Not abusing it. — We can scarcely find a better word in English than “abusing” by which to render the Greek of this passage. But this word implies, in modern language, an abuse arising from misuse, and not, as in the original here, an abuse arising from over-much use. All the things mentioned in this series by the Apostle are right things; and the warning is against being in bondage to those things which are in themselves right and good, and not against any criminal use of them. Though they are not wrong in themselves, we are not to become slaves of them; we are to renounce them, “so as not to follow nor be led by them.”
For the fashion of this world passeth away. — Better, for the outward form of this world is passing away (the word translated “fashion” occurs only here and in Philippians 2:8). The allusion is not a merely general reference to the ephemeral nature of things temporal, but arises from the Apostle’s conviction that the last days were already commencing, when the outward temporal form of things was being superseded (Romans 8:19; Revelation 21:1). The word “for” does not introduce a reason for the immediately preceding injunction, but carries us back to the previous statement in 1 Corinthians 7:29 : “the time is short,” the intervening series of illustrative exhortations being parenthetical.