Our thoughts to the Creator’s praise.
And neither sound nor language need.”
A force continually impressed by the supreme Being produces and preserves these different and useful motions, which measure out that portion of time assigned us, for the performance of his work, and the securing of our own salvation. We are directed in his word how to employ this important talent lent to us; also warned to guard against a misapplication of it, and told that a day will come when we shall have to give an account of our stewardship. As day is afforded for the management of those employments which could not be done in the night, how unwise would it be to postpone such concerns till the approach of darkness? So the short period of life is given us that we may “work out our own salvation.” We are favored with the light of Divine truth to illuminate our understandings; the operation of the Holy Spirit to influence our wills; and our pressing necessities should impel us to perform what God requires.
The Greeks have two words for time, χρονος and καιρος: the former signifies time in general; and the latter that part of it which is proper for doing a thing—the present season in which any thing to be done may be done fitly and to advantage. Accordingly Solomon says, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”
What the apostle says to the Christians at Ephesus is equally applicable and interesting to persons in succeeding ages of the world; giving a view of the importance of time, and directing to a right improvement of it. “See that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
Walking, in the Scripture style, is a word frequently used to denote the whole course of a man’s life and conversation, including all his thoughts, words and actions. Walking circumspectly, ακριβως, signifies correctly, accurately, consistently, or perfectly. In another place the same word is rendered diligently. Herod said to the wise men come from the east, Go to Bethlehem, and search ακριβως, diligently, narrowly, for the young child Jesus. But the word circumspect is from the Latin circumspicio, and signifies to look round about, on all hands, to be every way watchful, wary, and cautious, in order to avoid danger, discern enemies before they come too nigh, and secure a man’s interest by every possible and lawful means.[52]
The necessity of this duty is suggested in the Greek text, βλεπετε ουν see then or therefore, take care of this as a matter of the highest concern and greatest importance; it is that on which your all depends. He adduces a cogent reason for this—“Not as fools, but as wise.” As if he should say, It is your wisdom to walk circumspectly, and not to walk so would be your folly: to walk circumspectly is the wisdom that God recommends to you, and which is adapted to make you truly wise, both in this world and in that which is to come.
The word redeeming, εξαγοραζομενοι, literally signifies buying time. The term buying is proper in reference to civil contracts, but it is here applied morally. Properly speaking, time cannot be bought: it is a commodity for which all the treasures in the world would not be an equivalent. Its price is above rubies. But the term imports the great value of time, and intimates that we should be willing to suffer any privation or inconveniences, rather than lose it. Redeeming properly implies the laying down a price for re-purchasing or recovering that which was ours, but which has fallen into the possession of another. A captive sometimes is redeemed out of the hand of an enemy. Now, in this sense, to redeem time already past is impossible, for when once gone it is irrecoverable. So that by redeeming time, nothing else can be understood but a diligent and prudent improvement of it, which is the only way in our power to counterbalance the loss we have sustained by our former neglect. The effects of our past negligence should be counteracted by double diligence in future: we should do much work in a little time. This is to redeem that time, concerning which we have allowed worldly business, unprofitable visits, sensual indulgence, carnal recreations, and vain thoughts, to rob us, and, as it were, to take and keep us captive. To redeem time then is to be diligent in future, wisely improving it so as may make amends for our very culpable remissness. Future diligence is, as it were, the price of redemption paid down for what we had mortgaged into the hands of those things which we have suffered to deprive us of it.
The argument used to enforce the practice of this duty is, “because the days are evil.” Time, in itself, properly speaking, is neither good nor evil; but in regard to the moral state of mankind may be so called. The days here primarily intended by the apostle, denominated evil, were those of his own time, in which he himself and his contemporaries lived, and which abounded with trouble and danger, by reason of the opposition made by unbelieving Jews and Gentiles against Christianity. But all our days, as well as those, may be called evil, because of the prevalence of sin, Satanic delusion, and hostility of the ungodly against real religion. Many persons can adopt the language of the patriarch Jacob, “Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been.” Job gives a similar testimony, “Man that is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of evil.”
The whole argument runs thus: seeing that you cannot enjoy true quiet and substantial comfort in this terrestrial abode, and are in danger of being quickly deprived of all opportunity of getting and doing good, fail not to improve the present time to the best advantage, in reference to the future state, that you may secure for yourselves a happy and glorious eternity.