Profit
PROFIT
Two Gr. words are so rendered: (1) , to further, help, profit: Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 profit, Mat 15:5 (= Mar 7:11) 16:26 (= Mar 8:36, Luk 9:25 Authorized Version advantage), Joh 6:63; prevail, Mat 27:24, Joh 12:19; be bettered, Mar 5:26; (2) , to bear or bring together; be profitable, Mat 5:29-30; Mat 18:6; be expedient, Mat 19:10 (Authorized Version good), Joh 11:50; Joh 18:14; Joh 16:7.
The address of Jesus is, for the most part, to the highest in human nature; but sometimes a less heroic note is struck, and there is direct appeal to the instinctive impulses of self-regard and self-preservation, and to the instincts of gain and the anxieties of the balance-sheet. The analogy of profitable trading gives force to the parables of the Talents and the Pounds (Mat 25:14 ff., Luk 19:12 ff.), but in one great saying the appeal to what may be termed the business instincts is direct: What shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and forfeit his life? or what shall a man give in exchange for his life? Mat 16:26 (= Mar 8:36, Luk 9:25). Here the terms of commerce are used, and the balance-sheet of the soul (Morison) is struck. With this we may compare Platos words: What will anyone be profited if under the influence of honour or money or power, aye, or under the excitement of poetry, he neglect justice and virtue? (see Jowetts Plato, iii. 505).
This weighing of advantages and gain finds its full force in Christs doctrine of the supreme good of the Kingdom of God, the one secure treasure of unspeakable value, for the possession of which all other treasures may well be given in exchange (Mat 13:44-46).
W. H. Dyson.