Bible Commentaries

Peccadilloes

1 Peter 4:15

This text is not much by itself. I do not select it except as indicating a class of texts full of practical meaning. We are here invited to consider what may be called, for want of a simpler word, peccadilloes—or little sins. We are not exhorted against great crimes only, as murder, drunkenness, theft, and the like; all these are the subject of apostolic comment: but we are also exhorted to be on our guard against the little foxes that spoil the grapes. Many a man is almost irreproachable on great matters who is yet riddled through and through with little holes, small infirmities; insignificant drawbacks they may appear to himself to be, yet there they are, and the Apostle, as the exponent of a spiritual religion, seeks to encourage us to amend ourselves in small particulars. In a Christian congregation no man requires to be warned against murder, at least as murder is commonly understood; but where is there a man who does not need to be warned against little slips, and small sins; who does not hide from himself the smallness of the sins by calling them peccadilloes? Why not call them by the plain, simple, English word? Why hide our shortcomings under the polysyllables of a foreign tongue? After all it comes to this, that the Apostle is careful about the vulnerable heel. He says, You are strong in ninety-nine points out of a hundred, but man is no stronger than his weakest point, and it may just be possible that his whole character is running out at so mean and insignificant a point as being an intrusive meddler in other people's concerns. It is wonderful how character leaks. There is no great breach in the character. The character 1 Timothy 5:13). He kept his eyes open upon the society in which he lived. What, said he, can ever come of this kind of conduct? You are never to be found at home; you rise in the morning to go into somebody else's house;—"wandering about": how can you ever become scholars, hard workers, when you do not submit to the discipline of industry, and keep on doing your honest, simple duty with both hands?—"tattlers also,"—getting hold of little bits of stories, always hearing things that are not worth hearing, and then saying, We could not help hearing them. No, the Apostle would say, Perhaps you could not help hearing them when you went to the place where they were being spoken, but you can help repeating them. When we get rid of all the wanderers, tattlers, and intrusive meddlers, we shall begin to get quite a consolidated army of real, earnest, useful workers.

This kind of doctrine has a wide application. Writing to the Thessalonians his second letter he says in the third chapter and eleventh verse:—"For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies." This is the third time we meet with the term "busybody,"—twice in Paul, once in Peter, and the meaning is an intrusive meddler in other men's concerns. If people would remain at home and attend to their own business, it is wonderful how short they would find the day to be. Time flies when we are working. The idler's day has in it twice the usual number of hours, and every hour has in it twice the usual number of minutes: but when a man is working time flies. The Apostle therefore would bring us back from our wandering and our tattling and our expenditure of energy in misdirected ways, and would fix us down to simple honourable work with a view to the formation and completion of Christian character. These are not trifles. When a man is trying to hold his tongue, knowing that his infirmity is to speak much and think little, he is not engaged in a trifling occupation; he remembers what has just been said, that character is no stronger than its weakest point. A famous sculptor was busy with his chisel. Having finished the face of his figure, which in marble is the soul, he spent day after day in the arrangement of the hair. Said a critic to him, Why spend all this time over the hair when the statue is to be sixty feet high? who will see it? The sculptor replied, "The gods will see it." That is work! If we cannot see it from below, they will see it from above; and the higher up the higher the criticism. If they do these things to obtain a corruptible crown, what shall we do who have to fashion a soul, work out to its finest uses that wondrous mystery which is called character? Is it enough to have a fair outside? Society can see that: who sees the soul, the fine touches, the delicate elaboration, the microscopic refinements? who see these things? The gods—to us, the God. Work for him: fashion everything according to his scale of criticism; and then we shall grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, to this purpose, that the outcome may be simple, strong, beneficent character.

We know what it is to have little drawbacks, small infirmities. For example, we say of such and such a man that he is an excellent character but very satirical. Then he is not an excellent character. You are misjudging the man; you are taking away some other man's character to give it to one to whom it does not belong. If the satire be directed against wrong-doing, injustice, falsehood, hypocrisy, and the like, then the more of it the better; but if by satire you mean an instrument by which human feeling of an honest and simple kind is wounded or exasperated, then you are taking the instrument of hell with which to do the work of heaven. Never mock the earnest man; never sneer at the soul that is trying to pray and often breaking down in the great endeavour. Many a hearer has sneered at a speaker when he little knew that that speaker was, as it were, pouring out his soul unto death in some unconceived and inexpressible agony. You are not a good man, if you can sneer at any other man who wishes to be good. We say, This is an excellent man but a little unpolished. Then he may be an excellent man but not so excellent as the Lord designs him to be. We are to be polished stones—not in any conventional and pedantic sense. Many a man is courteous, who has rough hands honestly employed in getting daily bread. Many a man is polished, who does not know the grammar of his mother tongue. What do you mean by polished? Do you mean that subtle spiritual refinement which comes from love of great subjects, noble aspirations? Then such refinement is impossible to the most uncultivated person: and social veneer may be covering the most detestable corruption. We say of another man, He would be very good, if he were not so suspicious. Then that is his weak point; he must arm himself against suspicion; he must allow himself to be taken in three times a week for a year or two. He must say, This is my weakness: I am suspecting everything and everybody but myself. You must reverse the process and suspect yourself; do not believe a word you say; tell yourself to your face that you are a lying man, and say when you are going to pray, I am going to add to my hypocrisy: good God forbid that I should do this at the altar. We cannot have this excellence, minus; this wonderful character attached to the weakness of being a busybody, a tattler, a man who cannot rule his own house, a woman who does not show piety at home. We do not care for your high and mighty occasional doings; we want the simplicity that is lovely down to its very roots.

Seeing then that Christianity would amend character in such matters, what may we infer? We may infer that Christianity is intensely spiritual. There is nothing rough-and-ready about it. It is like the Word of God by which it comes to us, it is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow. Christianity would have us holy in the inward parts; the king's daughter is to be all beautiful within, if her covering is to be of wrought gold. Who, then, can be saved? Holy Spirit, dwell with me! Lord, abide with me! We are to infer that character needs long training. You cannot make a character in a day. You cannot hasten the development of character. The element of time enters into the value of reputation. Not the man who has been good for three days, or three years, but the man who has added year to year, decade to decade, and who, winter and summer through, has been faithful,—he in the time of snowy hair may stand up as, in some sort, an image of what the Holy Ghost would do in the soul of every believing man. We are to infer that little things are often difficult things. It it sometimes easier to pay money by a cheque than to find coin for it. Many a man has less difficulty in drawing a cheque for fifty pounds than in finding some fractional sum under a sovereign. Many a rich man is often short of small coins and has to borrow of men who are ashamed to ask for their return. We should be careful about all these things. Never borrow without meaning to pay back. Never injure what are called the minor moralities of life, the little flowers in the garden; but be strong there as elsewhere and, if we take care of these little things, it will be wonderful to see how we advance and grow in things that are greater. We are to infer that spiritual education can only be conducted by spiritual agency. What is that agency? It is the ministry of God the Holy Ghost, the continual illumination of the Divine Spirit in the soul. And we are not to take care so much of grand spectacular aspects of character as to take care of the little and unseen phases of conduct. What, is this thy meaning, O Cross—Cross of Golgotha? Is conduct thy meaning? And the Cross answers, Yes: not theology, not metaphysics; these have their place, their importance, their inexpressible value: but the Cross has been set up in vain if its believers be not real, simple, honest, honourable, beneficent men. I would not address you in the poetry which means nothing, but in the poetry of discipline. I would stand up as, officially not personally, a general of the army, and would exhort you to be faithful in all small matters; and having done so I would turn sharply in upon myself and say, Apply thine own doctrine; reduce these things to practice; and thus let there be shown to the world such largeness and beauty of character that men shall say, The religion that produces such manhood must have come from heaven.

Note

[from Angus's Bible Handbook.]

The following are among the more important of the truths discussed in the Epistles.