St. Paul's Exaltation of Labour.
I. When we look on one side of St. Paul's character, it is so full of spiritual fervour and rapture, there is such aspiration in it, such ardent pursuit of large ends, he is so wrapped in his great mission to convert the world to the revelation of Jesus Christ, that, arguing from what we know of men, we should be inclined to expect that his high spiritual mission would have drawn his mind away from the humbler duties of man and from thinking much of ordinary life; we should know that he must recognise such duties, but we should not expect him to dwell upon them, to have them much on his mind, and to be always recurring to them. But it is remarkable that with St. Paul this is the case. He often recurs to the plain and quiet work of humble life. It has no low place in the scale in his estimate, as if it were necessary to be done, but did not rank as religious work. No; he regards it as spiritual work and elevating work.
II. The eye which St. Paul has to the goodness of humble labour is only a sample of a general predilection in him which extends to other qualities. He chooses the sober and plain class of duties as his test. A man doing well duties not of a showy sort, for which he gets no particular credit this is his rule of fitness for a conspicuous post and a post of authority. Men form their religious standards by two tests: one the law of conscience and obedience to God; the other what is striking to man. Of these two St. Paul's test is very easily seen to be the former. Throughout his Epistles he recurs constantly to it. "Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? or Who shall descend into the deep? for the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thine heart."
J. B. Mozley, Sermons Parochial and Occasional, p. 222.
References: Ephesians 4:28. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ii., p. 393; F. Williams, Ibid.,vol. iii., p. 314.