1 Timothy 6:19

Laying up in store--"therefrom (that is, by this means [ALFORD]; but BENGEL makes the Greek "apo" mean laying apart against a future time), laying up for themselves as a treasure" [ALFORD] (Mat 6:19-20). This is a treasure which we act wisely in laying up in store, whereas the wisest thing we can do with earthly treasures is "to distribute" them and give others a share of them (Ti1 6:18).

good foundation--(See on Ti1 3:13; Luk 6:48; Co1 3:11). The sure reversion of the future heavenly inheritance: earthly riches scattered in faith lay up in store a sure increase of heavenly riches. We gather by scattering (Pro 11:24; Pro 13:7; Luk 16:9).

that . . . eternal life--The oldest manuscripts and versions read, "that which is really life," its joys being solid and enduring (Psa 16:11). The life that now is cannot be called so, its goods being unsubstantial, and itself a vapor (Jam 4:14). "In order that ('with their feet so to speak on this foundation' [DE WETTE]) they may lay hold on that which is life indeed."

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Laying up in store for themselves..... Laying up a treasure in heaven, which will be for themselves to enjoy to all eternity; whereas what they lay up here is for others, for their children or friends, and sometimes for strangers, and they know not who, whether for a wise man or a fool, yea, even for enemies: so it is said of King Munbaz, when he dispersed his father's treasures to the poor, his brethren and friends came about him, complaining of it; to whom he said (w).

"my fathers treasured up below, I treasure up above. My fathers treasured "up for others", I treasure up "for myself"; my fathers treasured up for this world, I treasure up for the world to come.''

So it follows here,

a good foundation against the time to come; by which is meant, not a foundation of happiness, for that is laid already, and by God himself; and much less by doing acts of beneficence is that foundation laid; for there is no other foundation of happiness, life, and salvation, that can be laid, besides what is laid, which is Jesus Christ: nor is the apostle speaking of laying a foundation here, to build upon, but of laying up a foundation in heaven, by which he intends happiness itself; and which he calls a "foundation", because it is solid and substantial, permanent and durable, in opposition to the uncertain, precarious, transitory, and perishing enjoyments and treasures of this life; and

good, because profitable, when the laying up of worldly riches is often to the hurt of its owners, and will be useful, when they will not profit; and besides, will always continue, and be a foundation that will always support them, and never give way: now to lay up this is no other than to seek those things which are above, to show a concern for them, and to set the affections on them, and live in the comfortable hope and expectation of enjoying them. The phrase is the same with that in Mat 6:19 and takes in a regard to spiritual riches, the riches of grace flow, such as sanctifying, justifying, and pardoning grace through Christ; which will be a good foundation

against the time to come; and will give both a right and meetness for the enjoyment of the heavenly treasures, which will be for futurity, even to all eternity.

That they may lay hold on eternal life; not by way of merit, but as the free gift of God, which the riches of grace give a title to, and a fitness for; and which shall be laid hold upon, and enjoyed by all that seek the true riches. The Alexandrian copy, the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions, read, "true life"; for the present life is rather a show, an appearance of life, than life itself.

(w) T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 11. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1Ti_6:17; 1Ti_6:19

Charge them that are rich in this world.

The perils and possibilities of the rich

I. The dangers of the rich are manifold, but only two or three are suggested here.

1. The danger of self-conceit is hinted at in the words, Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded. The vulgar boasting of wealth, and the ostentatious display of it, are indications of this. Again, the self-sufficiency that leads a successful man to attribute all his gains to his own shrewdness and diligence, and to speak contemptuously of those who never get on in the world, as if God had nothing to do with his physical energy and mental calibre, with the education and training of his youth, or with the unexpected opportunities of his manhood, is another sign of high-mindedness. The pride which refuses to associate with those whose income is smaller, and which will hold aloof from intelligent and religious men and women, in order to cultivate acquaintance with those whose minds are shallow, but whose establishments are costly, and whose influence in the money market is great.

2. Another danger threatening rich men is that of trusting to uncertain riches. It is on this evanescence that Paul lays stress when he speaks of the folly of trusting to them. He hints at the conquest of this by exercising confidence in the living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy. The remembrance of the fact that God gave you money adds sacredness to it, a sense of responsibility in the use of it, and arouses the gratitude and praise which are His due.

II. The opportunities of the rich are as noteworthy as their dangers.

1. They can do good to others, and many a noble institution has its source in the generous and wise gifts of those whom God has prospered. But besides this--

2. They can do noble things. The words used by Paul, which are both rendered good (in the R.V. as well as the A.V.), have not the same meaning in Greek. They would be better translated, Charge them that they do good, and that they be rich in noble deeds. The latter word used by Paul signifies what is honourable and lovely in itself. It fell from the lips of our Lord when He described Marys act of devotion. Rich men can afford to make wise and noble experiments in philanthropy and in Christian enterprise.

III. The recompense of the rich who are thus faithful is not obscurely taught in the words which describe them as laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. Of course, Paul does not mean that they gain eternal life by their good works. No one insists more strongly than he does on the fact that salvation is the gift of sovereign grace to the sinful and undeserving. But from its nature this grace becomes a talent, with which we are to do service for God. And since the nature of the future recompense is found in the development of life, all that makes that life more full of possibility and of result lays up in store a good foundation against the time to come. The fact is, that the connection between this life and that is far closer than many imagine it to be. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)

Trust in God, and not in riches

1. To trust in riches, is to trust in what we may never acquire; to trust in God, is to trust in Him whom we may always depend on finding.

2. To trust in riches, is to trust in what cannot avail us in the various calamities which occur in the course of human life; to trust in God, is to trust in One who will always be with us in all our straits and trials.

3. To trust in riches, is to trust in what cannot meet the wants of the heart, if it is found; to trust in God, is to trust in One who can fully supply all our need.

4. To trust in riches, is to trust in what we may be deprived of in a moment, or may gradually lose; to trust in God, is to trust in One whom we can never be deprived of, and never shall lose.

5. To trust in riches, is to trust in what we must all part with at last; to trust in God, is to trust in One who will be ours for ever.

6. Many and great are the blessings of every kind which this trust in God, rather than in riches, will secure to us.

(1) It will teach us to moderate our desires after riches, and to be less eager than we often are in the pursuit of them.

(2) It will show us how we may mingle the right pursuit of temporal things with that supreme regard to spiritual things which their paramount importance entitles them to.

(3) It will enable us, when worldly losses come, to bear up patiently and hopefully under them, and to hear the voice of God speaking to us in them.

(4) It will teach us the responsibility which is always connected with the possession of any portion of earthly things, and remind us of the account which we must give to God for the way we have used them. (Alex. Reid.)

Human affections raised, not destroyed, by the gospel

The apostle sets before us, in the text, two applications of the same human affection. He bids us not to trust in uncertain riches, but to trust in the living God. He assumes that this trusting impulse exists, and he would not destroy but reform it. He would exhibit the true and eternal object for a tendency in itself indestructible; and would intimate that there is pre pared for the just desires of the soul a sphere of being, adequate to these desires, and from which the present detains us, only as the counterfeit and mockery of it! On the one hand uncertain riches; on the other the parallel announcement, that God giveth us richly all things to enjoy. And thus the Spirit, that spoke in the exhortation of Paul, instructs in the great truth, that the faculties of men are themselves a mechanism for eternity; that it is not they--it is not Love, and Reliance, and Hope, and Desire--but their habitual objects, that man must toil to change. On this important matter, then, I shall first endeavour briefly to engage your attention, and I shall then attempt to illustrate the melancholy extent of the actual perversion of our nature, by showing how, even in their wanderings, these affections betray the higher purpose for which they were primarily intended, and how--more especially in the instance noted in the text, the trust in riches man still unconsciously invests with the very attributes of perfect felicity,, of heaven, and of God, the earthly idol to which he sacrifices both! There are those, then, who speak with solemn and prophetic truth of the change which comes over the aspect of the human soul, when, for the first time, awaking to righteousness, it is introduced (while yet in the world of time) into the eternal world, and becomes cognizant of the glories, till then unseen, that surround the throne of God and the Lamb. But when, from the dignity and circumstances of the change, men pass to define its natured there is often, it seems to me, much inaccuracy and some imprudence in their statements. We find it sometimes described as if no one element of human nature were to remain in the regenerate spirit. The declaration that a new heart is bestowed is taken in almost the fulness of a literal acceptation. All the old machinery of humanity is discarded; the works are, as it were, taken out of the case of the instrument, and a totally new organization of passions and affections provided. The spiritual renewal is thus falsely, I think, and dangerously, made to consist, not in setting our emancipated affections upon things above--not in the privilege of having the whole body, and soul, and spirit preserved blameless until the coming of Christ, but in the acquisition of some indescribable affections (if such they may be called), which, though they be named love and desire, are no longer human love and human desire, but differing almost as much, it would seem, from these affections as they are in our hearts, as love and hate differ from each other! Hence that mystic and dangerous mode of representation too common among a large class of teachers, which would exalt the love to God, for example, beyond all human conception, not merely in the dignity of its object (in which, I need not say, no language could overstate it), but even in the very nature of the feeling; as if the love of a devoted friend was one thing and intelligible, but the love to God quite another affection, and all but incomprehensible! The error of all such cases is the same--the notion that in the work of renewal new faculties are given us, instead of a new direction to the old ones; the notion that God annihilates human nature when He only perfects it; to destroy the channels themselves, instead of cleansing their polluted streams, and then replenishing them for ever with the waters of Paradise! As long as men conceived that the religious affections are in their essence wholly different from every other affection, they will inevitably conclude that the training and discipline for them must be itself equally different. So far for the general principle involved in the particular exhortation of the apostle, the principle that the same affections which cling to the lowly earth are those which must struggle, under celestial guidance, to find their rest in God. Trust not in riches, but [trust] in the living God! Blessed invitation I How it exalts, even while it reproves, our fettered nature! Trust, yes, trust with a devotedness such as the wildest frenzy of avarice has never exhibited! Trust, and fear not! It is among the noblest energies of your being--it was never given in vain. Trust, but trust in the living God! Preserve unbroken every element of your affections; they are all alike the property of heaven. Be ambitious, but ambitious of the eternal heritage, Labour after knowledge, but let it be the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ! Be it ours to find in the new world unveiled in the gospel the true materials of these holy desires, and so to train them while on earth for the society of heaven. I have but this moment glanced at a topic which might well demand deeper and fuller illustration. I mean the change which the fact of the incarnation of God most rightfully make in all that concerns the laws and regulation of the human affections. For, after all, these affections do, doubtless, strive, in the first instance, towards human objects; human themselves, they naturally cling to the human outside and beyond them. Ever since God became incarnate, this tendency precludes not their direct passage to heaven; nay, it quickens and guides it. It would have been little short of miracle, that even the most pious should maintain the state of perpetual contemplative affection towards the awful essence of the unmingled God. But when that God became man this difficulty was removed. The direct pathway to heaven was opened to the human heart. And the more you regard the passage, the more will you perceive that such views as those I have sketched were, in substance, the views which occupied the inspired teacher. His whole object is manifestly to contrast the two rivals for the human heart, the worlds visible and invisible; and hence it is that the text before us is the natural sequel to the preceding verse, where the glory of the eternal God is unveiled in all its majesty as the object which is to fix the affections of man. There is, proclaims St. Paul (1Ti_6:15), a blessed and only Potentate, who is hereafter to determine, in His own time (as it is emphatically called), the appearing of Christ Jesus in glory. This Being demands, as His inalienable right, all the energies of all the affections; for no inferior claimant can interfere with Him, who is King of kings and Lord of lords. Then comes the exhortation. Seeing that such a privilege as this is ours (1Ti_6:17), charge them that are rich in this world, that they interpose not a veil between themselves and this Father of their spirits, or suffer the clouds and vapours of earth to sully or eclipse the beams of this eternal sun. Charge them, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy! Our earthly objects of pursuit are themselves clad by hope with colours that rightfully belong only to their celestial rivals; our ordinary earthly longings themselves strain after a really heavenly happiness, while they miss so miserably the way to reach it; that, in other words, in the treasuries of heaven are laid up all that you truly covet, even while, by a wretched illusion, you labour after their mockeries on earth! Surely, if this can be proved, no conceivable argument can more powerfully demonstrate how we are made for religion, and can only find our true rest there! Now the truth is, so wholly are we framed for the eternal world, that we must make a heaven of earth before we can fully enjoy it. God has so inwoven, in the innermost texture of our nature, the title and testimonies of the immortal state for which He made us, that, mingled with the perishable elements of earth, it is, even now, for ever around us; it rises in all our dreams, it colours all our thoughts, it haunts us with longings we cannot repel; in our very vices it reveals itself, for they cannot charm us till they have more or less counterfeited it. There are aspirations turned astray, that, even in their distortion, attest their origin and purpose, There are warped, and crippled, and polluted hopes, that, even from their dungeon of flesh, still cry to heaven. In the spirit of these convictions, turn again to the text. To whom does the apostle enjoin the exhortation? To them that are rich in this world. What does he here assume? He assumes the existence of wealth, and, involved in that existence, the desire to attain it, which is the necessary motive for its accumulation. He assumes that there resides in the heart of man the desire to build up around it the means of perpetual enjoyment, to secure to itself the materials of happiness--of happiness, for such is the specific essence of moneyed wealth, that may be independent of the moment, and which (as it were, condensed in its representative) may be preserved for a period indefinitely future. But what terms, save these, shall we employ, when we would depict the heaven of the Scripture revelation? What characters are these but the very properties of Gods eternal world? And so far is it not manifest that the votary of earthly wealth does in fact, with all the energies of his nature, strain after that very security of unchangeable bliss which we preach; but, mistaking the illusory phantom, weds his whole soul to the fictitious heaven, which the powers of evil have clothed in colours stolen from the skies? The delusion produces its own delusive results. But these also are but the shadowy copies of a bright and holy reality. Every attribute of the eager candidate for earthly happiness and security is but the poor semblance of the very state the Christian already possesses or anticipates. The rich are first warned of the peril of what is here called high-mindedness; a word whose happy ambiguity perfectly corresponds to my argument. But as there is a worldly and Satanic high-mindedness, so is this, as before, but the counterfeit presentment of a high-mindedness God-given and celestial. Laying deep its foundations in self-abasement, the doctrine of faith alone bestows the blessed confidence, without which the Christian may be the inconsolable penitent, the mortified ascetic, the prostrate trembler before an offended God; but without which he is, nevertheless, but half a Christian. The happy confidence of the children of God is an element which, though false teaching may exaggerate, no true teaching will ever discard. It is not for nothing that he is bid to rest upon the Rock of Ages, and to anticipate upon earth the repose of immortality. Here, then, is the high-mindedness of the Christian; here is the truth to match that worldly falsehood, that high-mindedness base and debasing; here is the bright, unchanging fire, which the votary of this world would rake among the dust and ashes of earth to enkindle! Once more, the rich in this world is warned, not merely of the peril of self-exaltation, but also of that of unbounded trust in the fleeting riches he accumulates. The contrast I need not here insist on. We have already noticed it, and the apostle himself has expressly enforced it. The living God and His liberal graces arise to claim the homage of the trusting heart. The dependent on riches makes them his god, in making them the object of his dependence. Heaven is here again defrauded of its own, and all the charms of the Divine character, the charms that fix and fascinate the adoring believer in Christ--its abiding permanence, its just sovereignty, its fixed security, its unshaken falthfulness--all are torn from the throne of God to clothe the idol of the worshipper of wealth! (W. A. Butler.)

The duties of the rich

Every condition of life hath its peculiar dangers to be avoided and duties to be done, but none hath dangers more threatening or duties more important than that of the rich and great: whose situation, notwithstanding, is seldom considered by those who are in it as having anything to be feared; and is generally imagined by others to comprehend almost everything that is to be wished. To be thus environed with temptations, and probably sensible of none of them, is a most pitiable condition. Now the peculiar dangers of the rich and great arises either from the eminence of their station or the abundance of their wealth: and therefore the text points a caution against each. But I shall be able at present to treat only of the first: which is, that they be not high-minded. Every superiority of every sort, which men only imagine themselves possessed of, is too liable to be over-rated and improperly used. But superior fortune and condition are advantages so visible to all eyes, create such dependences, and give such influence, that it is no wonder if they tempt to uncommon haughtiness. Now undoubtedly distinguished rank is entitled to distinguished regard; and the good order of society very much depends on keeping up that regard; and therefore the great should in a proper manner be much more careful to keep it up than many of them are. But when they nurse up the consciousness of their own superiority into a contemptuous neglect of others and insolent expectations of unfit submissions from them, they have great need to be reminded that respect is paid to wealth and birth because the common good requires it, not because the persons who receive it are always worthy of it; but their dishonourable behaviour will be the more conspicuous for their honourable station. And even supposing them guilty of nothing else to lessen the esteem they claim, yet claiming too much of it, or too openly, will frustrate their intention most effectually. For neither equals nor inferiors will suffer near so much to be extorted from them as they would have bestowed most freely on their own accord. But one sort of condescension to inferiors may be of peculiar advantage; I mean listening to useful information and advice from them, things which the great are very apt to think themselves above, when every one else sees they have much need of them. Neither affluence nor high rank by any means imply superiority of judgment. But if humility in the great could be no ether way beneficial to them, yet avoiding the guilt of so injurious a behaviour as indulging a proud spirit prompts them to, is surely a motive important enough. Thus too many treat their tenants hardly, or permit them to be so treated. Another sort of persons, for whom superiors too commonly will not vouchsafe to have the consideration that they ought, are those who come to them upon business. Obliging such to an unreasonable attendance, making them wait long, and it may be return often, is a very provoking and a very injurious kind of stateliness. But there is another fault still worse frequently joined with this; deeming it beneath their notice whether such of their inferiors as have just and reasonable demands upon them are paid when they ought. Another very blameable and very pernicious instance of high-mindedness in the great is imagining the management of their families an attention too low for them. Even that of their children they very commonly despise to an astonishing degree. Or if they have humility enough to inspect some part of their education, it is usually the outward and showy but less material part. Now proceed to the latter, trusting in uncertain riches: which phrase comprehends placing the happiness of life either in wealth itself or in those pleasures and amusements which it is commonly made the instrument of procuring. The prohibition therefore of doing this extends to regulate the acquisition, the possession, and use of a great fortune; and to go through the subject fully, each of these points must be considered.

1. The acquisition. In speculation it seems hardly to be expected that any one who is once master of enough to answer his real and reasonable wants should feel any desire almost, on his own account, of having more: that he should take much pains about is very wonderful; and that he should do anything wrong for it quite unaccountable. No temptation is a warrant for doing wrong; but to do wrong without anything that deserves the name of a temptation is exceedingly bad. And it cannes be nature, but merely an absurd habit wilfully indulged, that tempts men to accumulate what they have no need of. But though riches alone render eagerness for more very blameable and unbecoming, yet greatness added to them doubles the fault. For exalted rank absolutely calls for the exercise of honourable disinterestedness.

2. Concerning the possession of it. Now keeping a heap of wealth merely for the sake of keeping it is an apparent absurdity. Keeping it merely for the repute of having it is a very low inducement. And if laying up against future accidents be pretended, a moderate store will suffice for a reasonable security, and nothing can secure us absolutely. Indeed the larger the fortune, the more room for accidents in one part or another of it; and the loss of a small part will be as grievous to a heart set upon riches as that of a larger to another man. Besides, whoever lives only to the purpose of saving and accumulating will be tempted by this ruling passion to a sinful neglect of the poor and the worthy among his friends and dependants, perhaps among his relations and very children. But besides the sins which may be committed in the getting or keeping of wealth, there are--

3. Others, committed too frequently in using it; which persons of superior fortune and rank must be charged to avoid, and which undoubtedly the text comprehends. For putting their trust in riches is just as much the description of those who place the happiness of life in the enjoyment of large estates as those who place it in the possession of them. Some trust in their riches so very inconsiderately that they trust there will never be an end of them, let them be squandered as extravagantly as they will. So they set out with gratifying themselves in everything. Others, if they do not dissipate their estates in so wild a manner, yet use them principally to minister to their sensuality and debauchery; vices which men of superior fortune somehow imagine they have a sort of right to be guilty of. Another very bad use of wealth, in which too many seem to place no small part of their happiness, is that of gaming. But supposing wealth be neither spent in this nor any of the gross vices mentioned before, yet if it be employed in ministering to a course of more decent and refined luxury, or in supporting such a pomp of life as nourishes vanity and pride, or in filling so much time with unprofitable entertainment, that little room is left in the mind for objects of importance: these things also the rich and great must be charged to amend.

I proceed to the duties of which he enjoins they shall be peculiarly reminded.

1. The first is, to trust in the living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy. After warning them against placing their happiness in the pre-eminences, the possessions or pleasures of this world, it was very natural to direct them where they should place it: for somewhere-we must. And his precept carries the proof of its own fitness along with it. For the living God must have the greatest power to reward our trust, and He who giveth us all things richly to enjoy hath shown Himself to have the greatest will also. Some persons, it may be, when they are pressed upon the subject, will plead that they are by no means without inward regard to God; though they cannot say they give much outward demonstration of it in acts of worship. But supposing them sincere, what reason can there be why respect to God should not be paid outwardly when respect to every superior besides is? But it is possible for us to keep up a sufficient possession of religion to secure both public order and domestic tranquility, yet by no means have a sufficient sense of it for obtaining eternal life; and what will the former avail us without the latter? We should all, therefore, learn to live more to our Maker; to imprint on our hearts and exert in our whole behaviour a stronger sense of His present providence and future rewards. It would be a direction, a security, an improvement, a comfort to us beyond expression.

2. The second duty prescribed in the text as peculiarly necessary for the rich and great is that they do good, that they be rich in good works. If men of rank and fortune observe duly the preceding part of the apostles charge, they will easily be induced to observe the concluding one. If they are neither so high-minded as to neglect and despise their fellow-creatures, nor so selfish as to trust in uncertain riches, in the acquisition, the possession, or voluptuous enjoyment of them, for their happiness, but expect it only from their acceptance with the living God; they will naturally imitate Him whom they desire to please, particularly in His beneficence, the most amiable of all His perfections. And it is not by their wealth only that they are able and therefore called to do good, but by their whole behaviour. But still, though almsgiving is by no means the whole of beneficence, yet it is an essential part in those whom God hath qualified for it. And He hath given them all things richly and in plenty, not merely for themselves to enjoy in the vulgar sense, but that others may enjoy a due share of them and they the pleasure of imparting it; the worthiest and highest enjoyment of wealth that can be. But, in general, that both our charity and our generosity should bear some decent and liberal proportion to our abilities, and the rich in this world be rich in good works also. Nor is it sufficient for the rich to give plentifully, but they must do it on every fit occasion speedily; be ready to distribute and not stay till the circumstances of the poor are beyond recovery or their spirits broken under the weight of their misfortunes, but make haste to help them and, as far as possible, prevent distress. (T. Seeker.)

God the giver of wealth

A good example of liberality was given by Mr. Thornton, of Clapham, a noble-hearted Christian merchant. One morning, when he had received news of a failure that involved him in a loss of no less than a hundred thousand pounds, a minister from the country called at his countinghouse to ask a subscription for an important object. Hearing that Mr. Thornton had suffered that loss, he apologized for having called. But Mr. Thornton took him kindly by the hand: My dear sir, the wealth I have is not mine, but the Lords. It may be that He is going to take it out of my hands and give it to another; and if so, this is a good reason why I should make a good use of what is left. He then doubled the subscription he had formerly intended to give.

That they do good.--

Live for some purpose

Live for some purpose in the world. Act your part well. Fill up the measure of duty to others. Conduct yourselves so that you shall be missed with sorrow when you are gone. Multitudes of our species are living in such a selfish manner that they are not likely to be remembered after their disappearance. They leave behind them scarcely any traces of their existence, but are forgotten almost as though they had never been. They are, while they live, like one pebble lying unobserved amongst a million on the shore; and when they die, they are like that same pebble thrown into the sea, which just ruffles the surface, sinks, and is forgotten, without being missed from the beach. They are neither regretted by the rich, wanted by the poor, nor celebrated by the learned. Who has been the better for their life? Who has been the worse for their death? Whose tears have they dried up? whose wants supplied? whose miseries have they healed? Who would unbar the gate of life to re-admit them to existence? or what face would greet them back again to our world with a smile? Wretched, unproductive mode of existence! Selfishness is its own curse; it is a starving vice. The man who does no good gets none. He is like the heath in the desert, neither yielding fruit nor seeing when good cometh--a stunted, dwarfish, miserable shrub. (J. A. James.)

The opportunity of doing good

We shall then know better than we do now know that every soul on its way to eternity has its appointed times and seasons of good, which, if they be allowed to pass away shall never, never return again. Though the person be not lost, yet the innocence, the heroism, the saintliness, may be. We must, therefore, lose no opportunity of doing good to the souls and bodies of those whom Gods good providence has put under our care, because if we miss it by our own fault, it may never again be allowed to us; the persons whom God intended us to profit may be taken out of our reach, may be taken into another world before they come in our way again. (John Keble.)

Doing good

An eminent surgeon, who was also an eminent Christian, visited a lady who was a professed believer in Christ, but who, like some ladies I have heard of, was frequently troubled with imaginary diseases. The good doctor was frequently called in, until at last he said to her, Madam, I will give you a prescription which I am certain will make a healthy woman of you, if you will follow it. Sir, she said, I shall be so glad to have good health that I will be sure to follow it. Madam, I will send you the prescription this evening. When it arrived it consisted of these words, Do good to somebody. She roused herself to relieve a poor neighbour, and then sought out others who needed her help, and the Christian woman, who had been so constantly desponding and nervous, became a healthy, cheerful woman, for she had an object to live for, and found joy in doing good to others. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 Timothy

THE CONDUCT THAT SECURES THE REAL LIFE

1Ti 6:19.

In the first flush of the sense of brotherhood, the Church of Jerusalem tried the experiment of having all things in common. It was not a success, it was soon abandoned, it never spread. In the later history of the Church, and especially in these last Pauline letters, we see clearly that distinctions of pecuniary position were very definitely marked amongst the believers. There were ‘rich men’ in the churches of which Timothy had charge. No doubt they were rich after a very modest fashion, for Paul’s standard of opulence is not likely to have been a very high one, seeing that he himself ministered with his own hands to his necessities, and had only one cloak to keep him warm in winter time. But great or small as were the resources of these men, they were rich in comparison with some of their brethren. The words of my text are the close of the very plain things which Paul commands Timothy to tell them. He assures them that if they will be rich in good works, and ready to distribute, they will lay up for themselves a good ‘foundation against the time to come.’

The teaching in the text is, of course, a great deal wider than any specific application of it. It is very remarkable, especially as coming from Paul. ‘Lay up a good foundation’--has he not said, ‘Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ’? ‘That they may lay hold on eternal life’--has he not said, ‘The gift of God is eternal life’? Is he not going dead in the teeth of his own teaching, ‘Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by His mercy He saved us’? I think not. Let us see what he does say.

I. First, then, he says that the real life is the future life.

Those of you who use the Revised Version will see that it makes an alteration in the last clause of our text, and instead of ‘eternal life’ it reads ‘the life which is life indeed,’ the true life; not simply designating it as eternal, but designating it as being the only thing that is worth calling by the august name of life.

Now it is quite clear that Paul here is approximating very closely to the language of his brother John, and using this great word ‘life’ as being, in substance, equivalent to his own favourite word of ‘salvation,’ as including in one magnificent generalisation all that is necessary for the satisfaction of man’s needs, the perfection of his blessedness, and the glorifying of his nature. Paul’s notion of life, like John’s, is that it is the one all-comprehensive good which men need and seek.

And here he seems to relegate that ‘life which is life indeed’ to the region of the future, because he contemplates it as being realised ‘in the time to come,’ and as being the result of the conduct which is here enjoined. But you will find that substantially the same exhortation is given in the 12th verse of this chapter, ‘Fight the good fight of faith; lay hold on the life eternal’--where the process of grasping this ‘life,’ and therefore the possession of it, are evidently regarded as possible here, and the duty of every Christian man in this present world. That is to say, there is a double aspect of this august conception of the ‘life which is life indeed.’ In one aspect it is present, may be and ought to be ours, here and now; in another aspect it lies beyond the flood, and is the inheritance reserved in the heavens. That double aspect is parallel with the way in which the New Testament deals with the other cognate conception of salvation, which it sometimes regards as past, sometimes as present, sometimes as future. The complete idea is that the life of the Christian soul here and yonder, away out into the furthest extremities of eternity, and up to the loftiest climax of perfectness, is in essence one, whilst yet the differences between the degree in which its germinal possession here and its full-fruited enjoyment hereafter differ is so great as that, in comparison with the completion that is waiting the Christian soul beyond the grave, all of the same life that is here enjoyed dwindles into nothingness. It appears to me that these two sides of the truth, the essential identity of the life of the Christian soul beyond and here, and the all but infinite differences and progresses which separate the two, are both needful, very needful, to be kept in view by us.

There is here on earth, amidst all our imperfections and weakness and sin, a root in the heart that trusts in Christ, which only needs to be transplanted into its congenial soil to blossom and burgeon into undreamed of beauty, and to bear fruit the savour of which no mortal lips can ever taste. The dwarfed rhododendrons in our shrubberies have in them the same nature as the giants that adorn the slopes of the Himalayas. Transplant these exotics to their native soil, and you would see what it was in them to be. Think of the life that is now at its best; its weakness, its blighted hopes, its thwarted aims, its foiled endeavours; think of its partings, its losses, its conflicts. Think of its disorders, its sins, and consequent sufferings; think of the shadow at its close, which flings long trails of blackness over many preceding years. Think of its swift disappearance, and then say if such a poor, fragmentary thing is worthy of the name of life, if that were all that the man was for.

But it is not all. There is a ‘life which is life indeed,’ over which no shadow can pass, nor any sorrow darken the blessed faces or clog the happy hearts of those who possess it. They ‘have all and abound.’ They know all and are at rest. They dread nothing, and nothing do they regret. They leave nothing behind as they advance, and of their serenity and their growth there is no end. That is worth calling life. It lies beyond this dim spot of earth. It is ‘hid with Christ in God.’

II. Secondly, notice that conduct here determines the possession of the true life.

Paul never cares whether he commits the rhetorical blunder of mixing up metaphors or not. That matters very little, except to a pedant and a rhetorician. In his impetuous way he blends three here, and has no time to stop to disentangle them. They all mean substantially the same thing which I have stated in the words that conduct here determines the possession of life hereafter; but they put it in three different figurative fashions which we may separate and look at one by one.

The first of them is this, that by our actions here we accumulate treasure hereafter. ‘Laying up in store for themselves’ is one word in the original, and it contains even more than is expressed in our paraphrase, for it is really ‘treasuring off.’ And the idea is that the rich man is bade to take a portion of his worldly goods, and, by using these for beneficent purposes, out of them to store a treasure beyond the grave. What is employed thus, and from the right motives and in the right way, is not squandered, but laid up in store. You remember the old epitaph,

‘What I spent I lost; What I gave I have.’

Now that is Christ’s teaching, for did He not say: ‘Sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven’? Did He not say: ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, . . . but lay up treasures in heaven’? And if anybody’s theology finds it difficult to incorporate these solemn teachings of our Lord with the rest of it, so much the worse for the theology.

I have no doubt at all that Christianity has yet a great deal to teach the Christian Church and the world about the acquisition of money and the disposal of money; and, though I do not want to dwell now upon that specific application of the general principle of my text, I cannot help reminding you, dear friends, that for a very large number of us, almost the most important influence shaping our characters is the attitude that we take in regard to these things--the getting and the distribution of worldly wealth. For the bulk of Christian people there are few things more important as sharp tests of the reality of their religion, or more effective in either ennobling or degrading their whole character, than what they do about these two plain matters.

But then my text goes a great deal further than that; and whilst it applies unflinchingly this principle to the one specific case, it invites us to apply it all round the circumference of our earthly conduct. What you are doing here is piling up for you, on the other side of the wall, what you will have to live with, and either get good or evil out of, through all eternity. A man who is going to Australia pays some money into a bank here, and when he gets to Melbourne it is punctually paid out to him across the counter. That is what we are doing here, lodging money on this side that we are going to draw on that. And it is this which gives to the present its mystical significance and solemnity, that all our actions are piling up for us future possessions: ‘treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath’; or, contrariwise, ‘glory, immortality, honour, eternal life.’ We are like men digging a trench on one side of a hedge and flinging the spadefuls over to the other. They are all being piled up behind the barrier, and when we go round the end of it we shall find them all waiting for us.

Then the Apostle superimposes upon this another metaphor. He does not care to unravel it. ‘Laying up in store for themselves a store,’ he would have said if he had been a pedant, ‘which is also a good foundation.’ Now I take it that that does not mean a basis for hope, or anything of that sort, but that it conveys this thought, that our actions here are putting in the foundations on which the eternal building of our future life shall be reared. When a man excavates and lays the first courses of the stones of his building, he thereby determines every successive stage of it, until the headstone is brought forth with rejoicing. We are laying foundations in that profound sense in this world. Our nature takes a set here, and I fail to see any reason cognisable by us why that ply of the nature should ever be taken out of it in any future. I do not dogmatise; but it seems to me that all that we do know of life and of God’s dealings in regard to man leads us to suppose that the next world is a world of continuations, not of beginnings; that it is the second volume of the book, and hangs logically and necessarily upon the first that was finished when a man died. Our lives here and hereafter appear to me to be like some geometrical figure that wants two sheets of paper for its completion: on the first the lines run up to the margin, and on the second they are carried on in the direction which was manifest in the section that was visible here.

And so, dear friends, let us remember that this is the reason why our smallest acts are so tremendous that by our actions we are making character, and that character is destiny, here and hereafter. You are putting in the foundations of the building that you have to live in; see that they are of such a sort as will support a house eternal in the heavens.

The last of the metaphors under which the Apostle suggests the one idea is that our conduct here determines our capacity to lay hold of the prize. It seems to me that the same allusion is lingering in his mind which is definitely stated in the previous verse to which I have already referred, where the eternal life which Timothy is exhorted to lay hold of is regarded as being the prize of the good fight of faith, which he is exhorted to fight. And so the third metaphor here is that which is familiar in Paul’s writings, where eternal life is regarded as a garland or prize, given to the victor in race or arena. It is exactly the same notion as he otherwise expresses when he says that he follows after if that he may ‘lay hold of that for which also he is laid hold of by Jesus Christ.’ This is the underlying thought, that according to a Christian man’s acts here is his capacity of receiving the real life yonder.

That is not given arbitrarily. Each man gets as much of it when he goes home as he can hold. The tiniest vessel is filled, the largest vessel is filled. But the little vessel may, and will, grow bigger if that which is deposited in it be rightly employed. Let us lay this to heart, that Christian men dare not treat it as a matter of indifference whether to the full they live lives consistent with their profession, and do the will of their Master or no. It is not all the same, and it will not be all the same yonder, whether we have adorned the teaching, or whether our lives have habitually and criminally fallen beneath the level of our professions. Brethren, we are too apt to forget that there is such a thing as being ‘saved, yet so as by fire’; and that there is such a thing as ‘having an entrance ministered abundantly into the Kingdom.’ Be you sure of this, that if the hands of your spirits are ever to be capable of grasping the prize, it must be as the result of conduct here on earth, which has been treasuring up treasures yonder, and laying a foundation on which the incorruptible house may solidly rest.

III. And now the last word that I have to say is that these principles are perfectly compatible with the great truth of salvation by faith.

For observe to whom the text is spoken. It is to men who have professed to be believers, and it is on the ground of their faith that these rich men in Timothy’s churches are exhorted to this conduct. There is no incompatibility between the doctrine that eternal life is the gift of God, and the placing of those who have received that gift under a strict law of recompense.

That is the teaching of the whole New Testament. It was to Christian men that it was said: ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.’ It is the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself.

But there is a dreadful danger that we, with our partial vision, shall see one side of the truth so clearly that we do not see the other; and so you get two antagonistic schools of Christian teaching who have torn the one word into halves. One of them says, ‘Man is saved by faith only,’ and forgets ‘faith without works is dead’; and the other says, ‘Do your duty, and never mind about your belief,’ and forgets that the belief--the trust--is the only sure foundation on which conduct can be based, and the only source from which it is certain to flow.

Now, if I should not be misunderstood by that same narrow and contracted vision of which I have been speaking, I would venture to say that salvation by faith alone may be so held as to be a very dangerous doctrine, and that there is a very real sense in which a man is saved by works. And if you do not like that, go home and read the Epistle of James, and see what you make of his teaching: ‘Ye see, brethren, how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.’ ‘Faith wrought with his works, and by his works was his faith made perfect.’

Only let us understand where the exhortation of the text comes in. We have to begin with absolute departure from all merit in work, and the absolute casting of ourselves on Jesus Christ. If you have not done that, my brother, the teaching ‘Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation’ has no application to you, but this teaching has, ‘Other foundation can no man lay. Behold, I lay in Zion a tried corner-stone. Whosoever believeth in Him shall not make haste.’ If you have not committed your souls and selves and lives and hopes to Jesus Christ, the teaching ‘Lay hold on eternal life’ has only a very modified application to you, because the only hand that can grasp that life is the hand of faith that is content to receive it from His hands with the prints of the nails in them. But if you have given yourselves to that Saviour, and received the germinal gift of eternal life from Him, then, take my text as absolutely imperative for you. Remember that it is for you, resting on Christ, to treasure up eternal life; for you to build on that sure foundation gold and silver and precious stones which may stand the fire; for you, by faithful continuance in well-doing, to lay hold of that for which you have been laid hold of by Jesus Christ. May it be true of all of us that ‘our works do follow us’!

‘Thy works, thine alms, and all thy good endeavour Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod,

But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod, Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ti 6:19. Ἀποθησαυρίζοντας ἑαυτοῖς, laying up in store for themselves) The best kind of property which is laid up “against the time to come.” The antithesis is κοινωνικοὺς, willing to communicate. So Tob 4:10, μὴ φοβοῦ ποιεῖν ἐλεημοσύνην· θεμα ὰρ ἀγαθὸν θησαυρίσεις σεαυτῷ εἰς ἡμέραν ἀνάγκης, “be not afraia to perform works of charity, for thou wilt lay up for thyself a good deposit for the day of necessity.” Otherwise the rich do not collect treasures for themselves, but for others. To collect by giving, forms a pleasant Oxymoron [see Append.] The preposition ἀπὸ has admirable force in ἀποθησαυρίζοντας, apart [in store] for a distant time.—θεμέλιον καλὸν, a good foundation) An elliptical apposition, i.e. ἀποθησαυρίζοντας θησαυρὸν, namely, θεμέλιον καλόν. The metaphor is cumulative, as in Psa 37:5 (6), with the explanation of Gejer. He calls works of beneficence a good foundation, to which is opposed the uncertainty of riches.—θεμέλιος, עיקר, that on which we depend as a security (a bond), a pledge. [It is commonly called a basis (fundum).—V. g.]—εἰς τὸ μέλλον, for the time to come) The antithesis is, in the present world (ἐν τῷ νῦν αἰῶνι), 1Ti 6:17; comp. ch. 1Ti 4:8.—ἐπιλάβωνται, may lay hold) as persons emerging from shipwreck. The merchant saved from shipwreck [in this case, as contrasted with all other cases of shipwreck], finds his treasures sent home before him. In 1Ti 6:12 mention is made of a fight: the expression is the same, but the figure is different.—τῆς[55] ὌΝΤΩς ΖΩῆς) Comp. ὌΝΤΩς, ch. 1Ti 5:3; 1Ti 5:5; 1Ti 5:16. True life [that which is life indeed] from the living God.

[55] This reading, to which the larger Ed. had given rather little countenance, is preferred to the reading αἰωνίον, by the margin of the 2d Ed., with the concurrence of the Germ. Vers.—E. B.

AD(Δ) corrected, Gfg Vulg. read τῆς ὄντως. Rec. Text has τοῦ αἰωνίον, with only inferior uncial MSS.—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ti_6:19. Ἀποθησαυρίζοντας ἑαυτοῖς θεμέλιον καλόν] The participle tells what the rich desire by the conduct already mentioned; it is not to be exchanged with the infinitive. Ἀποθησ. and θεμέλιον are not exactly suitable to one another. This, however, is not to be corrected by conjecturing (with Clericus) κειμήλιον or (with Lamb, Bos) θέμα λίαν καλόν, nor by explaining θεμέλιον as equivalent to θέμα (Tob_4:9; Leo: and gather for themselves a good fund for the future), nor even by taking ἀποθησ. as absolute and θεμέλιον as in apposition. Wolf: ita … ut divites thesauros sibi ipsis colligere jubeantur, qui sint fundamento alicui olim inservituri; Luther: gather treasures, to themselves a good ground for the future.

ἀποθησαυρίζειν] lay something aside for the purpose of preserving, and therefore collect. It is unnecessary to give the word here the more general signification of acquire. The apostles thought is, that the rich, by giving away their θησαυρούς in sympathetic love, are gathering for themselves a treasure, and are also laying a good foundation on which their future salvation is built.

εἰς τὸ μέλλον is not to be connected with καλόν, but with the verb: for the future.

ἵνα ἐπιλάβωνται τῆς ὄντως ζωῆς] ἵνα does not express the consequence, so that, but the purpose, in order that. Ἐπιλάβωνται, comp. 1Ti_6:12; de Wette, rightly: in order that they (at the same time planting their feet on this basis) may seize; τῆς ὄντως ζωῆς, comp. 1Ti_5:3.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ti 6:19 . ἀποθησαυρίζοντας : The true hoarding produces, as its first result, a good foundation, which will entitle a man to grasp the prize, which is true life, the only life worth talking about. Stability is the essential characteristic of a foundation. There is a contrast implied between the shifting uncertainty of riches as a ground of hope, and the firm and permanent foundation of a Christian character. (So, nearly, Theod.)

Ingenious conjectures have been suggested for θεμέλιον ; but it is safe to say that the mixture of metaphors due to the condensation of language does not distress those who read in a devout rather than in a critical spirit. For the sentiment cf. Mat 6:19-20 . There is some support given to the conjecture of Lamb-Bos, θέμα λίαν , by the parallel from Tob 4:8 sq . cited by Bengel, μὴ φοβοῦ ποιεῖν ἐλεημοσύνην · θέμα γὰρ ἀγαθὸν θησαυρίζεις σεαυτῷ εἰς ἡμέραν ἀνάγκης . See, on the other hand, what Sir 1:15 says of Wisdom, μετὰ ἀνθρώπων θεμέλιον αἰῶνος ἐνόσσευσεν . θεμέλιος is used metaphorically also in reff. It is to be observed that in 2Ti 2:19 there is again a confusion of imagery: the foundation has a seal.

εἰς τὸ μέλλον is found in a slightly different sense ( thenceforth ), Luk 13:9 .

ἐπιλάβωνται : See on 1Ti 6:12 .

τῆς ὄντως ζωῆς : the life which is life indeed , an expression which is one of the precious things of the R.V. It is “the life which is in Christ Jesus” (2Ti 1:1 ).

For ὄντως see 1Ti 5:3 .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The praise of liberality by the effects thereof: because it is a sure testimony of the Spirit of God which dwelleth in us, and therefore of the salvation that shall be given us.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 19. Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation] St. Paul seems to have borrowed this form of speech from Tobit. See chap. iv. 8, 9: If thou hast abundance, give alms accordingly: if thou hast but a little, be not afraid to give according to that little: for thou treasurest up a good reward for thyself against the day of necessity. Θεμα ραρ αγαθον θησαυριζεις σεαυτω εις ἡμεραν αναγκης. The apostle says: Αποθησαυριζοντας ἑαυτοις θεμελιον καλον εις το μελλον, ἱνα επιλαβωνται της αιωνιου ζωης "Treasuring up a good foundation to them for the future, that they may lay hold on eternal life." The sentiment is the same in both writers; the words nearly so; and the meaning is simply this, as it is judiciously paraphrased by Mr. J. Wesley in his note on this passage: "Treasuring up for themselves a good foundation, of an abundant reward by the free mercy of God, that they may lay hold on eternal life. This cannot be done by almsdeeds; yet, they come up for a memorial before God; Ac 10:4. And the lack even of this may be the cause why God will withhold grace and salvation from us." Christ has said: Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. They who have not been merciful according to their power, shall not obtain mercy; they that have, shall obtain mercy: and yet the eternal life which they obtain they look for from the mercy of God through Jesus Christ.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

19 Laying up for themselves a good foundation Besides, he adds an incitement drawn from the promise of a reward; that, by bestowing and communicating, they will procure for themselves a better treasure than they can have on earth. By the word foundation he means a firm and lasting duration; for the spiritual riches which we “lay up for ourselves” in heaven, are not exposed to the ravages of worms or thieves, (Matthew 6:20,) or fires, but continue always to be placed beyond all danger. On the contrary, nothing on earth is solidly founded; but everything may be said to be in a floating condition.

The inference drawn by Papists from this passage, that we therefore obtain eternal life by the merit of good works, is excessively frivolous. It is true that God accepts as given to himself everything that is bestowed on the poor. (Matthew 25:40.) But even the most perfect hardly perform the hundredth part of their duty; and therefore our liberality, does not deserve to be brought into account before God. So far are we from rendering full payment, that, if God should call us to a strict account, there is not one of us who would not be a bankrupt. But, after having reconciled us to himself by free grace, he accepts our services, such as they are, and bestows on them a reward which is not due. This recompense, therefore, does not depend on considerations of merit, but on God’s gracious acceptance, and is so far from being inconsistent with the righteousness of faith, that it may be viewed as an appendage to it.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(19) Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come.—This is a concise expression, which might have been more fully worded thus—Laying up in store for themselves a wealth of good works as a foundation, &c. (Comp. our Lord’s words in Luk_16:9, where the same truth is taught, and a similar promise made.)

Here a simple command, in complete accordance with the teaching: of Christ, is given, and a definite consequence is attached to the obeying the command. If the “rich”—the word “rich,” we must remember, is a broad term, and in St. Paul’s mind would comprehend many a one who would hesitate to apply the term in its strict sense to himself—if the “rich,” or the comparatively rich, are really generous and kind with their wealth—and of this God alone can be judge—then with these perishable, fleeting riches they are laying the foundation of an everlasting habitation on the other side the veil. Bengel quaintly expresses the truth, slightly changing the metaphor—“Mercator, naufragio salvus, thesauros domum præmissos invenit.”

That they may lay hold on eternal life.—The older authorities here, instead of “eternal,” read truly. The sentence will then read thus, that they may lay hold on that which is truly life—that is, may lay hold on that which in truth deserves the name “life,” because the fear of death will no longer cast its gloomy shadow over it. This “laying hold on eternal life” is the end the wise rich Christian proposes to himself, when he orders his earthly life and administers his earthly goods, and St. Paul has just showed Timothy how this “end” is to be reached by such a man.

Such plain statements in the Book of Life as the foregoing by no means weaken the divine truth so often repeated, that men are saved only by the blood of Christ, with which they must sprinkle their sin scarred souls. Poor men and rich men alike may try; they will find, with all their brave struggles, that of themselves they will never win salvation, they cannot redeem their souls.

But such plain statements as we have here, and in Luk_16:9, tell us, if we really are “of Christ’s,” sprinkled with His precious blood, then we must try with heart and soul, with hand and brain, to follow out such charges as we have just been discussing.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19. laying up in store] The compound verb, again peculiar, is another example of the law of later Greek explained 1Ti_6:8. Here we have the riches in the form of ‘good works’ laid away as a solid foundation in and from which the building rises. This ‘building up,’ if the full explanation of the verse given on 1Ti_3:13 be sound, is of the spiritual life both here and hereafter. The rich cannot ‘lay hold of’ any true higher life, if they neglect the plainest duty, lying first and lowest, of using their wealth for ‘God who provided all.’ So in 1Ti_4:8 the life is only to be grasped by spiritual ‘training.’

that they may lay hold] The same tense and voice as the ‘lay hold’ of 1Ti_6:12, and the interpretation is similar.

on eternal life] The ms. authority is strongly in favour of the adverb ‘really’ in place of ‘eternal,’ with the article; as R.V. the life which is life indeed; and nothing could be better than such a phrase to describe the ‘heavenly’ or ‘spiritual’ or ‘eternal’ life, in its two parts on this side and on that side the grave, as explained above on 1Ti_6:12 and 1Ti_4:8; ‘the life worth living.’

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19 Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

Ver. 19. Laying up in store] As wise merchants, happy usurers, parting with that which they cannot keep, that they may gain that which they cannot lose.

On eternal life] Or, as some copies have it, "Of life indeed," της οντως ζωης. Aeterna vita, vera vita. (Augustine.)

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Laying up in store for themselves ... - The meaning of this verse is, that they were to make such a use of their property that it would contribute to their eternal welfare. It might be the means of exalted happiness and honor in heaven, if they would so use it as not to interfere with religion in the soul, and so as to do the most good possible. See the sentiment in this verse explained at length in the notes on Luk 16:9.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Riches in themselves are but for the present, but there is a use may be made of them for the time to come, if we employ them for the better enabling us to do what God hath commanded us to do, Mat 6:20; Luk 12:33; those acts of obedience to the command of God for the use of our estates, though they can merit nothing, (for what proportion can there be between a few shillings and eternal life?) yet will be a good bottom for us to hope for the time to come.

That they may lay hold on eternal life; that God will give us an eternal happiness, not as a reward of debt, but of free grace.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

19. Laying up—Literally, treasuring. Making their perpetual deposits in the divine repository. And this will prove a good foundation, an eternal basis, for the time and world to come.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The life which is life indeed for eternal life, A.V and T.R. Laying up in store (ajpoqhsaurizontev); only here in the New Testament, but once in RAPC Wis 3:3, and occasionally in classical Greek. A good foundation (qemelion kalon). The idea of a foundation is always maintained in the use of qemeliov, whether it is used literally or figuratively. (Luk_11:48; Eph_2:20; Rev_21:14, etc.) There is, at first sight, a manifest confusion of metaphors in the phrase, "laying up in store a foundation." Bishop Ellicott, following Wiesinger, understands "a wealth of good works as a foundation." Alford sees no difficulty in considering the "foundation" us a treasure. Others have conjectured keimhlion, "a stored treasure," for qemelion. Others understand qemelion in the sense of qema, a deposit. Others take ajpoqhsaurizein in the sense of "acquiring," without reference to its etymology. But this is unlikely, the context being about the use of money, though in part favored by the use of qhsaurizein inntwv 2Pe_3:7. The reader must choose for himself either to adopt one of the above explanations, or to credit St. Paul with an unimportant confusion of metaphors. Anyhow, the doctrine is clear that wealth spent for God and his Church is repaid with interest, and becomes an abiding treasure. Life indeed (thv o zwhv); sontwv 1Ti_5:3, 1Ti_5:5, tarav hJ o chra, "widows indeed;" and (Joh_8:36) ontwv ejleuqeroi, "free indeed," in opposition to the freedom which the Jews claimed as the seed of Abraham.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Treasuring up for themselves a good foundation - Of an abundant reward, by the free mercy of God. That they may lay hold on eternal life - This cannot be done by alms-deeds; yet they "come up for a memorial before God," Acts x, 4. And the lack even of this may be the cause why God will withhold grace and salvation from us.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Ver. 19. The description is here wound up by a word which very strikingly exhibits the connection between such a course of action on earth and its issues in eternity: treasuring up (ἀποθησαυρίζοντες, off from what would otherwise be lost, and so up) for themselves a good foundation for the future, in order that they may lay hold of what is life indeed. (Such seems to be the correct reading, τῆς ὄντως ζωῆς, א, A, D, F, Ital., Vulg., Syr., Cop. versions, and most of the Fathers; while the received text, τῆς αἰωνίου ζωῆς, is the reading of only two uncials, K, L, with little collateral support. This is also the reading which might naturally suggest itself as an explanation.) Two important practical points are here forcibly presented. The first is, the doctrine of a future recompense, the proper employment of one’s means in charitable and pious uses, and consequently the doing of good deeds generally, being said to constitute a treasure for the world to come; a treasure which is not an uncertainty, like riches when contemplated by themselves and sought for their own sake, but a foundation (θεμέλιον), or well-grounded basis of hope, for the great future. The doctrine could scarcely be more unequivocally put, and is the more remarkable as coming from him who was emphatically the preacher of grace: he saw no incompatibility between a free salvation, the gift of sovereign grace to the sinful, and the placing of those who have become partakers of grace under the law of recompense. And in the teaching of our Lord Himself, the same two doctrines are equally marked characteristics (comp., for example, in Mat 5:3-10, the first four beatitudes with the second four; or the two parables, Luk 16:1-12, Mat 18:23-35). The link of connection between the two is, that the grace which brings salvation as a divine gift, becomes from its very nature to those who receive it their great talent, wherewith they must do service to God, and hereafter be dealt with according as they have themselves done. But is not such a prominent exhibition of the doctrine of reward at variance with the disinterested nature of true excellence? It might be so, if isolated from other parts of the Christian system, but not when taken in its proper connection. “For the truth is, that the Christian’s love of virtue does not arise from a previous desire of the reward; but his desire of the reward arises from a previous love of virtue. The first and immediate effect of his conversion is to inspire him with the genuine love of virtue and religion; and his desire of the reward is a secondary and subordinate effect, a consequence of the love of virtue previously formed in him. For of the nature of the reward it promises, what does the gospel discover to us more than this, that it shall be great and endless, and adapted to the intellectual endowments and moral qualities of the human soul in a state of high improvement? ‘It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.’” (Horsley’s 2d Sermon on Php 3:15.) This resemblance is even represented in Scripture as the most essential element both of the Christian state here and of the heavenly state hereafter; and therefore not the actions simply which appear in the life, but the motives also and principles from which those actions proceed, must go together in any just expectation that is formed of future recompense. Beneficent deeds and good deeds generally are valuable most of all on this account, that they are the indications and fruits of a regenerated nature; and such a nature, so proved and exercised, will at last “as by its own elasticity spring to heaven,” while that which is in an opposite condition shall not less certainly “descend by its own dead weight to kindred darkness” (A. Butler). (A well-known passage in Newman’s discourses puts the matter happily, as regards the present relation of goodness to the beneficial consequences that spring from it:—“All virtue and goodness tend to make men powerful in this world; but they who aim at the power have not the virtue. Again: Virtue is its own reward, and brings with it the truest and highest pleasures; but they who cultivate it for the pleasure-sake are selfish, not religious, and will never gain the pleasure, because they can never have the virtue.”) The other point here presented is the emphasis laid on life in the higher sense—life that really may be called such: rich Christians are exhorted to deal with their earthly means in the manner prescribed, in order that they may lay hold of this. Simply as rich men, they were in danger of suffering it to escape from them; certain to fail of it, if they set their hearts on worldly lucre, and the enjoyments to which it ministers. What is meant by such life? It is nothing else than that participation of a divine nature already referred to, which has its beginning here in all spiritual excellence and fruitful working, but will reach its consummation when that which is in part shall be done away, and the perfect shall have come. In this passage, it may be added, St. Paul approaches more nearly to St. John’s mode of representation concerning the Life (ζώη) than anywhere else—Life, without anything further; Life in the reality being viewed as the one and all of a blessed condition. To exhibit this life as having its fountainhead in the Father, and coming to men as His gift in Christ, is the common teaching of both, and indeed of all the New Testament writers; to St. John only it is peculiar to represent Him, through whom the gift comes, as the Life (Joh 1:4, Joh 11:25, Joh 14:6, etc.). “In the Father, things are shut up and hidden which manifest themselves in the Son; therefore all things which the Son has belong to the Father: but in the Son the properties of the Father are revealed to men, in order that His name may be celebrated with praise. Life thus lying concealed with the Father in the beginning was manifested to men in the Son; so that when the Father is manifested, the Son is to be seen” (Olshausen, Opuscula, p. 193). In regard to men, life in this higher sense is predicated only of such as have, through the action of the Holy Spirit on their souls, been brought to participate of that which is in Christ. The merely natural man (ψύχικος) is dead, even while as an inhabitant of the world he lives; “it is the Spirit that quickeneth.” And this quickening energy entering into the soul, and linking it through faith in’ Christ to the proper heritage of life, the body also, by reason of its connection with the soul, must share in the glorious possession; and when both soul and body reach thus their destined perfection, there shall be the full enjoyment of what is here called the life indeed—life in its completeness of purity and blessing.

Patrick Fairbairn — An Exposition of Ezekiel (1851), Jonah (1849), and The Pastoral Epistles (1874) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19. Laying up store. Treasure in heaven by giving for good purposes. See close of verse 18.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

19. ὄντως. So אAD2*E*GH; but rec. text has αἰωνίου with D2cKLP. See 1Ti 6:12.

19. ἀποθησαυρίζοντας ἑαυτοῖς θεμέλιον καλὸν εἰς τὸ μέλλον, laying up as treasure for themselves [that which shall prove] a good foundation against the time to come. The thought is quite easy to understand, though expressed with somewhat inexact brevity. The idea of ‘treasure in heaven’ had already been expounded by our Lord, e.g. Mat 6:20; Luk 18:22; and the Parable of the Unjust Steward, in particular, enforced the right use of money in view of heavenly rewards (Luk 16:9). Cp. Mat 25:34 ff.

ἀποθησαυρίζειν occurs again in the Greek Bible in Sir 3:4 only.

θεμέλιον καλόν stands in obvious contrast to the ἀδηλότης of riches spoken of in 1Ti 6:17.

ἵνα ἐπιλάβωνται τῆς ὄντως ζωῆς, that they may lay hold on the life which is life indeed. The charge to Timothy himself in 1Ti 6:12 was ἐπιλαβοῦ τῆς αἰωνίου ζωῆς: here, with a slight but significant change of expression (see crit. note), a like prospect is held out to those who use riches aright. A man’s life (ζωή) consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth (Luk 12:15), and the parable of the Rich Fool shews that the man ὁ θησαυρίζων αὐτῷ καὶ μὴ εἰς θεὸν πλουτῶν (Luk 12:21) shall miss here and hereafter τῆς ὄντως ζωῆς, the life indeed. This is the life ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ (2Ti 1:1).

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19. ἀποθησαυρ.] cf. Mar 10:21, Mat 6:20. The thoughts of the true treasure and the true foundation lie close together in the Sermon on the Mount; cf. Apost. K.O.. § 21, καὶ γὰρ ταῦτα πρῶτα Κυρίου (? leg. παρὰ τῷ κυρίῳ) θησαυρίσματά εἰσιν ἀγαθά. Tob 4:9 μὴ φοβοῦ ποιεῖν ἐλεημοσύνην· θέμα γὰρ ἀγαθὸν θησαυριζεις σεαυτῷ εἰς ἡμέραν ἀνάγκης, suggests the emendation θέμα λίαν (conj. Bos.) for θεμέλιον, or simply θέμα (Hitchcock, Expositor, Oct. 1919); cf. Ign. ad Pol. 2, τὸ θέμα ἀφθαρσία καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνιος.

ἵνα ἐπιλάβ.] cf.12. This true life would be laid hold of here and now, as they enter into the true life of love, cf. Joh 17:3. τῆς ὄντως ζωῆς, cf. 5:3; Clem. Alex. Quis Dives, 7, θεοῦ τοῦ ὄντως ὄντος. 8, τῷ ζησομένῳ τὴν ὄντως ζωήν: Philo, de Decal. 2, τὸν ὄντα ὄντως ἀλήθη θεόν.

An interesting Rabbinic illustration is found in Bab. Bath. 11a. It happened to Monobaz that he dispersed his wealth and the wealth of his fathers on alms in time of famine. His brethren gathered round him and said, “Thy fathers laid up treasure and added to their fathers’ store, and dost thou waste it all?” He answered, ‘My fathers laid up treasure below; I have laid it up above. … My fathers laid up treasure of Mammon; I have laid up treasure of souls. … My fathers laid up treasure for this world; I have laid up treasure for the world to come.”

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Laying up in store [αποθησαυριζοντας] . N. T. o Laying away [απο] . Eternal life [της οντως ζωης] . More correctly, the life which is life indeed, or that which is truly life. See on ch. 1ti 5:3.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.