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The Purchase of Opportunity.
Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.— Eph. v. i6.
1. These words stand at the end of a series of moral counsels and warnings, of which it is difficult to exaggerate the urgency and solemnity. St. Paul has painted in vivid colours the contrast between the corruptions of society and the holy living of genuine discipleship ; he has implored the Ephesians to remember that such holy living is the condition of any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God ; he has proved the necessity of carefulness in the religious life, and now he proceeds yet one step further. Carefulness must be directed by wisdom, lest the fears of conscience and the discipline of conduct be wrongly directed, and therefore wasted. "Take heed therefore how ye walk exactly," for this is the true sense of the original. The Ephesians are to be wise in their self-discipline, taking heed that the strictness of their walk is directed by right motives to right ends. " Take heed therefore how ye walk exactly, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time," or rather, "buying up the opportunity, because the days are evil."
^ The expression is found in Daniel ii. 8, and is perhaps borrowed from the Old Testament by St. Paul. Nebuchadnezzar complains that the astrologers are buying the time for themselves with a view to wasting it in vain delays : St. Paul bids Christians buy the time for themselves, at whatever cost, in order to use it in wise action. Seneca has a similar saying : " Gather up and preserve the time."
2. The picture or parable suggested by the text is this. Standing in the market-place is a wise and wary merchantman, keen for spiritual traffic and gain. Like Milton, he has fallen on evil times — on had times, as men of business would say. The days drag slowly by, bringing him few means of moral culture, rare
252 THE PURCHASE OF OPPORTUNITY
occasions on which he can trade with his talents and make them more. But, at last, as the caravan of Time moves tardily by, among the captives in its train he espies an opportunity such as his heart has long craved. He leaps at it, seizes it, redeems it, i.e., pays a price for it and makes it his own. It is exactly the modern notion of " making a corner," with this important distinc- tion, that, whereas the modern " trust " or " combine " is purely selfish in its calculations, the intensity and astuteness recom- mended by the Apostle aim chiefly at the salvation and spiritual enrichment of others. Be alert, politic, ready to make sacrifices, so that you improve every opening to possess yourself of the best things and make your neighbours sharers of the riches of Christ.
^ Ephesus was the great trading city of Proconsular Asia, where the merchants of both the east and west assembled for commerce, watching for opportunities to buy and sell and get gain. The Asian Christians were well acquainted with these things, and the words of St. Paul would come to them with great power, fitness and cogency. As merchantmen watched and seized every oppor- tunity for buying or selling their commodities, so must Christians seize and buy up every opportunity for manifesting their true Christian character, and making known " the truth as it is in Jesus." Hostile circumstances and the powers of darkness beset us on every hand: therefore let us lose no opportunities, but, with promptness and full purpose of heart, let us "walk as children of the light."
^ Gifts are given to trade withal for God. Opportunities are the market-days for that trade. To napkin up the one and to let slip the other will end in trouble and disconsolation. Disquiet- ments and perplexities of heart are worms that will certainly breed in the rust of unexercised gifts. God loseth a revenue of glory and honour by such slothful souls : and He will make them sensible of it. I know some at this day whom omissions of oppor- tunities for service are ready to sink into the grave.^