'Set not your mind on high things, but condescend to things that are
lowly.' The contrast here drawn between the high and the lowly makes
it probable that the latter as well as the former is to be taken as
referring to 'things' rather than persons. The margin of the Revised
Version gives the literal rendering of the word translated
'condescend.' 'To be carried away with,' is metaphorically equivalent
to surrendering one's self to; and the two clauses present two sides
of one disposition, which seeks not for personal advancement or
conspicuous work which may minister to self-gratulation, but
contentedly fills the lowly sphere, and 'the humblest duties on
herself doth lay.' We need not pause to point out that such an ideal
is dead against the fashionable maxims of this generation. Personal
ambition is glorified as an element in progress, and to a world which
believes in such a proverb as 'devil take the hindmost,' these two
exhortations can only seem fanatical absurdity. And yet, perhaps, if
we fairly take into account how the seeking after personal
advancement and conspicuous work festers the soul, and how the flower
of heart's-ease grows, as Bunyan's shepherd-boy found out, in the
lowly valley, these exhortations to a quiet performance of lowly
duties and a contented filling of lowly spheres, may seem touched
with a higher wisdom than is to be found in the arenas where men
trample over each other in their pursuit of a fame 'which appeareth
for a little time, and then vanisheth away.' What a peaceful world it
would be, and what peaceful souls they would have, if Christian
people really adopted as their own these two simple maxims. They are
easy to understand, but how hard they are to follow.
It needs scarcely be noted that the temper condemned here destroys
all the concord and amity which the Apostle has been urging in the
previous clause. Where every man is eagerly seeking to force himself
in front of his neighbour, any community will become a struggling
mob; and they who are trying to outrun one another and who grasp at
'high things,' will never be 'of the same mind one toward another.'
But, we may observe that the surest way to keep in check the natural
selfish tendency to desire conspicuous things for ourselves is
honestly, and with rigid self-control, to let ourselves be carried
away by enthusiasm for humble tasks. If we would not disturb our
lives and fret our hearts by ambitions that, even when gratified,
bring no satisfaction, we must yield ourselves to the impulse of the
continuous stream of lowly duties which runs through every life.
But, plainly as this exhortation is needful, it is too
heavy a strain to be ever carried out except by the power of Christ
formed in the heart. It is in His earthly life that we find the great
example of the highest stooping to the lowest duties, and elevating
them by taking them upon Himself. He did not 'strive nor cry, nor
cause His voice to be heard in the streets.' Thirty years of that
perfect life were spent in a little village folded away in the
Galilean hills, with rude peasants for the only spectators, and the
narrow sphere of a carpenter's shop for its theatre. For the rest,
the publicity possible would have been obscurity to an ambitious
soul. To speak comforting words to a few weeping hearts; to lay His
hands on a few sick folk and heal them; to go about in a despised
land doing good, loved indeed by outcasts and sinners, unknown by
all the dispensers of renown, and consciously despised by all whom
the world honoured--that was the perfect life of the Incarnate God.
And that is an example which His followers seem with one consent to
set aside in their eager race after distinction and work that may
glorify their names. The difficulty of a faithful following of these
precepts, and the only means by which that difficulty can be
overcome, are touchingly taught us in another of Paul's Epistles by
the accumulation of motives which he brings to bear upon his
commandment, when he exhorts by the tender motives of 'comfort in
Christ, consolation of love, fellowship of the Spirit, and tender
mercies and compassions, that ye fulfil my joy, being of the same
mind, of one accord; doing nothing through faction or vainglory, but
in lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself.' As the
pattern for each of us in our narrow sphere, he holds forth the mind
that was in Christ Jesus, and the great self-emptying which he shrank
not from, 'but being in the form of God counted it not a prize to be
on an equality with God, but, being found in fashion as a man, He
humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death.'