The Pulpit Commentary — Philippians — Section 100

h1mln!"'s~. And so the good soldier, Epaphroditus, for the work of Christ. in the battle carried on by l'sul at Ro!ne, i~ u1;1dertaking difficult service against the eno~y lhore, came nii:b unt0 death, hazard mg his hfe. They were to receive him then in the Lord wilh all jo:'"· in fdl~wsh_ip_ with_ the Lord and in gratitude to the Lord who had mercif~lly det\lt with them m ginng him back to them as from the dead. And they were to bold him in honour, t~e grou~d of their ~on~mrin~ him being, not _that he_ w~s in office among them, but thnt m workmg for Chnst m their name he bad nsked his life. They were to heap honour upon him as upon a soldier who had distinguished himself in battle. Aud Epapbroditus was only to be taken as a specimen of a class. Hold such, snys Paul in honour. Whom are we to honour? It is not those who have lived to indulae th;m- selves. It is rather those" who have walked in a rugged path, and clung to good and gr~t end~ in pc:secution and pain; who amid the solicitations of ambition, ease, and :,nvatc fr1endsh1p, and the menaces of tyranny and malice, have listened to the voice of conscience and found a recompense for blighted hopes and protracted suffering in conscious uprightness and the favour of God." Hold in honour the Christian brother, li..ke Archer Butler, who nobly lost his life in volunteering to visit the infected houses during a visitation of cholera in Dublin; and the Christian sister who, resigning the comforts of her home, devotes her life to caring for the bodies and souls of patients in a hospital.. Hold in honour the Christian missionary who, leaving his people and ci"l'"ilization, goes forth to a distant land and submits to isolation and a trying climate and peculiar difficulties of work, that he may bring the ignorant to the knowledge of the Saviour. .And hold in honour all who can be unselJish in the place which Pro"l'"idence has assigned to them, and do not grudge the sacrifice of their time and comforts in giving, in praying, in working, in order that Christ may be magnified, -R.F. Vers. 1-4.-Genuine socialism apostolioolly urged. " If there be therefore any con- solation in Christ, if any comfort of love," etc. Notice- !. GEKun,"E SOCIALISM. Man is a social being, and his norm11l social condition is unity. Society is one body, and all men are members thereof, all animated by one life, and contributing to the good of the whole. This is the social ideal ; but, alas I sin has created n schism. Instead of unity there is a division everywhere, and the divided parts become antagonistic. The mission of the gospel is to remedy this and to restore to perfect social unity. This unity, we infer from the text, includes three things. 1. Barnwny of ft.eling to one another. "That ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind." Having noticed this point in the preceding article, we have only to repeat that the harmony can only be realized by all having the one same object of reigning love. Two men, however different in the kin~ and measure of native talent, in the nature and measure of information, in the degree of culture, in the character of their oi,iniuns and beliefs, are indissolubly united in soul if their greatest love is centred in the sam.e object. So of any number. The design of the gospel is to ceutre all men's love on God in Christ. There is no other way of producing this har- n,ony; no theological system, no ecclesiastical organization, no legi~lative enactment can do it ; it is simply by this love that it can be done. 2. Humility of deportment amm,g or.e another. "Let nothing be done through strife or vain-glory; but in lowli- ness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." " This verse expresses the neaative result of this unity of soul-that nothing will be done in strife, that is, factiousness ( the word used in eh. i. 17), or 'vain-glory ; ' nothing, that is, with tbe desire either of personal influence or of personal glory. For, he adds, each will esteem other Letter than himself, or rather, will bold that his neighbour is worthy of higher consideration, and a higher place of diguity than himself (compare the w;e of the wonl in Rom. xiii. 1; 1 Pet. ii. 13, of temporal dignity), for the idea is of the ascription to othern, uut of moral superiority, but of a higher place and honour. Self-assertion will be enLirely overborne. So he teaches us elsewhere that' charity vauateth not Hself, is not pu1fo'1 up, doth not behave itself unseemly, sccketh not her own' (1 Cor. xiii, 4, 51" (Dr. Barry). The proud, the haughty, the superciliou11, are not ouly the dis- turber. of social nnity, they are the destroyer, of it. According to the law of souls, tLey luatl..e and recoil from all arrogance and pretension in others, hence the exhorta- t1,,11, "Let aotbing be done through strife or v;.iri-glory." 3. (/eneroua cqncern one/01• OH, D, 1-30,] THE EPISTLE TO 'l'!:IE PHILIPPIANS. fr7