Bible Commentaries

The Claim of the Outsider

Colossians 4:5

I. Note the distinction here assumed, "them that are without," which necessarily implies them that are within. This distinction is assumed throughout the New Testament. (1) The reality of this division. We serve one master: on the best of authority we affirm this. We obey one law; the higher law of the mind, or the lower of the flesh. We develop one character. Our character is the outcome of one dominant idea, one reigning purpose, one master-passion. We are within or without. (2) The determination of this distinction. Who are the within, who the without? In the New Testament this momentous question is decided by our relation to Christ. To be within is to be in Him. (3) The infinite significance of this distinction. The glory of Christianity must be seen from within. We do not know the glory of a garden by a glimpse through the hedge, the glory of a cathedral by walking about it, and looking up at its dark windows, or the glory of a country by sailing round its shores; the garden, shrine, or country must be judged from within, and from within must we judge the Lord Jesus and all that pertains to His faith and service. It is from the standpoint of personal trust, sympathy, and experience that we realise the reality and preciousness of all that is comprehended by the Church of God.

II. The duty of the within to the without. Christians must act judiciously toward all men. To this end—(1) We must maintain high character. "Walk in wisdom." That Colossians 4:14

St. Luke is said to have been born at Antioch; the probability, therefore, is that he was, as Jerome says, a Syrian, and thus a Gentile. If Colossians 4:14

I. It is as the author of the Gospel that the Church is most interested in St. Luke. That book is one of the four golden columns on which rests the Christian history. It is one of the four golden trumpets which have sent forth the summons of Christ to the sons of men. It has, moreover, its own peculiar character. It was not so Jewish as the others; there is a peculiar human breadth and richness in it It gives the fullest account of our Lord's Nativity, and relates the parable of the "Prodigal Son". But it is not only as the writer of the Gospel that we know St. Luke. He was also the author of "The Acts of the Apostles," and was the fellow-labourer of St. Paul, who is the central figure of the larger portion of the book. St. Paul, in his Epistles, thrice mentions him, and twice he styles him "the beloved physician". That is almost all. By early tradition, and from some incidental indications, we gather that Lucanus was a Gentile and a citizen of Antioch, that he was a physician by profession, that he travelled with St Paul, and that before he died he wrote, at St. Paul's suggestion, the Gospel which bears his name. And yet there is something more. It seems clear that St. Luke's character as a physician remained an influential fact, even after he became a missionary. His style, the events of our Lord's life which he selects for his narration, bear marks of the physician's habits of thought and speech. St. Paul's allusion to him as "the beloved physician," and the fact that Luke appears to have joined Paul on several occasions when that Apostle's strength broke down under one of those recurrent attacks of prostration, all seem to imply that he continued to practise the art of healing, and that it was as a physician also that he travelled with St Paul from place to place. In St Luke , then, we see, what since his time has been the natural and normal type of Christian life, the inspiration by a new spiritual power of an earthly vocation, so that it continued to be exercised, and, moreover, fulfilled its true ideal. This suggests certain thoughts with reference to—

II. The general relation of the Christian life to men's occupations and professions.

The disposition to find the simplicity of motive under the variety of action is familiar enough now, and it is right in its aim. The world of human action, like the world of Nature, is a scene of endless superficial variety which, by and by, we learn to gather into unity under some common force, under the power of some central inspiration. To the shallow observer each profession and calling is a life by itself; it will have its own thoughts, standards, principles, and passions; nothing in common with others. But that is only the superficial aspect Very soon he who lives begins to discover some deeper forces working underneath, and giving a real unity to all this seemingly incoherent life. How will it be, then, if you can reach one point which is the genuine centre of the whole mass—one supreme force, of which they are all only modifications and manifestations, issuing from the very heart of all—and this one central fountain of force, the soul's love for God as its Father; so that everything which a man had a right to do at all upon earth might be ideally done as an expression of this central force—the love of man for God? Consider what effects the warm fire of the love of God must have upon the life, in certain arts and professions, of which the world must necessarily be full. It must—

(1) Purify all the professions. It melts away the dross and leaves the gold. It makes the man purely the thing he means to be, without any admixture of baseness or corruption.

(2) It makes the professions to be no longer means of separation but of sympathy and union between men. If you and I feel always beating through our diverse callings and methods of activity the common purpose of the love of God, then the harder we work in different ways the more our lives are one.

(3) It will sanctify the secular work of your life. No thoughtful man has failed to feel that the division of labour represented by the many and various occupations of life has its dangers—corruption, narrowness, loss of human sympathy, and such like. Where is the safeguard against these things? Not by deserting your profession, but by deepening it; by seeking a new life under it; by praying for, and never resting until you find regeneration, the new life lived by the faith of the Son of God. So only can your life of trade, or art, or profession be redeemed; so only can it become for you and for the world a blessed thing.

This is the lesson taught us by the lives and comradeship of St Paul and St Luke. We see the figures of Paul and Luke walking together as ministers of Christ—theology and medicine labouring in harmony for the redemption of man, for the saving of body, soul, and spirit—and the picture is very sacred and impressive Thus may these two professions, and every other "calling" in life, in fellowship with religion, working together as if they were one, grow to be more and more a worthy channel through which the helpfulness of God may flow forth to the neediness of man.

—The late Bishop Phillips Brooks, The Light of the World.

References.—IV:14.—W. G. Horder, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlii. p245. F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. ii. p270. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for Saints" Days, p190. IV:16.—Expositor (6th Series), vol. v. p95. IV:17.—I. E. Page, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p308. J. Bunting, Sermons, vol. ii. p368. IV:18.—Expositor (5th Series), vol. x. p199.