It is stigmatised as 'narrow,' which to-day is the sin of sins, but it
is broad with the true breadth. Such enthusiasm lifts a man high enough
to see over many hedges and to be tolerant even of intolerance, and of
the indifference which tolerates everything but earnestness. Paul here
deals with a class amongst the Roman Christians who were 'preaching of
envy and strife,' with the malicious calculation that so they would
annoy him and 'add affliction' to his bonds. It is generally supposed
that these were Judaising Christians against whom Paul fulminates in all
his letters, but I confess that, notwithstanding the arguments of
authoritative commentators, I cannot believe that they are the same set
of men preaching the same doctrines which in other places he treats as
destructive of the whole gospel. The change of tone is so great as to
require the supposition of a change of subjects, and the Judaisers with
whom the Apostle waged a neverending warfare, never did evangelistic
work amongst the heathen as these men seem to have done, but confined
themselves to trying to pervert converts already made. It was not their
message but their spirit that was faulty. With whatever purpose of
annoyance they were animated, they did 'preach Christ,' and Paul
superbly brushes aside all that was antagonistic to him personally, in
his triumphant recognition that the one thing needful _was_ spoken, even
from unworthy motives and with a malicious purpose. The situation here
revealed, strange though it appears with our ignorance of the facts, is
but too like much of what meets us still. Do we not know denominational
rivalries which infuse a bitter taint of envy and strife into much
evangelistic earnestness, and is the spectacle of a man preaching Christ
with a taint of sidelong personal motives quite unknown to this day? We
may press the question still more closely home and ask ourselves if we
are entirely free from the influence of such a spirit. No man who knows
himself and has learned how subtly lower motives blend themselves with
the highest will be in haste to answer these questions with an
unconditional 'No,' and no man who looks on the sad spectacle of
competing Christian communities and knows anything of the methods of
competition that are in force, will venture to deny that there are still
those who preach Christ of envy and strife.
It comes, then, to be a testing question for each of us, have we learned
from Paul this lesson of tolerance, which is not the result of cold
indifference, but the outcome of fiery enthusiasm and of a clear
recognition of the one thing needful? Granted that there is preaching
from unworthy motives and modes of work which offend our tastes and
prejudices, and that there are types of evangelistic earnestness which
have errors mixed up with them, are we inclined to say 'Nevertheless
Christ is proclaimed, and therein I rejoice, Yea, and will rejoice'?
Much chaff may be blended with the seeds sown; the chaff will lie inert
and the seed will grow. Such tolerance is the very opposite of the
carelessness which comes from languid indifference. The one does not
mind what a man preaches because it has no belief in any of the things
preached, and to it one thing is as good as another, and none are of any
real consequence. The other proceeds from a passionate belief that the
one thing which sinful men need to hear is the great message that Christ
has lived and died for them, and therefore, it puts all else on one side
and cares nothing for jangling notes that may come in, if only above
them the music of His name sounds out clear and full.