The Pulpit Commentary — Deuteronomy — Section 247

JI. The Christian, being a redeemed man, by the fact of that redemption is clnimecl for Christ alone. "Ye are bought 1vith a price; therefore glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are God's." "We are the Lord'H." Our body Houl, and spirit are entirely his. The claim of Jesus Christ over us is that he shaii govern the whole of us, always and everywhere. III. Hence, loyalty to Christ, and the conservation of our whole life for him, is to regulate every detail of our life, work, walk, and conversation. So the apostle shows in Rom. xiv. that, e.g. in the tiny matter of "eating herbs," the Lordship of Christ is to be the supreme regulator of religious conviction. IV. Nowhere is this scrupulousness in loyalty to be more exact than in the re"ulation of our own table. It is at their own board that some strive to make the gr~atest display, or to pamper their bodies with a superabundance of luxuries. But both " the lust of the flesh" and "the pride of life" are declared to be " not of the Father, but of the world." Hence they can have no place in a consistent believer's home life. V. A Christian man is bound, not only for Christ's sake, but for his family's sake, to cultivate only such associations as will help to make or maintain the purity, piety, and Christian elevation of his home. If he seeks the associations of the wealthy or great, regardless of their religious views or habits, he is exposing his own consistency and his children's weal to very serious risk. VI. The entire concern of eating and drinking is to be regulated by Christian principle. No doubt with many, without thinking on the matter, sound feeling and common sense keep them from going very far wrong, and perhaps even from going wrong at all. Still, the surest way of keeping right in little things is to recognize fully and clearly the true and proper motive which should impel, even in the trivialities of life. VII. So also it may be that high and holy principle may lead a believer, without laying down a hard-and-fast line for all, to practise abstinence frolll this or that, out of regard to the well-being of others, or to practise seasons of occasiunal fasting when preparing for special service (cf. Matt. xvii. 21; Rom. xiv. 21; 1 Cor. viii. 13). VlII. There is one grand rule given by the Apostle Paul, covering the whole ground, appropriate to all occasions (1 Cor. x. 31). On referring to that verse, its force will be seen to be this: "You will find many occasions in your walks through life in which it may not at first be clearly manifest to you what course you should adopt. I cannot lay down separate rules for every possible case. Take this as a comprehensive, suffi- cient rule, at all times, and everywhere, ' Whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God.'" And if we resolve to do only that which will most honour God, and seek grace from abuve to carry out our resolve, we cannot go far wrong. 'vVe shall not be unwise, but shall "prove what the will of the Lord is." We shall be "sincere and without offence till the day of Christ," to the glory of our Lord and Saviour. Vers. 22-29.-.d threefold cord; or, the triple use of property. These details which so frequently occur respecting the use of property, specially of that which is possessed or gained in the form of produce, may seem burdensome. Probably, to us, they would be so, but it is nevertheless a topic of perpetual interest for our day, to sec how tenderly and lovingly the Great Father trained his people, by such minute regula- tions as were needful for them, to the practice and perception of principles which we!'E to be ultimately the possession of the world-principles which would be a perpetuai spring of holy and benevolent gladness. We say, advisedly, "practice and perception of principles," rather than" perception and practice." For though it may seem as if perception must come first, yea, though indeed it is logically prior to practice, yet when a race tainted with heathen customs and tendencies has to be educated out of them, the sure mode of effecting this is by giving them rules to be put into practice, as a leverage to raise them to value the principles which were the basis of those rules. Now in the paragraph before us we have" a threefold cord" of duty with regard to the religiou& use of the produce of the field. The question (with which the Exposition has dealb) whether the third-named tithe was actually such, or simply a special application of the second, does not affect the homiletic treatment of the paragraph before us. There is here indicated to us a triple use which was tp be made of the produce of the PJ!ilJ'fJ!;l\0jil0l4f. B  THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. [OB. XIV, 1-2!),