'Do all things without murmurings and disputings;
15. That ye may be blameless and harmless,
children of God without blemish in the midst of a
crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye are
seen as lights in the world, 16. Holding forth the
word of life.'--PHIL. ii. 14-16 (R.V.).
We are told by some superfine modern moralists, that to regard one's own
salvation as the great work of our lives is a kind of selfishness, and
no doubt there may be a colour of truth in the charge. At least the
meaning of the injunction to work out our own salvation may have been
sometimes so misunderstood, and there have been types of Christian
character, such as the ascetic and monastic, which have made the
representation plausible. I do not think that there is much danger of
anybody so misunderstanding the precept now. But it is worthy of notice
that there stand here side by side two paragraphs, in the former of
which the effort to work out one's own salvation is urged in the
strongest terms, and in the other of which the regard for others is
predominant. We shall see that the connection between these two is not
accidental, but that one great reason for working out our salvation is
here set forth as being the good we may thereby do to others.