“Basic Christianity, Part 51” by Romans
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We are continuing in our Series, “Basic Christianity.” Tonight, we are continuing in the review and examination of our Christian walk, as a facet of Basic Christianity. We are going to continue our acrostic review of the phrase, “By Growing in Grace,” in regard to our following in the steps of Christ. For the word “By,” we have covered thus far the letters B and Y. And, we completed all the letters in the words “Growing” and “In.” Two weeks ago, “G” was for “Go to Church.”
Last week, we covered the letter “R” which stands for, “Redeem the Time.” We reviewed and examined Ephesians 5:14-16, which, in summary admonished us to redeem the time, “because the days are evil.” Tonight, the letter A stands for “Abstain From All Appearance of Evil:” We will look at the verse that states those very words. It is found in 1 Thessalonians 5:22: “Abstain from all appearance of evil.”
Let me just say before I get into the Discussion, that I was somewhat surprised to see, as I prepared these notes, that instead of the in depth comments that I expected, while the comments were good, and insightful and illuminating, they were also much more brief than I expected. So I took the liberty of accessing biblos.com to supplement my usual scholars with the additional insights of other Bible Commentaries in order to provide a fuller and richer Study for you all.
First, Albert Barnes tells us, “Abstain from all appearance of evil - Not only from evil itself, but from that which seems to be wrong. There are many things which are known to be wrong. They are positively forbidden by the laws of heaven, and the world concurs in the sentiment that they are wicked.
But there are also many things about which there may be some reasonable doubt. It is not quite easy to determine in the case what is right or wrong. The subject has not been fully examined, or the question of its morality may be so difficult to settle, that the mind may be nearly or quite balanced in regard to it. There are many things which, in themselves, may not appear to us to be positively wrong, but which are so considered by large and respectable portions of the community;
and for us to do them would be regarded as inconsistent and improper. There are many things, also, in respect to which there is great variety of sentiment among mankind - where one portion would regard them as proper, and another as improper. There are things, also, where, whatever may be our motive, we may be certain that our conduct will be regarded as improper.
A great variety of subjects, such as those pertaining to dress, amusements, the opera, the ball-room, games of chance and hazard, and various practices in the transaction of business, come under this general class; which, though on the supposition that they cannot be proved to be in themselves positively wrong or forbidden, have much the “appearance” of evil, and will be so interpreted by others.
The safe and proper rule is to lean always to the side of virtue. In these instances it may be certain that there will be no sin committed by abstaining; there may be by indulgence. No command of God, or of propriety, will be violated if we decline complying with these customs; but on the other hand we may wound the cause of religion by yielding to what possibly is a mere temptation.
No one ever does injury or wrong by abstaining from the pleasures of the ball-room, the theater, or a glass of wine; who can indulge in them without, in the view of large and respectable portions of the community, doing that which has the 'appearance' at least of 'evil?'”
Robert Hawker writes, “Abstain from all appearance of evil. Of doctrinal evil. Not only open error and heresy are to be avoided, but what has any show of it, or looks like it, or carries in it a suspicion of it, or may be an occasion thereof, or lead unto it; wherefore all new words and phrases of this kind should be shunned, and the form of sound words held fast;
and so of all practical evil, not only from sin itself, and all sorts of sin, lesser or greater, as the Jews have a saying, "take care of a light as of a heavy commandment,'' that is, take care of committing a lesser, as a greater sin, and from the first motions of sin;
but from every occasion of it, and what leads unto it, and has the appearance of it, or may be suspected of others to be sin, and so give offence, and be a matter of scandal. The Jews have a saying very agreeable to this, "remove thyself afar off (or abstain) from filthiness, and from everything, 'that is like unto it'. Pirke Abot, c. 2. sect. 1. Apud Drusium in loc.”
Next, the Expositor's Bible includes the preceding verse as being necessary to better understand what Paul is saying, so, let's expand our focus to include both verses: Together they read, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22).
The Expositor's Bible says of these verses: “When the Apostle claimed respect for the Christian preacher, he did not claim infallibility. That is plain from what follows, for all the words are connected. Despise not prophesyings, but put all things to the test, that is, all the contents of the prophesying, all the utterances of the Christian man whose spiritual ardour has urged him to speak.
We may remark in passing that this injunction prohibits all passive listening to the word. Many people prefer this. They come to church, not to be taught, not to exercise any faculty of discernment or testing at all, but to be impressed. They like to be played upon, and to have their feelings moved by a tender or vehement address; it is an easy way of coming into apparent contact with good.
But the Apostle here counsels a different attitude. We are to put to the proof all that the preacher says. This is a favorite text with Protestants, and especially with Protestants of an extreme type. It has been called "a piece of most rationalistic advice"; it has been said to imply "that every man has a verifying faculty, whereby to judge of facts and doctrines, and to decide between right and wrong, truth and falsehood."
But this is a most unconsidered extension to give to the Apostle’s words. He does not say a word about every man; he is speaking expressly to the Thessalonians, who were Christian men. He would not have admitted that any man who came in from the street, and constituted himself a judge, was competent to pronounce upon the contents of the prophesyings, and to say which of the burning words were spiritually sound, and which were not.
On the contrary, he tells us very plainly that some men have no capacity for this task - "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit"; and that even in the Christian Church, where all are to some extent spiritual, some have this faculty of discernment in a much higher degree than others.
In 1 Corinthians 12:10, "discernment of spirits," this power of distinguishing in spiritual discourse between the gold and that which merely glitters, is itself represented as a distinct spiritual gift; and in a later chapter he says, (1 Corinthians 14:29) "Let the prophets speak by two or three, and let the others" (that is, in all probability, the other prophets) "discern." I do not say this to deprecate the judgment of the wise, but to deprecate rash and hasty judgment.
A heathen man is no judge of Christian truth; neither is a man with a bad conscience, and an unrepented sin in his heart; neither is a flippant man, who has never been awed by the majestic holiness and love of Jesus Christ, -all these are simply out of court. But the Christian preacher who stands up in the presence of his brethren knows, and rejoices, that he is in the presence of those who can put what he says to the proof.
They are his brethren; they are in the same communion of all the saints with Christ Jesus; the same Christian tradition has formed, and the same Christian spirit animates, their conscience; their power to prove his words is a safeguard both to them and to him.
And it is necessary that they should prove them. No man is perfect, not the most devout and enthusiastic of Christians. In his most spiritual utterances something of himself will very naturally mingle; there will be chaff among the wheat; wood, hay, and stubble in the material he brings to build up the Church, as well as gold, silver, and precious stones.
That is not a reason for refusing to listen; it is a reason for listening earnestly, conscientiously, and with much forbearance. There is a responsibility laid upon each of us, a responsibility laid upon the Christian conscience of every congregation and of the Church at large, to put prophesyings to the proof.
Words that are spiritually unsound, that are out of tune with the revelation of God in Christ Jesus, ought to be discovered when they are spoken in the Church. No man with any idea of modesty, to say nothing of humility, could wish it otherwise. And here, again, we have to regret the quenching of the Spirit.
We have all heard the sermon criticised when the preacher could not get the benefit; but have we often heard it spiritually judged, so that he, as well as those who listened to him, is edified, comforted, and encouraged?
The preacher has as much need of the word as his hearers; if there is a service which God enables him to do for them, in enlightening their minds or fortifying their wills, there is a corresponding service when they can do for him. An open meeting, a liberty of prophesying, a gathering in which any one could speak as the Spirit gave him utterance, is one of the crying needs of the modern Church.
Let us notice, however, the purpose of this testing of prophecy. Despise not such utterances, the Apostle says, but prove all; hold fast that which is good, and hold off from every evil kind. There is a curious circumstance connected with these short verses. Many of the fathers of the Church connect them with what they consider a saying of Jesus, one of the few which is reasonably attested, though it has failed to find a place in the written gospels.
The saying is, "Show yourselves approved money changers." The fathers believed, and on such a point they were likely to be better judges than we, that in the verses before us the Apostle uses a metaphor from coinage. To prove is really to assay, to put to the test as a banker tests a piece of money; the word rendered "good" is often the equivalent of our sterling; "evil," of our base or forged; and the word which in our old Bibles is rendered "appearance" -
"Abstain from all appearance of evil"-and in the Revised Version "form"-"Abstain from every form of evil" - has, at least in some connections, the signification of mint or die. If we bring out this faded metaphor in its original freshness, it will run something like this: Show yourselves skilful money changers; do not accept in blind trust all the spiritual currency which you find in circulation;
put it all to the test; rub it on the touchstone; keep hold of what is genuine and of sterling value, but every spurious coin decline. Whether the metaphor is in the text or not, -and in spite of a great preponderance of learned names against it, I feel almost certain it is, -it will help to fix the Apostle’s exhortation in our memories. There is no scarcity, at this moment, of spiritual currency.
We are deluged with books and spoken words about Christ and the gospel. It is idle and unprofitable, nay, it is positively pernicious, to open our minds promiscuously to them, to give equal and impartial lodging to them all. There is a distinction to be made between the true and the false, between the sterling and the spurious; and till we put ourselves to the trouble to make that distinction, we are not likely to advance very far.
How would a man get on in business who could not tell good money from bad? And how is any one to grow in the Christian life whose mind and conscience are not earnestly put to it to distinguish between what is in reality Christian and what is not, and to hold to the one and reject the other? A critic of sermons is apt to forget the practical purpose of the discernment here spoken of. He is apt to think it his function to pick holes.
"Oh," he says, "such and such a statement is utterly misleading: the preacher was simply in the air; he did not know what he was talking about." Very possibly; and if you have found out such an unsound idea in the sermon, be brotherly, and let the preacher know.
But do not forget the first and main purpose of spiritual judgment-hold fast that which is good. God forbid that you should have no gain out of the sermon except to discover the preacher going astray. Who would think to make his fortune only by detecting base coin?
In conclusion, let us recall to our minds the touchstone which the Apostle himself supplies for this spiritual assaying. "No one," he writes to the Corinthians, "can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Ghost." In other words, whatever is spoken in the Holy Ghost, and is therefore spiritual and true, has this characteristic, this purpose and result, that it exalts Jesus. The Christian Church, that community which embodies spiritual life, has this watchword on its banner, "Jesus is Lord."
That presupposes, in the New Testament sense of it, the Resurrection and the Ascension; it signifies the sovereignty of the Son of Man. Everything is genuine in the Church which bears on it the stamp of Christ’s exaltation; everything is spurious and to be rejected which calls that in question.
It is the practical recognition of that sovereignty-the surrender of thought, heart, will, and life to Jesus-which constitutes the spiritual man, and gives competence to judge of spiritual things. He in whom Christ reigns judges in all spiritual things, and is judged by no man;
but he who is a rebel to Christ, who does not wear His yoke, who has not learned of Him by obedience, who assumes the attitude of equality, and thinks himself at liberty to negotiate and treat with Christ, he has no competence, and no right to judge at all. "Unto Him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood; to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen."
Matthew Poole's Commentary is also expanded to included verses 21 and 22: “To make this verse have its connection with the former, some expositors understand it of doctrines and opinions only; to take heed of opinions that seem erroneous, and not rashly to receive them without due examination.
Though this sense is not to be excluded, yet the verse need not be confined to it, but to extend to practice also; as in worship to abstain from the show of idolatry; as to eat meat in an idol’s temple was not always gross idolatry, but had some appearance of it, and therefore the apostle forbids it, (see 1 Corinthians 10:14).
And so in civil conversation, not only to abstain from vice, but the appearance of it; pride, covetousness, drunkenness, whoredom, &c.; and that both with respect to ourselves, lest by venturing upon that which hath some show of evil, we step into the evil itself;
and with respect to others, that we may not occasion the taking offence though not justly given, or do that which may any way encourage a real evil in them by that appearance of it which they see in ourselves;
yet we ought not upon this account to forbear the discharge of any necessary duty. Abstain from all kind of evil, ’ … And thus the apostle concludes all these positive duties with a general precept which he leaves with them at the close of his Epistle: having dehorted (or, dissuaded) them from many evils, now he exhorts them to abstain from the appearance of them.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges adds, “Abstain from all appearance of evil] from every form of evil (R. V.). The Apostle does not advise the Thessalonians to avoid what looks like evil; the command thus understood encourages the studying of appearances, and tends to the “doing of our works to be seen of men” which our Lord condemns (Matthew 23:5).
But in completing on the negative side the previous command, “hold fast the good (in prophesyings),” he gives to it the widest possible extension: “Keep yourselves not only from this, but from every sort of evil.” It is difficult, however, for the Greek scholar to justify the reading of evil in this sentence as a substantive, and the rendering of the governing noun by kind instead of appearance (rendered form, fashion, shape, in Luke 3:22; Luke 9:29, John 5:37).
This noun St Paul uses once besides, in 2 Corinthians 5:7: “We walk by faith, not by sight”—i.e. with no visible form, or appearance, to walk by. His meaning here may be similar: Abstain from every evil sight (or show)—from all that is evil in the outward show of things about you (in the Vulgate).
There are two words for “evil” in Greek—that used here, signifying harmful, mischievous (so designating “the Evil One,” see 2 Thessalonians 3:3); and that [is] employed in 1 Thessalonians 5:15, denoting bad, base, malicious. With this emphatic word, keep yourselves, the Apostle concludes his directions to the Thessalonians, extending from 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22, as to what they must do in order to preserve and sustain the life of grace in themselves.”
Next the Sermon Bible shares these insights with us: “The holding fast of the good exists only where there is an abhorring of that which is evil. Hence follows the closing exhortation: "Abstain from every form of evil."
While the first reference is to evil elements, which might appear in the prophesyings, it purposely expands so as to embrace every kind of evil into contact with which the follower of Christ may be brought. In regard to all moral evil, he is enjoined to keep himself unspotted from the world.” J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians, p. 226. Reference: 1Thessalonians 5:20.—Good Words, vol. iii., p. 698.
Something Worth Holding. Our religion is — I. Faith as opposed to infidelity. II. Holiness as opposed to sin. By holiness I mean all possible human virtues and graces, purity of heart, truthfulness, temperance, uprightness, downrightness, love, generosity, magnanimity—all things good, true, and beautiful. To be holy is to be equal to the angels. To be holy is to be in the image of God.
Note two things here. (1) The religion of Christ demands holiness. In this demand for holiness I see the wonderful possibilities of the soul of man. (2) Our religion not only demands holiness, but it gives us a sure promise of attaining to it. It is said that the Church of Christ shall be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
III. Our religion is love, practical goodness, self-denial, as opposed to selfishness. Selfishness is hateful everywhere. Self-denial—the incarnation of it in our Divine Master, this is our religion, and a man without any self-denial cannot be a Christian. It is faith; it is holiness; it is self-denial.
IV. Our religion is hope and joy as opposed to despair. In the past, ignorance; in the future, knowledge. In the past, sin; in the future, holiness. In the past, sorrow; in the future, joy. In the past, weakness and pain; in the future, eternal youth and health. In the past, the delirium of a fevered life; in the future, the saint’s everlasting rest. In the past, the earth; in the future, heaven. This is our religion; is it not worth holding?” T. Jones, Penny Pulpit, new series, Nos. 804, 805.
References: 1Thessalonians 5:21.—J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 360; S. Martin, Westminster Sermons, vol. xvii.; T. Jones, Ibid., vol. vii., p. 321; F. Wagstaff, Ibid., vol. xiii., p. 353; R. S. Candlish, Scripture Characters, p. 377; Church of England Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 313; vol. v., p. 19; vol. xx., p. 209; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 337.”
And finally, I will close with Matthew Henry, who also has a brief commentary on this verse: “Abstain from all appearance of evil. This is a good means to prevent our being deceived with false doctrines, or unsettled in our faith; for our Saviour has told us (John 7:17), If a man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.
Corrupt affections indulged in the heart, and evil practices allowed of in the life, will greatly tend to promote fatal errors in the mind; whereas purity of heart, and integrity of life, will dispose men to receive the truth in the love of it.
We should therefore abstain from evil, and all appearances of evil, from sin, and that which looks like sin, leads to it, and borders upon it. He who is not shy of the appearances of sin, who shuns not the occasions of sin, and who avoids not the temptations and approaches to sin, will not long abstain from the actual commission of sin.”
This concludes this Evening's Discussion, "Basic Christianity, Part 51."
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on September 22nd, 2020.
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