We have here two special applications of that love which Paul regards
as 'the bond of perfectness,' knitting all Christians together. The
former of these two is love that expresses itself by tangible
material aid. The persons to be helped are 'saints,' and it is their
'needs' that are to be aided. There is no trace in the Pauline
Epistles of the community of goods which for a short time prevailed
in the Church of Jerusalem and which was one of the causes that led
to the need for the contribution for the poor saints in that city
which occupied so much of Paul's attention at Corinth and elsewhere.
But, whilst Christian love leaves the rights of property intact, it
charges them with the duty of supplying the needs of the brethren.
They are not absolute and unconditioned rights, but are subject to
the highest principles of stewardship for God, trusteeship for men,
and sacrifice for Christ. These three great thoughts condition and
limit the Christian man's possession of the wealth, which, in a
modified sense, it is allowable for him to call his own. His
brother's need constitutes a first charge on all that belongs to him,
and ought to precede the gratification of his own desires for
superfluities and luxuries. If we 'see our brother have need and shut
up our bowels of compassion against him' and use our possessions for
the gratification of our own whims and fancies, 'how dwelleth the
love of God in us?' There are few things in which Christian men of
this day have more need for the vigorous exercise of conscience, and
for enlightenment, than in their getting, and spending, and keeping
money. In that region lies the main sphere of usefulness for many of
us; and if we have not been 'faithful in that which is least,' our
unfaithfulness there makes it all but impossible that we should be
faithful in that which is greatest. The honest and rigid
contemplation of our own faults in the administration of our worldly
goods, might well invest with a terrible meaning the Lord's
tremendous question, 'If ye have not been faithful in that which is
another's, who shall give you that which is your own?'
The hospitality which is here enjoined is another shape which
Christian love naturally took in the early days. When believers were
a body of aliens, dispersed through the world, and when, as they went
from one place to another, they could find homes only amongst their
own brethren, the special circumstances of the time necessarily
attached special importance to this duty; and as a matter of fact, we
find it recognised in all the Epistles of the New Testament as one of
the most imperative of Christian duties. 'It was the unity and
strength which this intercourse gave that formed one of the great
forces which supported Christianity.' But whilst hospitality was a
special duty for the early Christians, it still remains a duty for
us, and its habitual exercise would go far to break down the frowning
walls which diversities of social position and of culture have reared
between Christians.