'Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit;
serving the Lord.'--ROMANS xii. 11.
Paul believed that Christian doctrine was meant to influence
Christian practice; and therefore, after the fundamental and profound
exhibition of the central truths of Christianity which occupies the
earlier portion of this great Epistle, he tacks on, with a
'therefore' to his theological exposition, a series of plain,
practical teachings. The place where conduct comes in the letter is
profoundly significant, and, if the significance of it had been
observed and the spirit of it carried into practice, there would have
been less of a barren orthodoxy, and fewer attempts at producing
righteous conduct without faith.
But not only is the place where this series of exhortations occur
very significant, but the order in which they appear is also
instructive. The great principle which covers all conduct, and may be
broken up into all the minutenesses of practical directions is
self-surrender. Give yourselves up to God; that is the Alpha and the
Omega of all goodness, and wherever that foundation is really laid,
on it will rise the fair building of a life which is a temple,
adorned with whatever things are lovely and of good report. So after
Paul has laid deep and broad the foundation of all Christian virtue
in his exhortation to present ourselves as living sacrifices, he goes
on to point out the several virtues in which such self-surrender will
manifest itself. There runs through the most of these exhortations an
arrangement in triplets--three sister Graces linked together
hand-in-hand as it were--and my text presents an example of that
threefoldness in grouping. 'Not slothful in business; fervent in
spirit; serving the Lord.'