| The Best Things in Life |
Chapter 19 |
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Thus eleven chapters of the Epistle to the Romans are filled with theology. Then, beginning with the twelfth, we have a simple and clear setting forth of duties. Love must be without hypocrisy. We are to honour others rather than ourselves. We are to bless them that persecute us. We are not to be wise in our own conceit. We are to be good citizens. We are to pay our debts, not owing any man anything but love. A whole system of beautiful Christian ethics is packed in the last chapters of this great epistle. But these two sections are one – common duties grow out of strong doctrines.
Or take the Epistle to the Ephesians. We have three solid chapters of doctrinal teaching, in which we are led up to the mountain tops of spiritual truth. Then we come down into the valleys of every day life, and are taught the simplest lessons of practical Christian living – to put away lying and speak truth, not to let the sun go down on our wrath, not to steal nay more, to let no corrupt speech come out of our mouth. Then we have, too, a scheme of Christian home ethics – duties of wives, of husbands, children, parents, servants, masters. All these practical exhortations spring out of the great doctrines of grace which are elaborated in the earlier chapters. These are the roses – the roots are in the theological section.
The Rev. J.H.Jowett, in a striking sermon,* calls attention to the way the sixteenth chapter of I Corinthians begins. The fifteenth chapter is given up to the subject of the resurrection. There is no sublimer passage in the Bible. Then comes in the same breath, as it were, with the last sentence, this most prosaic item, “Now concerning the collection.” The artificial chapter division in our Bible hides the abruptness of the transition. Yet, when we look at it closely, is there anything incongruous in the sudden passing from the great truths of resurrection and the immortal life to the duty of taking a collection? “Now hath Christ been raised from the dead… Death is swallowed up in victory… Be ye steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Now concerning the collection.” It feels like passing from bracing mountain heights to sweltering vales,” says Mr. Jowett. “Say, rather, it is like passing from the springs to the river.” Great doctrines first, then common duties. Roots, then roses.
* Apostolic Optimism published by Hodder and Stoughton, London
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