For the “fool,” what a meeting! when he has been robbed of every earthly chance! and is dead eternally! and the “folly,” that has robbed him, is shut up with him in everlasting misery!—Miller.
See Miller’s reading of the verse in [Critical Notes].
Verse 13. To render good for evil is Divine, good for good is human, evil for evil is brutish, evil for good is devilish.—Trapp.
The most striking illustration of this sentence, is the history of the Jewish nation. Never was such ingratitude showed to any benefactor, as they showed to the Son of God, and never was the punishment of any people so dreadful, and of so long continuance. That scattered people proclaim to every nation under heaven how dangerous the sin of ingratitude is, especially when God our Saviour is the object of it.—Lawson.
main homiletics of verse 14.
The Beginning of Strife.
I. This moral pestilence is of great antiquity. It began with the angels who “kept not their first estate” (Jude 6), and from that far-distant period until now the universe has never been free from discord—good and evil have striven against each other, and strife has also reigned between those who are on the side of evil. There was strife between the first two human brothers born into this world, and since the day when Cain slew Abel because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous, this terrible enemy of human happiness has been slaying his victims wherever men were to be found.
II. Strife is a thing of growth. There is a moment when the fire which will presently destroy a town is only a tiny spark which the breath of a child could extinguish,—the leak which at last sinks the vessel and sends a hundred brave men to a watery grave was once no larger than a pin-hole—and the breach in the dam through which a torrent of water rushes, leaving desolation behind it, begins with an opening through which no more than a few drops of water can force their way. So it is with strife. It does not attain to its full dimensions in a moment. The hatred in the heart which is the root of strife may be at first but a passing feeling, but if it is not overcome at its first appearance it grows in strength from day to day. And its outward manifestation in strife may begin with but a few angry words—an apparently trifling disagreement. But those who have indulged in it will presently find themselves in the grip of a giant—overmastered, and carried headlong by passion to crimes of which they once thought it impossible they could ever be guilty.
III. If the miserable effects of strife are to be avoided, it must be attacked in its beginnings. Seeing how disastrous are the effects of the leak in the ship, and how much desolation is caused by the ravages of fire or the bursting forth of pent-up water through its banks, it behoves all who are in any way responsible in these matters to be watchful for the first indications of mischief, and to put a stop to it before it gets beyond their power. And if a man would avoid being a party to a quarrel, he must watch narrowly the first risings of anger in his heart and take care that he never utters the first angry word. If the first remains unspoken, a second can never pass his lips; but if in an unguarded moment the angry feeling finds an outlet in angry speech, the speaker himself cannot tell where and how the mischief will end. It may go from words of strife to deeds of strife, and both will entail more misery upon their author than upon him who is the subject of them. The self-interest of every man ought to prompt him to check the beginnings of strife in himself and in others; it is so great an enemy to our social well-being that we are all as much interested in putting a stop to its ravages as we are in arresting the progress of a pestilential disease. But the children of God are specially called to this work. They are bound to be imitators of their Father in this matter, and He is “the God of peace” (Rom. xv. 33). All the plans and purposes of God have for their aim “peace on earth” (Luke ii. 14), and His children ought to emulate His example. And they cannot do otherwise. They have been made partakers of the Divine nature (2 Peter i. 4), and the nature of God is eminently peace-loving. If, therefore, a man has been born of God he must delight in social peace and harmony—he must recoil from strife and discord. It is peacemakers that shall be called “the children of God” (Matt. v. 9), and “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now” (1 John ii. 9).
outlines and suggestive comments.