Beware of the Scribes which love to go in long clothing.
Recklessness of ambition
There is the Synagogue of Ambition, whose bond of union is the lust of place and of power. Let Diotrephes be its representative, who, “loved to have the preeminence,” and whom St. John censured for this ambitious temper, which tempted him, though nominally a member-perhaps a minister-of the early church, violently to reject the best Christians. What are not men ready to do to gratify an inordinate and insatiate ambition! You know how the old Romans built their military roads. They projected them in a mathematical line, straight to the point of termination, and everything had to give way, there could be no deviation. And so on went the road, bridging rivers, filling up ravines, hewing down hills, levelling forests, cutting its way through every obstacle! Just so men set their lust upon self-emolument, some height of ambition, the attainment of place, rank, power, and hew their way toward it not minding what gives way. No obstacle is insurmountable, health, happiness, home comfort, honesty, integrity, conscience, the law of God, everything is sacrificed to the god of ambition. (Christian Age.)
Yielding the preeminence
Old Dr. Alexander used to say to us students, “Young brethren, envy is a besetting sin with the ministry: you must keep that abominable spirit under.” When a servant of Christ is willing to take a back seat, or to yield the preeminence to others, he is making a surrender which is well pleasing to his meek and lowly Master. One of the hardest things to many a Christian is to serve his Saviour as a “private,” when his pride tells him that he ought to wear a “shoulder strap” in Christ’s army. (Christian Age.)
Long prayers.
Prayers judged by weight, not length
God takes not men’s prayers by tale, but by weight. He respecteth not the arithmetic of our prayers, how many there are; nor the rhetoric of our prayers, how eloquent they are; nor the geometry of our prayers, how long they are; nor the music of our prayers, the sweetness of our voice; nor the logic of our prayers, nor the method of them; but the divinity of our prayers is that which He so much esteemeth. He looketh not for any James with horny knees through assiduity in prayer; nor for any Bartholomew with a century of prayers for the morning, and as many for the evening; but St. Paul, his frequency of praying with fervency of spirit, without all tedious prolixites and vain babblings, this it is that God makes most account of. It is not a servant’s going to and fro, but the despatch of his business, that pleases his master. It is not the loudness of a preacher’s voice, but the holiness of the matter and the spirit of the preacher, that moves a wise and intelligent hearer. So here, not gifts, but graces in prayer move the Lord. But these long prayers of the Pharisees were so much the worse, because thereby they sought to entitle God to their sin, yea, they merely mocked Him, fleering in His face. (John Trapp.)