Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 12:11

Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;

11. not slothful in business ] Better, in point of earnest diligence, not slothful. The precept includes an exhortation to thoroughness in earthly duty, but much more besides.

fervent in spirit ] Better, as regards the spirit, fervent. “ The spirit ” here probably means the human spirit, though the grammar admits as easily a reference to the Holy Spirit. The context, which hitherto has referred to the acts of human thought and energy, favours the reference to man’s spirit, renewed and animated by grace. Same words as Act 18:25. Cp. Act 17:16.

serving the Lord ] Another reading, but inferior on many grounds, is serving the occasion; the Gr. originals of “ Lord ” and “ occasion ” being very similar in form. It is well remarked (by De Wette, in Alford,) that “the Christian should certainly employ the opportunity, but not serve it.” He will often have to go apparently counter to it, in the path of duty. The special mention of bondservice to the Lord here is perhaps due to the last two clauses: the diligence and the fervour of the Christian are to be elevated and regulated by his consciousness of sacred bondservice.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

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 – te spoude. 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 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.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Rom 12:11

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.)

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 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.)

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 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 Gods 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 lifes 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.

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 Gods 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 heavens angels has his duties to fulfil; and the meanest of earths 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.

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.)

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 Gods claim upon you. Therein is the preachers 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.

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-days anxiety would bring to-morrows 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 oclock, 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.

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

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 Gods 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.

1. For the purpose of bringing down Gods 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.)

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 days 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 on many 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 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, 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. Gods 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 Gods 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 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 Cains question, Am I my brothers 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!

(2) Things. And these are suggestive. Objects, places, times, all may be yoked to the souls 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.

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.)

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 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.

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.)

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-animals 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.

(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, 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 philosophers 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 merchants 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. Mans 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.

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 Christians 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 mans 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 mans 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–

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.

II. Religion consists not so much in doing sacred acts as in doing secular acts from a sacred motive. There is a tendency to classify actions according to their outward form rather than according to their spirit. We arbitrarily divide literature and history into sacred and profane; and so prayer, Bible reading, public worship, etc.–and buying, selling, etc., are separated into two distinct categories. But what God hath cleansed, why should we call common? Moral qualities reside not in actions, but in the agent and his motive. A musical instrument may discourse sacred melodies better than the holiest lips, but who thinks of commending it for its piety? Just as there is no spot on earth but a holy heart may hallow, a base one desecrate; so many actions materially great and noble may, because of the spirit that pervades them, be ignoble and mean, and vice versa. Herod was a slave though he sat on a throne, but what kingly work was done in the carpenters shop at Nazareth! A life spent among holy things may be intensely secular, and a life spent in the throng may be divine. A ministers preachings may be no more holy than the work of the printer who prints Bibles, or of the bookseller who sells them, and public worship may be degraded into work most worldly. But carry holy principles with you into the world, and the world will become hallowed by their presence. A Christlike spirit will Christianise all it touches. Marble or clay, it matters not with which the artist works, the touch of genius transforms the coarser material into beauty, and lends to the finer a value it never had before. Rude or refined as our earthly work may be, it will become to a holy mind only material for a godlike life. Your conversation may not consist of formally religious words, but if it be pervaded by a spirit of piety it will be Christian nevertheless. To promote the cause of Christ by furthering every religious enterprise is your duty, but you may promote it as effectually in the family and society. Rise superior, in Christs strength, to all equivocal practices in trade; shrink from meanness, and let the abiding sense of Christs love make you loving, and then, while your secular life will be spiritualised, your spiritual life will grow more fervent.

III. As bearing on the same topic, note the minds power of acting on latent principles.

1. In order to live a religious life every action must be governed by religious motives. True, we cannot always be consciously thinking of religion, yet unconsciously we may be always acting under its control. As I do not think of gravitation when I move my limbs, or of atmospheric laws when I breathe, so with religion and daily work. There are undercurrents in the ocean which act independently of the movements of the waters on the surface: so there may dwell the abiding peace of God beneath the restless stir of your worldly business.

2. Remember, too, that many of the thoughts and motives which govern our actions are latent. While reading aloud, e.g., we are often carried along by the secret impression of the presence of a listener. So while business is being prosecuted may there not be a latent impression of the presence of God?

3. Have we not all felt anticipated happiness blending itself with busy work? The labourers evening release from toil, the schoolboys coming holiday, may illustrate that rest which remaineth for the people of God, the anticipation of which intermits not but gives zest to faithful service.

Conclusion:

1. The true idea of Christian life is not periodic observances, or acts of heroism. It is a great thing to be ready to die for Christ, but it is equally great to live for Him.

2. All who wish to live that life must–

(1) Devote themselves heartily to God through Christ. Life comes before growth. The soldier must enlist before he can serve.

(2) Continue with Christ. You cannot live for Him unless you live much with Him.

(3) Carry religious principle into everyday life. Then will your life be–

(a) Noble;

(b) Useful;

(c) Permanent. No work done for Christ ever perishes. (J. Caird, D.D.)

Religion in daily life

I. The great duties of daily life are indispensable to the development of the whole nature of man. The prayer-meeting, etc., were once spoken of as means of grace, and they are such when they produce grace. But it would seem as if they were meant to exclude common occupations; whereas, everything that pertains to the well-being of the individual and the community is part and parcel of the Divine scheme. Therefore the man who bends over his bench may be as really worshipping God as he who bends over the altar. Let us look at a few points which are needed to constitute a true manhood.

1. Order. How will you learn that? Not by hearing sermons about it or thinking of it; but by the conduct of business. Business trains. Punctuality and exactitude are learned in life.

2. Carefulness, frugality, benevolence, also spring out of dealing with practical life. If you shield your child from all avocations, he may learn a small round of such things in the family; but no such education does he receive as one that is pushed out into life. One may learn boating on a pond; but a man who does well on a pond may do poorly on the Atlantic. I am not one of those who revile the denizens of Wall Street. If some sink nearly to the bottom of the scale, others rise nearly to the top. If a man in that street goes steadily on with fidelity and trustworthiness, I think he reaches about as high a mark of honesty as any man on the globe. On the other hand, there may be many who are virtuous in the farmhouse, who, when they are brought into the street and under its influence, have been destroyed. They have not been drilled in street operations. How is it with soldiers? Raw recruits are easily scattered. Why? Because they have not had drill. So, in worldly affairs, a man cannot be trusted who has not been trained in the school of those affairs. When the spiritual disposition goes with diligence in business, men find more that follows manhood in its essential elements than can be found in any temple.

II. Every man ought to find his Christian life in connection with that which God has made his daily business.

1. There be many with whom religion is a kind of luxury, and business a necessary evil. They mean to be religious, therefore, on the Sabbath and in the church. But religion is right-acting as well as right-thinking. The schoolboys religion must lie in the duties of the schoolboy; the sailors in those of the mariner; the merchants in commercial life. You have no business to touch a thing which it is not right to do; and whatever it is right to do is compatible with fervency of spirit; and real service to the Lord.

2. How cold and cheerless is the palace where there is no love; but the old brown house where you were brought up, and the old fields over whose hills you have climbed–homely as these scenes are, is there anything so beautiful when you go back to them? It is what you have put on to these old things that makes them so dear to you. So the duties of life become more agree able by their association with that which is dear to us. The service of a mother to a child is invested with a feeling which makes it to the mother one of the most delightful of occupations; but the same service performed by any other would be odious to her. And that which we see in the mother extends more or less through every part of life. That to which you bring diligence, conscience, taste, and gladness becomes transformed. A noble-spirited man can redeem many duties which are in themselves unattractive, and make them beautiful.

3. There is no place where God puts you where it is not your duty to say, How shall I perfume this place and make it beautiful as the rose? If you are a boy in school you are to perform the duties which are assigned you by your master, by reason of your allegiance to Christ. You are working in a joiners shop; you are a shoemaker, a street-sweeper, or a boot-black; but, whatever you are, unless in some business that you know is wrong, you are not to say, How shall I get out of this occupation in order that I may be made a Christian? but, How, being a Christian, shall I work grace out of this occupation?

4. Exactitude, trustworthiness, where there is no eye but Gods to see. These things constitute taking up the cross. Parents say, Now, my son, if you wont eat any sugar or butter for six months in order that you may give to the missionaries, that will be taking up the cross. But there are enough crosses to take up without resorting to such modes as that. When a boy does not want to get up in the morning, and he gets up, he takes up the cross. When a person is cross before breakfast, that is a good time for him to take up the cross, by keeping his temper. Where one does not like to be punctual, there is a good opportunity for him to take up the cross. It is better to take up the cross in things that mean something. Men often seek artificial crosses to take up; but mostly we have crosses enough to take up in subduing the recreancy of our selfish nature to true kindness, and noble enterprise, and faithful manhood.

III. Mark the strange and incongruous ethics which men introduce into different departments of their lives. Men say that you cannot expect one to act in politics as he does in private life. Why not? Are there ten commandments for politics different from the ten commandments for the rest of life? Was the Sermon on the Mount given for men unknown to politics? It is said that you cannot expect a man to act in business as he would in his household. Why not? A man should be the same under all circumstances; and that which is true, honest, fair in the household, is true, honest, fair in the store and in the state. The scrupulousness of honour ought to augment in proportion to the enlargement of the sphere in which one acts. You cannot be a man of honour, though you tell the truth in your household and neighbourhood, if you lie without scruple in public affairs.

IV. Note the mistake and unreasonableness of those who propose to lead a Christian life before they die, but who think they cannot for the present enter upon it on account of their business. If religion were something apart from daily life, there might be some validity in this excuse; but if religion is the right conduct of a man, then everything is religious that tends to build up men in perfect manhood. Then why should one wait? Religion is to the soul what health is to the body. One does not say in respect to health, I will wait till I have perfected this or that before I recover. On the contrary, he says, In order that I may perfect my plans, I will seek health. A mans capacity to do business is improved by religion. There is nothing that one is called to do in life that he will not do better with a conscience void of offence and a heart at peace with God. (H. W. Beecher.)

A royal rule of life

I. Character comes out of work. It is what we do that educates us, rather than what we read or speculate about. Integrity of act cultivates integrity of heart; enthusiasm in effort resupplies the founts of enthusiasm in the will, and sympathetic activities nourish the emotion out of which they flow. As the roots of the oak reach down and out in the soil to the slenderest end, so strength of character is found in those unseen acts that run through the moments of each day.

II. Daily work assists us to larger and clearer views of Divine truth. The crazy fancies that have shattered or darkened communities came not from artisan, miner, or sailor, but from recluses. Work gives strength to the mind, and brings it to that point to which the gospel makes its appeal. Leisure has a charm, and inquiry a zest after toil. The best scholars have been trained in cities. In the country there is something of languor, but in the emulous activities of metropolitan life we make our faculties more acute and our inquisition of truth is more successful.

III. By work we enable ourselves to influence others for good. In society every one affects all. There is indeed peril in this fact. An unfaithful workman may introduce into your dwelling disease and death. A negligent pilot may plunge hundreds into sorrow. A bludgeon is not needed to destroy the eye, or a hammer to ruin a watch. A grain of dirt is sufficient in either case; and so it is with secret influences at work in society. Noble work will bless those we may never see, and give progress to what is best in human life. It is not wealth inherited that is the mightiest lever, but that which is gained by work. He who lays aside for Christ a portion of his daily wage of work, preaches to the world and thereby advances the cause of the Redeemer.

IV. If we are obedient to this rule of life, we shall gain the clearest impression of immortality. It is not in dreams that we come under the full power of the world to come; but often in toil we feel the dignity of manhood within us that is not yet revealed. The philosopher may doubt, and the enthusiast may feel that he has not grasped it; but the mother, busied with her humble service, does feel that a time is coming when her work wilt be recognised and rewarded. Of course, we may be so ardent in earthly pursuits as to forget everything else; but to the thoughtful worker this truth comes as an inspiring impulse. Conclusion: We gaze on the loveliness and quiet of the country, and fancy that there is the place to lead an unworldly life. Nay, there is worldliness there as truly as in Wall Street. Men fight about fences as we do about contracts. Here, indeed, in wealth and fashion and sensuality, worldliness takes root with satanic force; but here also are the finest specimens of Christian character illustrated. (R. S. Storrs, D.D.)

Sanctified toil

1. The rights of wealth are secured by diligence.

2. The snares of wealth are obviated by a fervent spirit.

3. The responsibilities of wealth are discharged by serving the Lord. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

Worship at work

Here is–

1. The diligent hand.

2. The fervent heart.

3. The single eye. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

Fervent in spirit.–

I. What is it to be fervent in spirit? To be serious and earnest in–

1. The exercise of graces; in our–

(1) Love to God (Deu 6:5; Mat 22:37).

(2) Desires of Him (Psa 42:1-2).

(3) Trust in Him (Job 13:25).

(4) Rejoicing in Him (1Pe 1:8).

(5) Zeal for His glory (1Co 10:31), which yet must be–

(a) Tempered with knowledge (Rom 10:2).

(b) Regulated by His Word.

(6) Repentance (Job 42:5-6).

(7) Faith in Christ (Jam 2:26).

2. The performance of duties in–

(1) Prayer (1Co 14:15).

(2) Hearing (Eze 33:31).

(3) Meditation (Psa 22:1-31.).

II. Why thus fervent in spirit?

1. The end of Gods giving us such active spirits is that we might employ them for Him (Pro 16:4).

2. These are businesses of the greatest concern (Deu 30:15).

3. Whatsoever is not done fervently is no good work (Ecc 9:10).

Conclusion:

1. Bewail your former indifference.

2. Be more serious for the future. Consider

(1) They are great works you perform (2Co 2:16).

(2) You cannot be too serious in them (Luk 17:10).

(3) Heaven will recompense all your labours (1Co 15:58) (Bp. Beveridge.)

Fervency of spirit

I. Wherein it consists–

1. In zeal for Gods glory.

2. Prompted by Gods love in the heart.

3. Awakened and sustained by Gods Spirit.

II. What are its evidences?

1. Diligence.

2. Fidelity.

3. Cheerful effort.

4. Constancy.

III. Where is it necessary? Everywhere.

1. In the Church.

2. In the world.

3. In the family.

4. In retirement. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

Fervency a test of spirituality

Among the wonders which science has achieved, it has succeeded in bringing things which are invisible and impalpable to our senses within the reach of our most accurate observations. Thus the barometer makes us acquainted with the actual state of the atmosphere. It takes cognisance of the slightest variation, and every change is pointed out by its elevation or depression, so that we are accurately acquainted with the actual state of the air, and at any given time. In like manner the Christian has within him an index by which he may take cognisance, and by which he may measure the elevation and degrees of his spirituality–it is the spirit of inward devotion. However difficult it may seem to be to pronounce on the invisibilities of our spirituality, yet there is a barometer to determine the elevation or depression of the spiritual principle. It marks the changes of the soul in its aspect towards God. As the spirit of prayer mounts up, there is true spiritual elevation; and as it is restrained and falls low, there is a depression of the spiritual principle within us. As is the spirit of devotion and communion with God, such is the man. (H. G. Salter.)

Fervour of spirit

The word fervent, in our tongue, would seem to indicate heat that prevails to such an extent as to break into a flame. In the Greek it is to be boiling hot. But whether it be the dry heat or the wet, it comes to the same point–namely, feeling, carried up to the point of disclosure.

I. Fervency is the law of Christian conduct, feeling, and life. We are to have fervid charity; not languid and somnolent charity, but a charity that flames, that boils. There is no feeling which answers to the test of the Word of God that is not fervent.

1. But are not the deepest feelings often voiceless? Yes, and latent feeling is often the deepest and the best; and there are ether expressions of it besides those of the tongue. The eye expresses it, the hand expresses it. The best mother is not the one who kisses her babe the oftenest, but the one that takes care of it the best. The best friends are not those that for ever hang upon your neck, but those whose whole life and occupation have found out how to serve you by the ten thousand amenities of love. But feeling must develop itself somehow. Feeling that does not do anything is like a candle unlighted, or a fire of green wood that smokes and does not burn.

2. The religious side of human nature must glow. Let your light shine before men. We must carry the light of feeling out to a boisterous world; and the feeling is to be carried up to an intensity such that it will burn or shine out, and be able to withstand the influences that are streaming from life on every side. Therefore you see it coupled with Not slothful in business. You are to carry your fervency into business; you are to adapt it to your business; you are to make it a part of your business, and so a part of your religion.

3. A great many Christians claim that there is a living force in them; but when you look you never see it–it is never disclosed. For the law of force is fervency, and no man can work with any great competency except by strong feeling.

II. The great truths of the gospel are to be accepted in their plenitude and reality only in a fervent state of mind. As I understand faith, it is such a quickening of the mind, such an expansion of its power, such a luminousness shining through it of the fires of a sanctified imagination working on moral and spiritual elements, that the whole man is lifted up into a higher sphere, and reasons upon things that are not in the vulgar court of a mere justice of the peace, but in the spiritual court of the Holy Ghost. What is God to the great mass of men? A fate; a fear; a dread; an abstraction; a machinist; a power hid behind government; a law; a something; a nothing. But when the soul has been kindled, and the understanding is regnant, and all the best affections cluster around the reason to give it expression, the heavens cannot contain God, and the earth is full of His glory and companionship. There is but one way in which you can have a sound theology, and that is by living so near to God that you have the witness of the Divine Spirit in you that you are the sons of God. If you can breathe into the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ such a vitality of faith as that the members of it are living in a fervent and burning zeal of Christian charity, you need not trouble yourself about doctrinal beliefs; they will take care of themselves. But if you spend all your force upon the externalities of doctrine and of church organisation, you will have a huge casket with a spurious jewel in it.

III. All unfervent, dull, and drowsy preaching is heretical. Anything that turns people out of the way, and imperils their souls, is heresy; and of all heresies there is none more deadly than a drowsy preacher. And yet, when a man comes that wakes up the congregation, there are a great many men that look up and say, Who knows whereunto this thing will grow? Why, yes, if sleep be piety, what will become of religion if men wake up? But life is above all price; and a man who is fit to preach at all, must be fit to preach because he has the power of inflammation. A man that cannot boil, and that cannot make anybody else boil; a man that cannot be blown into a flame, and cannot kindle a flame in others, is not fit to preach.

IV. All the conceptions of religious life that esteem strong feeling to be vulgar are unchristian and unphilosophical; they are utterly unallied to the whole nature of grace, or to the disclosure of Gods feeling in the human soul; and yet there are a great many who have such a conception. The substitution of decorum for emotion, of polish for deep feeling, of taste for conscience–in other words, the worship of culture–there can be nothing wider from the true spirit of the gospel than that. When men are thoroughly trained and cultivated, and have religious feeling, and have it fervently and deeply, it is a great deal better that they should express it with refinement and with genius, if it can be so expressed; but to have decorum, and taste, and cold intellectuality, and none of the fire of feeling, is to be idolatrous. It is to worship the senses, and that on a very low plane of life. It is better, a hundredfold, that there should be the utmost tumult of revival than that there should be simply a decorous stupor. Conclusion: And now, are you, that are grouped into a church, living, with real glow and fervour, a religious life? Do you love God, or do you only say you love Him? Do you love your fellow-men as yourself, or do you only say that you do in routine? Do you enjoy religion? Are you working in your several spheres with fervour? Is it not time that you should wake out of your sleep? The Master is going by, and the cry, The Bridegroom cometh, will sound in your ears before long. Are your lamps filled and burning? Do men feel the fire and the flame? Are you a power among men? May the Spirit of light, life, fire, and power come down into the hearts of every one of the members of this church, and of all disciples of every name gathered together this morning, brushing the ashes of the past away, kindle on the old altar a new flame that shall never go out. (H. W. Beecher.)

On the obligations to fervour of spirit

1. Fervour of spirit is, in general, opposed to lukewarmness and indifference. It denotes an uncommon application of mind, and a warmth of zeal bordering on transport, that moves every faculty of the soul, and carries all before it in the pursuit of what we highly value and desire. It does not consist merely in a few emotions of natural piety, neither is it a sudden blaze of religious fervour, which flashes for a moment like a meteor and as quickly disappears. It is a permanent and abiding principle of action, a beam from the Sun of Righteousness, which, bright at the outset, shineth more and more, till it reaches the fulness of its meridian splendour.

2. When this is displayed in its fullest extent, it is one of the noblest ornaments of the Christian. It is to the spiritual life what health is to the natural. It renders that active and spirited which, without it, were dull and almost lifeless.

3. As to our obligations to be fervent, note that–

I. It is enjoined by Gods positive command. The Scriptures abound in exhortations not merely to serve the Lord, but to do so with fervency and zeal, to work while it is day, for the night cometh, when no man can work. Many are the precepts which require us to be up and doing, to be zealous in good works, etc. There is nothing so offensive to God as lukewarmness and indifference.

II. God has a just right to it. He gave us our being at the first; by His providence our lives are daily sustained. Is it possible to render unto God more than His goodness gives Him a right to claim? All this, however, is but a small part of the obligation which His mercy has laid you under. Think only on the wonders of redeeming love. Can you, then, exceed in gratitude to such a Friend, and serve Him with too much zeal?

III. The difficulties connected with the service of God require it. Religion is not a matter of easy acquirement. The enemies we have to encounter are numerous and powerful, and, through them, we must fight our way to the ground which shall be our reward. Within, our hearts are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; then we have depraved appetites to restrain, and passions fed by indulgence to subdue. Has any of you made the attempt, and do you find it an easy matter? Besides, all who would love God and Christ Jesus must expect to meet with persecution. Amid so many perils, what need is there of fervour! Amid such obstacles, what but a zeal that knows no bounds would enable us to resist and overcome the enemies of our salvation!

IV. Let the example of the saints animate you to cultivate it. What was the distinguishing characteristic of Abraham, of Elijah, of Samuel, of Daniel, and of the others? It was zeal for the Lord, manifesting itself by obedience, holy, fervid, and strenuous exertion to promote the glory of God. In none, however, did this spirit more immediately display itself than in our blessed Lord and Saviour. The zeal of Thine house hath eaten Me up. (G. Milligan.)

Enthusiasm

I. What is enthusiasm? Enthusiasmos means the fulness of Divine inspiration, an absorbing, a passionate devotion to some good cause, the state of those whom St. Paul here describes as fervent, literally boiling in spirit, the spirit of man when transfigured, uplifted, dilated by the Spirit of God. Without enthusiasm of some noble kind a man is dead, and without enthusiasts a nation perishes. There are two forms which enthusiasm has assumed–the enthusiasm for humanity, and the enthusiasm for individual salvation. When the two have been combined; when the sense of devotion has been united with the exaltation of charity, it has produced the most glorious and blessed benefactors of the world. What was Christianity itself but such an enthusiasm? Learnt from the example, caught from the Spirit of Christ, the same love for the guilty and the wretched, which brought the Lord of glory down to the lowest depths, was kindled by His Spirit in the heart of all His noblest sons. Forgiven, they have longed with others to share the same forgiveness, and they have been ready to do all, and to dare all, for His sake who died for them. Again and again this Divine fire has died out of the world; again and again has it been rekindled by Gods chosen sons. What would the world have been without them? Ask what the world would be without the sun.

II. The enthusiasm of the student, artist, discoverer, man of science–what else could have inspired their infinite patience and self-sacrifice? It plunged Roger Bacon into torture and imprisonment; it made Columbus face the terrors of unknown seas; it caused years of persecution to Galileo, to Kepler, to Newton, to the early geologists, to Charles Darwin. What supported them was the fervency of spirit which prefers labour to sloth, and love to selfishness, and truth to falsehood, and God to gold.

III. The enthusiasm of the reformer. Think what Italy was fast becoming when Savonarola thundered against her corruption and apostacy. Think how an intolerable sacerdotal tyranny would have crushed the souls of men had not Wycliffe braved death to give the people of England their Bible. Think what truths would have been drowned in deep seas of oblivion if Huss had not gone calmly to the stake. Think what a sink of abominations the nominal Church of God might now have been if the voice of Luther had never shaken the world. Think how the Church of England might now be settling on her lees if such men as Wesley and Whitefield had not driven their fellows back to the simplicity which is in Christ Jesus.

IV. The enthusiasm of the missionary. In the first centuries every Christian looked on it as a part of his life to be Gods missionary, and for centuries the Church produced men like Boniface and Columban. Then for one thousand years the darkness was only broken by here and there a man like St. Louis of France, or St. Francis of Assisi. It is to Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians that we owe the revival of missionary zeal. In the last century missionaries were regarded as foolish and rash, and I know not what. When Carey proposed to go as a missionary to India, he was told that if God wished to convert the heathen He would doubtless do so in His own way. Think of Jn Eliot, the lion-hearted apostle of the Indians, and his motto that prayer and painstaking can accomplish everything. Think of young and sickly David Brainerd going alone into the wild forests of America and among their wilder denizens, with the words Not from necessity but from choice, for it seems to me that Gods dealings towards me have fitted me for a life of solitariness and hardship. Think of Adoniram Judson and the tortures he bore so cheerfully in his Burmese prison. And we, too, in these days have seen Charles Mackenzie leave the comforts of Cambridge to die amid the pestilent swamps of the Zambesi, and Coleridge Patteson, floating, with his palm branch of victory in his hand, over the blue sea among the Coral Isles. Nor do I know any signs more hopeful for the nation than these, that our public schools are now founding missions in the neglected wastes of London, and our young athletes are going out as poor men to labour in China and Hindustan.

V. The enthusiasm of our social philanthropists. Who can measure the good done by St. Vincent de Paul when he founded his Sisterhoods of Mercy? What man has done more for multitudes of souls than John Pounds, the Plymouth cobbler, who became the founder of ragged schools? What a light from heaven was shed on countless wanderers by Robert Raikes, John Howard, and Elizabeth Fry! Think, too, of the effort of Clarkson, Wilberforce, Sharp and Garrison in their efforts to liberate the slave. Conclusion: There are questions even more pressing and vital now than the slave trade was in the days of our fathers. Shame be on us if we prove ourselves degenerate sons! There are two particular evils which we must either conquer or be ruined by them. One is drink, the other is uncleanness. Are we to be such cowards as to leave these arrows to rankle and gangrene in the heart of England? If the Parliament of England will not deal with them, then the people of England must deal with them. (Archdn. Farrar.)

A fervent piety

I. The importance and the advantages of serving the Lord. Piety is enforced in these respects. Its obligation is indispensable; its beauty is supreme, and its utility is universal. It is not so much a single virtue, as a constellation of virtues. Here reverence, gratitude, faith, hope, love, concentre their rays, and shine with united glory. The most illiterate man, under the impressions of true devotion, and in the immediate acts of Divine worship, contracts a greatness of mind that raises him above his equals. Thereby, says an admired ancient, we build a nobler temple to the Deity than creation can present. Piety is adapted to the notions of happiness and chief good which all men entertain, although these notions were as various in themselves as the theories of philosophers have been about their object. Hither let the man of the world turn, that he may find durable riches, more to be desired than gold and all earthly possessions. Piety is the foundation of virtue and morality. True devotion strengthens our obligations to a holy life, and superadds a new motive to every social and civil duty. A good man is the guardian angel of his country. I shall only add on this head, that by serving the Lord here, we have an earnest and anticipation of the happiness of the heavenly state. Here the sun faintly beams, as in the dubious twilight; there he shines forth in full meridian glory.

II. To explain that fervour of spirit so requisite in the exercises of devotion, and enforce it with a few arguments.

1. By fervour of spirit, in general, is meant an uncommon application of mind in the performance of any thing, a warmth bordering upon transport, that moves every spring of the heart, and carries all before it, to gain its end. So that by a fervency of spirit in serving the Lord must be understood an ardent and active desire of loving the Lord, of worshipping Him in sincerity, and obeying His commands with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength. True fervour of spirit proceedeth from above. It is a beam from the Father of lights, pure and benign, which at once enlightens and warms the mind.

2. To engage us more effectually to the performance of this part of our duty, let us consider the general obligations we lie under, as rational creatures, to serve the Lord with fervency of spirit, and then the particular obligations that arise from Christianity.

(1) In the first place, as the Almighty is the Creator of the world, and the Father of the human race, He is likewise their Preserver, and the Author of order and harmony in the universe. Seeing then He upholds our existence, and is the Parent of so many mercies, has He not, as our supreme Benefactor, a title to the service of our whole lives, and to all the fervent of our spirits?

(2) This will appear still more when we consider the superior obligations which we are laid under by Christianity. While many nations are sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, on us hath the Sun of Righteousness arisen in full glory. What thanks, what services, shall we not then render to our Supreme Benefactor, who has translated us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His Son! (J. Logan.)

Religious fervour

I. Fervour, in general, is opposed to lukewarmness or indifference, and denotes that edge or keenness, that activity and diligence, which we commonly exert in the pursuit of any object we highly value and wish to possess. Now the fervour whereof my text speaks hath religion, or the service of God, for its object. Love to God is the principle, the law of God is the rule, and His glory the end of all its operations. But as there are several counterfeits of this gracious temper, I shall endeavour to exhibit the properties of true Christian fervour.

1. That as the service of God is the proper object of true Christian fervour, this renders it necessary that we be thoroughly acquainted with the laws of God, that we may know what particular services He requires of us, and will accept at our hands.

2. As our fervour should be employed in the service of God, or in those duties that God hath plainly commanded, so it ought likewise to aim for His glory, otherwise it is unhallowed passion, which debaseth everything that proceeds from it. If God is glorified by his sufferings, the fervent Christian hath gained his end.

3. That this gracious temper extends its regards to all Gods commandments. It declines no duty that bears the stamp of His authority.

4. The distinguishing property of true Christian fervour is this: It will make us peculiarly attentive to our own behaviour, and begin with correcting what is faulty in ourselves.

5. Though true fervour begins at home, yet it is not always confined there. It was the speech of a wicked Cain, Am I my brothers keeper? The warm-hearted Christian extends his good offices to all around him, and useth all that power and influence which his station gives him to discourage vice and to advance the kingdom of Christ in the world.

6. That this fervour must be always under the direction of Christian prudence, that it may not break out into indecent heats, and carry us beyond the limits of our office or station in the society to which we belong.

II. To recommend and enforce this gracious temper. Consider–

1. That God deserves the most zealous and active service we can pay to Him.

2. God not only deserves such service as I am pleading for, He likewise demands it, and will not be put off with anything less. If any imagine that Christ came into the world to relax their obligations to a holy life, they are grossly mistaken; and if they act upon that principle, they shall find themselves fatally disappointed at last.

3. A motive to fervour and diligence in the service of God ariseth from the difficulties that attend our duty. It is no easy matter to pluck out a right eye, and to cut off a right hand. Besides, in the ordinary course of events, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution in one kind or other. Such are the difficulties that attend religion; and do not these make zeal or fervour necessary.

4. That we should be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; because it is absolutely impossible that we can do too much. One thing is certain, that the most serious Christians, when they came to die, have always lamented their former negligence; and the time is at hand when all the world shall confess that holy diligence was the truest wisdom. (R. Walker.)

Serving the Lord.–

Serving the Lord

I. What is it to serve God? It implies–

1. Our devoting ourselves wholly to Him and His way (2Co 8:5; Mat 6:24).

2. Subjecting ourselves to His will and laws (Psa 2:11-12).

3. Worshipping Him (Mat 4:10; Luk 2:37).

4. Walking in holiness and righteousness before Him (Luk 1:74-75).

5. Improving all for His glory.

II. How should we serve Him?

1. Reverently (Heb 12:28-29; Psa 2:11).

2. Obediently (1Sa 12:14).

3. Sincerely (Joh 4:24; Psa 51:6).

4. Readily and willingly (1Ch 28:9).

5. Only (Mat 4:10).

6. Wholly (Deu 10:12; Psa 119:6).

7. Continually (Luk 1:75).

III. Why serve the Lord?

1. He made us (Pro 16:4).

2. Maintains us (Act 17:28).

3. Has redeemed us (1Co 6:19-20).

Conclusion:

1. Unless you serve Him you must serve sin and Satan (Mat 6:24).

2. His service is the only liberty (Rom 8:21), and the highest honour (1. Samuel 2:30).

3. You vowed to serve Him in baptism (Deu 26:17-18).

4. All you can do is much less than you owe Him (Luk 17:10).

5. If you serve Him He will cause all things to serve you (Rom 8:28).

6. He will reward you hereafter. (Bp. Beveridge.)

Serving the Lord

I. What this implies.

1. Self-consecration.

2. The repudiation of all other service.

3. Complete devotion to His cause.

4. A steady aim at His glory.

II. Why should we undertake it? It is–

1. Due.

2. Reasonable.

3. Honourable.

4. The end of our being. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

Serving the Lord

It is said of Sister Dora that no matter at what hour the hospital door-bell rang, she used to rise instantly to admit the patient, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee.

Serving the Lord

The harmony of Scripture is admirable. He who weighed the mountains in scales has had a clear eye to the adjustment of truth in His Word. While the doctrinal part of Scripture is exceeding full, the practical part is not one whit less copious. In this verse this harmony is noteworthy. The Christian is not to be a worse tradesman because of his religion, but a better. At the same time, we must not neglect the spiritual because of the pressing demands of the temporal. The holy fire within our souls is to be constantly burning.

I. The essentials of all true service to God.

1. Divine acceptance. If a stranger should of his own accord visit your farm, and should commence driving the horses, milking the cows, reaping the wheat, and so on, if you had never employed him he would be fulfilling the part of an intruder rather than the office of a servant. Now it is not every man who is fit to be a servant of God. How should the thrice holy God be served by hands unwashed from sin? Unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare My statutes?

(1) Hast thou then been bought with the great Masters money? Only the redeemed ones are reckoned by the Lord as servants in His household. The ungodly are slaves to Satan.

(2) Gods servant has been won by power as well as bought with price. Hast thou been compelled by Divine grace to leave thy sins? Israel would for ever have made bricks in Egypt if the Lord had not brought them forth with an outstretched arm.

(3) Gods servants are always such as are born in His house as well as bought with His money. Preliminary to all holy service must be regeneration. That which cometh from the crab will still be sour, plant the tree where you will. A sinner is unsuitable for service till he be new-created.

2. We must render our obedience to the Lord Himself. Much that is done religiously is not done unto God. Whose honour do you seek? for remember that which is uppermost in thy heart is thy master. Sinister motives and selfish aims are the death of true godliness.

3. We must serve God in the way of His appointment. If anything be done without orders, it may be excessive activity, but it is not service. How many think they are serving God when they have never turned to His commandments 1 What God doth not bid you hath no power over your conscience, even though pope and prelate decree it.

4. We must serve God in His strength. Those who attempt to perfect holiness without waiting upon the Holy Spirit for power, will be as foolish as the apostles had they commenced preaching without power from on high. Nothing will last but that which is wrought by Divine power.

5. We must stand continually ready to obey the Lords will in anything and everything without distinction. He who enlists surrenders his will to the discipline of the army and the bidding of the Captain. What hast thou to do with likings and dislikings? Servants must like that which their masters bid them.

II. Some of the modes in which we may serve the Lord.

1. It was an ordinance of David that the soldiers who watched by the stuff should be accounted to be as true soldiers as those who joined in the actual conflict. Hence I would say a word to those of you who cannot serve the Lord in direct activities. If the tongue speak not, yet if the life speak thou shalt have done God no small homage. If thou canst not help the cause of God in any other mode, at any rate there is open to thee that of fervent prayer. I doubt not that many sick beds are doing more for Christ than our pulpits. But in addition to this, the very weakest and worst circumstanced can speak at least now and then a word for Christ. Mother, with those babes around you, you have a field of labour among them. You whose occupations engross your time, I cannot imagine that God has given even to you a light which is quite covered with a bushel. They who give thousands to the cause of Christ do well, but they do no better than the widow who, having two mites, gave all.

2. But while we make room for comfort for those who abide by the stuff, we do not desire to console the idle; we are–

(1) To make known the gospel of Christ. It is a sad proof of our want of zeal that London is still so grossly ignorant of this. We are not responsible that the Hindoo or African worships his idols, but we are responsible that he has not heard of the atoning sacrifice of Christ.

(2) Through this we should aim at the conversion of sinners. We are not to be self-complacently content with having merely spoken the truth, we are to look for signs following.

(3) The reclamation of backsliders.

(4) The edification of one another.

III. The commendation which is due to this service. To serve God is–

1. The natural element of godliness. Heavenly spirits enjoy unbroken rest, but they find their rest in serving God day and night. Surely it is as much the element of a Christian to do good as for a fish to swim, or a bird to fly, or a tree to yield her fruits.

2. The highest honour. How men pride themselves on being attached to the train of great men! But what must it be to have God for your Master.

3. The highest pleasure. The happiest members of any church are the most diligent.

4. Soul education. No man grows to be a perfect Christian by lying on the bed of sloth. Our manhood is developed by exercise.

IV. The present need of this service. There is need enough of it in this city. The ignorance, poverty, misery, iniquity of London reek before God, and yet we gather in a little quiet place by ourselves, and we use the rosewater of self-complacency, and think that everything goes well. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 11. 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 labour 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] Do nothing at any time but what is to tho 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 , serving the Lord, several MSS., as DFG, and many editions, have , 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 , the Lord; a reading in which all the versions concur. , 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 is written contractedly, , some appear to have read it instead of ; but I confess I do not see sufficient reason after all that the critics have said, to depart from the common reading.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Not slothful in business; this clause may be expounded by Ecc 9:10; q.d. In all the duties of thy particular and general calling, in every thing that respects the glory of God, thine own or neighbours good, take heed of slothfulness: see Mat 25:26,27; Heb 6:12.

Fervent in spirit; this is added to the former, as the cure of it. Zeal and fervency will drive away sloth. This spiritual warmth is often recommended to us in Scripture; see Gal 4:18; Rev 3:19. See examples of it in Psa 69:9; Joh 2:17; 4:34; Act 18:25.

Serving the Lord; i.e. diligently performing all things that are required to his service and honour: see Psa 2:11; Eph 6:7. Some copies read it, serving the times, in such a sense as it is in Eph 5:16, and Col 4:5.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

11. not slothful in businessTheword rendered “business” means “zeal,””diligence,” “purpose”; denoting the energy ofaction.

serving the Lordthatis, the Lord Jesus (see Eph6:5-8). Another reading”serving the time,” or “theoccasion”which differs in form but very slightly from thereceived reading, has been adopted by good critics [LUTHER,OLSHAUSEN, FRITZSCHE,MEYER]. But as manuscriptauthority is decidedly against it, so is internal evidence; andcomparatively few favor it. Nor is the sense which it yields a veryChristian one.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

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 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, , “and workmen slothful”, and the reward much, and the master of the house is urgent.”

Fervent 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, Re 3:16, that coldness of affection, and leaving of the first love, Re 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”, Ro 10:2; but when “the love of God is shed abroad in the heart” by the Spirit of God, Ro 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 , “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 Lord; some copies read, “serving time”: the likeness of the words, and , 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”.

m Pirke Abot, c. 2. sect. 15. n T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 4. 1.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Slothful (). Old adjective from , to hesitate, to be slow. Slow and “poky” as in Mt 25:26.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Slothful [] . From ojknew to delay.

In business [ ] . Wrong. Render, as Rev., in diligence; see on ver. 8. Luther, “in regard to zeal be not lazy.”

Fervent [] . See on Act 18:25.

The Lord [ ] . Some texts read kairw the time or opportunity, but the best authorities give Lord.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “Not slothful in business,” (te spoude me okneroi) “Not slothful (shabby) or irresponsible in zeal,” or diligence but with moral earnestness Christian duty is to be performed, as a diligent steward of the Lord, 1Co 4:2; Ecc 9:10; Pro 22:29; Eph 4:28; Act 20:34-35.

2) “Fervent in spirit,” (to pneumati zeontes) “in the spirit be burning,” zealous, burning, or on fire, in a controlled manner or state, – not as a fire of conflagration, out of control, destructive. Those led by the spirit of God are fervent, balanced, in subjection to the will of God in daily lives and service to God and their fellowman, not just on Sunday or special occasions, Rom 8:14; Rom 8:16; 1Co 14:32; Gal 5:25; Let us serve God heartily, Col 3:23.

3) “Serving the Lord,” (to kurio douleuontes) “Serving the Lord, actively, progressively, or accountably; as one who gives account of his stewardship, let each member of the church with a charismatic gift do this kind of service to and for the Lord. If there is any work in which one should be exhausted it is in “serving the Lord in gladness and thanksgiving,” Psa 100:2; Mat 6:24; Joh 12:26. To serve the Lord is to follow the Lord in “doing good”, Act 10:38; Act 20:19; 2Co 5:10-11; Gal 5:13.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

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 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; “Be not slothful in haste,” that is, in a matter requiring haste. “We must strive,” says [ Theophylact ], “to 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, “time,” 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.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES

Rom. 12:11.In your haste be not idle, in your business be not lazy. As to your zeal, being not indolent; fervent in spirit, taking advantage of opportunity. The Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, and all the Greek scholiasts, read serving the Lord. The other reading, serving the time, mentioned by Ambrose, St. Jerome, and Ruffinus, seems to have had its rise from the abbreviation of the word in the manuscripts. Though it may have a good sense by accommodating yourselves to present things, if tolerance be not unlawful.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Rom. 12:11

Fervent in spirit.As to zeal, being not indolent; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord, or taking advantage of opportunity. The Epistle to the Romans is a doctrinal book, and at the same time eminently practical. There is no book which contains passages more practical than those in these concluding chapters. So long as we read these practical teachings, so well adapted to all times, we are indifferent to the utterance of those who say that the Bible is a worn-out book. The Bible is no worn-out book for the true and the good. Its teachings adapted to all. Its soothing tones are welcome to the weary, worn, troubled, and distressed. Its stimulating utterances move to energy and to fervency of spirit.

I. A work to be done.The work is that of serving the Lord in every department of life, and it is thus that in the best possible manner we take advantage of opportunity. It seems more reasonable to suppose that St. Paul should write serving the Lord than serving the time. The former includes the latter. Serving the Lord is the best way of serving the time. The man who serves the Lord faithfully is the one to take a wise and holy advantage of every opportunity. There can be no sublimer work than that of serving the Creator. This is the work to call forth mans noblest energies. Other service calls forth only part of mans nature, but this claims every power and faculty. Other service is only for a short period, and short as is the period the service palls upon the taste; but this service is for life, and for a life beyond this life; and it never loses its attractiveness to the spiritual man. It will ever show new beauties, expand fresh powers, and introduce varied pleasures to the soul. We are all called to this service. The command is to all, Son, go work to-day in My vineyard.

II. The manner in which the work is to be done.By fervent in spirit is meant the active and energetic exercise of all those powers which distinguish man as an intellectual and a moral creature. It does not imply confusion or agitation. There must not be half-heartedness in this service. Fervency of spirit is not compatible with double service. It implies unity of heart. Unite my heart to fear Thy name, to serve the Lord. This fervency of spirit is illustrated by St. Paul himself when he says, This one thing I do. When a man is fervent in spirit about the accomplishment of any work, he becomes a man of one idea. Have we this fervency? Are our souls possessed of one idea? Let us seek to serve the Lord, and thus to serve our time to the best of our ability.

III. Fervency of spirit is enjoined upon us by:

1. Positive precept.Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength. Fervency of spirit is required from him who is to serve God by the combination of every power and faculty of the nature. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. This fear and trembling does not lead to depression and paralysis of the powers, but to energy, to fervency of spirit. The kingdom of God is a strife and a battle, and the fervent in spirit overcomes in the conflict.

2. By implied directions. We are enjoined to be zealous of good workszealously affected in a good thing. The zealous man is fervent in spirit, ardent in the pursuit of an object. How ardent should the Christian be who is pressing forward to apprehend that for which he is apprehended in Christ Jesus! The man who feels within himself the consuming force of a great principle is ardent, is fervent in spirit. The Christian should be a man on fire. The light glows within and radiates the circle he fills. Let us be more concerned about being ardent than about showing ourselves ardent. Let the ambition be, not to blaze, but to give light and heatthough the blazing man gains the worlds applause, while the true light-giving man treads the obscure pathway to heavens immortality.

3. By illustrious examples. We have the examples of Paul, of John, and of Peter. Consuming energy possessed their souls. In the whole range of the worlds history there are not found men so wonderfully earnest and fervent. Their intense zeal was such that we declare they were superhumanly endowed. The very reading of their lives stirs to greater fervency of spirit. Jesus left us an example that in all things we should follow His steps. His earthly life was marked by fervency of spirit. It was so great that He could say, The zeal of Thine house hath eaten Me up. Here was intense zeal in the pursuit of Gods glory which became a consuming fire. The strong nature of Jesus was being eaten up by His zeal. My little nature is scarcely warmed by the feeble spark of my zeal. This was so strong in Jesus that He forgot to take necessary food. Sublime forgetfulness! Divine memory of divine service producing consuming ardency!

4. By the difficulties of the course. Vigorous plants only can survive severe winters; vigorous Christians only can survive the rigours of time. Fervency of spirit will be a protection against the withering blasts of earths winters. There must be fervency of spirit if we are to outlive those unfavourable influences by which we are often surrounded.

5. By the blessings on the way and to follow. Great are the blessings on the way, and yet there are more to follow. Bright are the Christians privileges on the way, and yet there are brighter to follow. Gladsome are the songs which the Christian can sing on the way, and yet there are gladder to follow. Sweet are the viands which the Christian finds on the way, and yet there are sweeter to follow. Rich are the prospects on the way, and yet there are richer to follow. Dazzling crowns on the way, but a crown of unsullied and imperishable beauty to follow. The thoughts of present bestowals and of future glory should produce fervency of spirit.

The Christian spirit in business.Christians must give themselves up to God, body and soul. To listen to doctrine is both good and necessary; but the listening is of no avail unless that doctrine and all the preaching about it lead to something practical. Men are but shabby specimens of the Christian life unless they prove experimentally how far they give themselves up to the perfect will of God. St. Paul sets forth many exhortations to godlinesse.g., a Christian must have genuine humility, or rather a right estimate of himself. He must also love truly; he must also abhor evil, have it in moral detestation. Like ivy clinging to the wall, he must cleave to the good; and so on. But a Christian also must be not slothful in business. A better rendering of this is: not so much in business, but in diligence, in zeal, in earnestness, we are not to be slothful. The whole verse suggests that the Christian life has two sidesthe sacred and the secular. Some men are so thoroughly one-sided that they miss the very mark at which they aim. They need to learn that the Christian life has two sides, and that Christ demands of every Christian diligence in both.

I. Whence shall we get the true measure of a Christians life in this world?From the Founder of Christianity. The whole lesson of Christs life, the whole burden of His teaching, was that the common concerns of this lifeits buying and its selling, its gaining and its losing, its working and its restshall be in like manner, by the unchanging purpose of a pure Christian spirit, a true son of God, ennobled with the essential qualities that make a heaven of heaven. Public life got its guinea-stamp from Jesus. Csar must have his due. In all Christs teaching it was a question of right things in right placese.g., commerce: bad in Gods house; commendable in the world.

II. The question of worldly duty.The most secular duties may be performed in a way that is pleasing to God. Men have often gone wrong on the question of worldly duty. Too much discrimination between godliness and worldliness. Consequently we have too narrow standards. The extreme notions that are held are hard to reconcile with Christs words to Christians: Ye are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Worldly men, on the other hand, have narrow notions of religion. It is a mistake to say that business, and all kinds of world-life and energy, have ever been pronounced as opposed to godliness.

III. The great secret of true world-life depends on the motive that lies behind it.There may be business, backed by good motive, and it may be more acceptable in Gods sight than a religion splendid to look upon, but having no special motive, or a very bad one. Business done on godly principlesthough curtailed therebyfar better than great gains made by questionable practices. What we want is to have our lives set squarely upon a sound basis. Christ gave us the standard for daily living, and therein we find that purity of spirit is one of its leading features.

IV. The sound basis of all worldly occupation is Christ.Base every method of your lives upon Him who became man, not only to go through that final agony that won the worlds redemption, but also that He might show us how to live. A man who copies Him is the Lords freeman. If we would live aright, we must seek to be in right relations or harmony with all truths, all facts, and all realities in this world, as well as the world to comeotherwise there is no possibility of hearing the Well done.Albert Lee.

Religion and business.It is said of the divine Founder of our religion that He knew what was in man, and no better proof of the assertion could be furnished than is supplied by the religion itself. For it addresses itself to man as he isthat is, not as a spiritual being merely, not as a perfect being at all, nor yet as a being who has got into some wrong world, and who should be only too anxious to get out of it again; but it rather addresses itself to him as one who has work in the world to do, and duties towards the world to discharge, and faculties, both of body, soul, and spirit, which in the world are to find their proper employment and exercise.

I. In the command that we are to be not slothful in business we seem to have a recognition of the principle that a life of ardent labour is an almost universal necessity belonging to our present state.And it is so; it is part of our fallen heritage. The wisdom of the appointment is seen in many ways. Continued employment keeps the soul from much evil. Active engagements give a healthy tone to the mind; they strengthen the moral energy of the will; they prevent a good deal of the listlessness and inconstancy and utter feebleness of character, so often found in those who, having no stated occupation, and having nothing to compel prompt action, will do and undo, resolve and alter their resolve, continually a prey to the first ascendant influence, the sport of every wind that blows.

II. There is nothing in the business of life, as such, which is incompatible with the claim of godliness.There is to be no room for the charge against us of slothfulness in business, and yet it is to be rightly said of us that we are serving the Lord. Religion consists, not so much in the superaddition of certain acts of worship to the duties of common life, as in leavening the duties of common life with the spirit of religious worship. It is worship in the husbandman when he tills the ground with a thankful heart; it is worship in the merchant when for all successes he gives God the glory; the servant who in all good fidelity discharges the duties of his trust is offering unto God a continual sacrifice; and to walk humbly and obediently in the calling to which He hath called us is to be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

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 highest graces are to be exercised and its noblest triumphs achieved. The hindrance to our spiritual proficiency is not in our occupation, but in ourselves.D. Moore.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom. 12:11

Secular and spiritual.There is no such thing as secular and sacred in the whole realm of a good mans life. The secular is spiritual when a spiritual man touches it; the spiritual is secular when the secular man seizes it. All good work well done is sacred. The counting-house ought to be as holy as the pulpitand often is. Professor Stuart is right: Religion is not a thing of the stars, it is a thing of the streets.Aked.

Business needful.In the light of all I know of Jesus, I am constrained to lay down this axiom, that business is a good thing. Jesus never gainsays that. It is said of Him, that the light is too rich and clear upon the life of Christ to-day for any man to tell us that in order to be holy we must go away in dens and caves, and avoid the emporiums of the world, and not live the worlds life. That is not true. It was not the world, but its spirit, that Christ hated. He forswore not men, not markets, not commerce. No; but the spirit which filled men as they engaged in all these. It was not the worlds work, the worlds ambitions, that He hated. I say it was the spirit in which these were realised that Christ utterly abjured. He did not condemn money-changing and merchandise; but He burned with the still fires of unimpassioned anger when men did these things in His Fathers house. The spirit was base, not the act; the purpose was ignoble, not the thing.

The most secular duties may be performed in a way that is pleasing to God. And by duties I mean those which radiate in all directionsGod-ward, manward, heavenward, earthward. Duty merges in heaven and earth. It is like the middle point of day; one knows not whether it belongs more to daybreak or to sunset. As a rule men have discriminated between heaven and earth, godliness and worldliness; but they have never caught the idea that God has joined the two, and that it is wrong to divorce them.
Dr. Parker says that he infers from Christs treatment of the scribes and Pharisees that it is possible for men to deceive themselves on religious methodsto suppose that they are in the kingdom of God when they are thousands of miles away from it. Is it possible that any of us can have fallen under the power of that delusion? I fear it may be so! What is your Christianity? A letter, a written creed, a small placard that can be published, containing a few so called fundamental points and lines? Is it an affair of words and phrases and sentences following one another in regulated and approved succession? If so, it is a little intellectual conceit. Christianity is life, love, nobleness,it is sympathy with God.Albert Lee.

MAIN HOMILETIC S OF THE PARAGRAPH.Rom. 12:12

Three needful mental conditions.A book which is to be a guide for all must not be of such an elaborate character as to task the energies of its readers. A sailors chart must not be a scientific, geographical, and historical work. The Bible is a book for mankind, and must be both brief and comprehensive. If a man truly desire to live right, he will have no practical difficulty. In this twelfth chapter are rules of life precise and yet sufficiently comprehensive. Here are three rules: in hope be joyful; in sufferings be steadfast; in prayer be unwearied. Here are three states in which the Christian may be found, and three conditions proper to those states. It is a wise conception to place tribulation between hope and prayer. Tribulation is calculated to depress, but hope energises and gives courage. Tribulation drives to prayer, and finds in the exercise sustaining power. The man supported in tribulation on two sides, by hope and prayer, will come off conqueror in every trial.

I. The state of hope and the joyful mental condition.Hope is a great sustainer. The human mind is ever forecasting the to-morrows. Man never is but always to be blest. The darkest day, live till to-morrow, will have passed away. The schoolboy, the apprentice, the business man, all hope. A dreary world if hope were banished from hearts and homes. When old age creeps on apace, when the bright visions of time have vanished, when the backward glance is disappointing and the onward earthly look is darkening, it is sweet to look by hope to the bright sphere where all true hopes will be realised. Christ in you the hope of glory. Faith in Christ the foundation of hope which will not disappoint. He is both the giver and sustainer of hope. It is a blessed thing to possess a good hope through grace. The man who possesses this hope can rejoice more than one who has found great spoil. He goes rejoicing all the day, and he can even sing songs in the night-time of his earthly pilgrimage. Rejoicing in hope. He encourages great joy, for he has great expectations.

II. The state of tribulation and the patient mental condition.Tribulation is a process through which the Christian must pass. We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. It is the narrow doorway and the rugged pathway to every high throne. No kingship here or hereafter without tribulation. No royalty of nature without suffering. No nobility of character without the tribulation. A Straitened way, a compressed course, for the sons moved by high ambitions. One in his parable describes the way to instruction much in the same way as our Lord describes the way to heaven. Do you not see, says the old man, a little door, and beyond the door a way which is not much crowded, but very few are going along it, as seemingly difficult of ascent, rough and stony? Yes, answers the stranger. And does there not seem, continues the old man, to be a high hill, and a road up it very narrow, with precipices on each side? That is the way leading to true instruction. Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth to life, and few there be that find it. The way to all heavens is the way of tribulation. It separates the chaff from the wheat in character. It prepares for divine uses. It fits for noble employments and for highest positions. Patience is the needful mental condition, the enduring power of great souls. The patience of Gods heroic saints is marvellous. What do I see in my vision? A long cloud of witnesses pressing through the highways of life whose patience is crowned by the inheritance of the promises.

III. The state of prayer and the unwearied mental condition.Continuing instant in prayer. We still repeat the old questions, What is the Almighty that we should serve Him? and what profit shall we have if we pray unto Him? God anticipated the modern sceptic. Is there anything new under the sun? We question, but we continue to pray. In tribulation the soul of man rises up above its scepticism and gives itself to prayer. How strange that prayer cannot be banished from the world! Philosophy cannot hush the voice of prayer. Strange, yet not strange, for prayer is the upward look of humanity, and the human must look to the divine, as the flowers seek the sun, as the climbing plant stretches out for support. Let us show what profit continuing instant in prayer will produce:

1. Continuing instant in prayer is the way to gain strength. If it be true that prayer is the life of the Christian, if by this exercise we gain supplies from heaven, then it must be by prayer that we put on strength. There is a method of invigoration at the believers disposal. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. The promise is definite. Though science so called tries to reason us away from the exercise, though scepticism hurls its shafts of ridicule, and though many hurry past to try other means of gaining strength, we will wait upon the Lord until weakness departs and the strength of moral manhood is obtaineduntil with eagles pinions we may soar above the earth, mists, and clouds, where undisturbed we may catch the many voices that sound their sublime anthems across the heavenly plainsuntil running in the Christian course does not weary, and we can walk with those mighty men of old who had power to walk with God on earth, and then were translated to walk unabashed amid angels and archangels, with cherubim and seraphim, and all those who walk in the light ineffable. The praying man must be strong, for thus he moves into the life-giving sunlight. The Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glorythe grace to overcome weakness and to grow in strength, the glory of a mighty warrior who triumphs over every foe. We must place ourselves in the sunlight by prayer. God promises, I will be as the dew unto Israel. By this figure is denoted the genial influences, vigour, and strength which God will impart unto His people. There must be certain conditions of the plant in relation to the surrounding atmosphere if the pearly dewdrop is to be formed on its surface and is to exert its reviving force. The certain conditions which God requires for the fulfilment of His gracious promise are a heart open to receive, a spirit of prayer and of supplication. The man becomes strong into whose soul God distils the dew of His reviving influences. By prayer we must go to the Fountain of living waters, and be refreshed; by prayer and meditation we must feed upon the Bread of life, and thus put on strength. We need the baptism of a praying spirit. We have all kinds of menscientific, scholarly, rhetorical, oratorical, energetic. We have men of business-like capacity, men great in books and mighty in speech; but have we a sufficient number of the men of prayer, who plead earnestly in their closets, who by intercessory prayer put the God of Jacob to the test? Oh for prayers the expression of hearts inhabited by the eternal Spirit,prayers that witness to an overflowing plenitude of spiritual life; prayers manifesting themselves in nobleness of character, in kindness of nature, in benevolence of disposition, and in a cheering beneficence as its outcome! If we had this true prayer, what spiritual vigour would pervade the Church, and how she would move on in a career of ever-expanding conquest!

2. Continuing instant in prayer is the way to experience its efficacy. What would be St. Pauls answer to those who talk about the folly of supposing that the order of nature is to be disturbed by the force of prayer, that inevitable law is to give place to the cries and necessities of an insignificant creature, that the movements of worlds are to be checked by the voice of one who is but as an atom and whose removal would soon be forgotten? His answer is continuance in prayer. Let gnostics and agnostics, let scientists and evolutionists, let sceptics and philosophers, write, reason, and refute, but we will give ourselves to prayer. The workings of natural laws may be guessed at; but the workings of Gods spiritual laws are along high pathways which no scientist knoweth and which the keenest eye has not yet seen. However, we will give ourselves to prayer, for we have felt its power and preciousness, and so felt as not to be disturbed by clever opponents. When confined to prison, prayer is our only support and comfort; prayer only can give us songs in the night.

3. Continuing instant in prayer is the way to surmount temptation. Introspection is not always productive of peaceful results even when good men carry on the process. Looking inward may ofttimes fail, but looking upward and Godward should never fail. God looks to the heart, and He will not fail to help His suffering sons. Faith in God, continuing instant in prayer, will strike the good old song, God is our refuge and strength, a very present and an ever-present help in trouble. The face of the dying Stephen was glorified because he saw a divine Helper in heaven; the stoned was far happier than the stoners. The mighty God helped and cheered. Prayer endows with patience in tribulation, gives songs in the prison cell, turns the dreary dungeon into a palace beautiful, transforms the sluggish streams of earth into the fashion of the river of bliss that flows oer Elysian flowers hard by the throne of God, through landscapes of perpetual beauty. Prayer paints the rainbow of hope on the tears of tribulation; prayer brings the sunlight of heaven behind our darkest clouds, and makes them glorious with their exquisite tinting and drapery of purple and of gold; prayer shapes the lava which the volcano of earthly disaster has sent forth in molten streams into beautiful and glorified forms. Out of the ashes of our earth fires arise eternal riches. If men be not made spiritually strong by prayer, there is no other known method by which strength can be obtained. But they have been and may be so again. Joyfulness in hope, patience in tribulation, have been the result of continuing instant in prayer. Let us still pray in faith and in constancy, and we shall find that prayer has power, that prayer has beneficial influences, that prayer has wondrous results.

Pray on, and pray fervently.Continuing instant in prayer. Prayer takes for granted that God is full, and we are empty. The creature is finite, alike in evil and in good. Our poverty and want must ever be a mere nothing in comparison with the fulness of Him who filleth all in all. Prayer takes for granted that there is a connection between this fulness and our emptiness. The fulness is not inaccessible. It is not too high for us to reach, or for it to stoop. Prayer takes for granted that we are entitled to use this channel, this medium; and that, in using it, there will be a sure inflow of the fulness into us. Every one that asketh receiveth. Prayer takes for granted expectation on our part. If, then, we examine our prayers, and strip them of all that is not prayer, how little remains! Let us mark such things as the following in reference to this kind of prayer:

1. The irksomeness of non-expecting prayer. Sometimes there may be such an amount of natural feeling as may make what is called devotion pleasant. But in the long run it becomes irksome, if not accompanied with expectation, sure expectation.

2. The uselessness of non-expecting prayer. It bears no fruit; it brings no answer; it draws down no blessing.

3. The sinfulness of non-expecting prayer. The utterance of petitions is nothing to God; it does not recommend the petitioner.H. Bonar.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom. 12:12

Constant prayer.Cornelius prayed to God alway. The stated devotions were not wanting, but the life itself was a prayer in action. He was a man seeking God not in words only, but in all that he did. And in our busy, practical times we can only hope to pray to God always in that sense. Pressing duties encroach on meditation; their urgency engenders habits foreign to meditation. Too fast for our sight flash the thousand wheels of the great social machine, on which we are whirled round as a small part. Those constrained faces knit with anxiety that haunt you in the streets, those lips whispering busily to themselves in the crowded thoroughfarethose thousand vehicles locked in confusion at the confluence of streets, with all the occupants goaded to impatience by the words too latethey all remind us of the impetuous age in which we live. Who can pray to God always amidst such dire confusion? Do not despair even of that. Amidst the money-changers tables you cannot pray as in the precincts of the temple. But there is a kind of work that becomes a prayer: Laborare est orare. From the most active life in this great city may be daily floating up, for aught we know, to the throne of the Most High an incense of worship more pure than any that issues from the quiet chamber of the pious recluse. I do not speak of acts of mercy and almsgiving only; that there is a prayer in these all would admit. They are an imitation of, and therefore a longing after, the loving Son of God, who is our example. For amongst men, and in aiding men, or in striving with them, do we, the disciples, find our education, as our Master made the scene of His ministry in the midst of the men whom He would serve. The soul in retirement has often grown sickly with over-consciousness of itself, and invented needs and called for help against phantoms of its own creation. But the trials that surround us in our daily duties are those which God has made for us; and to Him we turn for strength to surmount them. Turn, then, to Him; make frequent approaches to His throne, at any time, in any place; ask His help for any undertaking; and if it be one which you dare not bring before Him, abandon it. Such a practice, to use the words of Bishop Taylor, reconciles Marthas employment with Marys devotion, charity, and religionreconciles the necessities of our calling and the employments of devotion. For thus in the midst of business you may retire into your chapelyour heartand converse with God by frequent addresses and returns. And the fruits of this practice will be justice and uprightness in action, forbearance towards others, kindness towards the helpless, love towards all.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 12

Rom. 12:11. Prescotts perseverance.Some years ago a student in college lost one of his eyes by a missile thrown by a classmate. His other eye became so affected by sympathy that its sight was endangered. The best oculists could not relieve him. He was sent to Europe for medical treatment and change of climate, and tarried there three years, when he returned with only part of an eye, just enough vision to serve him in travelling about, but too little for reading. His father was an eminent jurist, and designed his son for the bar, but this calamity quenched his aspirations in that direction. He resolved to devote himself to authorship in the department of historical literature. He spent tea years in laborious systematic study of the standard authors before he even selected his theme. Then he spent another ten years in searching archives, exploring masses of manuscripts, official documents and correspondence, consulting old chronicles, reading quantities of miscellaneous books, and taking notesall through the eyes of othersbefore his first work was ready for the pressFerdinand and Isabella. Prescott was forty years of age when he gave this remarkable history to the public. Then followed his Mexico, Peru, and Philip the Second, works that have earned for him the reputation of a profound historian on both sides of the Atlantic. Noble work for any man with two good eyes! Noble work for a man with none!

Rom. 12:12. Prayer, a necessity of Christian life.There is a class of animals, neither fish nor sea-fowl, that inhabit the deep. It is their home; they never leave it for the shore; yet, though swimming beneath its waves and sounding its darkest depths, they have ever and anon to rise to the surface that they may breathe the air. Without that those monarchs of the deep could not live in that dense element in which they move and have their being. And something like what they do through a physical necessity the Christian has to do by a spiritual one. It is by ever and anon ascending to God, by soaring up in prayer into a loftier, purer region for supplies of grace, that he maintains his spiritual life. Prevent these animals from rising to the surface, and they die for want of breath prevent him from rising to God, and he dies for want of prayer.Dr. Guthrie.

Rom. 12:12. Spirit of prayer.During the blizzard a few years ago in America, many of the telegraph wires were prostrated, and messages were sent to Chicago by the way of Liverpool, England; and the answer, after a while, came round by another circuit. And so the prayer we offer may come back in a way we never imagined; and if we ask to have our faith increased, although it may come by a widely different process to that which we expected, our confidence will surely be augmented.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

(11) In business.Rather, in zeal; the reference is to the spiritual and not to the practical life, as the English reader might suppose.

Fervent.In the literal and etymological sense boiling or seething. The temperament of the Christian is compared to water bubbling and boiling over the flame.

In spiriti.e., not in the Holy Spirit, but in that part of you which is spirit.

Serving the Lord.Some of the extant Grco-Latin codices, and others known to Origen and Jerome, read here by a slight change of vowels serving the time; no doubt wrongly, though the expression might be compared with 1Co. 7:29; Eph. 5:16, et al.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

11. Business Literally, zeal. The word does not apply to secular employments, but to Christian earnestness.

Lord For , Lord, a well supported reading is , occasion or opportunity.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘In diligence not slothful (in zeal not flagging), fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.’

It is necessarily the church which will benefit most by the zeal of God’s people in serving the LORD, for their fellow-members are their prime responsibility, but the wider outreach must not be overlooked. Indeed, while evangelising is of prime importance, it will only usually arise where there is a strong church fellowship. It is significant that this instruction to be diligent and on fire follows the requirement for ‘sincere love’, and does not precede it. The point is that having zeal and fire is good, but that without love it may well be misplaced or even misused. On the other hand if our love is genuine it must certainly express itself in our giving of ourselves in love. Thus there must be no flagging in the diligence with which we go about living out our spiritual lives, no half-heartedness, no holding back. We are to give our all. And it is to be with a spirit that is at boiling point, aflame with love and dedication, a spirit on fire, remembering that we are serving the LORD, not men (compare Eph 6:5-8).

Many would see ‘spirit’ here as requiring a capital S, and this would tie in with Rom 8:1-16. Thus we could read ‘fervent in the Spirit’, recognising that it is only He Who can maintain our spiritual momentum. It is through Him and by His direction that we are to serve the Lord. And it is He Who maintains the fervency of our spirits. However, in the parallel use in Act 18:25 the phrase ‘fervent in spirit’ most probably refers to the human spirit, although as being stirred up by the Holy Spirit. Thus the small ‘s’ is probably correct, but all would recognise that the fervency had to be stirred up by the Holy Spirit.

‘Serving the LORD.’ We may see two emphases here. The first in the fact that all our zeal and fire must have in mind that we are in His service. It is as His privileged servants that we are to live, with all the dedication that that requires, acknowledging that He is ‘the LORD’. But secondly it is a reminder that we are to do all as in His sight. Our zeal must not be misplaced. Our fervency must not be self-directed or group-directed. Our concern must be to please Him. Thus it is the LORD and His concerns that must be primary, not our own particular viewpoints. His will must always take first place, and we should note that that is not being achieved if we fail to honour all our brothers and sisters, eve though they may not see things as we do in every way.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Rom 12:11. Serving the Lord Some copies read , instead of , serving the time; that is, husbanding your opportunities: but though admitted by Dr. Mills, it appears an unnatural and inelegant expression in that sense, and very much sinks the noblemeaningofthe commonly received reading; which contains a lively exhortation to Christians, to be always serving Christ, and to cultivate the temper which the Apostle expresses when he says, To me to live is Christ, Phillip. Rom 1:21. See Doddridge, Mill, and Wetstein.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Rom 12:11 . ] in respect of zeal , namely, for the interests of the Christian life in whatever relation.

. ] seething, boiling in spirit , the opposite of ; hence . is not to be understood of the Holy Spirit (Oecumenius and many others, including Holsten, Weiss), but of the human spirit. Comp. Act 18:25 . That this fervent excitement of the activity of thought, feeling, and will for Christian aims is stirred up by the Holy Spirit, is obvious of itself, but is not of itself expressed by . of the mental aestuare is also frequent in the classics; Plato, Rep . iv. p. 440 C, Phaedr . p. 251 B; Soph. Oed. C . 435; Eur. Hec . 1055; and Pflugk in loc . See also Jacobs, ad Anthol . IX. p. 203; Dorville, ad Charit . p. 233.

.] consigns without, in view of the whole laying out of the discourse as dependent on ., Rom 12:9 , requiring a connective (against van Hengel) the fervour of spirit to the limits of Christian prudence, which, amidst its most lively activity, yet in conformity with true love, accommodates itself to the circumstances of the time , with moral discretion does not aim at placing itself in independence of them or oppose them with headlong stubbornness, but submits to them with a wise self-denial (1Co 13:4-8 ). Comp. on the . ( tempori servire , Cicero, ad Div . ix. 17, Tuscul . iii. 27. 66) and synonymous expressions ( , . ), which are used in a good or bad sense according to the context, Wetstein and Fritzsche in loc.; Jacobs, ad Anthol . X. p. 261. On the thing itself, see Cic. ad Div . iv. 6 : “ad novos casus temporum novorum consiliorum rationes accommodare.”

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

11 Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;

Ver. 11. Not slothful ] Or, not driving off till it be too late ( , cunctator the delayer). Charles, the son of Charles Duke of Anjou, who was king of Sicily and Jerusalem, was called Carolus Cunctator, not in the sense as Fabius, because he stayed till opportunity came, but because he stayed till opportunity was lost.

Fervent in spirit ] Gr. , seething hot. God, who is himself a pure act, loveth activeness in men; the very rest of heavenly bodies is in motion in their proper places.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

11. ] in zeal (not ‘ business ,’ as E. V., which seems to refer it to the affairs of this life, whereas it relates, as all these in Rom 12:11-13 , to Christian duties as such : as ‘fervency of spirit,’ ‘acting as God’s servants,’ ‘rejoicing in hope,’ &c.) not slothful . . is used of Apollos, in ref. The Holy Spirit lights this fire within: see Luk 12:49 ; Mat 3:11 .

. .] The external authorities, as will be seen in the var. read., are strongly in favour of this reading. The balance of internal probability, though not easy at once to settle, is I am persuaded on the same side. The main objection to has ever been, that thus the Apostle would be inserting here, among particular precepts, one of the most general and comprehensive character. So Hilary (in Wetst.) and al. But this will be removed, if we remember, of what he is speaking : and if I mistake not, the other reading has been defended partly owing to forgetfulness of this. The present subject is, the character of our zeal for God . In it we are not to be , but fervent in spirit, and that, as servants of God . A very similar reminiscence of this relation to God occurs Col 3:22-24 ; , , , . . The command, , would surely come in very inopportunely in the midst of exhortations to the zealous service of God . At the same time, it is not easy to give an account of the origin of the reading. The of Eph 5:16 may have led to the filling up of the contracted ( ) with this word: and the notion that referred to worldly business , may have favoured the sense thus given. For examples of the phrase and ‘tempori inservire,’ see Wetst. As to its applicability at all to Christians, De Wette well remarks, “The Christian may and should certainly employ ( Eph 5:16 ) (time and opportunity), but not serve it.” Athanas. (in Wetst.) ad Dracont. says, , .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Rom 12:11 . : occurs twelve times in the N.T., and is translated in our A.V. seven different ways. It denotes the moral earnestness with which one should give himself to his vocation. In this Christians are not to be backward: Act 9:38 . : the same figure is frequent in the classics, and we still speak of the blood “boiling”. The spiritual temperature is to be high in the Christian community: cf. 1Th 5:20 , Act 18:25 . If we are to distinguish at all, the meant is the Spirit of God, though it is that spirit as bestowed upon man. : we can point to no special connection for this clause. Perhaps the thought is on the same lines as in 1Co 12:4 f.: there are spiritual gifts of all kinds, but one service in which they are all exhausted the service of Christ and in that we must be constantly engaged.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Romans

A TRIPLET OF 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.’

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, 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 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.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

slothful. Greek. okneros. Only here; Mat 25:26. Php 1:3, Php 1:1.

business. Greek. spoude, as “diligence” in Rom 12:8.

fervent. See Act 18:25.

in. Dative case. No preposition.

spirit = the spirit. App-101.

serving. App-190.

Lord. App-98.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

11.] in zeal (not business, as E. V., which seems to refer it to the affairs of this life, whereas it relates, as all these in Rom 12:11-13, to Christian duties as such: as fervency of spirit, acting as Gods servants, rejoicing in hope, &c.) not slothful. . is used of Apollos, in ref. The Holy Spirit lights this fire within: see Luk 12:49; Mat 3:11.

. .] The external authorities, as will be seen in the var. read., are strongly in favour of this reading. The balance of internal probability, though not easy at once to settle, is I am persuaded on the same side. The main objection to has ever been, that thus the Apostle would be inserting here, among particular precepts, one of the most general and comprehensive character. So Hilary (in Wetst.) and al. But this will be removed, if we remember, of what he is speaking: and if I mistake not, the other reading has been defended partly owing to forgetfulness of this. The present subject is, the character of our zeal for God. In it we are not to be , but fervent in spirit,-and that, as servants of God. A very similar reminiscence of this relation to God occurs Col 3:22-24; , , , . . The command, , would surely come in very inopportunely in the midst of exhortations to the zealous service of God. At the same time, it is not easy to give an account of the origin of the reading. The of Eph 5:16 may have led to the filling up of the contracted () with this word: and the notion that referred to worldly business, may have favoured the sense thus given. For examples of the phrase and tempori inservire, see Wetst. As to its applicability at all to Christians, De Wette well remarks, The Christian may and should certainly employ (Eph 5:16) (time and opportunity), but not serve it. Athanas. (in Wetst.) ad Dracont. says, , .

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Rom 12:11. – , in diligence [business, Engl. Vers.]-in spirit) The external or active, and the internal or contemplative life is thus set in due order.- , serving the Lord) We ought to serve Christ and God, Rom 12:1, ch. Rom 7:6, Rom 14:18, Rom 16:18; Act 20:19; Php 3:3; Psa 2:11, where serving and rejoicing are parallel, as in this passage. [See Appendix. Crit. Ed. II. on this passage, which shows that the reading [132] is quite unsupported and unworthy of the apostle. Not. crit.]

[132] AB and prob. all Gr. MSS. of Jerome, Vulg. and most Versions read . But D() corrected later, and Gfg read .-ED.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Rom 12:11

Rom 12:11

in diligence not slothful;-In all business the Christian should be diligent in performing it well and quickly. Indolence, slothfulness, laziness, and idleness are condemned both in the Old and New Testaments. Solomon says: Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. (Ecc 9:10). All should work that they may have lack of nothing, live honestly, pay what they owe to others, and have to give to those who are in need. Idleness is a disorderly walk. (2Th 3:7).

fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;-Throw your soul into your work so that it will be done both quickly and well. Diligence is especially needed in the service of the Lord. [This clause is opposed to mere excitement in our diligence; the spirit itself must be stirred. In whatever we find to do, we are not only to be active, but to have a spiritual enthusiasm, which is prompted by the knowledge that all our doing, however humble, is to be consecrated to God, to be made subservient to the cause of Christ.]

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

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

What is 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 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 worlds 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 Gods 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 mans will, and appropriates its power, its beauty, its usefulness, is business; and whoso worthily engages in it is helping to carry out Gods 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 intelligencethis is mans earthly calling, and history is but the progressive accomplishment of it. Therefore it is that, rightly regarded, business is a 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 samethat the Great Master needs them because the Masters 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 days work. If she is well satisfied with it she may give him finer clothes, finer food, finer lodging, and even add delightful extraslike a good house, wife and children, desirable friends, books, pictures, travel, and the like. But the principle is the same all throughthat you must give your days work for your share of societys 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 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 Gods 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, Gods 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 worlds needed work, and is offering daily Divine service; for God wants men fed, and houses built, and streets made; and thus the humblest toilerat forge or loom, in the shop or in the streetmay lift up his head and say, I also am a servant of the Great Mastera 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 earths productions become available to all the earths 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 ones 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 traders 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 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 Gods 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. Gods 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 Gods 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. 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 days 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 peoples 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 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 worlds 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 dont hurry and dont 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 cant 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 dont want Him to find anything in this firm we would not like Him to see.

II

What are the Hindrances?

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 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 avaricethat 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 mans 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 Masters follower is to be controlled in all his life by his Masters 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 materialsesquisulfidso 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 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 lifes problems. He is more than a mercenary recruit drafted into the worlds 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-doinghis 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

Evn 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 conjurers 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.

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 ones own interestthis 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 ones 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 ones 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

What are the Helps?

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 donethat without which all other efforts are worse than vainis 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 stillthat 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 handsthis 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 worlds cares and toils, no motive is sufficient save oneself-devoted love to Christ.

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 companions 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 worlds 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 dont 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 knows what he is called upon by Gods 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 mans only life! Therefore time, room, that is what time, that is what room is forlife. 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 lifeits gains and losses, friendships, rivalries, competitions, its manifold incidents and eventsthe 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 geniusa pure and godlike life. To spiritualize what is material, to Christianize what is secularthis 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.]

(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 Gods 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 Gods 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 Christs spirit, whether in the smithy, or in the steamboat, or in the market-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 lifethat 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 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 childs 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. Shakespeares 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 mans 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 casethe 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 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, artistsif we are to live a really Christian life, we must all be sure that, whatever work we are doing, it is Gods will that we should do it.

It used to be common to speak of a mans 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 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 Christs 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 usthis 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 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.]

Business

Literature

Brooks (P.), Addresses, 51.

Brown (J. B.), The Christian Policy of Life, 109.

Caird (J.), Aspects of Life, 273.

Dale (R. W.), Laws of Christ for Common Life, 1.

Harris (S. S.), The Dignity of Man, 189.

Hopps (J. P.), Sermons of Life and Love, 53.

Horton (R. F.), Brief Sermons for Busy Men, 1.

Lambert (J. C.), The Omnipotent Cross, 167.

Mackay (D. S.), The Religion of the Threshold, 92.

Rowland (A.), The Exchanged Crowns, 123.

Watkinson (W. L.), The Blind Spot, 201.

Wilson (J. M.), Truths New and Old, 306, 316, 325.

Christian World Pulpit, iv. 250 (Beecher); xxiv. 323 (Dallinger); li. 108 (Lorimer); lv. 72 (Stalker).

Church Pulpit Year Book (1910), 13.

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

slothful: Exo 5:17, Pro 6:6-9, Pro 10:26, Pro 13:4, Pro 18:9, Pro 22:29, Pro 24:30-34, Pro 26:13-16, Ecc 9:10, Isa 56:10, Mat 25:26, Act 20:34, Act 20:35, Eph 4:28, 1Th 4:11, 1Th 4:12, 2Th 3:6-12, 1Ti 5:13, Heb 6:10, Heb 6:11

fervent: Mat 24:12, Act 18:25, Col 4:12, Col 4:13, Jam 5:16, 1Pe 1:22, 1Pe 4:8, Rev 2:4, Rev 3:15, Rev 3:16

serving: 1Co 7:22, Eph 6:5-8, Col 3:22-24, Col 4:1, Tit 2:9, Tit 2:10, Heb 12:28

Reciprocal: Rth 2:7 – continued 2Ch 35:13 – divided them speedily Neh 3:20 – earnestly Neh 4:15 – every one Psa 112:5 – he will Pro 20:13 – Love Pro 31:15 – riseth Ecc 3:22 – nothing Act 20:19 – Serving Rom 14:18 – in Heb 6:12 – ye 2Pe 1:8 – barren Rev 3:19 – be

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

ENTHUSIASM

Fervent in spirit.

Rom 12:11

Without the intense fire of God burning in enthusiastic hearts, the moral, the spiritual world, yes, the whole world of man, would sink into a universe of death!

I. 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 sciencewhat else could have inspired their infinite patience, their unlimited self-sacrifice?

II. 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!

III. 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 Gods missionary. And for centuries the Church produced many a noble missionary: 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 only found 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.

IV. 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. Go to the Embankment and see his statue there, and read the inscription: As I asked, Can nothing be done? a voice answered, Try; I did try, and lo! what God hath wrought.

Dean Farrar.

Illustration

Like the words Utopian, Quixotic, impractical, enthusiasm is one of the mud-banks reared by the world to oppose the swelling tide of moral convictions. The famous saying of Prince Talleyrand, Surtout, point de zleAbove all, no zealconcentrates 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. Throughout the eighteenth centuryby way of protest first against the sobriety of the Puritans, and afterwards against the waking up of deep religious emotions by Wesley and Whitfieldthe sermons of all comfortable, full-fed, wealthy conventionalists were filled with deprecations of enthusiasm. Men did not like the glow of reality, the blaze of deep feeling, the rushing winds of prophecy, harbingers of the dawn bursting over cold, grey lives. What they wished for was the calculating religion of compromise; or an orthodoxy which slumbers because it will not inquire; of a conventionality which never broke their leagues with death or their convenants with hell. They dreaded the throb of a startled conscience, the agony of a revealing light.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

:11

Rom 12:11. Business is from SPOUDE, which Thayer defines, “Haste, with haste; earnestness, diligence,” and the original for slothful is defined, “sluggish, slothful, backward.” The thought is that Christians should not be indifferent about the activities of the service for Christ. The remainder of the verse means virtually the same thing.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Rom 12:11. In diligence, not slothful. We restore the emphatic order throughout In diligence (the same word as in Rom 12:8), not, in business, but with respect to zeal; in whatever Christian duty requires your diligence, do not be slothful.

In spirit, fervent. The figure is that of seething, boiling like a hot spring; hence the human spirit is meant, but the regenerated human spirit, since Christians are addressed. This clause is opposed to mere animal excitement in our diligence; the spirit itself must be stirred.

Serving the Lord. Many ancient authorities, by a variation of two letters ( for ) read: serving the time, i.e., the occasion, or, opportunity. This means: in ones daily task adapting ones self to the occasion, to the circumstances of the hour, with the self-denying discretion of true love. The Sinaitic manuscript, however, decides in favor of the other reading. The variation can readily be accounted for. The objection that so general a precept is inappropriate here is invalid. It is characteristically Pauline to insert a distinctively Christian motive in his minute exhortations. In whatever we find to do we are not only to be active, but to have a spiritual enthusiasm, which is prompted by the knowledge that all our doing, however humble, is in the service of Christ.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

The next duty exhorted to, is diligence and industry in all our duties both to God and man, but particularly in the duties of our calling. We must avoid the two extremes of slothfulness on the one hand, and excessive drudgery on the other, in the management of our secular affairs and worldly business. But in the service of God we must be fervent, as in the service of the world we must not be slothful. What is done for the world, is best done with indifferency; but what is done for God, is best done with warmth and fervency, or not done at all. Our most ardent affections and active powers must be employed in his service; for, to be cold and careless therein, disparages his excellency, and will defeat our own expectation. We must be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; and may not be slothful in business, serving the world.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Vv. 11. As to zeal, being not indolent; fervent in spirit; taking advantage of opportunity.

With respectful consideration, Rom 12:10, there is easily connected the disposition to render service, which is here denoted by the word: not indolent.

This in its turn, in order to overcome the resistance of selfishness, in cases where to oblige requires self-sacrifice, and must be, not a natural disposition only, but a powerful movement, due to the impulse of the Divine Spirit, and like an inner fire kept up unceasingly by action from above: fervent in spirit. The word spirit undoubtedly refers here to the spiritual element in man himself, but that as penetrated and quickened by the Divine Spirit. In reading these words, we see the believer hastening, with his heart on fire, wherever there is any good to be done.

The third proposition presents an important variant. The Alex. and Byz. documents read (serving) the Lord. The Greco-Lat. text reads (serving) the time, the season, the occasion; adapting yourselves to the opportunity. This expression is somewhat strange, but it is common enough in profane Greek; comp. the (see Meyer), and in Latin the tempori servire (Cicero). The very fact that this phrase is without example in the N. T. may speak in favor of its authenticity. For it is far from probable that any one would have replaced so common an expression as that of serving the Lord by that of serving the time, while the opposite might easily happen, especially if abbreviations were used in writing. The context must therefore decide, and it seems to me that it decides in favor of the Greco-Latin reading. The precept: serve the Lord, is too general to find a place in a series of recommendations so particular. The only means of finding a certain suitableness for it would be to understand it thus: While employing yourselves for men, do it always with a view to the Lord and His cause. But it would be necessary to supply precisely the essential idea. On the contrary, the meaning: serving the opportunity, or adapting yourselves to the need of the time, admirably completes the two preceding precepts. Zeal, according to God, confines itself to espying providential occasion, and suiting our activity to them; it does not impose itself either on men or things.

There follows a third group, the three elements of which form a small well-connected whole.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

in diligence not slothful; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord [These three commands refer more especially to the outward life of the Christian. In all matters of employment, whether religious or secular, be active and energetic (Ecc 9:10), let your activities be vital with enthusiasm (“fervent” means seething, boiling; hence stirring), for life-service is Christ-service; the manifestation of love toward him (Col 3:22-24). “Ever considering,” says Clark, “that his eye is upon you, and that you are accountable to him for all that you do, and that you should do everything so as to please him. In order to do this there must be simplicity in the INTENTION, and purity in the AFFECTION.” “To be cold and careless in God’s service disparages his excellency,” says Burkitt];

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

11. Not slothful in business. We are all working for the Lord. Therefore we have not a minute to lose, as the end is nigh and judgment hastens, and we need all of our time and opportunities to finish our work and be ready to give our account. Boiling over in spirit, i. e., not simply hot, but actually boiling over and scalding all the devils round about till they are glad to stampede. Serving the Lord. The word translated serving here is the participle form of doulos, a slave. Hence it means a perfectly submissive servitude, such as the slave, who has no will of his own, renders to the will of his master. Therefore our will is to be utterly lost in the will of God.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

12:11 Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; {r} serving the Lord;

(r) This verse is well put, for it makes a distinction between Christian duties, and philosophical duties.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

It is natural for Christians to slack off in our diligence in serving the Lord when we have been Christians for some time. Apollos was a model of someone who maintained fervent diligence in his service (Act 18:24-25; cf. Rev 3:15-16), as was Paul.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)