Cultivation of respect.
"Let no man despise thee." For through the personal influence even the first apostles and teachers had to win their way.
I. RELIGIOUS TEACHERS NEED ESPECIALLY TO REMEMBER THAT EVEN WORLDLY MEN DESPISE HYPOCRITES. If men recommend a medicine they do not take, or exhort to obedience of a law which they do not themselves obey, or seek to inspire admiration for a virtue which they only wear as a cloak, or affect a love to the Savior which ends in no self-denial or sacrifice, they are hypocrites, and men despise them.
II. RELIGIOUS TEACHERS NEED ESPECIALLY TO REMEMBER THAT MEN WHO ARE DESPISED HAVE NO REAL POWER. That is, of course, rightly despised; for they may be wrongly despised, it is written of our Lord, "He was despised and rejected of men." So that we must keep in remembrance the fact that what St. Paul means is "deservedly despised." No rhetoric, no argument, no brilliancy of thought, no ability of application or illustration can make any minister of Christ really useful and effective if his character and reputation are justly despised. As "Ossili" says, "character is higher than intellect."—W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS