Parables of Earnest Life

No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits. Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things. A.V.

No soldier on active service entangleth himself with the businesses of ordinary life, that so he may meet the wishes of him who chose him into the force. If again a man contendeth in the games, he doth not get crowned if he do not keep the laws of the contest. The hard-working farmer must be the first to share the fruits. Consider what I say, for the Lord will give thee intelligence in it all. HERE we find St. Paul engaged with illustrations, 2 Tim. ii. intended to enforce and carry home his appeal. He 4-7. has laid it on Timothy’s heart to collect his courage Illustrations. for the Christian conflict, to remember that he has to maintain

‘A soldier’s course, from battles won
To new-commencing strife.’

And now he follows this up with three miniature parables, the first in immediate connexion with the military idea, the others accessory. True follower of the supreme Teacher, he knows the power of such helps to the moral understanding; he knows that they are not only serviceable for uninstructed minds but useful often to concentrate and to irradiate the most cultivated thought. Let us take his three sketches in succession.

2eT it, i.
4-7.
The Soldier.

A distinction. i. The Soldier. Here we observe that he puts before us not the soldier merely, who may be on furlough, or in stationary quarters, but the soldier on campaign; the Greek word emphasizes this; it means the man on active duty. As such, he allows of course no other interest to compete for one hour with his military calling. Life may in other respects and under other circumstances touch him at many points, but all this is in abeyance when he is on hostile ground and within range of the arms of the enemy. Little would he otherwise ‘meet the wishes’ of the chief who, in view of some enterprise of special difficulty or importance, had ‘chosen him into the force’ selected for the duty. And the Christian man, above all the Christian pastor, is to think of himself under this similitude. From some all-important points of view he is always ‘on active service,’ on an enemy’s ground, and chosen into his Commander’s expeditionary force. His inmost spirit is to be kept detached from all such ‘entanglement in the businesses of ordinary life’ as will mean his being this, or that, or the other, first, and the Lord’s soldier and servant second.

It is almost needless to say that this parable cannot, any more than other parables, be pressed mechanically upon its every detail. The Christian in common life not only may do the world’s work but is bound, for his Lord’s sake, to aim to do it exceptionally well. The Christian husband, or wife, or parent, is to be, in Christ, the most faithful, the most devoted, the most care-taking that can be. The Christian pastor is to keep his heart and thought

Parables of Earnest Life

open to manifold interests in human life around him, 2 Tim. ii. and he often may, and he sometimes must, to the 4-7: great gain of his primary labours, direct his faculties and sympathies to matters of enquiry and mental acquisition not primarily sacred. But one and all, and again, above them all, the consecrated minister

of God, must remember steadfastly that they are always ‘on active service, and must always be first the soldiers of Christ, and secondly whatever else they are. To the Christian clergyman the warning here is absolute. Let him, for his soul’s sake and

for his work’s sake, never dare to forget that all real ‘entanglement’ is fatal.

ii, The Athlete. This was a favourite metaphor The with St. Paul in years long past, and now, close to Athlete. the end of his own long exercise in the palestra of Christ’s service, he comes to it again. Behold the crown, the ‘wreath, of Heaven, the olive, the laurel, of ‘the prize of the high calling’! What will it be for Timothy hereafter to receive it, while ‘Well done, good and faithful’ is spoken by the blessed Arbiter! But the man who would take it at last must have kept the rules, even as the rules were kept for the Olympic contests. He must be true-born — with the new birth. He must have ‘trained’ in earnest, ‘keeping under his body,’ ‘enduring hardness’ for the Lord.

iii. The Farmer. Here Timothy is led by con- The trast to a similitude totally devoid of excitement, Farmer. remote from all glamour of peril and of applause. The strenuous and prosaic toil of the tiller, his patience under uncertain seasons, his quiet waiting

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2 Tim. ii. through pains for gains, this all is to enter deep into the life of the Lord’s servant; ploughing, sowing, tending, and then reaping at last. That supreme quality is here in view, so great in the Gospel scale of virtues — the patience that goes on /

And the Master of the field will surely crown it ‘in that day’ with an everlasting ‘joy of harvest.’