All men have owned that the knowledge which Paul claimed is not an easy one to win or keep. To know how to be poor! Plenty of people there are who are set down to the hard lesson. Plenty of people yes, all people in different degrees and different ways are led into some disappointment or abasement, but how few seem to stand in it evidently the stronger and the better for it. Poverty seems to men to be like the old fabled Sphinx, a mysterious being who has in herself the secrets of life, but holds them fast and tells them only in riddles, and devours the brave, unfortunate adventurers who try to guess at the wisdom she conceals and fail. The result is that few men seek her wisdom voluntarily. It is only when all other schools turn them out that they will go to hers.
I. It is evidently a distinct region of life in which Paul finds himself, where so long as he lives there is a special harvest for him to reap which he could reap nowhere else. To recognise the land in which he finds himself and to reap the harvest which he finds waiting for him there that is the knowledge of how to be abased which Paul is thankfully claiming; that is what all his life and abasement has given him. "When I am weak, then am I strong." Is there not here a true intelligible picture of the way in which a man may know how to be abased? If it is possible to look upon a limited, restricted life as a certain kind of life, with its own peculiar chances and environments out of which a man, if he knows how, may get a character, and in which a man, if he knows how, may live a life which would be impossible elsewhere, then certainly this limited restricted life may win and hold an affectionate respect which is a positive thing and may be very strong and real. We need not be haunted with the demon of comparison; we need not say whether the cultures and pleasures of abasement are greater or less than those of abundance; enough that it has its own, peculiar to itself and full of value. Life is a medal with two sides; the "other" side, as we choose to call it, has its own image and superscription, and is not made up only of the depressions which are necessary to make the elevations on the face. Not to all men, not to any man always, does God give complete abundance. To all men sometimes, to some men in long stretches of their lives, come the abasement times, times of poverty, times of ignorance, times of friendlessness, times of distrust and doubt. But God does not mean that these times should be like great barren stretches and blanks in our lives, only to be travelled over for the sake of what lies beyond. To men who, like Paul, know how to be abased, they have their own rich value. To have our desire set on nothing absolutely except character, to be glad that God should lead us into any land where there is character to win this is the only real explanation of life.
Phillips Brooks, The Light of the World,p. 179.
I. The phrase is very simple. Behind the duty of being anything lies the deeper duty of knowing how to be that thing in the best way and to the best result. No man has a right to be anything unless he is conscious that he knows how to be it, not with a perfect knowledge for that can come only by the active exercise of being the thing itself but at least no man has a right to be anything unless he carries already in his heart such a sense of the magnitude and the capacity of his occupation as makes him teachable by experience for all that his occupation has to make known to him. This is the law which Paul suggests with regard to abundance. Wealth is a condition, a vocation, he declares. A man may have the condition and not have, not even seek to have, the knowledge of how to live in that condition. Go to, ye rich men, and learn how a rich man ought to live.
II. Is it possible for us to put our finger on this mysterious knowledge of St. Paul, and say exactly what it was? I think we can. It must have been a Christian knowledge. Imagine that to his meagre life there had been brought the sudden prospect of abundance. "Tomorrow, Paul, a new world is to be opened to you. You shall be rich; you shall have hosts of friends; all your struggles shall be over; you shall live in peace. Are you ready for this new life? Can your feet walk strong and sure and steady in this new land, so different from any land where they have ever walked before?" What will Paul's answer be? "Yes. I have Christ; I know my soul is in Him. I am His servant; nothing can make me leave Him. With the power of that consecration, I can rob abundance of its dangers, and make it the servant of Him and of my soul. I shall not be its slave; it shall be mine. I will walk at liberty because I keep His commandments." The power by which Paul could confidently expect to rob abundance of its dangers and to call out all its help was the knowledge of the true perfection of a human soul in serving Christ.
III. In each of the several departments of our life it is not enough that a man shall have attained abundance: he must also know how to abound in riches, in learning, in friendships, in spiritual privilege; there is a deeper knowledge which alone can fasten the treasure which he has won, and make it truly his, and draw out its best use. What a great principle that is! Under that principle a man may even be the master of the heart and soul of some possessions whose form he does not own. I know that Jesus, the poor Man who walked through rich Jerusalem and had not where to lay His head, had still the key to all that wealth. We cannot attain to all abundance in this one short life; but if we can come to God and be His servants, the knowledge of how to be things which we shall never be may enter into us. In poverty we may have the blessing of riches, in enforced ignorance the blessing of knowledge, in loneliness the blessing of friendship, and in suspense and doubt the blessing of peace and rest.
Phillips Brooks, The Light of the World,p. 157.
Reference: Philippians 4:12. Spurgeon, Morning by Morning,p. 41.