THE ATTITUDE OF HUMILITY
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
THE exhortations are still designed to meet the crisis in which the Churches were placed. In keeping together, preserving the Christian spirit, and serving one another in their various relations, they would be kept safely, brought through, and even sanctified by their experiences.
1 Peter 5:1. Elders.—Names of office carried over from the Jewish synagogues. Exhort.—παρακαλῶ, a very full word, including encouragement and entreaty, and even consolation and exhortation. An elder.—Fellow-elder. St. Peter puts this prominently. The sympathy of the fellow-elder, rather than the authority of the apostle. Partaker.—The word is chosen in the same spirit, and suggests “joint partaker with you.”
1 Peter 5:2. Feed.—“Tend,” implying the various duties of the shepherd. Willingly.—“According to God; “in cheerful recognition of His call and His will.
1 Peter 5:3. As being lords.—“Nor yet as lording it.” “One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.” God’s heritage.—There is no word in the original answering to God’s. R.V. reads, “the charge allotted to you.”
1 Peter 5:4. Chief shepherd.—“This beautiful term seems to have been invented by St. Peter. (See Hebrews 13:20). A crown.—Better, “the crown.” Of glory.—Or “crown amarantine, of the flower that fadeth not.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 1 Peter 5:1-4
Official Models.—This direct message to the “elders” of the Church may be taken as indicating that the Churches of Christ were organised, and the term “elders” suggests that the first forms of organisation were modelled after the pattern of the Jewish synagogue. It is significant that St. Peter does not address these elders with any authority as an apostle, with any assumption of superiority as a higher official, but puts himself on their level, and makes his experience, not his authority, the ground of his persuasion. The advice of a fellow-elder, one with a longer and fuller experience, would be altogether more acceptable and effective than any commands based on claim of Divine authority. St. Paul is in full sympathy with St. Peter in this attitude towards the elders of the Churches when he says, “Not that we have lordship over your faith, but are helpers of your joy” (2 Corinthians 1:24). St. Peter’s right to advise (“exhort,” a term which in the Greek includes encouragement, and entreaty, and even consolation, as well as exhortation) rests upon
(1) his official position; he also was an elder;
(2) upon his personal experience and knowledge of the fact that the Lord Jesus had to endure the severest sufferings because of His persistency in well-doing—St. Peter was a direct personal “witness of the sufferings of Christ;” and
(3) upon his actual fellowship with these elders in the hopes which cheered them under the present burdens of anxiety and suffering. St. Peter was “a partaker”—with them—“of the glory that is to be revealed. The advice concerns—
I. Good shepherding.—The Lord Jesus had given the shepherd figure to His Church, and had sanctioned it, by using it for His own relations, as in John
10. The figure had, however, been previously used by the prophets, and is a natural and suggestive one for a people who were largely concerned in the tending of flocks, and whose first fathers were heads of wandering tribes. (See, for illustration of prophetic use, Jeremiah 23:1-4; Ezekiel 34:2-31). It will at once be seen that shepherding suggests much more than preaching, or even teaching. It suggests ruling, providing, and even tending and correcting. The older idea of shepherding we put into the term pastoral: the modern pastor is the shepherd-elder of the Early Church. St. Peter fixes one point: good shepherding has in it no taint of self-seeking. And self-seeking usually takes two forms in persons who are placed in official positions. It shows itself in using the office to enrich the self, or to attain the pleasure which comes from being able to lord it over others. But under this head the thought had better be confined to the one mark of good shepherding—wise, skilful, efficient feeding and tending of the flock of God; which may be amply illustrated by references to the various calls on an Eastern shepherd’s care, in the ever-varying daily needs of his flock.
II. Wise authority.—“Exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according to God.” Sometimes a person is put into office who feels unfit for it. Sometimes a person is put into office because there is no one else who is fit for it. In either case there may be lacking that willingness which would make it a service of love. And the true Christly service never can be rendered, save as a willing service of love. Wise authority in a Church is that which he alone can wield who loves the members, seeks their highest well-being, and is ever ready to put his own advantage, and even his own preferences, aside in order to secure it. Unwilling authority is sure to be unwise and unworthy.
III. Pure motive.—“Nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you.” Impure motive is seen in using an official position for securing any personal ends. The position in Christ’s Church is essentially one of service to others. It may, indeed, bring both gain and authority to the official, but these, as belonging to the self-sphere, he must in no way seek.
IV. Attractive example.—“But making yourselves ensamples to the flock.” The official position gives personal example a special importance. The elders of a Church ought to be specimen Christians; models, not only in the administering of their office, but also in their personal character. And the chief shepherd may be relied on to recognise, approve, and reward, all under-shepherds who prove faithful, and present good models.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
1 Peter 5:2. The Pastor’s Duty.—The pastoral duty is three-fold:—
1. To feed the flock, by preaching to them the sincere Word of God, and ruling them according to such directions and discipline as the Word of God prescribes, both which are implied in this expression, Feed the flock.
2. The pastors of the Church must “take the oversight thereof.” The elders are exhorted to do the office of bishops (as the word signifies), by personal care and vigilance over all the flock committed to their charge.
3. They must be “examples to the flock,” and practise the holiness, self-denial, mortification, and all other Christian duties, which they preach and recommend to their people. These duties must be performed “not by constraint,” not because you must do them, not from compulsion of the civil power, or the constraint of fear or shame, but from a willing mind that takes pleasure in the work: “not for filthy lucre,” or any emoluments and profits attending the place where you reside, or any perquisites belonging to the office, “but of a ready mind,” regarding the flock more than the fleece, sincerely and cheerfully endeavouring to serve the Church of God. “Neither as being lords over God’s heritage,” tyrannising over them by compulsion and coercive force, or imposing unscriptural and human inventions upon them instead of necessary duty (Matthew 20:25-26; 2 Corinthians 1:24). Learn
1. The eminent dignity of the Church of God, and all the true members of it.
2. The pastors of the Church ought to consider their people as the flock of God, as God’s heritage, and treat them accordingly.
3. Those ministers who are either driven to their work by necessity, or drawn to it by filthy lucre, can never perform their duty as they ought, because they do not do it willingly, and with a ready mind.
4. The best way a minister can take to engage the respect of a people is to discharge his own duty among them in the best manner he can, and to be a constant example to them of all that is good.—Matthew Henry.
Lucre and Filthy Lucre.—The word “lucre” appears five times in the Bible; and in every case it bears a bad signification. It is remarkable that the warning against the love of lucre—of filthy lucre—is in all these cases intended for ministers of religion They are addressed, not to merchants, but to bishops, deacons, elders as such, whatever secular occupations they might be engaged in. How comes it to pass that ministers of religion should be marked out for this word of caution? Perhaps even in the time of the apostles there were symptoms of this evil in the ministry of the Church, and certainly in after times the evil became so great, so monstrous, that there was urgent need for condemnation stronger far than that expressed in the words of St. Peter and St. Paul. The word “lucre” is not in itself a word of evil signification. It simply means “gain.” No one objects to it when it appears in another form, and a business is spoken of as lucrative. Practically the distinction between “lucre” and “filthy lucre” has been lost; a curious instance of the manner in which the world unintentionally accuses and condemns itself. The world evidently feels in its conscience that generally there is something bad in connection with gain. I venture to draw a very marked distinction between “lucre” and “filthy lucre.” Lucre is gain, and gain of all sorts, mental as well as material; and the love of lucre may be a virtue and not a vice. No man is more greedy of lucre than a very studious man. But let us take the word in its commonest signification, as money, material gain—gain in the form of money, or money’s worth. The loss of the distinction between lucre and filthy lucre has, in some instances, proved disadvantageous to the world’s interest. Lucre and filthy lucre being confounded very much in the religious mind of the Middle Ages, there rose up an immense mass of mendicancy. There is lucre that is not filthy, but perfectly clean. The lucre that is made by honest labour and honest trading is nowhere condemned in the Word of God. The Word of God, indeed, rather approves of it, and encourages men in the pursuit of it. A man’s moral and religious character does not necessarily suffer through the acquisition of lucre. Job, we are told, was the greatest man of the East—he certainly was one of the best men, East or West. A conscientious but timid man of old, named Agur, prayed that God would give him neither poverty nor riches; he was afraid of the demoralising influence of either extreme. But a far wiser and better man than Agur—the apostle Paul—felt that his religion was such as enabled him to set riches and poverty equally at defiance in regard to any demoralising tendency. Religion is in a considerable measure sustained by lucre. The riches of lucre enable a man to be rich in good works; and so the quest of lucre becomes a religious duty, because its result leads to a man’s greater power of usefulness. But “filthy lucre” is quite another thing. It is gain gotten in dishonest and dishonourable ways; by violence, by fraud, by falsehood, by misrepresentation, by taking unfair and cruel advantage of the ignorance or the necessity of our neighbour. And it is to the great discredit of many professedly religious people that they are in these matters no more to be trusted than the most worldly of worldlings. Moreover, the lucre that is filthy, through being gained in evil ways, cannot be clean through spending it liberally and piously. God will graciously accept lucre, but will refuse with indignation filthy lucre. Lucre is filthy when gained wrongly, and becomes filthy, however honestly made, when wrongly used; when self and selfish indulgence is a man’s great aim and object; when it is applied to purposes of corruption, oppression, injustice, profligacy; when it is withheld from those good works which it ought to encourage and to help; when a man makes it his idol, and worships it as his god; in such cases it is defiled and defiling. Of our lucre, be it little or much, we shall have to give account to God.—H. Stowell Brown.