The three sets of injunctions in our text, dissimilar though they appear, have a common basis.  They are varying forms of one fundamental disposition—­love; which varies in its forms according to the necessities of its objects, bringing temporal help to the needy, meeting hostility with blessing, and rendering sympathy to both the glad and the sorrowful.  There is, further, a noteworthy connection, not in sense but in sound, between the first and second clauses of our text, which is lost in our English Version.  ’Given to hospitality’ is, as the Revised margin shows, literally, pursuing hospitality.  Now the Greek, like the English word, has the special meaning of following with a hostile intent, and the use of it in the one sense suggests its other meaning to Paul, whose habit of ’going off at a word,’ as it has been called, is a notable feature of his style.  Hence, this second injunction, of blessing the persecutors, comes as a kind of play upon words, and is obviously occasioned by the verbal association.  It would come more appropriately at a later part of the chapter, but its occurrence here is characteristic of Paul’s idiosyncrasy.  We may represent the connection of these two clauses by such a rendering as:  Pursue hospitality, and as for those who pursue you, bless, and curse not.

We may look at these three flowers from the one root of love.

I. Love that speaks in material help.

We have here two special applications of that love which Paul regards as ‘the bond of perfectness,’ knitting all Christians together.  The former of these two is love that expresses itself by tangible material aid.  The persons to be helped are ‘saints,’ and it is their ‘needs’ that are to be aided.  There is no trace in the Pauline Epistles of the community of goods which for a short time prevailed in the Church of Jerusalem and which was one of the causes that led to the need for the contribution for the poor saints in that city which occupied so much of Paul’s attention at Corinth and elsewhere.  But, whilst Christian love leaves the rights of property intact, it charges them with the duty of supplying the needs of the brethren.  They are not absolute and unconditioned rights, but are subject to the highest principles of stewardship for God, trusteeship for men, and sacrifice for Christ.  These three great thoughts condition and limit the Christian man’s possession of the wealth, which, in a modified sense, it is allowable for him to call his own.  His brother’s need constitutes a first charge on all that belongs to him, and ought to precede the gratification of his own desires for superfluities and luxuries.  If we ’see our brother have need and shut up our bowels of compassion against him’ and use our possessions for the gratification of our own whims and fancies, ’how dwelleth the love of God in us?’ There are few things in which Christian men of this day have more need for the vigorous exercise of conscience, and for enlightenment, than