The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 270

I. A MIBTAKB ABOUT OHBIBT, He applied the word "good" to him, and yet he had 110 adequate ideas concerning goodness. If he bad really meant anything worth meaning, he would have recognized in Christ the infinitely Good One, the Son of God; for none is good save God. This mistake Jesus corrected in two ways. 1. By reference to God. "None is good save one, that is, God." You do not call God good because he doe, good, but because he i, good. 2. By a severe and searching test, which reveals to the man the imperfectness of his own goodness. He would never be able to get right ideas of God or Christ from himself. II. A llISTAKE CONCERNING HIMSELF. This took a twofold form. He thought be wae good; and he thought he could do good, if only he was told what to do. Jesus showed him a good thing that he could not do ; and so set his conscience suggesting, that perhaps he was not as good as he had thought. We may think ourselves good while we arrange the forms that our goodness shall take; but we may learn our mistake when God arranges the forms for us. The question betrays the man's self- righteous spirit. He is indirectly paying a compliment to himself-to his own goodness; or, at any rate, to human goodness, that idol which he worshipped with bis whole soul. III. A lllllTAKE CONCERNING THE FUTURE. Feeling himself well provided for in all that concerned this life, he wanted to be as safely and as well off in the next life. He would inherit eternal life; he would have it as something coming to him ; he wanted as much right to it as he had to his worldly possessions. How much he had to learn ! A man's life here "consisteth not in the abundonce of the things he possesses." A man's wealth is his character; that is true of this life, but much more true of the life to come.-R. T. Ver.19.-Right attitude towards parents. "Honour thy father and thy mother." It is significant that the old Law did not say," Obey thy father 11,nd mother," or even "Love thy father and mother." Perhaps we are intended to see that obeying and loving have no will necessarily in them. We obey in simple yielding to the force that commands ; we love our parents in the animal sort of way that characterizes all young creatures. "Honour thy father" suggests active intelligence, careful estimates, opera- tive will, personal decision. Reverence, and show reverence for, thy father, both because he is thy father, and because of what he is in his fatherliness. I. RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARDS PARENTS IS THE BEGINNING OF MORALS AND BZLI- (lI0N, Our father and mother represent the power above us that we first know. We know parents before we know God. And we know God through our parents. He begins life with an almost overwhelming disability who has parents whom he cannot "honour." Honouring includes : 1. Cherishing high thoughts concerning. To a child, father and mother ought to be embodiments of all excellence. 2. Loving dependence on. The confidence that the goodness will be adequate to all emergencies. 3. Perfect response to. Involving the putting of the parents' will before the child's own. 4. Tender care of. Expressed in all thoughtful and self-denying attentions. It may be shown how this attitude prepares the child to gain right thoughts of God, who should be to us our glorified, idealized father and mother; not father only, not mother only, but a Being realizing in himself the perfections of both. II. RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARDS PARENTS ENSURES OBEDIENCE INSPIRED BY FEELING. Obedience is not just one thing. It is various, according to the motive inspiring it. We should obey our Master from a sense of duty, whether he be gentle or froward, and whether we like to obey or not. But obedience to parents belongs to a higher type of obedience. It is prompted by feeling: it is inspired by love. And it is through the obedience of our parents that we learn true obedience to God.-R. T. Ver. 23.-The hindering power of worldly possessions. "Ile went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions." "A rich man shall hardly [ or, 'with difficulty'] enter into the kingdom of heaven." The figure of the II camel and needle's eye n is a prover- bial one, and no precise facts answering to it need be sought for. There are other proverbs very similar. It strikingly expresses that which is almost impossible, but not quite impossible. This sentence is taken from the Koran : '' The impious shall find the gates of heaven shut; nor shall he enter there till a camel shall pass through the eye of a needle." Our Lord teaches that the rich man may enter the kingdom, but ho lrlATTHEW-Il, T  2i4: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. [on. xix. 1-30.