful, and condescending.” So the sense

302. is the same with Tit_3:14, Let them learn, proistasthai - to go before in good works. For
though we must prefer others (as our translation reads it), and put on others, as more
capable and deserving than ourselves, yet we must not make that an excuse for our lying
by and doing nothing, nor under a pretence of honouring others, and their
serviceableness and performances, indulge ourselves in ease and slothfulness. Therefore
he immediately adds (Rom_12:11), Not slothful in business.
JAMISO , “Be, etc. — better, “In brotherly love be affectionate one to another; in
[giving, or showing] honor, outdoing each other.” The word rendered “prefer” means
rather “to go before,” “take the lead,” that is, “show an example.” How opposite is this to
the reigning morality of the heathen world! and though Christianity has so changed the
spirit of society, that a certain beautiful disinterestedness and self-sacrifice shines in the
character of not a few who are but partially, if at all under the transforming power of the
Gospel, it is only those whom “the love of Christ constrains to live not unto themselves,”
who are capable of thoroughly acting in the spirit of this precept.
VWS, “Be kindly affectioned (φιλόφιλόφιλόφιλόστοργοιστοργοιστοργοιστοργοι)
Only here in the New Testament. From στέργω to love, which denotes peculiarly a
natural affection, a sentiment innate and peculiar to men as men, as distinguished from
the love of desire, called out by circumstance. Hence of the natural love of kindred, of
people and king (the relation being regarded as founded in nature), of a tutelary God for
a people. The word here represents Christians as bound by a family tie. It is intended to
define more specifically the character of φιλαδελφία brotherly love, which follows, so that
the exhortation is “love the brethren in the faith as though they were brethren in blood”
(Farrar). Rev., be tenderly affectioned; but the A.V., in the word kindly gives the real
sense, since kind is originally kinned; and kindly affectioned is having the affection of
kindred.
In honor preferring one another (τሀ τιµሀ ᅊλλήτሀ τιµሀ ᅊλλήτሀ τιµሀ ᅊλλήτሀ τιµሀ ᅊλλήλουςλουςλουςλους προηγούπροηγούπροηγούπροηγούµενοιµενοιµενοιµενοι).
The verb occurs only here. It means to go before as a guide. Honor is the honor due
from each to all. Compare Phi_2:3; 1Pe_2:17; 1Pe_5:5. Hence, leading the way in
showing the honor that is due. Others render antcipating and excelling.
CALVI , “10.With brotherly love, etc. By no words could he satisfy himself in SETTING forth
the ardor of that love, with which we ought to embrace one another: for he calls it brotherly, and its
emotion στοργὴν affection, which, among the Latins, is the mutual affection which EXISTS
between relatives; and truly such ought to be that which we should have towards the children of
God. (391) That this may be the case, he subjoins a precept very necessary for the preservation of
benevolence, — that every one is to give honor to his brethren and not to himself; for there is no
poison more effectual in alienating the minds of men than the thought, that one is despised. But if by
honor you are disposed to understand every act of friendly kindness, I do not much object: I
however approve more of the former interpretation. For as there is nothing more opposed to
brotherly concord than contempt, arising from haughtiness, when each one, neglecting others,
advances himself; so the best fomenter of love is humility, when every one honors others.

303. (391) It is difficult to render this clause: [Calvin ] ’ words are, “Fraterna charitate ad vos mutuo
amandos propensi;” so [Beza ]. The Apostle joins two things — mutual love of brethren, with the
natural love of parents and children, as though he said, “ your brotherly love have in it the
affectionate feelings which exists between parents and children.” “ brotherly love, be mutually full
of TENDER affection,” [Doddridge ]. “ brotherly love, be kindly disposed toward each other,”
[Macknight ]. It may be thus rendered, “ brotherly love, be TENDERLY affectionate to one
another.”
[Calvin ] ’ version of the next clause is, “Alii alios honore praevenientes;” so [Erasmus ] ; τὣ τιµὣ
ἀλλήλους προηγούµενοι “honore alii aliis praeuntes — in honor (that is, in conceding honor) going
before one another,” [Beza ], [Piscator ], [Macknight ]. It is thus explained by [Mede ], “ not for honor
from others, but be the first to concede it.” The participle means to take the lead of, or outrunning,
one another.” See Phi_2:3 — Ed.
PULPIT, “n brotherly love ( φιλαδελφίᾳ ) be kindly affectioned ( φιλόστοργοι ) one to
another ( φιλαδελφία , expressing the love of Christians for each other, is a special form or
manifestation of generalἀάπη . In it there should be ever the warmth of family
affection, στοργή ); in honour preferring one another; literally, according to the proper sense
of προηγούµενοι , taking the lead of each other in honour—i.e., in showing honour, rather than
equivalent to ἀλλήλους ἡγούµενοι ὑπερέχοντας ἑαυτῶν in Php_2:3.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love.
Duties of Christians to each other
1. All men ought to love each other as men because brethren by Adam. The world is one common
family, split up by sin, but to be united again by Christian love.
2. All Christians ought to love each other, because begotten by one Spirit. Grace has done little for
those who indulge in the same feelings as unregenerate worldlings.
3. All Christian Churches ought to love each other because under the rule of the same King. Alas,
how little do we see of this! Paul lays down three rules for the guidance of Christians towards each
other.
I. Be kindly affectioned. The world’s morality says, Take care of self. Paul teaches the reverse.
Scoffers say that many moral men are better than professors. Not better than true professors. And
besides, the world must remember that it is indebted to Christianity for its high-toned morality.
Christianity has developed the spirit of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice in the world. The
affection of the text is not the sympathy, assistance and respect which prevail among moral men,
but an affection begotten of love to God.
II. In brotherly love. What more beautiful than a harmonious family--defending each other’s
characters, and caring for each other’s wants. This--only purer, brighter, more fervent--should be

304. seen in the Church. Each Christian should defend his brother, help the weak, and regard all with
unbounded CHARITY . Brotherly love avoids saying or doing anything that would offend the
modesty or honour of a brother.
III. In honour preferring one another. In love and honour outdoing each other. Taking the lead,
showing the example in giving honour. How often we strive to outdo each other in getting honour! If
there must be contention, let it be an honest strife who shall be most humble and useful. We should
in honour prefer one another because--
1. We know ourselves best. We know our evil hearts, and looking into them, we can easily believe
that others are better and more deserving.
2. It would curb uncharitable thought, and uncharitable speech.
3. It would tend to the cultivation of the grace of humility.
Lessons:
1. Cherish no evil towards a brother. No Church can prosper which is not united by the love of God.
2. Resentment is almost sure to beget resentment.
3. He that would be the most honoured must be the most humble. (J. E. Hargreaves.)
Kindly affection and brotherly love
The words in the original are more strong and specific than in our translation. The being kindly
affectioned is expressed by a term which means the love of kindred, or by some called instinctive;
and which is far more intense than the general good liking that obtains between man and man in
society, or than ordinary friendship. And, to stamp upon it a still greater peculiarity and force,
“brotherly love” is added to it--an affection the distinction of which from that of charity is clearly
brought out by Peter (1:7), “And to brotherly kindness add charity”--the same with brotherly love in
the original; and as distinct from general love or charity in the moral, as the magnetic attraction is
from the general attraction of gravity in the material world. This more special affinity which binds
together the members of the same family; and even of wider communities, as when it establishes a
sort of felt brotherhood, an esprit de corps, between citizens of the same town, or inhabitants of the
same country, or members of the same profession, and so originates the several ties of
consanguinity or neighbourhood or patriotism--is nowhere exemplified in greater force than among
the disciples of a common Christianity, if theirs be indeed the genuine faith of the gospel. It is in fact
one of the tests or badges of a real discipleship (1Jn_3:14). It gives rise to that more special
benevolence which we owe to the “household of faith” (Gal_6:10), as distinguished from the
common beneficence which we owe “unto all men,” and which stood so visibly forth in the first ages
among the fellow-worshippers of Jesus as to have made it common with observers to say, “Behold
how these Christians love each other.” (T. Chalmers, D.D.)
Kindly affection and brotherly love

305. I. Wherein are we to express our affection to one another?
1. In desiring one another’s good (1Ti_2:1).
2. In rejoicing in one another’s prosperity (Rom_12:15).
3. In pitying one another’s misery (Rom_12:15; Isa_63:9).
4. In forgiving one another’s I JURIES (Mat_6:14-15).
5. In helping one another’s necessities (1Jn_3:17-18).
II. Why so kindly affectioned.
1. We are commanded to do it (Joh_13:34).
2. No other command can be performed without this (Rom_13:10).
3. Neither can we love God without it (1Jn_3:17).
4. This is true religion (Jam_1:27).
5. Because we are all brethren--
(1) In Adam as to the flesh (Act_22:1).
(2) In Christ as to the Spirit (1Co_15:58; Php_1:14).
Conclusion: Be kindly affectioned to all persons. Objections:
1. They are wicked.
(1) Thou canst not say that they are more wicked than thyself (1Ti_1:15).
(2) They may be saved, and thou lost (Mat_7:1).
(3) Thou art to hate their sins, yet love them (Psa_99:8).
2. They wronged me.
(1) Thou knowest not but their iniquity was thy good, as in Joseph’s brethren.
(2) Thou hast I JURED God (Mat_6:14-15).
(3) Their sins cannot absolve thee from thy duty.
3. But they are still my enemies. Then thou hast a special command to love them
(Mat_5:44; Mat_5:46). (Bp. Beveridge.)

306. Kindness, words of: their influence
Good words do more than hard speeches, as the sunbeams, without any noise, will make the
traveller cast off his cloak, which all the blustering winds could not do, but only make him bind it
closer to him. (Abp. Leighton.)
Brotherly love
All men are objects of God’s compassion; and we are required to approve ourselves His children by
manifesting a like spirit of love towards all men (Lev_19:18; Luk_10:25-37). But as a man, while
cherishing affection for every man, is required also to have special affection or his country, near
kindred, and very specially his parents, wife, and children; so a Christian is required to cultivate a
peculiar affection towards his fellow-Christians.
I. The ground or reason of this special brotherly affection. Their common special relationship to God
and through Him to each other. They are “all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” The
model for this love is the example furnished by Him who is “the Firstborn among many brethren”
(Joh_15:12-13; 1Jn_3:16; Eph_4:32; Eph_5:1-2). The special reasons are--
1. The world’s hatred (Joh_15:18-19; Mar_10:28-30). It was doubtless in anticipation of the
manifestation of this affection.
2. The more effectual advancement of Christ’s kingdom in the world (Joh_13:31-35; Joh_17:11-21).
3. That the mutual oversight and care necessary to promote each other’s spiritual perfection might
be ensured (Php_2:4; 1Th_5:14; Heb_10:24; Col_3:16; Gal_5:13).
II. Its special characteristics.
1. Kindly or family affection. The word öéëḯóôïñãïò expresses properly the strong natural affection
between parents and children. Love here is within a sacred enclosure, being more conscious of a
common interest, and more profoundly affected by the joy or grief, the success or failure of any one
within the circle. On this ACCOU T it is more jealous of the character and reputation of its
alive to things which outside that sacred circle would hardly be considered worthy of notice.
2. Emulousness to take the lead in showing respect to the brethren. “In honour preferring one
another” (Php_2:3). The apostle’s meaning is not that, in respect to honour, we are to strive to excel
or to anticipate each other; although of course there is a sphere for legitimate rivalry. And as every
one may lawfully covet earnestly the best gifts, so every one ought to endeavour so to excel in all
goodness. But it is more agreeable to the context to render, “In yielding, or giving honour to each
other, taking the lead,” i.e., Let every one of you so love the brethren as to set an example of true
Christian courtesy. (W. Tyson.)

307. Brotherly love
I. It is possible to be in some measure kindly affectioned one to the other, without having that love of
which the apostle speaks. There is a natural affection in man’s heart--the love of parents and
children, brothers and sisters. This affection may often be seen strongly in those who are strangers
to true religion.
II. How greatly is this affection exalted when grafted with a higher principle of Christian love. The
grace of God does not destroy natural affection, but increases and purifies.
1. It springs from higher and purer motives--from love to God and a sincere endeavour to obey the
command of Christ, that “we should love one another.”
2. It aims at higher ends--the glory of God, and the spiritual good of those we love.
3. It gives more entire confidence one with another.
4. It is more certain, more steady.
5. It spreads wide. While it seeks first the happiness of those most near and dear, it embraces also
all who are of the household of faith.
III. The ways in which this affection wilt show itself.
1. In the honourable preference of one another; in lowliness of mind, esteeming others better than
ourselves.
2. In a constant kindness, obligingness, and courteousness; teaching us to avoid everything which
is grating and PAI FUL to the feelings of others.
3. In bearing and forbearing much, and in readily forgiving.
4. In giving faithful counsel, and, if need be, faithful reproof to others.
5. In praying for others.
IV. Scriptural examples, to practise it.
1. Joseph.
2. Jonathan for David. (E. Blencowe, M.A.)

308. In honour preferring one another.
I. The honour done to others.
1. An acknowledgment of what is excellent in others.
(1) Authority (1Pe_2:17).
(2) Superiority.
(3) Virtue (Pro_12:26).
2. Expressed by outward signs (Gen_42:6; Act_26:25).
II. How are we to prefer one before another?
1. By having modest thoughts of ourselves (Pro_26:12).
2. By having a just esteem of others’ excellencies (1Pe_2:17).
3. By accounting all others better than ourselves (Php_2:3; Isa_65:5).
III. Why should we do so? It will--
1. Preserve peace.
2. Avoid confusion.
3. Manifest ourselves Christians. (Bp. Beveridge.)
11 ever be lacking in zeal, but keep your
spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

309. Barclay, “We must not be sluggish in zeal. There is a certain intensity in the
Christian life; there is no room for lethargy in it. The Christian cannot take things
in an easy-going way, for the world is always a battleground between good and evil,
the time is short, and life is a preparation for eternity. The Christian may burn out,
but he must not rust out.
Barclay, “We must keep our spirit at boiling point. The one man whom the Risen
Christ could not stand was the man who was neither hot nor cold (Rev. 3:15-16).
Today people are apt to look askance upon enthusiasm: the modern battle-cry is "I
couldn't care less." But the Christian is a man desperately in earnest; he is aflame
for Christ.
Barclay, “Paul's seventh injunction may be one of two things. The ancient
manuscripts vary between two readings. Some read, "Serve the Lord" and some
read, "Serve the time." that is, "Grasp your opportunities." The reason for the
double reading is this. All the ancient scribes used contractions in their writing. In
particular the commoner words were always abbreviated. One of the commonest
ways of abbreviating was to miss out the vowels--as shorthand does--and to place a
stroke along the top of the remaining letters. ow the word for Lord is kurios and
the word for time is kairos, and the abbreviation for both of these words is krs. In a
section so filled with practical advice it is more likely that Paul was saying to his
people, "Seize your opportunities as they come." Life presents us with all kinds of
opportunities--the opportunity to learn something new or to cut out something
wrong; the opportunity to speak a word of encouragement or of warning; the
opportunity to help or to comfort. One of the tragedies of life is that we so often fall
to grasp these opportunities when they come. "There are three things which come
not back--the spent arrow, the spoken word, and the lost opportunity."
BAR ES, “Not slothful - The word rendered “slothful” refers to those who are slow,
idle, destitute of promptness of mind and activity; compare Mat_25:16.
In business - τሀ σπουδሀ tē spoudē. This is the same word which in Rom_12:8 is
rendered “diligence.” It properly denotes haste, intensity, ardor of mind; and hence, also
it denotes industry, labor. The direction means that we should be diligently occupied in
our proper employment. It does not refer to any particular occupation, but is used in
general sense to denote all the labor which we may have to do; or is a direction to be
faithful and industrious in the discharge of all our appropriate duties; compare
Ecc_9:10. The tendency of the Christian religion is to promote industry:
(1) It teaches the value of time.
(2) Presents numerous and important things to be done.
(3) It inclines people to be conscientious in the improvement of each moment.
(4) And it takes away the mind from those pleasures and pursuits which generate and
promote indolence.
The Lord Jesus was constantly employed in filling up the great duties of his life, and

310. the effect of his religion has been to promote industry wherever it has spread both
among nations and individuals. An idle man and a Christian are names which do not
harmonize. Every Christian has enough to do to occupy all his time; and he whose life is
spent in ease and in doing nothing, should doubt altogether his religion. God has
assigned us much to accomplish; and he will hold us answerable for the faithful
performance of it; compare Joh_5:17; Joh_9:4; 1Th_4:11; 2Th_3:10, 2Th_3:12. All that
would be needful to transform the idle, and vicious, and wretched, into sober and useful
people, would be to give to them the spirit of the Christian religion; see the example of
Paul, Act_20:34-35.
Fervent - This word is usually applied to water, or to metals so heated as to bubble, or
boil. It hence is used to denote ardor, intensity, or as we express it, a glow, meaning
intense zeal, Act_18:25.
In Spirit - In your mind or heart. The expression is used to denote a mind filled with
intense ardor in whatever it is engaged. It is supposed that Christians would first find
appropriate objects for their labor, and then engage in them with intense ardor and zeal.
Serving - Regarding yourselves as the servants of the Lord. This direction is to be
understood as connected with the preceding, and as growing out of it. They were to be
diligent and fervid, and in doing so were to regard themselves as serving the Lord, or to
do it in obedience to the command of God, and to promote his glory. The propriety of
this caution may easily be seen.
(1) The tendency of worldly employments is to take off the affections from God.
(2) People are prone to forget God when deeply engaged in their worldly employments.
It is proper to recall their attention to him.
(3) The right discharge of our duties in the various employments of life is to be
regarded as serving God. He has arranged the order of things in this life to promote
employment. He has made industry essential to happiness and success; and hence, to be
industrious from proper motives is to be regarded as acceptable service of God.
(4) He has required that all such employments should be conducted with reference to
his will and to his honor, 1Co_10:31; Eph_6:5; Col_3:17, Col_3:22-24; 1Pe_4:11. The
meaning of the whole verse is, that Christians should be industrious, should be ardently
engaged in some lawful employment, and that they should pursue it with reference to the
will of God, in obedience to his commands, and to his glory.
SBC, “The Results of Slothfulness.
I. We frequently meet people who, on extraordinary occasions, or stimulated by some
special inspiration, will exert much diligence and take great pains to produce something
excellent and commendable, but who at all other times are slatternly and indolent, caring
nothing, so long as a duty be performed, how slovenly may be the performance. It is
against such a temper as this that our text directs its emphasis. You are not to be slothful
in business—in any business whatever. Let us prevail upon men to be industrious, and
we shall have called out the powers and formed the habits which religion most tasks in
its commencement and demands in its progress. The industrious man, no matter what
lawful objects have occupied his industry, is comparatively the most likely man to receive
the gospel, and certainly the fittest, when it has once been received, for its peculiar and
ever-pressing requirements. Every man takes a step towards piety who escapes from a
habit of sloth.
II. God may be served through the various occupations of life, as well as through the
more special institutions of religion. It needs only that a man go to his daily toil in simple

311. obedience to the will of his Maker, and he is as piously employed, aye, and is doing as
much towards securing for himself the higher recompenses of eternity, as when he
spends an hour in prayer or joins himself gladly to the Sabbath-day gathering. The
businesses of life are as so many Divine institutions, and if prosecuted in a spirit of
submission to God and with an eye to His glory, they are the businesses of eternity,
through which the soul grows in grace, and lasting glory is secured. If men are but
fervent in spirit, if, that is, they always carry with them a religious tone and temper, then
they are serving the Lord, through their being not slothful in business.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1793.
CLARKE, “Not slothful in business - That God, who forbade working on the
seventh day, has, by the same authority, enjoined it on the other six days. He who
neglects to labor during the week is as culpable as he is who works on the Sabbath. An
idle, slothful person can never be a Christian.
Fervent in spirit - Τሩ πνευµατι ζεοντες· Do nothing at any time but what is to the
glory of God, and do every thing as unto him; and in every thing let your hearts be
engaged. Be always in earnest, and let your heart ever accompany your hand.
Serving the Lord - Ever considering that his eye is upon you, and that you are
accountable to him for all that you do, and that you should do every thing so as to please
him. In order to this there must be simplicity in the Intention, and purity in the
Affections.
Instead of τሩ Κυριሩ δουλευοντες, serving the Lord, several MSS., as DFG, and many
editions, have τሩ καιρሩ δουλευοντες, serving the time - embracing the opportunity. This
reading Griesbach has received into the text, and most critics contend for its
authenticity. Except the Codes Claromontanus, the Codex Augiensis, and the Codex
Boernerianus, the first a MS. of the seventh or eighth century, the others of the ninth or
tenth, marked in Griesbach by the letters DFG, all the other MSS. of this epistle have
Κυριሩ, the Lord; a reading in which all the versions concur. Καιρሩ, the time, is not found
in the two original editions; that of Complutum, in 1514, which is the first edition of the
Greek Testament ever printed; and that of Erasmus, in 1516, which is the first edition
published; the former having been suppressed for several years after it was finished at
the press. As in the ancient MSS. the word Κυριሩ is written contractedly, Κ , some
appear to have read it καιρሩ instead of Κυριሩ; but I confess I do not see sufficient reason
after all that the critics have said, to depart from the common reading.
GILL, “Not slothful in business,.... Meaning not worldly business, or the affairs of
life; though slothfulness in this respect is scandalous to human nature, and especially in
persons under a profession of religion; men should diligently pursue their lawful callings
for the support of themselves and families, and the interest of Christ: but spiritual
business, the affairs of piety and religion, the service of God, private and public, to which
we should not be backward, nor slothful in the performance of; such as preaching,
hearing, reading, praying, and other ordinances of God; yea, we should be ready and

312. forward to every good work, and particularly, and which may be here greatly designed,
ministering to the poor saints in their necessity; in doing which we show that kind,
tender, affectionate, brotherly love, and give that honour and respect, at least that part of
it, which is relief, required in the foregoing verse; see Heb_6:10. Remarkable is that
saying of R. Tarphon (m),
"The day is short, and the work great, ‫עצלים‬ ‫,והפועלים‬ "and workmen slothful", and the reward
much, and the master of the house is urgent.''
Fervent in spiritFervent in spiritFervent in spiritFervent in spirit; in their own spirits, for the glory of God, the honour of Christ, and the cause of
religion, in imitation of Christ himself, and as Phinehas and Elijah were; which fervency of spirit
is opposed to that lukewarmness of soul, Rev_3:16, that coldness of affection, and leaving of the
first love, Rev_2:4, so much complained of, and resented by Christ in his people: or else in the
Spirit of God; for there may be fervency in men's spirits, which comes not from the Spirit of God,
as in the Jews, and particularly Saul, before his conversion, who had "a zeal of God, but not
according to knowledge", Rom_10:2; but when "the love of God is shed abroad in the heart" by
the Spirit of God, Rom_5:5, this will make a man's spirit fervent in the service of God, for which
the apostle would have these believers concerned. A disciple of the wise men among the Jews is
(n) said to be ‫,רתח‬ "fervent", because the law is as a boiling pot unto him; much more should a
disciple of Christ be fervent, who has the Gospel of Christ, the love of God, and the grace of the
Spirit to inflame his soul with true zeal and fervour.
Serving the LordServing the LordServing the LordServing the Lord; some copies read, "serving time": the likeness of the words, καιρος and κυριος,
especially in an abbreviation, may have occasioned this different reading; which should it
be followed, is not to be understood in an ill sense, of temporizing, or time serving, of
men's accommodating themselves, their sentiments and conduct, according to the times
in which they live, in order to escape reproach and persecution; but of redeeming the
time, improving every season to do good, and taking every opportunity of serving God.
But as the reading our version follows is confirmed by authentic copies, and by the
Syriac, and other Oriental versions, it is best to adhere to it: by "the Lord" is here meant
either God, Father, Son, and Spirit, who are the alone object of divine service and
religious worship; or the Lord Jesus Christ, who most frequently goes by the name of
Lord in the New Testament; and who is the one Lord, whose we are and whom we should
continually serve, being under the greatest obligations to him, not only as our Creator,
but as our head, husband, and Redeemer. Very rightly does the apostle premise fervency
in spirit to serving the Lord; for without the Spirit of God there is no true worshipping
and serving of him, and which ought to be done with fervency as well as with constancy.
The Syriac version renders it, "serve our Lord".
HE RY, “When this is done, to serve him in all manner of gospel obedience.
Some hints of this we have here (Rom_12:11, Rom_12:12), Serving the Lord.

313. Wherefore do we present ourselves to him, but that we may serve him?
Act_27:23, Whose I am; and then it follows, whom I serve. To be religious is
to serve God. How? (1.) We must make a business of it, and not be slothful in
that business. Not slothful in business. There is the business of the world,
that of our particular calling, in which we must not be slothful, 1Th_4:11.
But this seems to be meant of the business of serving the Lord, our Father's
business, Luk_2:49. Those that would approve themselves Christians
indeed must make religion their business - must choose it, and learn it, and
give themselves to it; they must love it, and employ themselves in it, and
abide by it, as their great and main business. And, having made it our
business, we must not be slothful in it: not desire our own ease, and consult
that, when it comes in competition with our duty. We must not drive on
slowly in religion. Slothful servants will be reckoned with us wicked
servants. (2.) We must be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. God must be
served with the spirit (Rom_1:9; Joh_4:24), under the influences of the
Holy Spirit. Whatever we do in religion it is pleasing to God no further than
it is done with our spirits wrought upon by the Spirit of God. And there must
be fervency in the spirit - a holy zeal, and warmth, and ardency of affection
in all we do, as those that love God not only with the heart and soul, but with
all our hearts, and with all our souls. This is the holy fire that kindles the
sacrifice, and carries it up to heaven, an offering of a sweet-smelling savour.
- Serving the Lord. Tō kairōTō kairōTō kairōTō kairō douleuntesdouleuntesdouleuntesdouleuntes (so some copies read it), serving the
time, that is, improving your opportunities and making the best of them,
complying with the present seasons of grace. (3.) Rejoicing in hope. God is
worshipped and honoured by our hope and trust in him, especially when we
rejoice in that hope, take a complacency in that confidence, which argues a
great assurance of the reality and a great esteem of the excellency of the
good hoped for. (4.) Patient in tribulation. Thus also God is served, not only
by working for him when he calls us to work, but by sitting still quietly when
he calls us to suffer. Patience for God's sake, and with an eye to his will and
glory, is true piety. Observe, Those that rejoice in hope are likely to be
patient in tribulation. It is a believing prospect of the joy set before us that
bears up the spirit under all outward pressure. (5.) Continuing instant in
prayer. Prayer is a friend to hope and patience, and we do in it serve the
Lord. ProskarterountesProskarterountesProskarterountesProskarterountes. It signifies both fervency and perseverance in prayer.
We should not be cold in the duty, nor soon weary of it, Luk_18:1; 1Th_5:17;
Eph_6:18; Col_4:2. This is our duty which immediately respects God.
HAWKER, “The Results of Slothfulness.
I. We frequently meet people who, on extraordinary occasions, or stimulated by some
special inspiration, will exert much diligence and take great pains to produce something
excellent and commendable, but who at all other times are slatternly and indolent, caring
nothing, so long as a duty be performed, how slovenly may be the performance. It is
against such a temper as this that our text directs its emphasis. You are not to be slothful
in business—in any business whatever. Let us prevail upon men to be industrious, and
we shall have called out the powers and formed the habits which religion most tasks in
its commencement and demands in its progress. The industrious man, no matter what
lawful objects have occupied his industry, is comparatively the most likely man to receive

314. the gospel, and certainly the fittest, when it has once been received, for its peculiar and
ever-pressing requirements. Every man takes a step towards piety who escapes from a
habit of sloth.
II. God may be served through the various occupations of life, as well as through the
more special institutions of religion. It needs only that a man go to his daily toil in simple
obedience to the will of his Maker, and he is as piously employed, aye, and is doing as
much towards securing for himself the higher recompenses of eternity, as when he
spends an hour in prayer or joins himself gladly to the Sabbath-day gathering. The
businesses of life are as so many Divine institutions, and if prosecuted in a spirit of
submission to God and with an eye to His glory, they are the businesses of eternity,
through which the soul grows in grace, and lasting glory is secured. If men are but
fervent in spirit, if, that is, they always carry with them a religious tone and temper, then
they are serving the Lord, through their being not slothful in business.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1793.
JAMISO , “not slothful in business — The word rendered “business” means “zeal,”
“diligence,” “purpose”; denoting the energy of action.
serving the Lord — that is, the Lord Jesus (see Eph_6:5-8). Another reading -
“serving the time,” or “the occasion” - which differs in form but very slightly from the
received reading, has been adopted by good critics [Luther, Olshausen, Fritzsche,
Meyer]. But as manuscript authority is decidedly against it, so is internal evidence; and
comparatively few favor it. Nor is the sense which it yields a very Christian one.
CALVI , “11.Not slothful in business, etc. This precept is given to us, not only because a
Christian life ought to be an ACTIVE life; but because it often becomes us to overlook our own
benefit, and to spend our labors in behalf of our brethren. In a word, we ought in many things to
forget ourselves; for except we be in earnest, and diligently strive to shake off all sloth, we shall
never be rightly prepared for the service of Christ. (392)
By adding fervent in spirit, he shows how we are to attain the former; for our flesh, like the ass, is
always torpid, and has therefore need of goals; and it is only the fervency of the Spirit that can
correct our slothfulness. Hence diligence in doing good requires that zeal which the Spirit of God
kindles in our hearts. Why then, some one may say, does Paul exhort us to cultivate this fervency?
To this I ANSWER , — that though it be the gift of God, it is yet a duty enjoined the faithful to
shake off sloth, and to cherish the flame kindled by heaven, as it for the most part happens, that the
Spirit is suppressed and extinguished through our fault.
To the same purpose is the third particular, serving the time: for as the course of our life is short,
the OPPORTUNITY of doing good soon passes away; it hence becomes us to show more
alacrity in the performance of our duty. So Paul bids us in another place to redeem the time,
because the days are evil. The meaning may also be, that we ought to know how to accommodate
ourselves to the time, which is a matter of great importance. But Paul seems to me to set in
opposition to idleness what he commands as to the serving of time. But as κυρίῳ the Lord, is read
in many old copies, though it may seem at first sight foreign to this passage, I yet dare not wholly to
reject this reading. And if it be approved, Paul, I have no doubt, meant to refer the duties to be

315. performed towards brethren, and whatever served to cherish love, to a service done to God, that he
might add greater encouragement to the faithful. (393)
(392) “Studio non pigri ,” τὣ σπουδὣ µὴ ὀκνηροι “ not slothful in haste,” that is, in a matter requiring
haste. “ must strive,” says [Theophylact ], “ assist with promptness those whose circumstances
require immediate help and relief.” — Ed
(393) The BALANCE of evidence, according to [Griesbach ], is in favor, of τῷ καιρῷ “” though
there is much, too, which countenances the other reading. [Luther ], [Erasmus ], and [Hammond ]
prefer the former, while [Beza ], [Piscator ], [Pareus ], and most of the moderns, the latter. The most
suitable to the context is the former. — Ed.
PULPIT, “In business (rather, diligence) not slothful; in spirit fervent (we are to do with
our might whatever our hand finds to do; yea, with fervent zeal); serving the Lord. For τῷ
Κυρίῳ , (the Lord), some manuscripts have τῷ καιρῷ (the time, or the opportunity), which reading is
preferred by some commentators on the ground that it is less likely to have been instituted for the
familiar τῷ Κυρίῳthan vice versa. But τῷ Κυρίῳ is best supported, and has an obvious meaning,
vie. that in the zealous performance of all our duties we are to feel that we are serving the Lord.
GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE, “Business
Not slothful in business.—Rom_12:11 (AV).
If we take the word “business” in this text in the sense of trade or occupation, we may make the text
a starting-point for a consideration of the relation between business and religion. Let us put the
question thus: Is it possible to be a Christian in business? And let us endeavour to answer it by
answering the following questions:—
I. What is Business?
II. What hinders one from being a Christian in Business?
III. What helps one to be a Christian in Business?
I
Whatis Business?
The word “business” has come to mean much in our daily speech. Its meaning, as we use it, cannot
be expressed by any single word in any other language. Like “home” and “neighbour,” it enshrines a
tradition and stands for a history. It means a vast department of human activity, in which all the
movements of labour and commerce are included. It now stands for a far reaching estate, which,
though it cannot be claimed that the Anglo-Saxon race created it, has undoubtedly been organized

316. by English-speaking peoples, who have made it the controlling power in the modern political world.
The old sneer that the English are a nation of shopkeepers has lost its point though not its truth.
More than all other secular agencies, the business enterprise of the English-speaking races has
blessed the human race. It has led the van in the triumphal progress of Christian civilization. It has
opened up continents, peopled deserts, and whitened solitary seas with the sails of commerce.
Thus the old English word “business” has come to have a definite and noble meaning. It stands for
a mighty commonwealth wherein men and nations are intimately related to each other. It has its
own laws, enacted by the Supreme Law-giver, which senates and parliaments do not need to enact
and cannot set aside. It enforces these laws by the swift and unerring awards of success or failure.
It builds its own capitals in many lands on spots designated by God Himself, and in them it erects
stately palaces which far outstrip the pride and magnificence of former ages. It has its own leaders,
and it sets one up and pulls another down according as each obeys or disobeys its behests. Kings
and cabinets are obedient to its commands. Armies are now little more than its auxiliaries, the hired
mercenaries with which it protects its interests. A monarch surrounded by Oriental pomp in his
Eastern capital dares to interfere with the interests of a lumber company in Burma. An English
expeditionary army sets out from Calcutta, marches to Mandalay, dethrones that mad and foolish
king, and sees to it that the injured lumber company shall cut their logs of teak on the mountains of
Burma in security and peace. When Muscovite or Austrian ambition marshals its legions, or Moslem
fanaticism musters its Asiatic hordes, the business interests of Europe and the world call a halt to
the fierce armies and insist that peace shall not be broken or war declared except as they shall
dictate. The success or failure of campaigns, of diplomacy, of statesmanship is registered instantly,
in all the world’s markets, in the rise or fall of prices, in the establishment or impairment of business
confidence. And so it has come to pass that almost all the practical concerns of the world have
fallen under the influence of its potent mastery, and yield to the demands and movements of
business.
When we go behind these general considerations, however, we find that this great commonwealth
rests on God’s enactment. When He commanded man to replenish the earth and subdue it, He
issued His royal charter to business. Business means the appropriation and subjection of the world
by man to himself. Beginning with agriculture, which is its simplest form, and rising through all
grades of industrial and commercial activity, whatsoever subdues the external world to man’s will,
and appropriates its power, its beauty, its usefulness, is business; and whoso worthily engages in it
is helping to carry out God’s design, and is so far engaged in His service. To conquer the earth, and
force the wild fen or stony field to bring forth bread to gladden the heart of man; to level useless
hills, and say to obstructive mountains, Be ye removed from the path of progress; to summon the
lightnings to be his messengers, and cause the viewless winds to be his servants; to bring all the
earth into subjection to human will and human intelligence—this is man’s earthly calling, and history
is but the progressive accomplishment of it. Therefore it is that, rightly regarded, business is a

317. department of Christian activity. Therefore it is to be said and insisted on that the worthy business of
everyday life is a department of genuine Christian culture that ought to be pursued with high aims
and lofty motives, not only for what it enables man to do, but chiefly for what it enables man to be in
the exercise of his kingly function and in the development of his kingly character.
Now there are three aspects in which business may be considered by the follower of Christ.
1. It is a means of EARNING a livelihood.—In other words, it is a WAY OF MAKING MONEY .
Now if we consider it, we shall see that money, honestly earned, represents so much good done in
the world. You produce what the world wants, and you get paid for it by those who want it. And, in
that, you have done a positive good, and your profit has a moral value in it, as representing a want
supplied and a fellow-man advantaged. Thus, the farmer who does his best with his fields is doing a
duty not only to himself, but to his fellow-men and his God; for his fellow-men need his corn, and
God desires his services in feeding His children. The manufacturer in his mill, the merchant on the
Exchange, the trader in his shop may all feel the same—that the Great Master needs them because
the Master’s world needs them, and that diligence in their several callings is not only necessary in
order to earn their daily bread, but that honour and religion call upon them to lose no time, and
dissipate no faculty, and squander no power.
I once had a clerk who, being a very dazzling genius, led me into many postal difficulties. The
quantities of paper that boy went through are not to be stated without long and serious thought. That
was, however, comparatively a trifle. The gifted youth put the letters in the wrong envelopes, and
used foreign stamps for inland correspondence with a prodigal hand. This was genius. This was the
noble-mindedness which soars above the mean region of details. When I sent him away, his mother
complained of my being “severe,” and, looking at me with large and reproachful eyes, said, in an
annihilating tone, “And you a minister!”1 [Note: Joseph Parker, Well Begun, 69.]
2. It is a debt to society.—It is an equivalent which we have to pay to society for our share of its
advantages. Every man gets his share of the privileges of society. He gets his food three times a
day; he gets his clothes; and he gets some kind of lodging to defend him from the wind and
weather. These society has to fetch for him from afar. His tea is brought from China; his rice from
India; the cotton he wears from America; the timber of the roof above his head from Norway. Now,
for these advantages which society confers on the individual she demands in return his day’s work.
If she is well satisfied with it she may give him finer clothes, finer food, finer lodging, and even add
delightful extras—like a good house, wife and children, desirable friends, books, pictures, travel,
and the like. But the principle is the same all through—that you must give your day’s work for your
share of society’s advantages. Some speculators in our day hold that man has a natural right to
these things. When a child is born, they maintain, it has a right to be fed, to be clothed, to be
housed. Well, perhaps a child has; but an able-bodied man has not, unless he is ready to work for

318. them. It is the law of the Bible and the law of common sense that if any man do not work neither
shall he eat.
It is necessary that we should be fed and clothed. Or we may put it in another way and say, God
wants us to be fed and clothed. He, therefore, who helps to feed and clothe us by his skill, his
labour, or his enterprise, is not only a public benefactor, but a doer of God’s will. The merchant who
sends his ships to bring here the produce of other lands, and to take to other lands the productions
of our own, is really discharging one of the great duties of natural religion, at the same time that he
is earning honourable wealth; and, if he is successful, his profit is not only an honourable profit, well
earned and richly deserved, but it is, in a sense, God’s blessing on him as a faithful servant. He may
never have thought of God from beginning to end; but what he has done is in full accord with the
Divine mind and plan. Nay! the man who spends his working day in merely baking bread, or in
laying one brick upon another, or in paving streets, is doing part of the world’s needed work, and is
offering daily Divine service; for God wants men fed, and houses built, and streets made; and thus
the humblest toiler—at forge or loom, in the shop or in the street—may lift up his head and say, “I
also am a servant of the Great Master—a subject of the Universal Lord and King.”1 [Note: J. P.
Hopps.]
I do not see how it consists with the temper of Christianity that any Christian should busy himself
and spend his days for what is undisguisedly and exclusively a selfish result. The business of every
Christian in this world is really not to serve himself only, but to serve his generation and his God. In
every other calling he is bound to do that, and, in proportion as his Christian motives animate him,
he actually does it. Why not in trade and commerce? Work is dignified to all of us workers only
when we can feel that what we are doing has some worth or value to society besides the pay it
brings to the workers. Is business any fair exception to that rule? Does the merchant serve no public
advantage? Is his not a ministry by which the world benefits? Most assuredly it is. The banker, the
trader, the commission merchant, the stockbroker are useful because they either facilitate
production itself or else they assist those great carrying agencies by which earth’s productions
become available to all the earth’s scattered populations. You cannot justify the existence of any
human industry except on the broad ground of its utility. Then I ask you this: Is it not a nobler and
more Christian spirit which keeps the utility of one’s work in view and feels itself to be the minister of
the needs of society than is the sordid temper which is perpetually thinking of nothing but its pay?
For, of course, from this point of view, the profits of business are simply pay, simply that which
accrues to every honest and useful occupation, whatever form it may take, of salary, or interest on
capital, or profit drawn from extended labour and increased value of commodity. A trader’s gain is
his wage, and his moral right to it rests ultimately on the fact that he is a useful member of society,
that he ministers in a way of his own to the common weal.2 [Note: J. Oswald Dykes.]
3. It is a discipline of character.—If rightly and wisely conducted there is no better discipline for the

319. formation of character than business. It teaches in its own way the peculiar value of regard for
others’ interests, of spotless integrity, of unimpeachable righteousness; and the busy activities of
life, considered in themselves, are good and not evil. They are a part of God’s great work, and are
as much His appointment as the services of praise and prayer. I think we all need to be reminded of
the dignity and sacredness of a worthy everyday life. God’s Kingdom includes more than the
services of the sanctuary. The court-house is His temple too, and so is the chamber of commerce. It
is just as holy a thing to work as it is to pray; and the distribution of commerce, the helpfulness of
trade, the feeding and sheltering of those belonging to us, and all the honourable ministries in which
a high-minded business man engages are just as truly a part of God’s service, if men could see and
feel them to be so, as is the function of the preacher. But then, as St. Paul never failed to teach,
these things are means, not an end. Their value lies not in themselves, but in the discipline, the
character, the power which they give to do higher things.
Alexander T. Stewart, of New York, was probably the greatest merchant of his time. He built up his
vast fortune by concentration of purpose, and by exercising the qualities of the born “man.” He
began life as a school-assistant, but soon saw greater possibilities in storekeeping. Without
hesitation he made the change which some might have thought a step down the ladder. For years
his working hours were from fourteen to eighteen per day. He carried out on his own shoulders the
goods he sold, and thus saved the wages of a porter. The store speedily expanded. In course of
time his industry, zeal, and capable perseverance made him a millionaire. Integrity of morals is very
often a chief factor in preparing any prosperity that deserves the name. Stewart had in his
establishment the fixed trading principle, “Honesty between buyer and seller.” He was materially
helped by the popular knowledge of the fact.1 [Note: W. J. Lacey, Masters of To-morrow,
16.]
(1) God intended business life to be a school of energy. He has started us in the world, giving us a
certain amount of raw material out of which we are to hew our own character. Every faculty needs to
be reset, sharpened. And when a man for ten, or fifteen, or twenty, or thirty years has been going
through business activities, his energy can scale any height, can sound any depth. Now, God has
not spent all this education on us for the purpose of making us more successful worldlings. He has
put us in this school to develop our energy for His cause and Kingdom. There is enough
unemployed talent in the churches and the world to-day to reform all empires and all kingdoms and
people in three weeks.
(2) Again, God intended business life to be to us a school of knowledge. Merchants do not read
many books, or study many lexicons, yet through the force of circumstances they become intelligent
on questions of politics, and finance, and geography, and jurisprudence, and ethics. Business is a
hard schoolmistress. If her pupils will not learn in any other way, with unmerciful hand she smites
them on the head and on the heart with inexorable loss. Expensive schooling; but it is worth it.

320. Traders in grain must know about foreign harvests. Traders in fruit must know about the prospects
of tropical production. Owners of ships come to understand winds, and shoals, and navigation. And
so every bale of cotton, and every raisin cask, and every tea box, and every cluster of bananas
becomes literature to our business men. Now, what is the use of all this intelligence unless
they give it to Christ? Does God give us these opportunities of brightening the intellect and of
increasing our knowledge merely to get larger treasures and greater business? Can it be that we
have been learning about foreign lands and people that dwell under other skies, and yet have no
missionary spirit?
(3) God intended business life to be to us a school of patience. How many little things there are in
one day’s engagements to disquiet us! Men will break their engagements. Collecting agents will
come back empty-handed. Tricksters in business will play upon what they call the “hard times,”
when in any times they never pay. Goods are placed on the wrong shelf. Cash books and money
drawer are in a quarrel. Goods ordered for a special emergency fail to come, or they are damaged
on the way. People who intend no harm go about shopping, unrolling goods they do not mean to
buy, and try to break the dozen. Men are obliged to take other people’s notes. More counterfeit bills
are in the drawer. There are more bad debts. There comes another ridiculous panic. How many
have gone down under the pressure, and have become choleric and sour. But other men have
found in all this a school of patience. They were like rocks, more serviceable for the blasting. There
was a time when they had to choke down their wrath. There was a time when they had to bite their
lip. There was a time when they thought of a stinging retort they would like to utter. But now they
have conquered their impatience. They have kind words for sarcastic flings. They have a polite
behaviour for discourteous customers. They have forbearance for unfortunate debtors. How are we
going to get that grace of patience? Let us pray to God that through all the exasperation of our
everyday life we may hear a voice saying to us, “Let patience have her perfect work.”
(4) God also intended business life to be a school of integrity. It may be rare to find a man who can
from his heart say, “I never cheated in trade. I never overestimated the value of goods when I was
selling them. I never covered up a defect in a fabric. I never played upon the ignorance of a
customer, and in all my estate there is not one dishonest farthing!” But there are some who can say
it. They never let their integrity bow or cringe to present advantage. They are as pure and Christian
to-day as on the day when they sold their first tierce of rice or their first firkin of butter. There were
times when they could have robbed a partner, when they could have absconded with the funds of a
bank, when they could have sprung a snap judgment, when they could have borrowed illimitably,
when they could have made a false assignment, when they could have ruined a neighbour for the
purpose of picking up some of the fragments; but they never took one step on that pathway.
Judaism in its highest and ripest expression was still haunted by the feeling that between the
service of the Lord and the practices of business there was some irreconcilable contradiction. In that

321. beautiful Book of Ecclesiasticus, where the old faith most nearly approaches the new, we read—
A merchant shall hardly keep himself from wrong-doing,
And a huckster shall not be acquitted of sin.
Many have sinned for a thing indifferent;
And he that seeketh to multiply gain will turn his eye away.
A nail will stick between the joinings of stones;
And sin will thrust itself between buying and selling.
It is a new note that is struck in the New Testament, where business, the buying and selling, the
work by which the daily bread is earned, is enjoined as the means of realizing the Kingdom of
heaven. No New Testament writer would think of saying that the ordinary operations of life are a
hindrance to religion. The point of view is entirely changed. The Christian is to go into the world and
engage in its duties for the express purpose of bringing all its activities under the dominion of Christ,
or, rather, of letting the will of Christ operate freely in the shaping and conduct of the world’s
affairs.1 [Note: R. F. Horton.]
A business man, not being well, came to his doctor. The doctor told him he had a bad heart. He
said, “At any time you may die suddenly, or you may live for years.” The man was at first greatly
shocked, and said, “Shall I give up business?” The doctor said, “No, you will die the sooner probably
for that. Go on, but don’t hurry and don’t worry.” This man went to his place of business and called
together the heads of the departments and told them what the doctor had said to him. “Now,” he
said, “I shall come to business, but I can’t be everywhere, and I want you to understand that this
business is to be conducted with the understanding and the expectation that Jesus Christ may
come to the master at any minute, and when He comes I don’t want Him to find anything in this firm
we would not like Him to see.”
II
WhataretheHindrances?
They are partly theoretical and partly practical. They arise partly from the laws of trade involving
competition and opening the door to selfishness, and partly from the actual prevalence of evil ways
and the difficulty of making a stand against them.
1. Selfishness.—A business man is peculiarly liable to a special form of selfishness. It is not the

322. selfishness of ease or self-indulgence; it is the selfishness of gain, of profit, of personal advantage.
Profit, of course, is the very essence of success in business. It is the measure of success, and there
could not long continue to be business without it. But with the eager business man the making of
profit is apt to become an absorbing passion for its own sake. His ordinary relations with men are
apt to be more or less controlled by it. He is in danger of carrying it into his social life, of valuing
men and politics and principles according to the advantage that may accrue to him from his
connexion with them. Such a man soon begins to wish to make his association pay, and his
friendships, and his politics, and everything that he is and has and does. And if he is successful, a
certain selfish pride establishes itself in his heart. We all know this ignoble type of character. And
then, dogging the heels of this selfish pride, comes avarice—that amazing and monstrous passion
of the soul which loves money for its own sake, which grows on what it feeds on, which can never
be appeased, which never has enough.
One day a keen business man in one of the chief cities of the world said to another, “I can take a
certain bit of business away from you.” It was a profitable series of transactions, which the man
addressed had been carefully NURSING and building up for years. In the throat-cut competition
so familiar in business the other man could bring powerful influences to bear that would result in this
business matter being transferred with all its profits to his own concern. The threatened man
realized the power of his business rival, and, desiring to make the best of the situation, proposed
that they should divide the business equally between them. And so it was arranged. The second
man still conducts the business matters involved, and at the regular periods of settlement hands
one-half of the profits over to his rival. The other man does nothing, and receives one-half of the
other man’s profits accruing from this particular bit of business. It looks amazingly like the old
highway “stand and deliver” sort of robbery, but conducted in a modern and much more gentlemanly
fashion. The law that governs both is the same, the law of force. The Master’s follower is to be
controlled in all his life by his Master’s law of love. The law of love treats the other man as you
would want him to treat you.1 [Note: S. D. Gordon, The Crowded Inn, 41.]
The Diamond Match Company, of which the President is Mr. Edward Stettinius, has just won golden
opinions in the United States by its heroic action. What it has done is this: It has given up its patent
for making matches with a non-dangerous material—“sesquisulfid”—so that its competitors may use
it instead of the deadly white phosphorous. “My great anxiety,” said its President, “is to see
American labour protected from the ravages of a wholly unnecessary and loathsome
disease.2 [Note: Public Opinion (10th March 1911), 236.]
2. Worldliness.—Let us thankfully confess that mere selfish avarice is not so rife as it once was. Our
modern life is so full of demands on the profit of business that there are not so many miserly men as
there once were. But there is another danger, which was never so prevalent as it is now. This may
be called the worldliness of business. Men are simply absorbed and engrossed and satisfied with

323. their business pursuits and business interests, and so neglect and forget their religious and eternal
interests. If this world were the only world and this life the only life, then it might be wise and worthy
in man to devote himself without reserve to the things that belong only to this world and this life. But
man is more than a denizen of this world. He is more than an animal to eat and drink and be
clothed. He is more than a calculating machine to puzzle over life’s problems. He is more than a
mercenary recruit drafted into the world’s great army to fight its battles of progress. His own spirit
bears witness to its immortal dignity and destiny. His heart, which cannot be satisfied here; his
reason, which soars above the things of time and sense; his conscience, which bids him look for an
eternal retribution on wrong-doing—his whole nature pleads trumpet-tongued against the shame
and indignity of mere worldliness. And yet with strange inconsistency multitudes of business men
make light of the wants of their immortal souls, and go their ways engrossed by utter worldliness.
Never exceed thy income. Youth may make
Ev’n with the yeare; but Age, if it will hit,
Shoots a bow short, and lessens still his stake,
As the day lessens, and his life with it.
Thy children, kindred, friends upon thee call;
Before thy journey fairly part with all.
Yet in thy thriving still misdoubt some evil,
Lest gaining gain on thee, and make thee dimme
To all things els. Wealth is the conjurer’s devil,
Whom when he thinks he hath, the devil hath him.
Gold thou mayst safely touch; but if it stick
Unto thy hands, it woundeth to the quick.

324. What skills it, if a bag of stones or gold
About thy neck do drown thee? Raise thy head,
Take starres for money,—starres not to be told
By any art, yet to be purchased.1 [Note: George Herbert, The Temple.]
3. Custom.—Here two sides have to be considered.
(1) On the one hand it is true that there are businesses which are not conducted with the least
pretence of Christianity or even much pretence of common honesty.
One hears too often of assistants in places of business being tempted by their employers to do
things against their conscience. No longer ago than last week I read in a reputable paper an article
on this subject, giving instances known to the writer; and recently a business man who had written a
book sent me a copy, in which he gave instances which had come under his own cognizance. For
instance, a young ship captain, in a storm, sustained damage to his vessel, and he was called upon
to make out for the under-writers an inventory of the loss sustained; but his employers hinted to him
that, the ship being old and out of repair, at any rate he might include in the estimate all the repairs
that she was in need of. Another instance was that of a salesman at the head of a department in a
large dry-goods store. Some of the buyers came from rural places, and many of these would not
even commence to do business until they were treated with champagne. There were other cases
given of even meaner dishonesty.2 [Note: J. Stalker.]
(2) On the other hand it is probable that deliberate meanness and dishonesty in business is not so
common as it is supposed to be. A paper was read on the subject by a business man at a recent
Church Congress. He said: “There is in business much immorality of a gross kind, but it is not
widespread. There is a great deal more of what may be called white-lying immorality. The
characteristic of the English is to desire honesty and fair dealing, but under the strain of great
competition the desire is not yet strong enough to keep men in the even way. Morality in the second
degree, which means taking any possible advantage of your neighbour without deception or untruth,
is very general. To live and let live, to rejoice in aiding others, to divide, as it were, the benefits of
supply and demand, instead of seeking solely one’s own interest—this is the morality in commerce
of which there is to-day the greatest need.”
It is very common to hear it said that all business is a kind of cheating; that in nature the law is “eat
or be eaten,” and in business “cheat or be cheated”; that one must do as others do or close one’s

325. shop; that it is impossible to apply the principles of Christian truth and justice in business, and so
on. But the repetition of these sayings is in this case, as in others, always of the nature of finding an
excuse for one’s self by saying that “everybody does it.” It is always said from a desire to transfer
the blame which we feel that our action deserves, and put it on the broad shoulders of “everybody,”
or of Providence itself. But I believe there is much exaggeration in the charge of general or universal
dishonesty. The whole international trade of this country rests on the basis of mutual confidence
and credit, and if this were unsound, that trade could not go on. It is our reputation for integrity and
fairness, as well as for the excellence of our goods, that gives the English an advantage. The
honesty and word of an Englishman count for much, and can generally be relied on. So I am
inclined to believe that morality in business in England is not below the English morality in other
respects, and can rise only by the general rise of the standard of character in all respects.1 [Note:
J. M. Wilson.]
III
WhataretheHelps?
1. Be a Christian unmistakably.—Whatever may be the difficulties of a Christian life in the world,
they need not discourage us. Whatever may be the work to which our Master calls us, He offers us
a strength commensurate with our needs. No man who wishes to serve Christ will ever fail for lack
of heavenly aid. And it will be no valid excuse for an ungodly life that it is difficult to keep alive the
flame of piety in the world, if Christ is ready to supply the fuel.
(1) To all, then, who really wish to lead such a life, let it be said that the first thing to be done—that
without which all other efforts are worse than vain—is to devote themselves heartily to God through
Christ Jesus. Much as has been said of the infusion of religious principle and motive into our worldly
work, there is a preliminary advice of greater importance still—that we be religious. Life comes
before growth. The soldier must enlist before he can serve. In vain are directions how to keep the
fire always burning on the altar, if it is not first kindled. No religion can be genuine, no goodness can
be constant or lasting, that springs not from faith in Jesus Christ as its primary source. To know
Christ as my Saviour; to come with all my guilt and weakness to Him in whom trembling penitence
never fails to find a friend; to cast myself at His feet in whom all that is sublime in Divine holiness is
softened, though not obscured, by all that is beautiful in human tenderness; and, believing in that
love stronger than death which, for me and such as me, drained the cup of untold sorrows, and bore
without a murmur the bitter curse of sin, to trust my soul for time and eternity into His hands—this is
the beginning of true religion. And it is the reverential love with which the believer must ever look to
Him to whom he owes so much, that constitutes the mainspring of the religion of daily life.
Selfishness may prompt to a formal religion, natural susceptibility may give rise to a fitful one, but
for a life of constant fervent piety, amidst the world’s cares and toils, no motive is sufficient save one
—self-devoted love to Christ.

326. There is a passage in a Greek drama in which one of the personages shrinks irresolutely from a
proposed crime which is to turn out to his own and his companion’s great profit; and the other says
to him, “Dare—, and afterwards we shall show ourselves just.” It is to be feared that this is the way
in which many a man has spoken to his own faltering conscience, when it shrank from an
unscrupulous act which promised a great worldly advancement. Dare, he has said to himself, dare
to take this one step; this step will be the beginning of advancement, and when I am elevated in the
world, then I shall show myself a good man, and have the reputation of one. Thus it is that people
persuade themselves that religion is not made for the hurry and the struggle of life. Now, they say or
they think, now, in the very thick of the struggle, they must be allowed some little liberty, afterwards
it will be different; but now one cannot be impeded; now there must not be this check, this shackle;
now it is inopportune, unsuitable to the crisis; religion must wait a little.1 [Note: J. B. Mozley.]
(2) But again, if we would lead a Christian life in the world, that life must be continued as well as
begun with Christ. We must learn to look to Him not merely as our Saviour from guilt, but as the
Friend of our secret life, the chosen Companion of our solitary hours, the Depositary of all the
deeper thoughts and feelings of our soul. We cannot live for Him in the world unless we live
much with Him, apart from the world. In spiritual as in secular things the deepest and strongest
characters need much solitude to form them. Even earthly greatness, still more moral and spiritual
greatness, is never attained but as the result of much that is concealed from the world, of many a
lonely and meditative hour. Thoughtfulness, self-knowledge, self-control, a chastened wisdom, and
piety are the fruit of habitual meditation and prayer. In these exercises Heaven is brought near, and
our exaggerated estimate of earthly things is corrected. By these our spiritual energies, shattered
and worn by the friction of worldly work, are repaired. In the recurring seasons of devotion the cares
and anxieties of worldly business cease to vex us; exhausted with its toils, we have, in daily
communion with God, meat to eat which the world knows not of; and even when its calamities and
losses fall upon us, and our portion of worldly good is perhaps withdrawn, we may be able to show,
like those holy ones of old at the heathen court, by the fair serene countenance of the spirit, that we
have something better than the world’s pulse to feed upon.
I say to my friend: “Be a Christian.” That means to be a full man. And he says to me: “I have not
time to be a Christian. I have not room. If my life were not so full. You don’t know how hard I work
from morning to night. What time is there for me to be a Christian? What time is there, what room is
there for Christianity in such a life as mine?” But does it not come to seem to us so strange, so
absurd, if it were not so melancholy, that a man should say such a thing as that? It is as if the
engine had said it had no room for the steam. It is as if the tree had said it had no room for the sap.
It is as if the ocean had said it had no room for the tide. It is as if the man had said that he had no
room for his soul. It is as if life said that it had no time to live, when it is life. It is not something that is
added to life. It is life. A man is not living without it. And when a man says, “I am so full in life that I
have no room for life,” you see immediately to what absurdity it reduces itself. And how a man

327. knows what he is called upon by God’s voice, speaking to him every hour, speaking to him every
moment, speaking to him out of everything, that which the man is called upon to do because it is the
man’s only life! Therefore time, room, that is what time, that is what room is for—life. Life is the thing
we seek, and man finds it in the fulfilment of his life by Jesus Christ.1 [Note: P. Brooks,
Addresses, 61.]
2. Carry religion into every part of life.—If we carry the principles of Christ with us into the world, the
world will become hallowed by their presence. A Christ like spirit will Christianize everything it
touches. A meek heart, in which the altar-fire of love to God is burning, will lay hold of the
commonest, rudest things in life, and transmute them, like coarse fuel at the touch of fire, into a
pure and holy flame. Religion in the soul will make all the work and toil of life—its gains and losses,
friendships, rivalries, competitions, its manifold incidents and events—the means of religious
advancement. Marble or coarse clay, it matters not much with which of these the artist works, the
touch of genius transforms the coarser material into beauty, and lends to the finer a value it never
had before. Lofty or lowly, rude or REFINED , as our earthly work may be, it will become to a holy
mind only the material for an infinitely nobler work than all the creations of genius—a pure and
godlike life. To spiritualize what is material, to Christianize what is secular—this is the noble
achievement of Christian principle.
“There is one proposition,” says Mr. Gladstone, “which the experience of life burns into my soul; it is
this, that a man should beware of letting his religion spoil his morality. In a thousand ways, some
great, some small, but all subtle, we are daily tempted to that great sin.” What did Gladstone mean
by that? He immediately adds, for he was an intensely religious man himself: “To speak of such a
thing seems dishonouring to God; but it is not religion as it comes from Him, it is religion with the
strange and evil mixtures which it gathers from dwelling in us.”2 [Note: Morley, Life of
Gladstone, ii. 185.] And that is the heart of the trouble. A religion which concerns itself chiefly
with ritual or creed or form, which separates itself from life by insisting on exclusive privileges for
itself and its votaries, which is formal and official instead of being real and vital, imperils the
foundations of common morality. As long as we are content to treat our religion in that way, its place
in the practical concerns of life will inevitably be that of an interloper, intruding and interfering where
it does not belong. There was, indeed, much truth and HOMELY wisdom in the advice which
young David Livingstone received from his grandfather when he left Blantyre for the old College at
Glasgow: “Dauvit, Dauvit, make your religion an everyday business of your life, and not a thing of
fits and starts.”1 [Note: D. S, Mackay.]
Out of the pulpit I would be the same man I was in it, seeing and feeling the realities of the unseen;
and in the pulpit I would be the same man I was out of it, taking facts as they are, and dealing with
things as they show themselves in the world.2 [Note: George Macdonald.]

328. (1) It is convenient, no doubt, to distinguish what is commonly described as “secular” from what is
commonly described as “religious.” We all know what the distinction means. But the distinction must
not be understood to imply that in religious work we are doing God’s will, and that in secular work
we are not doing it. God Himself has done, and is always doing, a great deal of work that we must
call secular; and this throws considerable light on the laws which should govern our own secular
calling. He is the Creator of all things. He made the earth, and He made it broad enough for us to
grow corn and grass on it, to build cities on it, with town-halls, courts of justice, houses of
parliament, schools, universities, literary institutes, and galleries of art. It is impossible to use it all
for churches and chapels, or for any other “consecrated” purpose. God made a great part of the
world for common uses; but since the world, every acre, every square yard of it, belongs to Him,
since He is the only Freeholder, we have no right to build anything on it that He does not want to
have built. He kindled the fires of the sun, and the sun gives us light, not only on Sundays when we
go to church, but on common days, and we have no right to use the sunlight for any purpose for
which God does not give it. God made the trees; but He made too many for the timber to be used
only for buildings intended for religious worship. What did He make the rest for? It is His timber. He
never parts with His property in it. When we buy it we do not buy it from God; we pay Him no money
for it. All that we do is to pay money to our fellow-men that we may have the right to use it in God’s
service.
It is as secular a work to create a walnut-tree, and to provide soil and rain and warmth for its growth,
as it is to make a walnut-wood table for a drawing-room out of it. It is as secular a work to create a
cotton plant as to SPIN the cotton and to weave it. It is as secular a work to create iron as to
make the iron into railway girders, into plates for steamships, into ploughs and harrows, nails,
screws, and bedsteads. It is as secular a work to create the sun to give light in the daytime as to
make a lamp, or to build gasworks, or to manufacture gas, to give light at night.1 [Note: R. W.
Dale.]
Religion consists, not so much in doing spiritual or sacred acts, as in doing secular acts from a
sacred or spiritual motive.2 [Note: John Caird.]
The mite of the widow was more than the gold of the scribe. And why? Because motive is more to
God than matter, though it be gold. The broken cry of the publican was a truer prayer than the self-
satisfied cadence of the Pharisee. And why? Because motive, not method, however beautiful, is
what the great Father sees. Let, then, any man, I care not who he may be, bring himself into an
intellectual condition in which he feels that religion is essentially a round of outward service only,
and whether that man perform his service in a Quaker meetinghouse, in a Methodist chapel, or in a
majestic minster, he is simply reducing religion into a meanness that is less than human, and
abstracting from it every element that makes it Divine and uplifting. But, on the other hand, any
action done nobly and in Christ’s spirit, whether in the smithy, or in the steamboat, or in the market-

329. place, may be sacred.3 [Note: W. H. Dallinger.]
(2) The spiritual life is perfected through the worldly life, and the worldly life is perfected through the
spiritual life.
So far from teaching that the spiritual life is antagonistic to life of secular action, the New Testament
teaches that the spiritual is directly related to the worldly life, and that the former is perfected by the
latter. The cares of domesticity, the duties of citizenship, the exercises of trade, the implications of
industry and toil are all influentially soliciting, training, invigorating, unfolding, and in a thousand
ways perfecting the faculties of the soul and disciplining them in righteousness. If we observe the
intellectual life we see at once that men can never, except with extreme disadvantage, divorce
themselves from tangible things. If from any motive intellectual men isolate themselves from the
commonplace world of facts, if they deny their sense, if they attempt to pursue their studies in a
purely metaphysical manner, they immediately and manifestly suffer. It is almost universally
recognized that artists cannot with impunity exclude the actual world and resign themselves to
reverie and metaphysics. And the same thing is most true in relation to our spiritual life—that life
can grow only as it is elicited, exercised, conditioned by our worldly life. The world is a magnificent
apparatus of discipline with which no spiritual man can affect to dispense. We cannot work out our
highest life in isolation, abstraction, asceticism, in independence of daily, trivial, vulgar life. It is not
by isolating ourselves from earthly things that we shall lay hold of the Divine life; it is by the true use
and sanctification of the earthly life that we attain the Divine and the eternal. If intellectual
monasticism would issue in monstrous masterpieces, in fantastic symphonies, in bizarre poesy, so
any shrinking from natural worldly life and its relations produces deformed and morbid character
utterly without attractiveness. Be not afraid of secular life and all that it involves.
The painter who refuses to go to nature soon paints badly. He cannot persist in evolving faces and
landscapes from his consciousness and continue to produce work of veracity and power. To neglect
the colours of summer, the features of the landscape, the lustres of dawn, the aspects of sea and
sky, to neglect the facts of anatomy, the lines of physiognomy, the living face, the reality of things, is
to sacrifice the truth, the splendour, the magic of art. The painter must live with the visible world,
follow her subtle changes, know her as only genius and love can know; he can lay hold of ideal
beauty only through close daily contact with corporeal things.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]
Again, the worldly life is perfected through the spiritual life. It is often urged that the spiritual life is
injurious to the worldly life. Secularists profess that the two lives are mutually exclusive. They
conclude that just as we are occupied with a higher world we become incapable of making the best
of this. We boldly affirm that the whole material life of society here and now is secured and
perpetuated by spirituality. It is the habit of the secularist to represent the love of God as so much
precious feeling dissipated in the abyss; to consider the worship of God as vital energy scattered in

330. the air; to teach that the thought of the future is thought withdrawn from a present which demands
our concentrated strength; but, in fact, a living confidence in God, a living hope of everlasting life, a
living faith in the higher law is the golden bond which holds society together, the dynamic which
keeps the world moving to the glorious goal. The secularist mocks the spiritualist, and reproaches
him as “a child crying for the moon.” Well, let the child cry for the moon; it will be a sorry day for the
world when the child ceases to cry for it. The child’s crying for the moon is the mainspring of
civilization. Isaac Newton in infancy cried for the moon, and when he became a man, in a very true
and glorious sense, he got it, together with the sun and all the stars. Never crush the aspirations of
men, especially their highest aspirations and hopes. Stretching out the hands to that which is
beyond urges all things onward to a large and final perfection. Looking to the things which are
unseen and eternal we inherit in their fulness the things seen and temporal.
Philosophers are sometimes exceedingly detached from the world, strangely careless about
national struggles in which it would seem they ought to be passionately interested. What about
Goethe and his lack of patriotism? He was absorbed by singers and actors, by art and literature,
and hardly cast a glance at the struggles of the Fatherland. Some poets are notoriously indifferent
to practical questions; they ignore contemporaneous politics, they utterly fail in monetary
management. Shakespeare’s writings contain few and faint reflections of the age in which he lived;
and some of the critics accuse Tennyson of insensibility to the social and material aspects of his
time. Naturalists, also, like Audubon, have been noted for their aloofness; dreaming in the green
wood, they missed the chances of the Stock Exchange. Are we then to draw the large conclusion
that philosophy, poetry, and science are unfavourable to practical life? Are we, in the interests of
civilization, to discourage this intellectual transcendentalism? Surely not. These men of thought and
imagination are guilty of a certain unworldliness and impracticability; but we know that they
immensely enrich the world. The legend tells that Newton cut in the door a large orifice for the cat
and a small one for the kitten, overlooking the obvious fact that the first aperture served for both;
and the average practical man makes merry over the blunder of the astronomer whose eye was
dazzled with the infinite spaces and splendours of the firmament. Yet Newton, stumbling in trivial
matters, was enriching the world beyond all successful shopkeeping. And we know that whatever
the other-worldliness of our metaphysicians, bards, and philosophers may be, they are precisely the
men who make us MASTERS OF our environment, and who in a special measure enrich us with
the forces and treasures of the world.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]
3. Have a high conception of the greatness of your occupation.—It must add immeasurably to the
dignity of a man’s life, it must give him a sense of great security, if he seriously believes that his
work has been given him by Divine appointment, that it is really his “calling.” Take a conspicuous
case—the case of the Apostle Paul. St. Paul knew that his work, his “calling” in the old-fashioned
sense of the word, came to him from God. But no Christian man can live a satisfactory life without a
conviction of the same kind. This would be a dreary and an ignoble world if only an apostle could

331. say that he was doing his work “through the will of God,” or if only a minister or a missionary could
say it. Mechanics, merchants, tradesmen, manufacturers, clerks, doctors, lawyers, artists—if we are
to live a really Christian life, we must all be sure that, whatever work we are doing, it is God’s will
that we should do it.
It used to be common to speak of a man’s trade, profession, or official employment as his “calling.”
But I think that the word, in this sense, has almost dropped out of use, perhaps because it seems
inappropriate and unmeaning. Its Latin equivalent has been rather more fortunate, and is still
occasionally used to describe the higher forms of intellectual activity. It is sometimes said, for
instance, of a thoughtful, scholarly man who is not very successful as a manufacturer, that he has
missed his way, and that his true “vocation” was literature. It is only when we are speaking of the
most sacred or most heroic kinds of service that we have the courage to recognize a Divine “call” as
giving a man authority to undertake them. That a great religious reformer should think of himself as
Divinely “called” to deliver the Church from gross errors and superstitions, and lead it to a nobler
righteousness, does not surprise us. It does not surprise us that a great patriot should believe
himself “called” of God to redress the wrongs of his country. And among those who are impressed
by the glorious and awful issues of the ministry of the Church, it is still common to insist on the
necessity of a Divine “call” to the ministry.1 [Note: R. W. Dale.]
There is nothing that man does that finds its beginning within itself, but everything, every work of
every trade, of every occupation, is simply the utterance of some one of those great forces which lie
behind all life, and in the various ways of the different generations and of the different men are
always trying to make their mark upon the world. Behind the power that the man exercises there
always lies the great power of life, the continual struggle of Nature to write herself in the life and
work of man, the power of beauty struggling to manifest itself, the harmony that is always desiring to
make itself known. To the merchant there are the great laws of trade, of which his works are but the
immediate expression. To the mechanic there are the continual forces of Nature, gravitation uttering
itself in all its majesty, made no less majestic because it simply takes its expression for the moment
in some particular exercise of his art. To the ship that sails upon the sea there are the everlasting
winds that come out of the treasuries of God and fulfil His purpose in carrying His children to their
destination. There is no perfection of the universe until it comes to this.2 [Note: P. Brooks,
Addresses, 53.]
I confess to you that though, like St. Paul, I desire to magnify my own office, I am often filled with
deep admiration for the life and calling of a Christian man of business. His special trials and
temptations are not mine; and, though a minister has his own temptations and trials, he sometimes
feels, as he stands before his congregation and looks round upon them and thinks of all the
struggles and defeats and victories of their daily life, like one who is standing quietly on the safe
shore, while others are desperately battling with the stormy sea. I remember a morning, some years

332. ago, when I happened to be staying with a friend in a great fishing station in the north of Scotland. A
gale had sprung up suddenly, and we went down to the breakwater to watch the fleet of fishing-
boats as they came running back for shelter. What admiration one felt at the way in which they
breasted and buffeted the waves, and at the nerve and skill displayed by each crew in turn, as they
drew near to the narrow entrance which was their one chance of escape, and shot safely at last
through the harbour mouth into the quiet haven. Even such is the admiration with which one often
looks upon Christian courage and consistency and victory in the life of a business Man_1:3 [Note:
J. C. Lambert.]
4. Be prepared for sacrifice.—We need not believe all that the pessimists say about the conditions
of success in business. We must not think that the business world is entirely organized in the
interests of the devil. We must not think that honest men are sure to fail, and unscrupulous men
bound to succeed. That is simply not true. At the same time, if we determine to carry Christ’s law
with us into all the transactions of a business career, we must be prepared for sacrifice.
If we have in the least degree entered into the spirit of that sacred life, that Divine Life, the life of
Jesus Christ on earth, we shall not need to be taught that the law of sacrifice is the fundamental law
of the Christian life. His whole life was a sacrifice. To come to this earth of ours, to pass through
infancy and boyhood, to lead the life of a peasant, and then to be a wandering teacher and prophet,
without a place where He might lay His head, and finally to go through the mockings and
scourgings, and to die on the Cross for us—this was the consummation, as it is the perfect
example, of self-sacrifice. And it is for this that men love and worship and serve Him; by this He has
put a new spirit into the world and not only has given us an example that we should follow His steps,
but has proved that thus, and thus only, is the world healed and purified and taught. The law of
sacrifice is supreme and binding on all Christians. It is the salvation of the world.
If any one says that in business one cannot be a Christian because it would involve loss to be so, I
ask what right has he to expect that any special department of life, such as business, shall be
exempt from the operation of a law which governs the whole. Of course it will involve at times a
sacrifice and a loss to do the right thing, and I do not see how any Christian can expect anything
else. The sacrifice must be made, the loss borne, as cheerfully and courageously as we should
expect an officer to hear the summons to a post of danger or of death. This is the necessary
correlative and consequence of regarding business as a vocation, and as an honourable service of
men.1 [Note: J. M. Wilson.]
If a magistrate or a policeman could carry out justice only at much personal risk and loss, we expect
him to do it. If an officer or a clergyman is called to harder work and smaller pay, we expect him to
undertake it. It may not be compulsory, it may not always be done; but we expect it. We recognize
such conduct as right, and the refusal as wrong. Now, we ought to regard all forms of business not

333. only as a vocation, but also as a public service, and transfer to it something of the same feeling of
honour and obligation that we associate with other public services.1[Note: J. M. Wilson
Outward,Inward,Christward
In diligence not slothful; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.—Rom_12:11.
The position that the portion of Holy Scripture from which these words are taken occupies, gives to
the words special significance. In the Epistle to the Romans they come as presenting the practical
aspect of that truth which in the first eleven chapters the Apostle sets forth in all the depth and
breadth and height of the great mystery of godliness.
In the first eleven chapters of the Epistle he seeks to justify the ways of God to man. It is a
vindication of the righteousness of God seen through man’s failures; and so he traces the fall of
man from his original righteousness, the corruption of the world, the debasement of its idolatries, the
seeming failure of God’s purpose, even of the law that was given by Moses, and in the election of
God’s people Israel. He does not flinch from facing any one of the great problems of God’s
government of the world—its anomalies, its disappointments, its frustrations of the grace of God; the
creature made subject to vanity, man losing the image of God in which he was created; Israel
outcast and rejected—but he shows through all these ruins the increasing purpose of the Divine
mercy as well as of the Divine righteousness. The ways of God are inscrutable and past finding out,
but they are the ways of a boundless compassion and of a perfect justice. So it will be seen at last
(that is the conclusion to which he comes) that the purpose of God shall not fail; that evil shall not
triumph over good; that love and not hatred is the law of God’s universe; that God is light, and in
Him is no darkness at all.
Then the Apostle passes from that high mystery of doctrine to the practical aspect of the Christian
life. Good is to prevail in man’s life, in the life of each individual Christian whom God has called; and
in spite of the problems which beset the intellect, it is to be a life of holiness and peace and purity.
Justification by faith is not to lead to an Antinomian carelessness about obedience, and
righteousness, and truth, and purity, and honesty; it does not set aside the law, yea it establishes
the law.
The text is a short summary of the Christian life. That life has three relationships: to the world
around us, to our own heart within us, to Christ above us; and here there is a word for each. “In
diligence not slothful”—that is the duty we owe to the world; “fervent in spirit”—that is the duty we
owe to ourselves; “serving the Lord”—that is what we owe to Christ. We might paraphrase the text:
“Do good diligently; be good enthusiastically; and let all service, outward and inward, be for the
Lord.”

334. I
Outward
“In diligence not slothful.”
The language of the Authorized Version is “Not slothful in business”; and it comes to most of us as
an exhortation to be industrious in our earthly callings. It is the word for a prosperous banker, an
enterprising merchant, a tradesman who tries to make the most of his capital or his labour, a
labouring man whose task is humble, but who has to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, and
seeks to gain a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s labour. Well, doubtless, that lies within the scope
and compass of the text; but if our thoughts are limited to that interpretation of it, we take altogether
a poor, unsatisfying estimate of what the Apostle means, we lose more than one-half at least of the
instruction and guidance it may give us. For the business of which the Apostle speaks is not the
thing which a man does, but the temper, the motive, the character which accompany the doing of it.
It is the temper of activity, of earnestness, and of thoroughness which a man may carry into his
outward work.
The Authorized Version receives much credit for the melody of its words, but perhaps less than it
deserves for their accuracy. Here the word “business” is taken in the modern sense of trade, and
when it is found that that is not the meaning of the Greek, the Authorized Version is credited with a
mistranslation. But in the sixteenth century “business” was used in the sense of “busyness,” that is,
activity or diligence in whatever one is engaged in—just the meaning of the Greek word.
The word translated “business” in the Authorized Version is the same in the original as the word
“diligence” in the eighth verse of the chapter: “He that ruleth, with diligence.” So here: “Not slothful
as regards diligence.” The term indicates, not the kind of work to be done, but simply the manner of
doing it. It does not point to men’s ordinary worldly callings and occupations, as distinguished from
their spiritual exercises or spiritual frames. It is not the Apostle’s present object to harmonize, and
reconcile, and blend the two in one. The expression “business” characterizes, not the work but the
worker, not the action but the agent. The real meaning is, that in respect of diligence, or activity, in
the matter to which this whole passage refers, you are to be not slothful. It is very much the wise
man’s maxim: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might” (Ecc_9:10).
Looking to the whole context of the verse, looking to the whole tenor and life of the Apostle, we may
be sure that he meant those to whom he wrote to think chiefly of the spheres of Christian activity
which were open to them, to each of them according to the gift that he had received—the gift of
prophecy, ministration, helps and governments, diversities of tongues, gifts of healing, and the like.
Spiritual activity, rather than secular activity, was what was in the Apostle’s thoughts. Primarily, at
least, the words are addressed to those who are engaged in the sphere of Christian activity. But it

335. will be serviceable to give the words a wider range and let them refer to our work in the world, and
describe the manner in which our duty should be done: “As for our diligence in doing our duty, let us
not be slothful—let us really do it diligently.”
1. We all know what this means in any worldly calling; and we know also that in every worldly calling
it is an indispensable condition of eminence and success. There must be industry; strenuous,
unremitting, untiring industry; willingness to forgo the luxury of ease, “to scorn delights, and live
laborious days.” For the most part, this is a faculty to be acquired; a habit to be cultivated. It is a
faculty which cannot be acquired too early; a habit which cannot be cultivated too assiduously. It is
good advice, and advice which cannot be too often or too emphatically repeated, especially to the
young: Learn this lesson soon, and learn it well. Accustom yourself, train yourself to this “diligence
in business.” Do this systematically in whatever you undertake. Act upon the principle that whatever
it is worth while to acquire, it is worth while to acquire thoroughly; whatever it is worth while to do at
all, it is worth while to do well.
This text is in perfect harmony with other parts of Scripture. St. Paul in writing his second letter to
the Thessalonians (Rom_3:10) says, “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you,
that if any would not work, neither should he eat.” The evil complained of here began to show itself
even while the Apostle was with the Church. Some were idlers, and they needed the earnest words
of St. Paul to rebuke them and incite them to labour. He was himself a remarkable example of
industry. Often did he spend the day in preaching and teaching, and then labour far into the night at
his “craft” for support, rather than be dependent on the bounty of others. He becomes righteously
indignant at the Thessalonian idlers, and he declares that neither should they eat. They were not to
be supported by the charity of others, unless they had done all they could for their own support. This
was a common maxim among the Jews; and the same sentiment is often found in the writings of
Greek poets, orators, and philosophers. The maxim is in harmony with strict justice. At the very
dawn of human history we are taught that man was to earn his bread in the sweat of his face. A
man who will not work ought to starve. You ought not to help him. Aid given to a lazy man is a
premium on vice.
“Africa is the land of the unemployed,” Henry Drummond says in his Tropical Africa. This saying is
true only regarding the men. “What is the first commandment?” a Lovedale boy was asked. “Thou
shalt do no work,” was the reply.1 [Note: Stewart of Lovedale, 207.]
Not often did Watts take subjects for his paintings from the stern realities of everyday life. But there
is a small group of pictures in which the sorrows and privations of those who have been worsted in
the battle of life, or have been less fortunate than their fellows, are portrayed with unusual power,
and show how wide is the range of his sympathies. Nothing human is alien to him. The pencil that
could give a glow of vivid colour to the mystic visions of fancy could paint in sombre hues the painful

336. experiences of the poor. He has combined, as it were, the two capacities in the humorous picture
entitled, “When Poverty comes in at the door, Love flies out at the window.” To this popular proverb
he has given a realistic and yet an imaginative charm. The picture at once impresses the mind and
makes its meaning plain. One side of it is illumined with a bright light emblematical of the happiness
that has been but is now passing away. The room is poorly furnished, and yet exhibits traces of
former abundance that redeem its squalidness. The secret of the change of circumstances in the
household is revealed in the laziness and slovenliness of the mistress. Instead of diligently
attending to her domestic affairs, she is absorbed in caressing a pet dove, and lounging on a bed,
whose disordered clothes exhibit the careless housekeeping of many days. Her work-basket is
overturned on the floor, and its contents are scattered. Doves make their nests in pigeon-holes
above the bed, with all their litter of confusion, and from the open window the untended sprays of
roses, returning to their wild condition through neglect, creep in. The housewife is young and
beautiful; but whatever pleasing impression she produces is at once removed by the contradictory
character of her slovenly habits. She cannot make a happy home; and therefore the door of the
room on one side is represented as opening, admitting the sordid figure of Poverty, dressed in rags,
and accompanied by the gaunt wolf of Hunger, and letting in at the same time the cold inclement
wind outside, which blows before it a drift of withered autumn leaves that strew the floor, and speak
eloquently of the hostile forces of nature which inevitably work havoc where there is no principle of
order and industry to keep them in check; while through the wide-open window the winged Cupid,
no longer a boy but a grown-up mature youth, is in the act of taking flight over the sill. Every detail of
the picture tells, and enhances the effect of the whole; and no one can gaze upon the startling
contrast between the dark forbidding figure of Poverty, and the bright affrighted look of Love, without
reading the moral which it so forcibly teaches. Watts could not possibly have taught a more
impressive lesson to all who are inclined to act the part of the young woman whose own improvident
ways have made her the subject of experiment by two such antagonistic powers, Poverty
approaching to overwhelm her, and Love abandoning her to its horrors.1 [Note: Hugh
Macmillan, G. F. Watts, 214.]
Life without industry is guilt; and industry without art is brutality.2 [Note: Ruskin.]
There is no cure for the despair and the nervous misery from which so many among us are suffering
like a long and steady piece of hard work. Work reacts on the worker. If it is slovenly it makes him
slovenly, even in his outward appearance. If he does it, not with any love, but merely as drudgery, it
gives him the careless look of drudgery. “To scamp your work will make you a scamp.” On the
contrary, when work is well done it yields its reward long before pay-day comes round, because it
communicates solidity and dignity to the character. I do not know any man who is more to be envied
than the man who has an eye
That winces at false work, and loves the true;

337. With hand and arm that play upon the toil
As willingly as any singing-bird
Sets him to sing his morning roundelay,
Because he likes to sing, and likes the Song of Solomon 3 [Note: J. Stalker.]
2. It is this real work, this earnest life, that the Apostle desires to see exemplified in the Church of
Christ, and among its members. It is thus that He would have them to undertake and prosecute the
work of their Christian calling, to perform the functions of whatever they may find to be their office in
the Church, the body of Christ, of which they are members. No doubt there is here a peculiar
difficulty, arising out of the nature of that work and these functions. They are essentially spiritual.
They make a demand upon the spiritual tendencies and tastes. In any circumstances, the faculty or
habit which is required is difficult of acquisition. Still, there are certain qualities which are essential
to worldly success, and if we carry them over into the life of the spirit we shall find that they are
there also the secrets of progress in Christian usefulness.
(1) Here is a quality which is greatly esteemed in the ways of the world—the quality of alertness. It
is characteristic of every successful merchant. If we listen to the ordinary speech of the man of the
world, we find how great is the value which he places upon this gift. “A man must have all his wits
about him.” “It is the early bird that catches the worm.” These are recognized maxims in the way of
success, and they point to the commanding necessity of an alert spirit. A merchant must be alert for
the detection of hidden perils. He must be alert for the perception of equally hidden opportunity. He
must be alert for the recognition of failing methods. His eyes must clearly see where old roads are
played out, and where new ground may be broken. Let us carry the suggestion over into the affairs
of the Kingdom. The Scriptures abound in counsel to alertness. “Awake, awake!” “Watch ye!” “Let
us watch and be sober!” “Watching unto prayer.” It is an all-essential ingredient in the life of the
progressive saint.
The watchfulness which Jesus Christ commands is a faithful care to love always and to fulfil the will
of God at the present moment, according to the indications we have of it; it does not consist in
worrying ourselves, in putting ourselves to torture, and in being ceaselessly occupied with
ourselves, but rather in lifting our eyes to God, from whence comes our only help against
ourselves.1 [Note: Fénelon.]
“Buy up the opportunity.” We are especially to look at things that appear to be useless, lest they
turn out to be the raw material of the garments of heaven. Sir Titus Salt, walking along the quay of

338. Liverpool, saw a pile of unclean waste. He saw it with very original eyes, and had the vision of a
perfected and beautified product. He saw the possibilities in discarded refuse, and he bought the
opportunity. That is perhaps the main business of the successful citizen of the Kingdom—the
conversion of waste. This disappointment which I have had to-day, what can I make out of it? What
an eye it wants to see the ultimate gain in checked and chilled ambition—
To stretch a hand through time, and catch
The far-off interest of tears.
This grief of mine, what can I make of it? Must I leave it as waste in the track of the years, or can it
be turned into treasure? This pain of mine, is it only a lumbering burden, or does the ungainly
vehicle carry heavenly gold? It is in conditions of this kind that the spiritual expert reveals himself.
He is all “alive unto God,” and seeing the opportunity he seizes it like a successful
merchant.2 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]
(2) Again, we hear one man say of another who has risen to fortune: “Everything about him goes
like clockwork.” Of another man whose days witness a gradual degeneracy quite another word is
spoken: “He has no system, no method; everything goes by the rule of chance.” So the quality
of method appears to be one of the essentials of a successful man of affairs. Is this equally true in
the things of the Kingdom? How many there are of us who, in our religious life, are loose, slipshod,
unmethodical! How unsystematic we are in our worship and our prayers! Our worldly business
would speedily drop into ruin if we applied to it the inconsiderate ways with which we discharge the
duties of our religion.
William Law, in A Serious Call, has instructed us in methodical devotion. He systematically divides
the day, devoting to certain hours and certain seasons special kinds of praises and prayers. This
was the early glory of the Methodist denomination. Their distinctiveness consisted in the systematic
ordering of the Christian life. I know that too much method may become a bondage, but too little
may become a rout. Too much red tape is creative of servitude, but to have no red tape at all is to
be the victim of disorder.
Without method memory is useless. Detached facts are practically valueless. All public speakers
know the value of method. Persons not accustomed to it imagine that a speech is learnt by heart.
Knowing a little about the matter, I will venture to say that if any one attempted that plan, either he
must have a marvellous memory, or else he would break down three times out of five. It simply
depends upon correct arrangement. The words and sentences are left to the moment; the thoughts
are methodized beforehand; and the words, if the thoughts are rightly arranged, will place
themselves.1 [Note: F. W. Robertson, Life and Letters, 389.]

339. In order to do the most we are capable of, the first rule is that every day should see its own work
done. Let the task for each day be resolved and arranged for deliberately the night before, and let
nothing interfere with its performance. It is a secret which we learn slowly—the secret of living by
days. I am convinced that there are very few so precious. What confuses work, what mars life and
makes it feverish, is the postponing of the task which ought to be done now. The word which John
Ruskin had on his seal was “To-day.”2 [Note: Claudius Clear, Letters on Life, 163.]
(3) Go once more into the realm of business. Here is a sentence that encounters us from one who
knows the road: “The habit of firm decision is indispensable to a man of business.” The real
business man waits till the hour is come, and then acts decisively. He strikes while the iron is hot.
An undecisive business man lives in perpetual insecurity. He meanders along in wavering
uncertainty until his business house has to be closed. Is not this element of decision needful in the
light of the Spirit? Religious life is too apt to be full of “ifs” and “buts” and “perhapses” and
“peradventures.” Am I experiencing at this moment a fervent holy spiritual impulse? In what consists
my salvation? To strike while the iron is hot! “Suffer me first to go to bid them farewell.” No, the iron
will speedily grow cold. While the holy thing glows before you, strongly decide and concentrate your
energies in supporting your decision. “I am resolved what to do.” That was said by a man of the
world. Let it be the speech of the man of the Kingdom of God.
“We must think again,” says Hazlitt, “before we determine, and thus the opportunity for action is
lost. While we are considering the very best possible mode of gaining an object, we find that it has
slipped through our fingers, or that others have laid rude, fearless hands upon it.”
A man can learn but what he can:
Who hits the moment is the man.
Lord Bacon has noticed, says the author of Friends in Council, that the men whom powerful persons
love to have about them are ready men—men of resource. The reason is obvious. A man in power
has perhaps thirty or forty decisions to make in a day. This is very fatiguing and perplexing to the
mind. Any one, therefore, who can assist him with ready resource and prompt means of execution,
even in the trifling matters of the day, soon becomes an invaluable subordinate, worthy of all
favour.1 [Note: A. Helps, Friends in Council.]
(4) And once more we find that in business life it is essential that a man must run risks and make
ventures. He must be daring, and he must have the element of courage. What says the man of the
world? “Nothing venture, nothing win.” “Faint heart never won fair lady.” Faint heart never wins
anything. John Bunyan’s Faintheart had repeatedly to be carried. Has the citizen of the Kingdom to

340. risk anything? Indeed he has. He must risk the truth. A lie might appear to offer him a bargain, but
he must risk the truth. Let him sow the truth, even though the threatened harvest may be tears. Let
him venture the truth, even though great and staggering loss seems to be drawn to his door. “He
that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him.” A man has again and again to make his choice between Christ and
thirty pieces of silver. Let him make the venture, let the silver go; risk the loss! If it means putting up
the shutters he will go out with Christ! “He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”
The Christian belief that all is in God’s hands, and all things work together for good, throws a new
light on all the trivialities of life. All our petty occupations may be affected by the ultimate hope which
we are taught to cherish. “Labour,” says Bishop Andrewes (Sermons, ii. 206), “of itself is a harsh,
unpleasant thing unless it be seasoned with hope. ‘He that plows must plow in hope,’ his plough
shall not go deep else, his furrows will be but shallow. Sever hope from labour and you must look
for labour and labourers accordingly, slight and shallow, God knoweth.”1[Note: W.
Cunningham, The Gospel of Work, 71.]
Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail!
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
Have we not grovell’d here long enough eating and drinking like mere brutes?
Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?
Sail forth—steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!

341. O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!2 [Note: Walt Whitman, The Sea of Faith.]
II
Inward
“Fervent in spirit”
We pass from the outward activity of life to the inward spring, to the motive power, out of which this
outward activity must flow, and without which it flags and falls.
“Fervent in spirit”—What is it but to be glowing, boiling, we might almost say boiling over, with a
strong purpose, with a perfect love, with a twofold love—the love of God who has made, redeemed,
and sanctified us, and the love of men, our brothers, because they are children of the same Father
in Heaven? It is hardly more than a paraphrase of St. Paul’s words to say that what he bids us do is,
in homely phrase, to keep the steam up; that steam of the Divine love which moves the whole
machine of our spiritual life, without which it may be in perfect outward order, but will not go, will not
work, will not do that for which the great Work-master designed the machine. Here, then, is another
golden rule of life, that outward activity must be sustained by the inward fervour, by the glow of
emotion, by the life of prayer.
What man can live denying his own soul?
Hast thou not learned that noble uncontrol
Is virtue’s right, the breath by which she lives?
O sure, if any angel ever grieves,
’Tis when the living soul hath learnt to chide
Its passionate indignations, and to hide
The sudden flows of rapture, the quick birth
Of overwhelming loves, that balance the worth
Of the wide world against one loving act,

342. As less than a sped dream; shall the cataract
Stop, pause, and palter, ere it plunge towards
The vale unseen? Our fate hath its own lords,
Which if we follow truly, there can come
No harm unto us.1 [Note: Langdon Elwyn Mitchell.]
1. There are two forms which this Divine enthusiasm has assumed in religious souls—the
enthusiasm for humanity, and the enthusiasm for individual salvation. The latter, which is the
narrower and more selfish, which indeed is often “selfishness expanded to infinitude,” has led to
many errors. Men, ready to sacrifice everything to secure their own personal deliverance from what
they had dreamed of hell, have lived as hermits in deserts or on mountains, or have shut
themselves up in monastic cells, or have subjected their bodies to cruel torments. The beliefs that
have led to such lives are natural to men. They are found in every age and in every country and in
all religions; and deeply as they are intermingled with error, yet so sovereign are the virtues of self-
denial that without doubt they shall have their reward. And sometimes, on the other hand, the
enthusiasm for humanity has been dissevered from deep personal religion. We may be sure that
God will still bless the sincere lovers of their brethren, and that Christ will never be hard on any man
who has lived and died for men. But when the two have been combined, when the sense of
devotion has been united with the exaltation of charity, then such men have ever been the most
glorious and the most blessed of the benefactors of mankind. What was Christianity itself but such
an enthusiasm learnt from the example, caught from the Spirit, of Christ our Lord? The same love,
even for the guilty and wretched, which brought the Lord Jesus step by step from that celestial glory
to the lowest depth of the infinite descent, has been kindled by His Spirit in the hearts of His noblest
sons. Forgiven, they have longed that others should share the same forgiveness.
Jesus of Nazareth is constantly kindling and keeping alive an enthusiastic personal devotion in the
hearts of countless men, women, and children who have never seen Him—an enthusiasm which
burns on steadily, century after century, with ever-increasing splendour. Let those who deny that He
is still alive explain that marvellous Fact—if they can! It is unique in the history of our race. Could a
man, dead for nearly two thousand years, rule so royally over the souls and bodies of the noblest
and most unselfish of every age? NO! JESUS LIVES! and is ever pressing close to His Heart the
heart of each individual disciple, pouring in the strengthening oil of the Holy Spirit and the new wine
of a high enthusiasm which must find room for service.

343. Come, my beloved! we will haste and go
To those pale faces of our fellow-men!
Our loving hearts, burning with summer fire,
Will cast a glow upon their pallidness;
Our hands will help them, far as servants may;
Hands are apostles still to saviour-hearts.
2. Enthusiasm is indispensable; there is nothing which the devil dreads so much, there is nothing
which the world denounces so continuously. To call a man an enthusiast has often been regarded
as the sneer most likely to thwart his plans. Like the words “Utopian,” “Quixotic,” “unpractical,” it is
one of the mud-banks reared by the world to oppose the swelling tide of moral convictions. The
famous saying of Prince Talleyrand, “Above all, no enthusiasm!” concentrates the expression of the
dislike felt by cold, calculating, selfish natures for those who are swept away by the force of mighty
and ennobling aspirations.
For what is enthusiasm? It is a Greek word which means the fulness of Divine inspiration. It implies
absorbing and passionate devotion for some good cause. It means the state of those whom St. Paul
has described as “fervent (literally, ‘boiling’) in spirit.” It describes the soul of man no longer mean
and earthy, but transfigured, uplifted, dilated by the Spirit of God. When a man is an enthusiast for
good, he is so because a Spirit greater than his own has swept over him, as the breeze wanders
over the dead strings of some Æolian harp, and sweeps the music, which slumbers upon them, now
into Divine murmurings, and now into stormy sobs. A man becomes an enthusiast when God has
flashed into his conscience the conviction of right and truth; has made him magnetic to multitudes;
has made him as a flame of fire which leaps out of dying embers; as a wind of God which breathes
over the slain that they may live. Without enthusiasm of some noble kind a man is dead; without
enthusiasts a nation perishes. Of each man it is true that in proportion to the fire of his enthusiasm
is the grandeur of his life; of each nation it is true that without enthusiasm it never has the will, much
less the power, to undo the heavy burden or to atone for the intolerable wrong.
Let us think sometimes of the great invisible ship that carries our human destinies upon eternity.
Like the vessels of our confined oceans, she has her sails and her ballast. The fear that she may
pitch or roll on leaving the roadstead is no reason for increasing the weight of the ballast by stowing
the fair, white sails in the depths of the hold. They were not woven to moulder side by side with
cobble-stones in the dark. Ballast exists everywhere: all the pebbles of the harbour, all the sand on

344. the beach will serve for it. But sails are rare and precious things: their place is not in the murk of the
well, but amid the light of the tall masts, where they will collect the winds of space.1 [Note:
Maurice Maeterlinck, Life and Flowers, 76.]
(1) Think what enthusiasm has done even in spheres not immediately religious. The enthusiasm of
the student, of the artist, of the discoverer, of the man of science—what else could have inspired
their infinite patience, their unlimited self-sacrifice? Men cannot without effort render great services
to mankind. “The progress of mankind,” it has been truly said, “has been from scaffold to scaffold
and from stake to stake”; but men animated by a fine enthusiasm have braved the penalty. It
plunged Roger Bacon into torture and imprisonment. It made Columbus face the sickly cruelty of
ignorant priesthoods and the stormy hurricanes of unknown seas. It caused years of poverty, of
suffering, of persecution, of calumnious denunciation to Galileo, to Kepler, to Newton, to the early
geologists, to Charles Darwin. They gave to mankind a toil intense and infinite. And if in these days
man has been enabled to
put forth
His pomp, his power, his skill,
And arts that make fire, flood, and air,
The vassals of his will,
it is only because his more gifted brethren have toiled for his good.
(2) Again, there is the enthusiasm of the reformer. Think how low the nations might have sunk if
their decadence had not been again and again arrested, and their criminalities again and again
rebuked. Think what Italy was fast becoming when Savonarola—until they choked his voice in blood
—thundered in the Duomo of Florence against her corruptions and her apostasy! Think how the
cramp of an intolerable tyranny might still have been torturing the souls of men had not Wyclif
braved death to give the Bible to the English people! Think once more what truths would have been
drowned in the deep seas of oblivion if John Hus had not calmly gone to the stake to which he was
condemned by the bishops who surrounded the perjured Sigismund! Imagine what a sink of loathly
abominations the nominal Church of God might now have been if the voice of Luther had never
shaken the world.
(3) Again, there is the enthusiasm of the missionary. In the first centuries the world was full of
missionaries. In those days every Christian felt that he was not a Christian if he were not in some
form or other God’s missionary. And for centuries the Church produced many a noble missionary;

345. men like Ulfilas, men like Boniface, men like Columba. Then began the ages of neglect, and
darkness, and superstition, and for whole centuries there was found only here and there a man like
St. Louis of France, or St. Francis of Assisi, with a mission spirit strong within him. In modern days it
is to Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians, to William Carey and the Baptists that we owe the revival
of missionary zeal. In the last century missions were regarded as foolish, rash—one knows not
what; for the devil has a large vocabulary of words to quench the spirit which is so dangerous to his
domain. Yet men despised and defied the devil, and the world which is his minion. Think of John
Eliot, the lion-hearted apostle of the Indians, and his motto, “Prayer and painstaking can accomplish
anything.” Think of the young and sickly David Brainerd, going alone into the silent forests of
America, and among their yet wilder denizens, with the words, “Not from necessity, but from choice;
for it seemed to me God’s dealings towards me had fitted me for a life of solitariness and hardness.”
Think of Adoniram Judson and the tortures he bore so cheerfully in his Burmese prison.
(4) Then, once more, think of the glowing and beautiful enthusiasm of our social philanthropists.
What man has done more for a multitude of souls than John Pounds, the poor Portsmouth cobbler,
who, in the simple enthusiasm of ignorant love for the poor ragged children of the streets, became
the ultimate founder of Ragged Schools! What a light from heaven was shed upon countless
wanderers by the Gloucestershire printer, Robert Raikes, who saw the children wasting their
Sundays idly in the streets. On the Embankment in London you see his statue and read the
inscription: “As I asked, ‘Can nothing be done?’ a voice answered ‘Try’; I did try, and lo! what God
hath wrought.” Who can judge the amount of misery rolled off the despairing heart of the world by
the reformers of prisons, John Howard and Elizabeth Fry—Elizabeth Fry entering the foul wards for
women in Newgate Prison, protected only by the beauty of her holiness; and John Howard
traversing Europe, as Edmund Burke said, “to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the
infections of hospitals, to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt”?
All I am anxious for is that sympathy should be felt, or rather candour extended, towards the
exaggerations of generous and unselfish men like Kingsley, whose warmth, even when wrong, is a
higher thing than the correctness of cold hearts. It is so rare to find a clergyman who can forget the
drill and pipeclay of the profession, and speak with a living heart for the suffering classes, not as a
policeman established to lecture them into proprieties, but as one of the same flesh and blood
vindicating a common humanity.1 [Note: F. W. Robertson, Life and Letters, 292.]
3. The idea suggested by the word “fervent” is that of water heated to the boiling point. The figure is
common in poetry and rhetoric. We speak of a man boiling with resentment; boiling over with rage.
And the more generous and gentle affections, as well as the fiercer passions, are represented as
working in this way. A patriot’s soul boils over with indignation at his country’s wrongs. A kind heart
boils over with compassion when it sees a brother’s woe. Warmth, enthusiasm, zeal; amounting
even, if there be occasion, to passionate grief, or pity, or anger—such is the frame or temperament

346. here commended. The fervency, however, is to be spiritual. It is not animal excitement. It is not the
natural fire of fervency of a hot and heady temper; or of keen, nervous sensibility and susceptibility;
or of vehement personal feeling, unaccustomed to self-control.
(1) The meaning may be, that we are to be fervent in our spirit; fervent in the spiritual part of our
nature; fervent in that new spiritual life and being of ours into which, as members of Christ and of
His body, we enter. We are spiritual men. It is as spiritual men, and not merely as business men,
that we are called to undertake offices and functions in the Church—to work in, and with, and for
Christ. Let ours be not a cold or lukewarm spirituality, but a spirituality that is hot and boiling.
(2) On the other hand, it may be maintained that it is the Holy Spirit, as personally dwelling in us,
that is meant. “Fervent in the Spirit” is an exact rendering of the original. But in fact the two
renderings are at one: fervent in spirit; fervent in the Spirit. The fervency is, in every view of it,
spiritual. It is so, inasmuch as it is fervency, not in the natural, but in the spiritual part of us; fervency
working in us, not as carnal, but as spiritual. And it is so also because it is fervency wrought in us by
the Holy Spirit.
4. The fervency, then, is to be spiritual. It is to have its seat in the heart’s core of our spiritual life; it
is to be the direct fruit of the Spirit there.
(1) To be fervent in spirit is something more than mere earnestness. Doing the work simply as a
matter of business, we may do it very earnestly, taking a real interest in it, throwing our whole soul
into it. But the interest which we take in it may be such as we might take in any employment that
stimulated our activity and gave scope for the exercise of our natural sensibility. We may throw our
soul into it, as into some heroic enterprise or sentimental scheme that has power to charm by its
novelty or fascinate by its romance. But the essential element of real spirituality may be wanting;
and with much bustling stir and much boiling enthusiasm in what we take to be religious work and
duty, we may still need to be affectionately warned that “to be carnally minded is death; but to be
spiritually minded is life and peace.”
It is not by becoming like Him that men will approach towards incorporation with Him; but by result
of incorporation with Him, received in faith as a gift, and in faith adored, and used, that they will
become like Him. It is by the imparted gift, itself far more than natural, of literal membership in Him;
by the indwelling presence, the gradually disciplining and dominating influence, of His Spirit, which
is His very Self within us, the inmost breath of our most secret being; that the power of His atoning
life and death, which is the power of divinely victorious holiness, can grow to be the very deepest
reality of ourselves.1 [Note: R. C. Moberly.]
A distinction must be drawn between the gifts of God and the gift of God. The gifts are natural

347. endowments, energy, strength, sagacity, powers of body, mind, and character, all of them bestowed
upon man without his asking. The gift is the Divine fire, the Spirit of God Himself, the gift of life,
which is bestowed only on such as ask for it. Without the gift, the gifts may be put to the very worst
uses. They may be a curse to him who has them and to his fellows. But if the gift be added to the
gifts, then the gifts, as St. Paul would say, become the arms of righteousness wielded in God’s
cause. The more abundant the gifts, the richer the gift. The gift cannot create the gifts, it can only
sanctify them. St. Peter had always been confident, vigorous, intrepid, fervid, and clear-sighted; St.
Paul always logical, original, fiery, indomitable. They were both in nature leaders of men. When to
these gifts the gift was added, St. Peter could not become a zealot, St. Paul could no longer remain
a persecutor. They must work for God; they could not work against God.1 [Note: W. G.
Rutherford.]
The man of the last generation who of all men did most to reinvigorate the life of the English
Church, although he died outside her communion, lets out the secret of his fertile and lasting
influence when he relates how the thought grew upon him and possessed him, “that deliverance is
wrought, not by the many, but by the few, not by bodies, but by persons,” and how from his
schooldays onwards he loved and prized more every day the motto he had chosen as his own
—“Exoriare aliquis.”
(2) The very first condition of this spiritual fervency is that clear insight into the Divine method of
peace, or that belief of the truth as it is in Jesus, which casts out self-righteousness, self-seeking,
and self-esteem. Then those old natural fires, which, when fanned by winds from the spiritual
region, make the heart and bosom burn, are extinguished and die out. There is no room now for the
feelings of keen self-torture, or hot and heady self-elation, which once by turns inflamed the
unsteadfast soul. New fires are kindled; feelings of an entirely new kind come in to occupy the place
of the expelled. Far more gentle are they, far more calm! and yet how warm, how steadily and
uniformly warm! For the source of them continues always the same. That source is Christ; Christ
living in us—“Christ in us, the hope of glory.”
I took this cutting from a newspaper the other day. “A vicar tried last winter, in his attempt to win the
man in the street, twelve concerts, twenty dances, six lectures, three Christmas-trees, and several
other things, and all in vain.” I think that parish might try a real novelty—the Gospel. I am persuaded
of this, that the energy the Lord is going to use is the energy of the Spirit.1[Note: Harrington
Lees.]
III
Christward
“Serving the Lord.”

348. “Serving the Lord”—this is the supreme motive of the Christian life. Some think that the word “Spirit”
may have suggested “Lord,” which here refers not to the Father, but to Christ. There is another
reading, “serving the opportunity,” as the Greek words for “Lord” and “time” (or season, opportunity)
are very much alike. But a great balance of manuscript authority is in favour of the reading “Lord.”
And, apart from the weight of authority on the side of the accepted text, the other reading seems to
give a very incomplete climax to the Apostle’s thought, while it breaks entirely the sequence which
is discernible in it. In this, the closing member of the triplet, St. Paul suggests a thought which will
be stimulus to the diligence and fuel to the fire that makes the spirit boil. In effect he says, “Think,
when your hands begin to droop, and when your spirits begin to be cold and indifferent, and languor
to steal over you, and the paralysing influences of the commonplace and the familiar and the small
begin to assert themselves, think that you are serving the Lord.” Will that not freshen you up? Will
that not set you boiling again? Will it not be easy to be diligent when you feel that you are “ever in
the great Taskmaster’s eye”?
1. But what is meant by “serving the Lord”? It means in the first place that our work for Christ is not
work that is voluntarily undertaken by us, but work that is imposed on us by a Master.
It is true that, as in Isaiah’s case, the Lord may seem to put it to ourselves to come forward for His
service of our own accord. In great kindness and condescension He allows us the satisfaction of
offering ourselves as volunteers. Our engagement with Him is to have the grace, or graceful aspect,
of being not so much a stern command on His part, leaving us no alternative but to enlist, but,
rather, in the first instance, a spontaneous act on our part, hastening to place ourselves and our
services at His disposal. But let us notice two things.
(1) To one dealt with as Isaiah was dealt with, the very hearing, or as it were the overhearing by
accident, of that voice of the Lord, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” has all the force of a
command. He must feel that the very idea of that Holy One, by whom he has first been so
wonderfully humbled, and then lifted up, having work to be done, errands to be executed, lays him
under an obligation to say, “Here am I.” He has absolutely no alternative here, any more than if the
most peremptory order had been issued. He is very thankful for the generous consideration which
allows him to have the pleasure of volunteering; but he cannot on that account imagine for a
moment that he has really any discretion in the matter, or any right to hesitate or hang back.
The right Christians are those who fear God, and work with a light joyful heart; because they
recognize God’s command and will. A good Christian peasant sees inscribed on his waggon and
plough—a shoemaker on his leather and awl, a smith and carpenter on his wood and iron—this
verse, “Happy art thou. It is well with thee.” The world reverses this, and says, “Wretched art thou, it
is evil with thee, for thou must ever bear and carry; but happy are those who live in idleness, and
have what they want, without labour.”1 [Note: Luther.]

349. What can God do for a lazy Christian, who is disloyal to His purposes and the needs of the
perishing? While thus treating God and men there can be no deep personal spiritual life or growth in
the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Such people often say to me, “Each time you come to us
you seem to be mightily enjoying the religion you preach to us.” “Yes,” I reply, “I do enjoy my
religion, twenty-four hours per day and three hundred and sixty-five days per year.” “Well,” they say,
“I am often so cold and dead that I hardly know whether or not I have any religion at all.” When I ask
them if they do any work for Christ and the saving and blessing of men, they usually answer me with
a long-drawn-out “Well no.” “Then,” I always say, “you deserve to starve.”1[Note: T. Waugh,
Twenty-Three years a Missioner, 194.]
Come weary-eyed from seeking in the night
Thy wanderers strayed upon the pathless wold,
Who wounded, dying, cry to Thee for light,
And cannot find their fold.
And deign, O Watcher with the sleepless brow,
Pathetic in its yearning—deign reply:
Is there, O is there aught that such as Thou
Wouldst take from such as I?
Are there no briars across Thy pathway thrust?
Are there no thorns that compass it about?
Nor any stones that Thou wilt deign to trust
My hands to gather out?

350. O, if Thou wilt, and if such bliss might be,
It were a cure for doubt, regret, delay—
Let my lost pathway go—what aileth me?—
There is a better way.2 [Note: Jean Ingelow.]
(2) And then, secondly, when his offer is accepted, and he is taken at his word, he is clearly now a
servant under the yoke. He is not at liberty to decline any work that may be assigned to him,
however difficult and laborious, however perilous and painful to flesh and blood. It may be different
from what he anticipated; not so pleasant, not so honourable. But what of that? When he offered
himself, he asked no questions; he had no right to ask any. He stipulated for no conditions; it would
have been unbelief to do so. Unreservedly he said, “Whatsoever be the errand, here am I; send
me.” And he cannot qualify his offer, or attempt to make terms, now. Nor is this all. Not only must he
undertake, as a servant, whatever work the Lord appoints; he must go through with it as a servant.
He must feel himself to be a servant, bound to do the work, be it what it may. He must feel himself
to be a servant, from first to last, in the doing of it.
I asked Thee for a larger life:
Thou gavedst me
A larger measure of the strife
Men wage for Thee;
And willed that where grey cares are rife
My place should be.
I asked Thee for the things that are

351. More excellent;
And prayed that nought on earth might mar
My heart’s content:
And lo! a toilsome way and far
My feet were sent.
I asked Thee for a clearer view
To make me wise:
Thou saidst, “It is enough for you
To recognize
My voice”—and then the darkness grew
Before my eyes.
I asked that I might understand
The way of pain:
Thine answer was to take my hand
In Thine again;
Nor aught of all Thy love had planned
Didst Thou explain.

352. I asked Thee once that I might fill
A higher place:
Thine answer was, “O heart, be still,
And I will grace
Thy patience with some gift of skill
To serve the race.”
And now I thank Thee for the prayer
Thou didst not hear;
And for the ministry of care,
The hour of fear,
For skies o’ercast, and places where
The way was drear.
For now I know that life is great
Not by the things
That make for peace, and all that Fate
Or Fortune flings
Down at my feet—for soon or late

353. These all take wings.
I do not ask what joys or woes
Time holds for me:
I simply seek a love that goes
Out unto Thee,
As surely as the river flows
To meet the sea.1 [Note: Percy C. Ainsworth, Poems and Sonnets, 53.]
2. Is not this a lowering of the whole tone and style of our intercourse with the Lord, and our
engagement for His work? After all seemed to be placed on the footing of a large and free
commerce of love and confidence; when the adjustment of the whole question of our standing with
God, and our relation to Him, had been taken out of the hands of law, and out of the category of
legal bargaining, and transferred to a higher region, in which grace and honour reign; are we again
to come down to the level of servants? Yes, and hired servants too. And why should this offend us?
It did not offend Christ when He was doing His Father’s work on earth. He did it as a servant, even
as a hired servant, when He “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the
shame.”
Our Master all the work hath done
He asks of us to-day;
Sharing his service, every one
Share too his sonship may.
Lord, I would serve and be a son;
Dismiss me not, I pray.2 [Note: T. T. Lynch, The Rivulet, 4.]
3. Finally, obligation and responsibility are not badges of degradation. On the contrary, for intelligent

354. creatures, on a right footing with their Creator, they are elements and conditions of highest glory
and purest joy. Angels in heaven now work as servants; nay, as hired servants; for He whom they
serve will never accept service unrequited. They work as servants, under obligation; upon their
responsibility. It is in that character and capacity that they are summoned to join in the universal
song of praise: “Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments,
hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do
his pleasure” (Psa_103:20-21). Saints in heaven hereafter will work in like manner; in fact, one chief
element of heaven’s blessedness and glory is this, that there “his servants shall serve him”
(Rev_22:3). And all our work here on earth, we will do the better if we do it, not as at our own hand,
but as “serving the Lord.”
If I knew it now, how strange it would seem,
To think, to know, ere another day
I should have passed over the silent way,
And my present life become as a dream;
But what if that step should usher me
Right into the sinless company
Of the saints in heaven.
I’ll carefully watch the door of my lips
As I talk with my comrades to-day,
And think a little before I say,
To see that no careless expression slips,
Which I should find would so ill compare
With the holy converse uttered there,

355. By the saints in heaven.
If they let me in—Oh, how sweet, how strange,
The thought that before a new day dawn,
I may put the incorruptible on,—
That beautiful garment, the robe of change!
And walk and talk with that happy throng,
Perhaps join my voice in the “new, new song,”
With the saints in heaven.
But I fear I should be poorly meet
To mingle much with the saints at all;
My earthly service would seem so small—
Just going of errands on tired feet;
But, oh! how blest, if it were my share
To be the trusted messenger there,
For the saints in heaven!
With holy missives to take and bring,
Sometime, perhaps, it would come to be

356. That some pure saint would commission me
To carry his message straight to the King
And the King His answer would defer,
To turn and smile on the messenger
Of His saints in heaven!1 [Note: Anna Jane Granniss.]
MACLARE , “A TRIPLETOF GRACES
Rom_12:11.
Paul believed that Christian doctrine was meant to influence Christian practice; and therefore, after
the fundamental and profound exhibition of the central truths of Christianity which occupies the
earlier portion of this great Epistle, he tacks on, with a ‘therefore’ to his theological exposition, a
series of plain, practical teachings. The place where conduct comes in the letter is profoundly
significant, and, if the significance of it had been observed and the spirit of it carried into practice,
there would have been less of a barren orthodoxy, and fewer attempts at producing righteous
conduct without faith.
But not only is the place where this series of exhortations occur very significant, but the order in
which they appear is also instructive. The great principle which covers all conduct, and may be
broken up into all the minutenesses of practical directions is self-surrender. Give yourselves up to
God; that is the Alpha and the Omega of all goodness, and wherever that foundation is really laid,
on it will rise the fair building of a life which is a temple, adorned with whatever things are lovely and
of good REPORT . So after Paul has laid deep and broad the foundation of all Christian virtue in
his exhortation to present ourselves as living sacrifices, he goes on to point out the several virtues
in which such self-surrender will manifest itself. There runs through the most of these exhortations
an arrangement in triplets-three sister Graces linked together hand-in-hand as it were-and my text
presents an example of that threefoldness in grouping. ‘Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit;
serving the Lord.’

357. I. We have, first, the prime grace of Christian diligence.
‘Not slothful in business’ suggests, by reason of our modern restriction of that word ‘business’ to a
man’s daily occupation, a much more limited range to this exhortation than the Apostle meant to
give it. The idea which is generally drawn from these words by English readers is that they are to do
their ordinary work diligently, and, all the while, notwithstanding the cooling or distracting influences
of their daily avocations, are to keep themselves ‘fervent in spirit.’ That is a noble and needful
conception of the command, but it does not express what is in the Apostle’s mind. He does not
mean by ‘business’ a trade or profession, or daily occupation. But the word means ‘zeal’ or
‘earnestness.’ And what Paul says is just this-’In regard to your earnestness in all directions, see
that you are not slothful.’
The force and drift of the whole precept is just the exhortation to exercise the very homely virtue of
diligence, which is as much a condition of growth and maturity in the Christian as it is in any other
life. The very homeliness and obviousness of the duty causes us often to lose sight of its
imperativeness and necessity.
Many of us, if we would sit quietly down and think of how we go about our ‘business,’ as we call it,
and of how we go about our Christian life, which ought to be our highest business, would have great
cause for being ashamed. We begin the one early in the morning, we keep hard at it all day, our
eyes are wide open to see any opening where money is to be made; that is all right. We give our
whole selves to our work whilst we are at it; that is as it should be. But why are there not the same
concentration, the same wide-awakeness, the same open-eyed eagerness to find out ways of
advancement, the same resolved and CONTINUOUS and all-comprehending and dominating
enthusiasm about our Christianity as there is about our shop, or our mill, or our success as
students? Why are we all fire in the one case and all ice in the other? Why do we think that it is
enough to lift the burden that Christ lays upon us with one languid finger, and to put our whole hand,
or rather, as the prophet says, ‘both hands earnestly,’ to the task of lifting the load of daily work? ‘In
your earnestness be not slothful.’
Brethren, that is a very homely exhortation. I wonder how many of us can say, ‘Lord! I have heard,
and I have obeyed Thy precept.’
II. Diligence must be fed by a fervent spirit.
The word translated ‘fervent’ is literally boiling. The metaphor is very plain and intelligible. The spirit
brought into contact with Christian truth and with the fire of the Holy Spirit will naturally have its
temperature raised, and will be moved by the warm touch as heat makes water in a pot hung above
a fire boil. Such emotion, produced by the touch of the fiery Spirit of God, is what Paul desires for,

358. and enjoins on, all Christians; for such emotion is the only way by which the diligence, without which
no Christian progress will be made, can be kept up.
No man will work long at a task that his heart is not in; or if he does, because he is obliged, the work
will be slavery. In order, then, that diligence may neither languish and become slothfulness, nor be
felt to be a heavy weight and an unwelcome necessity, Paul here bids us see to it that our hearts
are moved because there is a fire below which makes ‘the soul’s depths boil in earnest.’
Now, of course, I know that, as a great teacher has told us, ‘The gods approve the depth and not
the tumult of the soul,’ and I know that there is a great deal of emotional Christianity which is worth
nothing. But it is not that kind of fervour that the Apostle is enjoining here. Whilst it is perfectly true
that mere emotion often does co-exist with, and very often leads to, entire negligence as to
possessing and manifesting practical excellence, the true relation between these is just the
opposite-viz. that this fervour of which I speak, this wide-awakeness and enthusiasm of a spirit all
quickened into rapidity of action by the warmth which it has felt from God in Christ, should drive the
wheels of life. Boiling water makes steam, does it not? And what is to be done with the steam that
comes off the ‘boiling’ spirit? You may either let it go roaring through a waste-pipe and do nothing
but make a noise and be idly dissipated in the air, or you may lead it into a cylinder and make it lift a
piston, and then you will get work out of it. That is what the Apostle desires us to do with our
emotion. The lightning goes careering through the sky, but we have harnessed it to tram-cars
nowadays, and made it ‘work for its living,’ to carry our letters and light our rooms. Fervour of a
Christian spirit is all right when it is yoked to Christian work, and made to draw what else is a heavy
chariot. It is not emotion, but it is indolent emotion, that is the curse of much of our ‘fervent’
Christianity.
There cannot be too much fervour. There may be too little outlet provided for the fervour to work in.
It may all go off in comfortable feeling, in enthusiastic prayers and ‘Amens!’ and ‘So be it, Lords!’
and the like, or it may come with us into our daily tasks, and make us buckle to with more
earnestness, and more CONTINUITY . Diligence driven by earnestness, and fervour that works,
are the true things.
And surely, surely there cannot be any genuine Christianity-certainly there cannot be any deep
Christianity-which is not fervent.
We hear from certain quarters of the Church a great deal about the virtue of moderation. But it
seems to me that, if you take into account what Christianity tells us, the ‘sober’ feeling is fervent
feeling, and tepid feeling is imperfect feeling. I cannot understand any man believing as plain
matter-of-fact the truths on which the whole New Testament insists, and keeping himself ‘cool,’ or,
as our friends call it, ‘moderate.’ Brethren, enthusiasm-which properly means the condition of being

359. dwelt in by a god-is the wise, the reasonable attitude of CHRISTIAN MEN , if they believe their
own Christianity and are really serving Jesus Christ. They should be ‘diligent in business, fervent’-
boiling-in spirit.
III. The diligence and the fervency are both to be animated by the thought, ‘Serving the Lord!’
Some critics, as many of you know, no doubt, would prefer to read this verse in its last clause
‘serving the time.’ But that seems to me a very lame and incomplete climax for the Apostle’s
thought, and it breaks entirely the sequence which, as I think, is discernible in it. Much rather, he
here, in the closing member of the triplet, suggests a thought which will be stimulus to the diligence
and fuel to the fire that makes the spirit boil.
In effect he says, ‘Think, when your hands begin to droop, and when your spirits begin to be cold
and indifferent, and languor to steal over you, and the paralysing influences of the commonplace
and the familiar, and the small begin to assert themselves-think that you are serving the Lord.’ Will
that not freshen you up? Will that not set you boiling again? Will it not be easy to be diligent when
we feel that we are ‘ever in the great Taskmaster’s eye’ ? There are many reasons for diligence-the
greatness of the work, for it is no small matter for us to get the whole lump of our nature leavened
with the good leaven; the CONTINUAL operation of antagonistic forces which are all round us,
and are working night-shifts as well as day ones, whether we as Christians are on short time or not,
the brevity of the period during which we have to work, and the tremendous issues which depend
upon the completeness of our service here-all these things are reasons for our diligence.
But the reason is: ‘Thou Christ hast died for me, and livest for me; truly I am Thy slave.’ That is the
thought that will make a man bend his back to his work, whatever it be, and bend his will to his
work, too, however unwelcome it may be; and that is the thought that will stir his whole spirit to
fervour and earnestness, and thus will deliver him from the temptations to languid and perfunctory
work that ever creep over us.
You can carry that motive-as we all know, and as we all forget when the pinch comes-into your
shop, your study, your office, your mill, your kitchen, or wherever you go. ‘On the bells of the horses
there shall be written, Holiness to the Lord,’ said the prophet, and ‘every bowl in Jerusalem’ may be
sacred as the vessels of the altar. All life may FLASH into beauty, and tower into greatness, and
be smoothed out into easiness, and the crooked things may be made straight and the rough places
plain, and the familiar and the trite be invested with freshness and wonder as of a dream, if only we
write over them, ‘For the sake of the Master.’ Then, whatever we do or bear, be it common,
insignificant, or unpleasant, will change its aspect, and all will be sweet. Here is the secret of
diligence and of fervency, ‘I set the Lord always before me.’
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, “

360. Not slothful in business.
I. We have all business to do.
I. In our particular calling and station in the world (1Th_4:11).
2. In our general calling (Php_2:12).
(1) Repentance (Luk_13:3).
(2) Faith (Act_16:30-31).
(3) To get our sins pardoned.
(4) And so God reconciled.
(5) And our souls in a capacity for heaven (Heb_12:14).
II. How are we not to be slothful in business?
1. Not to live as if we had nothing to do.
2. Not to be slothful in doing what we do (Ecc_9:10).
3. Especially, not to be indifferent as to the grand affairs of our souls (Rev_3:16).
Conclusion: Consider--
1. You have a great deal of work to do.
2. But a little time to do it in (Jam_4:13).
3. Eternity depends on your doing your work here. (Bp. Beveridge.)

361. The influence of great truths on little things
These words constitute an incomplete quotation, and I use them only as representing the entire
passage of which they form an organic part. The whole extends from the third verse onwards to the
close of the chapter, and contains in all twenty-six clauses, expressive negatively or positively of
twenty-three graces of the Christian character. I invite attention, in the first place, to the relation in
which they all stand to the life and hope of the Christian. The connecting word with which the
chapter opens--“therefore”--“I beseech you, therefore”--looks both backwards to the chapters
preceding and forwards to the verses that follow. In the look backwards we find the grand Christian
motive. The life of holiness is to be lived, not that we may be saved, but because we are saved.
Having laid down this obligation, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,” the
apostle next expresses, in the second verse, the grand principle of all holiness. It can only have its
spring in a total change of heart and life, wrought in us by the mighty Spirit of God--in the gift of a
new nature with its own spiritual senses and experiences. And then, in the remainder of the chapter,
he traces this great change into its details. It is as if we watched the beginning of some great river
rising, like the springs of the Jordan, where the strong clear waters rush upwards in their strength,
and then followed them as they flowed into a hundred divergent streams, carrying beauty and
abundance through the smiling land, till they meet again to flow into the ocean. With what rich
abundance the apostle heaps grace upon grace: “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving
the Lord; rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer.”
I. We may learn from these words the influence of great truths on the details of Christian practice.
The truths, explained in the previous part of the Epistle, are almost the grandest that can possibly
occupy human thought. Not only does the apostle explain in detail the method of salvation, but in
doing so he takes in the full breadth of the Divine action. But I think we must be conscious of a
danger arising from the very greatness of these truths. The distance between them and the
apparently trivial details of daily life and conduct is so immense that we fail to bring the greatness of
the one into contact with the littleness of the other. We get as far as the second verse of the
chapter; but there we stop. We admit that a Christian, the object of such a love, tainted with a fatal
crime, but redeemed by such a price as the precious blood of Christ, made inheritor of such a glory,
should act worthy of his calling, and that, as he is different from other men in his hopes, so he ought
to differ from them also in his life and in his modes of thinking, speaking, and acting; but when the
time and occasion come for applying this to practice we fail. We have not faith enough to link the
grand hope to the little actions. It seems to me that the whole of this chapter, and the energy with

362. which the apostle presses the great motive into the details of the life, is one long witness against it.
How minute are the graces enumerated! They do not belong to the few grand opportunities which
occur now and then, but to the practical familiarities which enter into the daily life of all. The
constancy of little occasions is an incalculably greater trial of faith than a few occasional
opportunities, which, as it were, rally effort, and stimulate by their greatness the courage and zeal
which become weary and evaporate amid the details of daily obedience. Nor is it only that the
occasions are small in themselves, but it is also that so many secondary motives and influences
become mixed up with them, and intervene between our clear sight of duty and the occasion of
practising it as to throw us off our guard. Just as in a piece of machinery the moving force must be
strong in proportion to the distance at which it needs to act, so the smallest occasions that lie, as it
were, on the edge and outer confines of our life need the mightiest of motives to reach them and
keep them in motion.
II. We may extend the same truth a step further, and learn that every grace has its corresponding
temptation--the shadow, as it were, thrown by it on the sunshine of the other world. For instance, in
giving, is there not danger of the affectation of an air of superiority and a disposition to magnify our
gift? Therefore we are warned, “He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity.” When we are placed in
a position of authority are we not often tempted to relax effort and yield to self-indulgence?
Therefore, he “that ruleth” let him do it “with diligence.” In showing mercy is there not a danger in
forgiving unwillingly, as if we reluctantly yielded to the duty of mercifulness? Therefore, “he that
showeth mercy” let him do it “with cheerfulness.” In cultivating love to all men is there not danger of
insincerity? Therefore, “Let love be without dissimulation.” So, on the other side, “be not slothful in
business”; for such I still believe to be the true meaning of the words, in spite of criticism. Is there
not danger of becoming absorbed in it? Therefore, “be fervent in spirit.” Yet, may not an enthusiastic
energetic temper take a wrong direction? Therefore let it be “serving the Lord.” So in another way,
“rejoicing in hope,” and therefore, because a bright hope should give us strength to bear and
constancy to endure, whereas we often see persons of a bright and buoyant temperament easily
depressed in sorrow, “be patient in tribulation.” Then, as this twofold grace of cheerfulness and
patience is not easy to human nature--though, thank God, we often see them combined in the saints
of Christ--therefore let us seek strength where alone it can be had, “continuing instant in prayer.”
Thus there is a strict connection everywhere, and we need to learn from it. A little self-knowledge
will convince us that, even when we do the right thing, we are apt to do it in the wrong way. The
shadow and taint of our corrupt nature cling to us everywhere, and nothing but the most generous
love of God sweeping away little temptations, as the strong river carries the fallen leaves upon its
surface, will enable us to get rid of it. (Canon Garbett.)

363. Diligence in business
Every Christian--
I. Should have some business to do. If not in the world--
1. In social life.
2. In the Church.
II. Should discharge it with diligence.
1. As a Christian duty.
2. As a part of his moral education.
3. As responsible to the great Master for the use of his ability.
III. Is prompted to this course by the most impressive considerations.
1. Life is the time for work.
2. Is soon ended.
3. Is followed by a just reward. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Business and godliness
Christianity addresses itself to man as he is--as a citizen of the world, having work in the world to
do. But as he belongs to another, and owes duties to it--the perfection in obedience consists in

364. maintaining a just equipoise between the two. Religion is a discipline for the whole man. The
workshop may be made as good a sanctuary as the cloister.
I. A life of active usefulness is obligatory upon all of us.
1. Neither rank nor wealth can confer a prerogative to be idle. All God’s gifts to us are for some
beneficial use, and we dishonour them by allowing them to lie idle. Circumstances may determine
for each what his work shall be. But the command to work is universal, and came in with the Fall.
2. And, for a fallen being, there is no reason but to believe such a command is merciful and wise.
Continual employment keeps the soul from much evil. Active engagements, so long as they are not
so engrossing as to draw our hearts away from better things, give a healthy tone to the mind and
strengthen moral energy. Next to devotion (and a man cannot be engaged in that always), there is
no relief against wearing anxieties so effectual as the necessity of engrossing work. With nothing to
do but to sit still and hear the enemy of souls make the most and worst of our troubles, we should
soon get to think ourselves the most ill-used people in the world, and murmur in secret both against
God and man.
II. There is nothing in the busiest life, as such, which is incompatible with the claims of personal
religion.
1. Scripture teems with examples of those who, while laborious in the duties of their station, were
most exact in the duties which they owed to God. Leaving the greatest of all, look at Joseph, Moses,
David and Daniel. And like examples the Church has had in all ages. Xavier among churchmen, Sir
Matthew Hale among judges, Wilberforce and Buxton among statesmen, Gardiner and Havelock
among soldiers, have all left records that prayer never spoiled work, and that work must never
interfere with prayer.
2. But this compatibility of business with godliness does not rest upon specific acts or examples,
though Heb_11:1-40 is full of them. Religion consists not so much in the super-addition of certain
acts of worship to the duties of common life, as in leavening the latter with the spirit of the former,
and life’s common work will be accepted as worship if we set about it in a religious spirit. The
husbandman when he tills the ground with a thankful heart, the merchant when for all success he
gives God the glory, the servant who in all fidelity discharges the duties of his trust, each offering to
God a continual sacrifice.

365. III. So far from the active duties of life presenting any barrier to our proficiency in personal religion,
they are the very field in which its higher graces are to be exercised, and its noblest triumphs are to
be achieved. We sometimes repine at the spiritual hindrances connected with our outward lot: but
the hindrance is in ourselves. We have not practised ourselves in the worship of God in the world;
the religion of the toiling hand or brain. Yet this is what is required of us, and that which has always
distinguished the hard-working saints of God from the common run of men. Every lot in life will
serve us with occasions of serving God. We may be diligent in business--even more diligent than
other men--and yet the world will soon be able to take note of us that we have been with Jesus.
Conclusion: Wherefore be it ours to find out the golden mean. “Be not righteous over much,” as if
saying prayers were everything. Be not careful over much, as if bread for the body were everything.
We cannot neglect either, and may not disparage either; and therefore that which God hath joined
together let no man put asunder. (D. Moore, M.A.)
Business and religion
I. It is a false opinion which would make labour the consequence of sin.
1. Labour was God’s ordinance whilst man was in paradise. The curse provoked by disobedience
was not work, but painful work.
2. Employment is appointed to every living thing. The highest of heaven’s angels has his duties to
fulfil; and the meanest of earth’s insects must be busy or perish. It is the running water which keeps
fresh; it is the air fanned by winds which is wholesome; it is the metal that is in use that does not
rust.
3. There is wisdom and goodness in the difference placed between man and animals. From man,
the lord of this lower creation, there is demanded labour, and ingenuity, before he can be provided
with the common necessaries of life. Whatsoever is beautiful in art, sublime in science, or refined in
happiness, is virtually due to the operation of that law of labour, against which so many are tempted
to murmur. The unemployed man is always dissatisfied and restless.

366. II. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. You frequently meet with persons who
occasionally will exert much diligence to produce something excellent, but who, at other times, care
nothing, so long as a duty be performed, how slovenly may be the performance. And it is against
this temper that our text directs its emphasis. What a man is in one thing, that in the main will he be
in another. If industrious only by fits and starts in business, he will be industrious only by fits and
starts in religion--a habit injurious to both. If I fritter away my time through being “slothful in
business,” fewer hours are employed than I might have had for providing for eternity.
III. There cannot be a greater mistake than to divide employments into secular and spiritual. The
businesses of life are so many Divine institutions, and, if prosecuted in a right spirit, are the
businesses of eternity, through which the soul grows in grace, and lasting glory is secured. If men
are but “fervent in spirit,” then are they “serving the Lord” through their very diligence in business.
And if this be so, then is diligence in business to be urged by precisely the same motives as
diligence in prayer, in the study of the Bible, or in works of piety and of faith. For our earthly callings
are the appointments of God; and are therefore means through which you are to work out your
salvation; and consequently the servant, the mechanic, the merchant, and the scholar must “do with
their might whatsoever their hand findeth to do.”
IV. But there are duties which are more openly connected than others with the saving of the soul. It
is not the representation of Scripture that religion is an easy thing; so that immortality may be
secured with no great effort. Admitting that we are justified simply through faith, nevertheless the
Christian life is likened to a battle, a race, a stewardship; so that only as we are “not slothful” in
religion, have we right to suppose that we have entered on its path. Be not then slothful in the great
prime business of all. Is temptation to be resisted--be “not slothful” in resistance: a half-resistance
courts defeat. Is prayer to be offered--be “not slothful” in offering it: a languid prayer asks to be
unanswered. Is a sacrifice to be made--be “not slothful” in making it: a tardy surrender is next akin
to refusal. Be industrious in religion. We can tolerate indolence anywhere rather than here, where
an eternity is at stake. Work, then, “with your might,” give all diligence to make “your calling and
election sure.” If, by industry hereafter, you might repair the effects of indolence here, we could
almost forgive you for being “slothful in business”; but now that probation is altogether limited to the
present brief existence, and that the boundless future is given wholly to retribution, what are ye, if ye
work not “with all your might”? (H. Melvill, B.D.)

367. Business and religion
I. Business men require sympathy. We often hear that “business is business,” as if it were some
lonely island at which no ship of religion ever called, or if it did call it would find but scant welcome.
This morning, however, the ship calls at the port, and the captain asks what he can do for you. You
are now face to face with one who understands you, in your difficulties, disappointments, and
temptations. By so much I would claim your confidence. When you therefore come up out of the
market-place into the church, what do you want? If you had been spending the week in gathering
violets and in cultivating orchids, I should address you in a very different tone; but the most of you
have just laid down your tools, you have not shaken the world from you yet, and therefore you
cannot enter into high speculation and transcendental imaginings, or even into fine points of
criticism. You want a broad, sympathetic gospel, standards by which you can at once adjust
yourselves to God’s claim upon you. Therein is the preacher’s great difficulty. He is not an academic
lecturer surrounded by persons who have been spending six days in preparation for the seventh.
Probably there are not six men in this house who have been able to say to the world at the door of
the church, “Stand thou here, whilst I go up and worship yonder,” and the world permitted to come
over the threshold remains to throw a veil between the preacher and his hearer, to excite prejudice
and throw the music of revelation into discord. What a weary life is that of the man of business!
Always beginning, never ending. He writes a letter that is to form a conclusion, and behold it only
starts a more voluminous correspondence. What with orders half completed, money half paid or not
paid, responsibilities ignored, discoveries of untrustworthiness on the part of the most trusted, the
wonder is that business men can live at all. The Christian preacher, therefore, must recognise their
difficulties, and not regard them as if they and he had been living all the week in a great CLOUD
full of angels.
II. Business has its boundaries. You are limited by health, time, the incapacity of others, by a
thousand necessities.
1. Thank God, therefore, if Parliament takes hold of you and says, “You shall rest to-day.” It is your
commercial, intellectual, and moral salvation. You recover yourselves within those four-and-twenty
hours: the very act of closing the book and saying, “I cannot open that until Monday morning” is
itself the beginning of a religious blessing. What then have you to do? You have to meet that from
the other side by sympathy, by joyful acquiescence, so as to get the most and the best out of the
arrangement.

368. 2. You brought nothing into the world, and it is certain you can carry nothing out. What; is the end,
therefore, of all this anxiety and toil and sleeplessness? Christ says, “Which of you by multiplying
worry and fret can accomplish anything beyond the limits that God has imposed upon you?” If you
could show that to-day’s anxiety would bring to-morrow’s success, then it would be justified.
III. Business is a great science. No business man can be an uneducated man. He may never have
been at school, but we do not get our education at school: there we get the tools, hints, and
suggestions which we may turn to profit subsequently; but our education we get in the world, in
social collisions, in having to work out the great practical problems of life and time. Why,
the MEDICAL man tells me, after I have read all my books, that I must go to the bedside to learn
to be a doctor. And the navigator tells me that after I have studied all the mathematics of navigation
I must go to sea in order to be a high nautical authority. And so we must go into the practical, real
engagements of life in order to be truly educated.
IV. Business success depends on diligence. It is possible for a man of the very finest
capacity to be put in circumstances which overpower him; to pass in at the wrong door, and
not get back again. Such men have my sympathy. But there are others who often come to me
in distress, whose criticism upon life would be comical if it were not too sad in its unreality
and untruth. Let me suppose that I am a business man in your sense of the term. I plan,
scheme, go to my work, upbraiding the light for being so long in coming, and leave it--
upbraiding the light for going away so soon. I succeed, retire, and am a rich man. What does
the individual referred to say? “You have been very fortunate.” Is that true? What did he do?
Went to business at nine with his hands in his pockets, looked over the door, came back and
gossiped with the first person that was fool enough to waste his time with him--was very
anxious to know from the papers what was going to be done fifteen thousand miles away
from his place of business, went home at four o’clock, and he calls me a fortunate man!
Fortunate? No--“be not deceived; God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth that shall he
also reap.” The men who like their work, do it joyfully, and when it is done are proud of it,
and those who engage them are proud of them and their work too--those men deserve
success.
V.I claim business men for Christ. Let me tell you why.

369. 1. Without faith you could not conduct your business; you deal with men whom you have never
seen, you base your connection upon written authority; you venture and incur risk. By such
experiments and engagements you enter into the very spirit of faith. In the Christian kingdom we
walk by faith, and not by sight; we venture upon Christ--we risk it.
2. You know what preparation is. You have apprenticeships, you say that a certain seed sown will
produce a certain result--but not to-morrow: you have to wait and trust in the outworking of great
eternal laws. In the Christian kingdom we have to do just the same.
3. I claim you business men for Christ, men with clear understandings, resolute wills, and ask you to
accept the great mystery of this Christian kingdom. It will go with you through all your engagements,
it will turn your water into wine, it will relieve your perplexities, and be the solace of your solitude.
Let Christ be head of your firm, The Lord thy God giveth thee power to get wealth--praise God from
whom all blessings flow. Conclusion: Diligent in business--not absorbed in, anxious about,
overmastered by it. Let your object be not to gain the mere wealth, but to gain something that is
better--the discipline, patience, solidity of character, which such engagements of yours tend to work
out. He who comes out of business rich in gold only will soon die. (J. Parker, D.D.)
Religion and business
Diligence in business should not hinder fervency in spirit. Like the pure mettled sword, that can
bend this way and that way, and turns to its straightness again, and stands not bent, that heart is of
the right make that can stoop and bend to the lowest action of its worldly calling, but then return to
its fitness for communion with God. (W.Gurnall.)
Religion and business
The Christian must not only mind heaven but attend to his daily calling. Like the pilot who, while his
eye is fixed upon the star, keeps his hand upon the helm. (T. Watson.)
The relative importance of religion and business

370. The common practice is to reverse these words. Business is the chief concern, and religion only
secondary; whereas the text teaches us that business is to be attended to as well as the duty of our
calling, but religion is to be the object of our holy enthusiasm. There is a vast distinction between
the expressions “not slothful” and “fervent.” The one simply denotes that there is to be no loitering,
or trifling, but a steady perseverance; the other denotes that there is to be an intensity of ardour.
And if we give either a greater degree of attention to business than “not to be slothful” in it, or a less
degree of attention to religion than to be “fervent” in it, neither our works of business nor our works
of religion are a “serving the Lord.”
I. The grace inculcated, “fervour in spirit.” The great propriety of this is apparent, if we call to mind--
1. The infinitely important matters with which it has to do. “It is not a light thing, but it is your life.”
“One thing is needful.”
2. The regard which is due by you to your own interest. Religion has to do with the soul, and
business with the body, and therefore religion is just as much more important than business as the
soul is than the body.
3. That this is the great end for which you were sent into this world. The primary object of God’s
giving you being, was not that you might be men of business. You have a soul to save, and God
created you that you might show forth His praise.
II. The secular duty with which the exercise of religion is connected. Even when man was innocent,
God allowed him not to be idle. It is not good, therefore, for man to be unemployed, and it is more
advantageous to the exercise of piety that our entire time is not to be given to religious
employments. Be this, however, as it may, the command is explicit that we be not slothful in
business. “Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work.” The Book of Proverbs contains many
striking exhortations on the will of God in this matter. “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he
shall stand before kings,” etc. The apostle also gives his command that we “study to be quiet, and to
do our own business.”
III. The necessity of the connection between being fervent in spirit and not slothful in business.

371. 1. For the purpose of bringing down God’s blessing upon our secular employments. “Godliness is
profitable unto all things,” etc.
2. Because activity in the concerns of business tends to deaden the mind to the claims of religion.
Worldly objects are good, but they are good only as they are “sanctified by the Word of God, and by
prayer”; and he who spends a portion of his time in prayer shall sooner arrive at the attainment of
his object than he who has been the most diligent, but has neglected prayer.
3. Because the principles of the gospel are intended for illustration in the common every-day
occurrences of life. (J. Garwood, M.A.)
Religion and business: the necessity of combining them
A poor barefooted brother once presented himself at the gate of a convent, and finding all the
monks at work, gravely shook his head and remarked to the abbot, “Labour not for the meat which
perisheth.” “Mary hath chosen that good part.” “Very well,” said the abbot, with undisturbed
composure, and ordered the devout stranger to a cell, and gave him a book of prayers to occupy his
time. The monk retired, and sat hour after hour, until day had passed, wondering that no one offered
him the slightest refreshment. Hungry and wearied out, he left his cell and repaired to the abbot.
“Father,” said he, “do not the brethren eat to-day?” “Oh, yes,” returned the other, with a quiet smile
playing over his aged face, “they have eaten plentifully.” “Then, bow is it, Father, that you did not
call me to partake with them?” “For the simple reason,” said the abbot, “that you are a spiritual man,
and have no need of carnal food. For our part, we are obliged to eat, and on that account we work;
but you, brother, who have chosen ‘the good part,’ you sit and read all the day long, and are above
the want of ‘the meat that perisheth.’” “Pardon me, Father.” said the mortified and confounded
stranger, “I perceive my mistake.” (J. N. Norton, D.D.)
The busy man
One would have supposed that with such a large and rapidly increasing business, George Moore
would have had little time to attend to the organising of charitable institutions. But it was with him as
with many other hardworking men. If you wish to have any good work well done, go to the busy not
to the idle man. The former can find time for everything, the latter for nothing. Will, power,
perseverance, and industry enable a man not only to promote his own interests, but at the same
time to help others less prosperous than himself. (S. Smiles, LL.D.)

372. A cheerful word to tired people
There is no war between Bibles and ledgers, churches and counting-houses. On the contrary,
religion accelerates business. To the judgment it gives more skilful BALANCING ; to the will more
strength; to industry more muscle; to enthusiasm a more consecrated fire. We are apt to speak of
the moil and tug of business life as though it were an inquisition or a prison into which a man is
thrown, or an unequal strife where, half-armed, he goes to contend. Hear me while I try to show you
that God intended business life to be--
I. A school of Christian energy. After our young people have left school they need a higher
education, which the collision of every-day life alone can give. And when a man has been in
business for twenty or thirty years, his energy can no longer be measured by weights,
plummets, or ladders. Now do you suppose that God has spent all this education on you for
the purpose of making you merely a yard-stick or a steelyard? He has put you in this school
to develop your energy for His cause. There is enough unemployed talent in the churches to
reform all empires in three weeks.
II.A school of patience. How many little things there are in one day’s engagements to annoy.
Men will break their engagements; collecting agents will come back emptyhanded; goods
will fail to come, or come damaged; bad debts will be made; and under all this friction some
men break down, but others find in this a school for patience, and toughen under the
exposure. There was a time when they had to choke down their wrath, and bite their lip. But
now they have conquered their impatience. This grace of patience is not to be got through
hearing ministers preach about it; but in the world.
III. A school for the attaining of knowledge. Merchants do not read many books, nor study
many lexicons, yet through the force of circumstances they get intelligent onmany
questions. Business is a hard schoolmistress. If her pupils will not learn, she smites them
with loss. You went into some business enterprise, and lost five thousand dollars. Expensive
schooling, but it was worth it. Traders in grain must know about foreign harvests; in fruits

373. must know about the prospects of tropical production; in imported goods must know about
the tariff. And so every bale of cotton, and raisin cask, and tea box, becomes a literature to
our business men. Now do you suppose that God gives you these opportunities of
increasing your knowledge merely to get a grander business? Can it be that you have been
learning about foreign lands, and yet have no missionary spirit? about the follies and
trickeries of the business world, and yet not try to bring to bear upon them this gospel which
is to correct all abuses, arrest all crime, and lift up all wretchedness? Can it be that,
notwithstanding your acquaintance with business, you are ignorant of those things which
will last the soul long after invoices and rent rolls have been consumed in the fires of a
judgment-day?
IV. A school of Christian integrity. No age ever offered so many inducements for
scoundrelism as are offered now. It requires more grace to be honest now than it did in the
days of our fathers. How rare it is that you find a man who can from his heart say, “I never
cheated in trade”; but there are those who can say it, who are as pure and Christian to-day
as on the day when they sold their first tierce of rice or their first firkin of butter, and who can
pray without being haunted with the chink of dishonest gold, and look into the laughing
faces of their children without thinking of orphans left by them penniless. (T. De Witt
Talmage, D.D.)
The Christian at his work
Every Christian ought to be a worker. If he were not one before he became a Christian, Christianity
should have made him one. There is a grievous heresy wrapped up in the phrase, “the working
classes.” It is just as possible to be sycophantic to the poor as to the rich. The term properly
understood includes many besides those destined to the drudgery of material labour.
I. The Christian at his work may feel that work is a good and noble thing. Christianity greatly
honours honest industry. Of our race there have been two heads--the one was a gardener in
Paradise, the other a carpenter in Nazareth.
1. There is a natural voice of self-respect whose tones Christianity deepens and empowers. It is
honourable to be independent. There is no disgrace in deriving riches and renown from ancestors,

374. but there is virtue and glory in obtaining them from ourselves, and that religion which makes
everything of the will and nothing of accidents, which aims ever at deepening personal interest and
impressing personal responsibility, smiles ineffably at the Christian at his work.
2. Christianity attaches great importance to the exercise of the faculties. The value of daily toil is
that it prevents the evils of stagnation, the wretched results of indolence. And here comes in
the blessedness of the law that to eat men must work. The merely meditative often go wrong. Many
have fallen into wretched theories and more wretched moods, because their thinking powers have
not been yoked to their active energies. And, therefore, Christianity, which seeks the maturity and
wholesome state of our nature, looks benignly on the Christian at his work.
3. Christianity, in elevating man, elevates his engagements. It cares comparatively little for the
sphere and form of our outward life, but attaches every importance to its spirit and its power. It is the
“good man” that makes the good, the great man that makes the great, deed. The worker is more
than the work; and it is as he is. A slave, according to Paul, may do his work “unto the Lord,” and
make a divine service of his hard drudgery. And therefore the gospel, which makes everything of
what a man is, and raises and REFINES him, constituting him a servant and a child of God, has
only words of impressive approbation for the Christian at his work.
II. the Christian at his work may feel that he is filling the sphere intended for him.
1. He is not only doing what, in general, is worth doing, but he is, or should be, able to realise the
appointment of God. The Bible teaches a present providence as well as an original ordinance in
reference to work. But providence is not fatalism. God’s appointment does not interfere with our free
agency, or release us from responsibility. “Whatever is, is right,” so far as it is done by God; but it
may be wrong, so far as it is done by us. It is true that, in a sense, we cannot frustrate God’s
purpose; but there is a limit to our right of inferring our duty from its ordinations and permissions.
Our worldly lot may be a matter of volition. We need not stay in a state which necessitates
transgression. If we cannot live without sinning, it is a sin to live.
2. It is, then, our duty to ascertain the will of God in reference to our worldly pursuits. That which is
presented to us; that which we are fitted for; that to which we are directed by circumstances; these
are the evidences, interpreted by a just and godly spirit.
3. Of course, the calling must be a lawful one. A man must be satisfied of this before he can take
comfort from the thought that he is “in his place.” As a general rule, it is not difficult for any Christian
to distinguish between lawful and unlawful callings. He who wishes to be right may be so. If a man

375. cannot pursue his calling without violating the law of God, his course is plain. If others do wrong,
that is no excuse for us. Nor is it any excuse for us if quite as much wrong will be done, whether we
do it or not. We are ACCOUNTABLE for our actions in themselves, and for our moral example.
Nor may we ask Cain’s question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
4. And is it not a soul-inspiring thought for any toiler in this hard world, that he is doing the work of
his heavenly Father? It is not the nature of the service, but the Being that is served, that gives
importance to it.
III. Christianity will exert a direct and powerful influence on the Christian at his work.
1. It will regulate it--especially it will make work subservient to godliness. The Christian will not
permit himself to be so engrossed with it as to hinder the higher work of eternal redemption. Work is
a blessing; but it may become a curse. It is quite necessary that even lawful business should have
its limits and intermissions. Speaking spiritually, it is good only with something else. It has to the
direct means of spiritual growth the relations of exercise to food. Exercise is healthy; but it is no
substitute for nourishment
(1) In this light, what a blessing is the Sabbath! It is, to take the lowest view, the drag-chain on the
wheels of the soul on its secular incline. It is, to take the highest view, the replenishing it with power
from on high.
(2) Christianity should make us endeavour to abridge the labouring hours, when excessive, of our
brethren as well as our own. The excessive toil of multitudes is, if not fatal to religion, a terrific
obstacle to it. One thing at least can be done--there is no earthly need why the thousands who
serve in our shops should not be earlier released from their daily drudgery.
2. The Christian at his work may be with God. “Let every man wherein he is called therein abide
with God.” There is no necessity for the exclusion of religious things from the mind during secular
engagements. It is a strange occupation which has no moments of intermission; and to fill these
with Christian meditations and prayers is the great privilege of the saint. A mind thus kept spiritual
will be able to make some use of work for the purposes of the soul. How much of the carnality of
worldly things, which we lament, is owing to our own want of a fresh and lively grace? How many
water-pots are there in our earthly life which, if filled by us with water, would be filled by Christ with
wine? We have to do with--
(1) Men. What a field of profitable thought is human nature!

376. (2) Things. And these are suggestive. Objects, places, times, all may be yoked to the soul’s chariot.
He who has put his lessons of Divinest wisdom into parables taken from agriculture and commerce
has taught us how we may make our secular labour the mirror and voice of most spiritual truth.
3. God may be with him. “Acknowledge Him in all thy ways, and He shall direct thy steps.” And if the
guidance of God may be had, His prospering blessing may be had also. “The blessing of the Lord, it
maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it.” And may there not be the presiding sense of the
Divine love, “the love of God shed abroad in the heart,” whatever the course of providential events,
giving strength in adversity, and infusing a nobler joy in prosperity? (A. J. Morris.)
A consecrated merchant
When a certain New England merchant waited on his pastor to tell him of his earnest desire to
engage in work more distinctively religious, the pastor heard him kindly. The merchant said, “My
heart is so full of love to God and to man that I want to spend all my time in talking with men about
these things.” “No,” said the pastor; “go back to your store, and be a Christian over your counter.
Sell goods for Christ, and let it be seen that a man can be a Christian in trade.” Years afterwards the
merchant rejoiced that he had followed the advice, and the pastor rejoiced also in a broad-hearted
and open-handed brother in his church, who was awake not only to home interests, but to those
great enterprises of philanthropy and learning which are an honour to our age. (Clerical Library.)
Diligence and fervour in serving the Lord
1. The word rendered “business” is rightly rendered “diligence” (verse 8), “haste” (Mar_6:25), “care”
(2Co_7:12), “carefulness” (2Co_7:11), “earnest care” (2Co_8:16), “forwardness” (2Co_8:8). It
properly denotes promptness in action, earnestness in effort, and zeal in execution. Its special
reference in this place is not to secular, but to Christian work.
2. It is quite true that the two first clauses express the manner in which the third is to be obeyed; but
this third does not denote a distinct service, but rather requires that all service shall be rendered as
unto the Lord.

377. I. In respect to every kind of service, to which as Christians you are called, let there be no
slothfulness, but, on the contrary, promptness and zeal. This exhortation will apply to
1. The conduct of secular business, inasmuch as that implicates Christian character and duty
(1Th_4:11-12; 2Th_3:7-12). The religion of Christ gives no countenance to an idle and thriftless
spirit (Pro_6:6-8; Pro_10:4; Pro_24:30-34). Only it will have a man to attend to his secular business
in another than a secular spirit.
2. To the work of our own religious life. This will no more survive continued neglect and starvation
than will the bodily life. There is for us the work of searching the Scriptures for spiritual food; of
prayer and meditation for the assimilation of that food; of securing fresh air and healthful exercise by
the “work of faith and labour of love.”
3. To the manifestation of the graces of the Christian life. The apostle has just written of love and
brotherly kindness, and he presently gives examples of the conditions under which these graces
must be exercised with special care. But both involve active service (Jam_2:15-16; Pro_3:27-28).
4. To all church work. In whatever department of spiritual ministry you may find your appropriate
sphere of activity--whether in teaching, administration, etc.
be punctual, resolute, diligent.
II. It is required that the inner disposition shall correspond with the outward activity. As to
the spirit in which the active service shall be rendered, let it be fervent. Christ was “clad with
zeal as with a cloak” (Isa_59:17; Joh_2:17; Psa_69:9). Apollos “being fervent in spirit, he
taught diligently the things of the Lord” (Act_18:25). And wherever there is true fervour of
spirit, there will certainly be diligence in service. But there may be diligence without fervour:
diligence from servility, pride, ambition, selfishness (Rev_3:15-16). It is important that our
“zeal of God” should be “according to knowledge” certainly, but still more important that
zeal there should really be (Gal_4:18).
III. Be thus diligent and fervent as those who are serving the lord. It is our boast and glory
that we are the servants of the Lord Christ. We are His by right, by consent, and by open
avowal. Even in our secular work, if we live up to the spirit of our profession, we are still
serving Him (Eph_6:5-8). This it is which imparts to all labour its true dignity. (W. Tyson.)

378. On industry
Industry denotes the steady application and vigorous exercise of our active powers in the pursuit of
some useful object. Our minds, indeed, by their own nature, are active and restless; while we are
awake they are never wholly unemployed--they are continually thinking, contriving, and imagining
even in those seasons in which we are scarcely conscious of their operation. But there is a
negligent state of mind in which some waste a great proportion of their time. To this negligence
industry stands directly opposed.
I. That if you would cultivate the industry which Christianity recommends you must select proper
objects of pursuit.
1. It is the nature of the objects which we pursue that characterises our industry as useful or
frivolous, as virtuous or vicious. The wicked sometimes discover the most unwearied activity in
executing their schemes of guilt. They who are most negligent of their own affairs are often officially
attentive to the affairs of their neighbours. There is a frivolous industry which others display in the
pursuit of vanity and folly. They fly from scene to scene, seeking in every amusement a relief from
that languor of mind with which indolence is always accompanied. Such persons forget that
amusement ceases to be innocent when it is followed as the business of life.
2. The things which are innocent and useful are the only proper objects of that industry which the
text recommends. What are these? Religion and morality.
3. But as our minds cannot be continually fixed on those great and interesting concerns; there are a
variety of inferior objects in the pursuit of which our industry may be usefully exercised. Our worldly
affairs, for example, demands a portion of our attention and care. It is surely pitiful in any person
who is capable of exertion to be altogether ignorant of his own concerns, and to acknowledge
himself unworthy of the station which he fills by committing to others the whole arrangement of his
interests. He who attends not to his own affairs is not prepared either to reward the services of the
faithful or to CHECK the encroachments of the dishonest; he becomes a prey to the indolence of
one, to the profusion of another, and the rapacity of a third: his wealth is dissipated he knows not
how. Those who are placed in stations of trust will find in the discharge of the duties which more
particularly belong to them an extensive sphere of employment, and for the faithful performance of
these every person to whom they are committed is accountable to himself, to the world, and to his

379. Maker. There are also works of general utility which, though not immediately connected with the
duties of any particular station, may exercise the industry of the higher classes of men, and which
their extensive influence may enable them to forward. To them it belongs to reform public abuses, to
encourage useful arts, and to establish such wise regulations as may contribute to maintain the
order and advance the happiness of society.
4. Even in his hours of relaxation from the more serious concerns of life the industrious man finds a
variety of engagements in which he may exert the activity of his mind.
II. That in the pursuit even of such objects as are innocent and useful in themselves you cannot
hope to be successful unless you pursue them according to a regular plan.
1. Among the objects in the prosecution of which our industry may be lawfully exercised there are
some which claim our first attention, and there are others to which only a secondary regard is due.
Religion first. To cultivate useful knowledge is also a proper exercise of our powers. But we value
knowledge too highly if we suffer the love of it so completely to fascinate our minds as to leave to us
neither leisure nor inclination for performing the duties of active benevolence; and our benevolence
itself becomes excessive when we indulge it beyond the limits of our fortune, so as to involve
ourselves in distress or bring misery and ruin on those who are more immediately committed to our
care.
2. If you wish, then, that your industry may be successful, let it be conducted with order and
regularity. Assign to every duty a suitable portion of your time. Let not one employment encroach on
the season allotted for another. Thus shall you be delivered from that embarrassment which would
retard your progress. Your minds, when fatigued with one employment, will find relief in applying
themselves to another. The seasons which you consecrate to devotion will hallow your worldly
cares; and your worldly business, in its turn, will prevent your piety from degenerating into
moroseness, austerity, or enthusiasm.
III. Having selected proper objects of pursuit and arranged the plan according to which you resolve
to pursue them, it will be necessary that you act on this plan with ardour and perseverance. There
may, indeed, be an excess of ardour in the pursuit even of the most valuable objects. Too close an
application of mind wastes its strength, and not only unfits us for enjoying the fruits of our industry,
but also obstructs our success. When our faculties are fatigued and blunted, we are no longer in a
condition to make advancement in any pursuit.

380. IV. I proceed now to suggest some arguments, with a view to recommend the duty which I have
thus endeavoured to explain.
1. Consider that industry is the law of our condition. Nothing is given us by God but as the prize of
labour and toil. The precious treasures of the earth lie hid from human view, and we must dig in
order to find them. Our food, our raiment, our habitations, all the conveniences that minister to the
defence and the comfort of our lives, are the fruits of those numberless arts which exercise the
ingenuity of mankind. The circumstances in which we are placed declare the purpose of Heaven
with regard to the human race, and admonish us that to abandon ourselves to sloth is to forget the
end of our being.
2. Nor is industry to be chosen by man only for the sake of the many advantages which cannot
otherwise be attained. It is itself a source of happiness. The mind delights in exercise. The comforts
which industry procures have a relish peculiar to themselves. Business sweetens pleasure as
labour sweetens rest. Recreation supposes employment; and the indolent are incapable of tasting
the happiness which it is fitted to yield.
3. Industry contributes to the virtue no less than to the happiness of life. The man whose attention is
fixed on any useful object is in little danger of being seduced by the solicitations of sinful pleasure;
his mind is pro-engaged, and temptation courts him in vain. Among the lower orders of men
idleness leads directly to injustice. It first reduces them to poverty and then tempts them to supply
their wants by all the arts of dishonesty and baseness. In the higher ranks of life it leads to
dissipation and extravagance. (W. Moodie, D.D.)
The happy combination
1. Business made an act of religion.
2. Religion made a business.
3. Both sanctified to the service of God. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

381. Industry
I. This precept is violated--
1. By those who have no business at all. You may have seen attached to an inundated reef in the
sea, a creature rooted to the rock as a plant might be, and twirling its long tentacula as an animal
would do. This plant-animal’s life is somewhat monotonous, for it has nothing to do but grow and
twirl its feelers, float in the tide, or fold itself up on its foot-stalk when that tide has receded, for
months and years together. But what greater variety marks your existence? Does not one day float
over you like another, just as the tide floats over it, and find you vegetating still? Are you more
useful? What real service to others did you render yesterday? And what higher end in living have
you than that polypus? You go through certain mechanical routines of rising, dressing, visiting,
dining, and going to sleep again; and are a little roused by the arrival of a friend, or the effort
needed to write some note of ceremony. But as it curtseys in the waves, and vibrates its exploring
arms, and gorges some dainty medusa, the sea-anemone goes through nearly the same round. Is
this a life for a rational and responsible creature to lead?
2. By those who are diligent in trifles--whose activity is a busy idleness. Fancy this time that instead
of a polypus you were changed into a swallow. There you have a creature abundantly busy. Notice
how he pays his morning visits, alighting elegantly on some house-top, and twittering politely to the
swallow by his side, and then away to call for his friend at the castle. And now he is gone upon his
travels, gone to spend the winter at Rome or Naples, or perform some more recherche pilgrimage.
And when he comes home next April, sure enough he has been abroad--charming climate--highly
delighted with the cicadas in Italy, and the bees on Hymettus--locusts in Africa rather scarce this
season; but upon the whole much pleased with his trip, and returned in high health and spirits. Now
this is a very proper life for a swallow; but is it a life for you? Though the trifler does not chronicle his
own vain words and wasted hours, they are noted in the memory of God. And when he looks back
to the long pilgrimage, what anguish will it move to think that he has gamboled through such a world
without salvation to himself, without any real benefit to his brethren.
3. By those who have proper business, but--
(1) Are slothful in it. There are some persons of a dull and languid turn. They trail sluggishly through
life, as if some adhesive slime were clogging every movement, and making their snail-path a waste
of their very substance. They do nothing with healthy alacrity. Having no wholesome love to work,
they do everything grudgingly, superficially, and at the latest moment.

382. (2) Others there are who are a sort of perpetual somnambulists: not able to find their work, or when
they have found it, not able to find their hands; too late for everything, taking their passage when the
ship has sailed, locking the door when the goods are stolen.
(3) Besides these there is the day-dreamer. With a foot on either side of the fire, with his chin on his
bosom and the wrong end of the book turned towards him, he can pursue his self-complacent
musings till he imagines himself a traveller in unknown lands--the solver of all the unsolved
problems in science--the author of something so stupendous that he even begins to quail at his own
glory. The misery is, that whilst nothing is done towards attaining the greatness, his luxurious
imagination takes its possession for granted; and a still greater misery is, that the time wasted in
unprofitable musings, if spent in honest application, would go very far to carry him where his
sublime imagination fain would be. Some of the finest intellects have exhaled away in this sluggish
evaporation, and left no vestige except the dried froth, the obscure film which survives the drivel of
vanished dreams; and others have done just enough to show how important they would have been
had they awaked sooner, or kept longer awake at once.
II. To avoid this guilt and wretchedness--
1. Have a business in which diligence is lawful and desirable. The favourite pursuit of AEropus, king
of Macedonia, was to make lanterns. And if your work be a high calling, you must not dissipate your
energies on trifles which, lawful in themselves, are as irrelevant to you as lamp-making is to a king.
Those of you who do not need to toil for your daily bread, your very leisure is a hint what the Lord
would have you to do. As you have no business of your own, He would have you devote yourself to
His business.
2. Having made a wise and deliberate selection of a business, go on with it, go through with it. In the
heathery turf you will find a plant chiefly remarkable for its peculiar roots; from the main stem down
to the minutest fibre, you will find them all abruptly terminate, as if shorn or bitten off, and
superstition alleges that once it was a plant for healing all sorts of maladies, and therefore the devil
bit off the roots in which its virtues resided. This plant is a good emblem of many well-meaning but
little-effecting people. All their good works terminate abruptly. The devil frustrates their efficacy by
cutting off their ends. But others there are who before beginning to build count the cost, and having
collected their materials and laid their foundations, go on to rear their structure, indifferent to more
tempting schemes. The persevering teacher who guides one child into the saving knowledge of
Christ is a more useful man than his friend who gathers in a roomful of ragged children, and after a
few weeks turns them all adrift on the streets again. So short is life that we can afford to lose none
of it in abortive undertakings; and once we have begun it is true economy to finish. (J. Hamilton,

383. D.D.)
Industry, power of
There is no art nor science that is too difficult for industry to attain to: it is the power of the tongue,
and makes a man understood all over the world. It is the philosopher’s stone, that turns all metals
and even stones into gold, and suffers no want to break into its dwelling. It is the north-west
passage, that brings the merchant’s ships to him by a nearer and shorter path. In a word, it
conquers all enemies, and gives wings to blessings. (A. Farindon.)
Labour and religion
“Business” means everything which occupies our attention, but more particularly our temporal
pursuits.
I. Sloth is infamous. It draws after it a multitude of vices and a load of sorrows. Man’s nature proves
that he is made for action. Without being employed, his faculties are spoilt like metals eaten by rust,
but polished by use. No condition is exempt from labour. The mind is a fertile soil, and if not
cultivated will bring forth weeds. God brings men into judgment for neglecting to cultivate mind,
body, talents, and conveniences of life which He has bestowed.
II. Labour is profitable. It restrains from sin, keeps from temptation, and satisfies cravings which
could only otherwise be gratified by dissipation.
III. Piety is compatible with industry.
1. The fervent spirit is one that desires to please God. It is the same disposition directed to higher
objects as actuate those who are in love with any earthly object.

384. 2. Serving the Lord means doing good. Earthly affairs must not employ all our time.
IV. Arguments to urge this.
1. The character of Him we serve.
2. The nature of the service.
3. The reward which ensues. (J. J. S. Bird, B.A.)
Religion in common life
1. To combine business with religion is one of the most difficult parts of the Christian’s trial. It is
easy to be religious in church, but not so easy in the market-place; and passing from one to the
other seems often like transition from a tropical to a polar climate.
2. So great is this difficulty that but few set themselves honestly to overcome it. In ancient times the
common expedient was to fly the world altogether; the modern expedient, much less safe, is to
compromise the matter. “Everything in its place.” Prayers, etc., for Sundays, practical affairs for
weekdays. Like an idler in a crowded thoroughfare, religion is jostled aside in the daily throng of life
as if it had no business there. But the text affirms that the two things are compatible; that religion is
not so much a duty as something that has to do with all duties, not for one day, but for all days; and
that, like breathing and the circulation of the blood and growth, it may be going on simultaneously
with all our actions.
3. True, if we could only prepare for the next world by retirement from this, no one should hesitate.
But no such sacrifice is demanded. As in the material world, so in the moral, there are no conflicting
laws. In the latter there is a law of labour, and as God has so constituted us that without work we
cannot eat, so we may conclude that religion is not inconsistent with hard work. The weight of a
clock seems a heavy drag on the delicate movements of its machinery, but it is indispensable for
their accuracy; and there is an analogous action of the weight of worldly work on the finer
movements of man’s spiritual being. The planets have a twofold motion, in their orbits and on their
axes--the one motion being in the most perfect harmony with the other. So must it be that man’s
twofold activities round the heavenly and earthly centres jar not with each other. And that it is so will
be seen from the following considerations--

385. I. Religion is a science and an art, a system of doctrines to be believed and a system of duties to be
done.
1. If religious truth were like many kinds of secular truth, hard and intricate, demanding the highest
order of intellect and learned leisure, then to most men the blending of religion with the necessary
avocations of life would be impossible. But the gospel is no such system. The salvation it offers is
not the prize of the lofty intellect, but of the lowly heart. Christianity affords scope indeed for the
former, but its essential principles are patent to the simplest mind.
2. Religion as an art differs from secular acts in that it may be practised simultaneously with all other
work. A medical man cannot practise surgery and engineering at the same time, but Christianity is
an all-embracing profession--the art of being and doing good, an art, therefore, that all can practise.
It matters not of what words a copy set a child learning to write is composed; the thing desired is
that he should learn to write well. So when a man is learning to be a Christian, it matters not what
his particular work in life may be, the main thing is that he learn to live well. True, prayer,
meditation, etc., are necessary to religion, but they are but steps in the ladder to heaven, good only
as they help us to climb. They are the irrigation and enriching of the spiritual soil--worse than
useless if the crop become not more abundant. No man can become a good sailor who has never
been to sea, nor a good soldier by studying a book on military tactics; so a man by study may
become a theologian, but he can never become a religious man until he has acquired those habits
of self-denial, gentleness, etc., which are to be acquired only in daily contact with mankind.