Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

Him.” So he spent the night preaching to him, and the idolater, who in the beginning had refused to
worship his God, was happily converted before day.
14. “Bless them that persecute you, bless and scold not.” You must remember that this chapter
is all addressed not simply to Christians, but to the sanctified, beautifully setting forth their attitude
and deportment before the world. The word here does not mean to indulge in profanity, but to scold,
which is utterly incompatible with the gospel standard of Christian living.
15. “Rejoice with them that rejoice, weep with them that weep.” Thus you see that we are to be
sympathetic with our environments, ready in a moment to run to an altar and lead the way with the
weeping penitent, showing him how to get down to the bottom of humiliation and contrition; then
to raise the uproarious shout with the new-born soul, thus giving impetus to the rising tide of
spiritual life now beginning to flow into his heart. We should seek the house of mourning, and
condole their griefs by weeping with them.
16. “Thinking the same thing toward one another,” which only obtains when we all alike have
the mind of Christ, carnality having been exterminated by the cleansing blood and the refining fire.”
Thinking not high things, but condescending to the humble.” The safe place is down on the bottom,
from which there is no falling. Lord, save us from the inflations of pride, vanity and egotism. “Be
not wise along with yourselves,” i.e., do not be puffed up and exalted in your own estimation.
17. “Recompensing to no one evil for evil,” as a retaliatory spirit is peculiar only to the devil’s
people and utterly out of harmony with the meek and lowly Nazarene. “Providing things honest in
the sight of all men.” Without solid and radical honesty, competent to bear the white light of the
judgment throne, all Christian character and heavenly hope collapse into defeat and despair.
18. “If possible, as to that which is from you, living in peace with all men.” You can be in perfect
peace with every human being on the globe, even while they are thirsting for your blood and
hounding you to the martyr’s fate, as you are not responsible for them, but only for your own soul.
19. “Avenging not yourselves, beloved, but give place to wrath,” i.e., to the wrath of another, just
as you would get out of the way of a filthy sewer and let it discharge its contents into the sea, or as
you would go round a putrefying carcass lying in the road, rather than gather it upon your arms and
carry it away. “For it has been written: Vengeance belongeth unto me; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
We are so fortunate in the fact that we are not our own avengers, as this would bring us into a
thousand troubles and very likely cost us life, physical and spiritual. We should leap for joy at the
very thought that God, who never forgets anything and never fails to do right relieves us of the
arduous task and the responsible undertaking of self-vindication. Hence, all retaliation is not only
wicked and perilous, but usurpatory of the divine administration and prerogative.
20. “But if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink, for in doing this you will
heap coals of fire on his head,” i.e., you can literally burn him out and conquer him by kindness till
he will almost die of shame, feeling mean as a sheep-killing dog; he will gladly seek to do you every
possible favor.