TUESDAY-THURSDAY BIBLE STUDIES
The Standard of Paul by Dr. Lloyd T. Anderson
T his wonderful epistle is a unity. The beginning of each chapter takes us back into the one before. And so it is all a part of a connected whole. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called (4:1) , The approach to the practical part of the epistle suggests the intimate con nection between Christian doctrine and Christian practice; between Christian character and Christian conduct. The most exalted doctrinal truths relate themselves to the commonplaces of daily life. Vine declares, “The Apostle occupies the first part of this epistle with a rap turous and ecstatic disclosure of a su preme spiritual secret which had been committed to him to dispense. The se cret was this: God had inaugurated a new economy, the blessings and privi leges of which they were already be ginning to share. It was an aconomy which was conditioned upon the exalta tion of Christ. It was an economy which was independent of time, and it con cerned itself with the building up of a new mystical spiritual body — the Church.” This body is made up of an election from humanity — from all humanity, and so identified with Christ that when He died they died; when He arose they arose; when He ascended they ascend ed. And in this letter as well as in the
Colossian letter, and in that letter as well as in this, after soaring to these spiritual heights he descends at once to the consideration of such practical questions as purity of speech, truthful ness, anger, chastity, theft, the right relations between husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant, man and man. And. the epistle takes this form because there is a close and intimate connection between deep spir itual truths and everyday daily duties. Christian morality is not independent of rules, although it is something far above and beyond the mere observance of a code of ethics. It is the expression of a life, and that life is Christ. Chris tian morality is the life of Christ brought into touch with human rela tions on their ethical side. W ith all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one an other in love (v. 2). “With all lowliness.” “Mind not high things,” says this same Apostle, “but condescend to men of low estate” (Rom. 12:16). But lowliness is some thing lower than that. Lowliness does not condescend. It does not stoop to the low place. It lives there. “With all lowliness and meekness.” “Blessed,” says Christ, “are the meek” (Matt. 5:5). Meekness is the opposite of self-assertiveness; it is not forever clamoring for its rights. But someone says: The man who is not self-assertive will get nowhere. Every man will get 32
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