In the original, the next three exhortations are alike in grammatical construction, which is represented in the Authorised Version by the supplement ‘let us wait on,’ and in the Revised Version by ’let us give ourselves to’; we might with advantage substitute for either the still more simple form ‘be in,’ after the example of Paul’s exhortation to Timothy ‘be in these things’; that is, as our Version has it, ‘give thyself wholly to them.’  The various gifts are each represented as a sphere within which its possessor is to move, for the opportunities for the exercise of which he is carefully to watch, and within the limits of which he is humbly to keep.  That general law applies equally to ministry, and teaching and exhorting.  We are to seek to discern our spheres; we are to be occupied with, if not absorbed in, them.  At the least we are diligently to use the gift which we discover ourselves to possess, and thus filling our several spheres, we are to keep within them, recognising that each is sacred as the manifestation of God’s will for each of us.  The divergence of forms is unimportant, and it matters nothing whether ’the Giver of all’ grants less or more.  The main thing is that each be faithful in the administration of what he has received, and not seek to imitate his brother who is diversely endowed, or to monopolise for himself another’s gifts.  To insist that our brethren’s gifts should be like ours, and to try to make ours like theirs, are equally sins against the great truth, of which the Church as a whole is the example, that there are ‘diversities of operations but the same Spirit.’

The remaining three exhortations are in like manner thrown together by a similarity of construction in which the personality of the doer is put in the foreground, and the emphasis of the commandment is rested on the manner in which the grace is exercised.  The reason for that may be that in these three especially the manner will show the grace.  ‘Giving’ is to be ‘with simplicity.’  There are to be no sidelong looks to self-interest; no flinging of a gift from a height, as a bone might be flung to a dog; no seeking for gratitude; no ostentation in the gift.  Any taint of such mixed motives as these infuses poison into our gifts, and makes them taste bitter to the receiver, and recoil in hurt upon ourselves.  To ’give with simplicity’ is to give as God gives.

‘Diligence’ is the characteristic prescribed for the man that rules.  We have already pointed out that this exhortation includes a much wider area than that of any ecclesiastical officials.  It points to another kind of rule, and the natural gifts needed for any kind of rule are diligence and zeal.  Slackly-held reins make stumbling steeds; and any man on whose shoulders is laid the weight of government is bound to feel it as a weight.  The history of many a nation, and of many a family, teaches that where the rule is slothful all evils grow apace; and it is that natural energy and earnestness, deepened and hallowed by the Christian life, which here is enjoined as the true Christian way of discharging the function of ruling, which, in some form or another, devolves on almost all of us.