The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Peter — Section 188

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Ver. 10.-Gifts and seruiu. If we may venture to connect these words with the preceding injunction as well as with the following, the power of rendering simple hospitality is as truly a girt of God's grace for the u.se of which a man is resronsible as is the loftiest endowment of eloqnent speech or eminent service. The large principles embodied in these simple words would revolutionize the Church, and go far to regenerate the world, if they were honestly carried ont. All powers are g11 c..s. .All gifts are trusts. What simplicity, what power, what unselfishness, what diligence, what regard for others' work, what humility as to one's own, would fill the life which was wholly moulded by these convictions. L THE m.'IVEBSALITY OF GIFT. "Every man hath received," says Peter, and builus npon it as a well-recognized fact-, All these poor ignorant Asiatics, picked from the filth of idolatry, slaves and outcasts as some of them bad been, rude and uncnltured arnl lowly of station and imperfectly Christianized as many of them were,-they each had some Divine gift which needed only to be burnished and shown to shine afar with heavenly brightness. Every Christian man to-day, in like manner, is endowed with some gift; for every Christian has the Spirit of God dwelling in him, and that Spirit never comes empty-handed. Whatever subordination there may be in the Church, as in all organized communities, its very life depends on the fact that all its members possess the Divine Spirit, and no claim of authority to rule nor prerogative of teaching, which does not recognize that fact, can stand for a moment. The aspiration of Moses b,,_-. been fulfilled (Numb. xi. 29), "All the Lord's people" are" prophets," and "the Lord" 7,as "put his Spirit upon them." Miraculous powers were widely diffused in the early Church, and, with the gift of tongues, constituted the most conspicuous t-0kens of the gift of the Pentecostal Spirit. But even then these were not "the best gifts." The graces of faith, hope, and charity, those fruits of the Spirit which consist of a holy character and a heart transparent for the heavenly light which burns within it, a.s a light fod by perfumed oil in an alabaster lamp,-these are better gifts of an indwelling Spirit than all supernatural endowments. 'l'he natural faculties, of course, e.re gifts. 'l'o each man the question may be addressed concerniag these," \Vhat hast thou wbich thou hast not received?" But the natural faculties of the Christian, reil!.furced, quickened, directed by the indwelling Spirit, are still more emphatically gifts. The power of brain or tongue, the spirit of counsel or of might, which he received from the creative breath of Gcd, is intensified by the Spirit, which brings the breath of a new Divine life, as a lamp burns brighter when plunged into a jar of oxygen. And besides the new graces and heightened action of netive power, all ability or opportunity dependent on outward circumstances is gift. Health, any ~kill of hand or eye, wealth, position,-i!verything must come into this category. .all whkh we have '.s gift. In that sense the gift is universal. And we all have the gift. In that sense, too, it is universal. U. THE VARIETY OF GIFTS. The apostle speaks here of the" manifold "-literally, th"  184 1.'lIE FlRS'I.' EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER. [ca; t\t, 1-10,