There is no doubt that Paul, like Jesus, encouraged industry and the private ownership of property. He recognised that the responsibilities connected with the stewardship of property were essential to the development of social citizens. He did not advocate any mechanical law of giving, for he, like Jesus, was fully aware that the largest profit from generous giving accrues to the giver.

Happier is he who gives than he who receives

embodied a vital principle. If this principle was to be fully operative, it would be necessary for all giving to be absolutely voluntary.

At the same time Paul was careful to cultivate the habit of giving among all his converts. The methods which he used to develop the Christian spirit of stewardship are worthy of careful study. In the first place, he constantly held up before the members of the different Christian communities concrete causes that appealed to their generosity. The first was the needs of their poor or more unfortunate brothers within the community itself. The second was the possibility of developing the mission fields that lay at their door. Above all, he kept ever before them the needs of the saints at Jerusalem. Gifts to the mother church were especially significant in Paul's powerful forces in promoting the unity Gentile sections of the Christian church. psychological value of holding up for emulation concrete examples of generous giving. Thus concerning the Macedonian Christians he wrote to those of Corinth (II Cor. 83, 4):

eyes, for they were of the Jewish and Paul also knew the

I can testify that according to their means, and even beyond their means, they have given freely. With much entreaty they begged us for the favour of sharing in the service in behalf of the saints.

Paul also endeavoured to banish the supreme foe of generous giving, which is a fear of the future and a tendency to hoard up one's resources beyond all reason. Here the Christian's

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faith in God and loyalty to society are the only correctives. Paul showed that undue hoarding of wealth is not only faithless stewardship, but-more deadly still-is evidence of lack of confidence in the divine Giver of all wealth and life. In every form of business God is the major partner. With true economic sense Paul pointed out the utter unwisdom of not trusting and of ignoring this major partner. Thus Paul, in his practical efforts to train liberal citizens of the divine commonwealth, appealed to their sympathies, to their loyalty, to their spirit of wholesome emulation, to their business sense, to their faith, and even to their sane self-interest. It is also significant that his methods were eminently successful. When he returned for the last time to Jerusalem, he was accompanied by a representative committee, appointed by the Gentile churches to bear their generous gifts to the mother church. It was the concrete evidence, as he assured the Corinthian and Macedonian Christians (II Cor. 82), that "their deep poverty had overflowed in a flood of generous liberality."

XXVI

PAUL'S IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP

Two great social aims
The first was to de-

Paul's Two Dominant Social Aims. animated Paul in all his missionary work. velop perfect social citizens. The second was to unite them in a closely knit fraternity or brotherhood until it would include all races of men. These dominant aims are clearly stated in I Corinthians 919-23:

For though I am free from all, I have made myself the slave of all in order to win the more converts. To the Jews I have become like a Jew in order to win Jews. To those under the law I have been as if I were under the law in order to win those under the law. To those outside the law I have become as one outside the law-though I am not outside the law of God, but under Christ's law-in order that I may win those outside the law. To the weak I have become as weak myself in order to win over the weak. To all men I have become all things in order to save some in all of these ways. And I do all of these things for the sake of the gospel in order that I may share in it.

First Corinthians 10 contains Paul's great social confession of faith:

I seek to satisfy all men in all points, aiming not at my own advantage, but at that of the many in order that they may be saved.

This comprehensive social ideal was well worthy of a scion of the widely scattered Jewish race and a citizen of the far-flung Roman empire. He held it, however, because his whole attitude toward life had been transformed by contact with the revolutionising social teachings of Jesus.

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His conception of the necessary qualifications of a social citizen is closely parallel to that of Jesus. The chief value of this portrayal lies not in its originality but in the fact that it completes certain details of the portrait that are lacking in the gospels. Paul took Jesus' plan of the fraternal community and adapted it to the conditions that prevailed outside Palestine. Jesus was pre-eminently a teacher, while Paul was an organiser, and as such contributed much to shaping the new social order that rose on the foundations laid by Jesus.

The Characteristics of a Christian Citizen. Like all the great teachers of the Bible, Paul sought to hold up before his readers for their emulation a complete picture of the fully developed Christian citizen. Into that picture he has wrought his own aspirations and experiences, as well as the ideals of Jesus which devoted Christian tradition had handed down. The personality which dominates that picture is none other than that of the Master in whose service Paul unflinchingly faced the perils of land and sea. In Galatians 522, 23, after describing the crimes that disqualify men for citizenship in the kingdom of God, Paul, in one of his torrential sentences, enumerates the positive qualifications:

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, generosity, fidelity, gentleness, self-control-there is no law against those who do these things.

He makes it very clear that the foundation of character is temperance and purity of life (Gal. 519-21; Eph. 53-5). Every loyal follower of the crucified and glorified Nazarene holds in leash his bodily appetites and passions (Gal. 524).

With that unique psychological intuition which is born of personal experience Paul also taught the way in which this mastery could be achieved. It was to follow the guidance of the divinely inspired spiritual ideals and emotions which are at work within the mind of every man who is responsive to them (Gal. 516-17):

But I tell you: 'Walk by the guidance of the spirit, and then you certainly will not indulge the craving of the flesh.' For the

craving of the flesh is opposed to that of the spirit, and the craving of the spirit to that of the flesh, for these two are antagonistic to each other, so that you cannot do everything which you are inclined to do.

The Christian citizen is sincere and honest in all his dealings with his fellow men (Col. 39, 10, Eph. 428):

Do not tell lies to one another, for you have stripped off the old mankind with its practices and have put on the new mankind, which is being renewed in knowledge into the likeness of its Creator. He who has been a thief must steal no more, but instead should work, performing with his own hands honest labour that he may have something to give to him who is in need.

His spirit is humble and thoroughly democratic (Rom. 1216):

Strive not for the high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be self-conceited.

He is sympathetic, kind, patient, and forgiving (Col. 312, 13):

Therefore, as God's own chosen, consecrated and beloved, be clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. Bear with one another and forgive one another, if any one has a complaint against another. Just as the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive.

Like his Master, Paul strongly emphasises the primary social virtue of forgiveness. He was also keenly alive to the importance of ever holding right ideas and ideals in the centre of consciousness (Phil. 48):

Brothers, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good repute, if there be any virtue or anything worthy of praise, think on these things.

Above all, the truly social citizen is ever on the alert to do a service for his fellow men (Gal. 69, 10):