Magnifying one's office.
The Epistles are prevented from being a dry compendium of doctrine by the personal notices scattered through them, and by the apostle's open-hearted references to his plans and feelings. The human element is strong and interesting. What a light is thrown on the apostle's self-denying labours by the declaration, "I magnify my office"! He gloried in his ministry, in his deaconship.
I. THEY WORK BEST WHO ARE PROUD OF THEIR OFFICE. Such freely devote the necessary time, thought, and energy to the efficient discharge of their duties. It becomes a "labour of love;" the heart quickens the circulation of the blood for all the activity requisite to faithful stewardship. Men can grow to like what at first was irksome, as we often see in prosecuting any study in science or art, till the subject and pursuit fascinate. We get clearer and more extensive views of the achievements possible. The apostle saw that the reception of the Gentiles might provoke the Jews to godly jealousy and fruitful emulation, and that the entry of the Jews into the Christian Church would prove a stimulus and revival to all. It is the office, not the holder, which is to be magnified. Where men have strutted like peacocks, airing their vanity; where Bumbledom has been harsh and overbearing, and man, "drest in a little brief authority, has played fantastic tricks," the chief regard has been paid to self instead of to the service rendered. To glorify our ministry is to remain humble, and tender in heart, lest the ministry should be discredited and its use diminished.
II. ALL WORK IS HONOURABLE TO WHICH GOD HAS APPOINTED US. To receive a commission from an illustrious sovereign lends dignity to a task, and it is this thought of a Divine mission which has upheld many a hero at his post of toil and peril. In the great house of God vessels of every capacity and form and texture are needed, and whilst we may covet the best gifts and the noblest service, no department is despicable. Said Lincoln the president, when taunted with his former menial occupation, "Didn't I do it well?" How may we know that we are in the right place? By the character of our work. Does it tend to happiness and usefulness, lessening misery and vice, supplying real wants, and elevating not degrading mankind, not ministering to base passions and low appetites? By success therein. Paul could point to the "signs of an apostleship." Though some honest labourers may have to wait for the crowning harvest, they can yet discern tokens of its advent, which forbid despondency. By the strength of the inward impulse. There must be a "call," a necessity within ratified by compulsion without. By the way they have been led. Has not the cloudy pillar guided our steps, the road being blocked in other directions? Our post is to be abandoned only when a higher position manifestly offers itself.
III. WORK DIRECTED TO THE SALVATION OF MEN CANNOT BE TOO HIGHLY ESTEEMED. As apostle of the Gentiles, Paul was charged with a splendid embassage. What hearts were cheered, what minds illumined, what consciences freed from gloom, what holiness and philanthropy effected, by the preaching of Christ crucified and exalted for the redemption of men! We do not disparage aught that ministers to men's temporal comfort, that enlarges their knowledge of this present world and their mastery over its varied contents, that embellishes their homes and quickens their sensibility to pure sources of delight; yet to turn a soul from the error of his ways, to save from spiritual death, to instil into the breast enthusiastic loyalty to the cause of God, this connecting as it does the transitory with the eternal, preparing the spirit for a nobler exercise of capacity in a boundless congenial sphere hereafter, making earth the pathway to heaven, this must be allowed to be the highest, most awe-stirring mission that can engage our attention and engross our powers. Let those set apart to this work entirely or partially, prize their functions! Pastors, deacons, teachers, visitors, members of committees, etc., down to the very doorkeepers of God's house, may exult in all that appertains to this vocation, may be conscious that therein they are co-operating with God and the angels. If great thoughts and little souls do not harmonize, neither does it become us to ally grand endeavours with mean conceptions. Behold this title glittering with heavenly radiance, "the work of the Lord." This enterprise occupies the heart of the ascended Saviour, as it filled his life here below.—S.R.A.