Paul’s epistles refer often to the Christian’s private life in the home. He tells husbands to love their wives and wives to be submissive to their husbands; children to obey their parents and parents to discipline their children; slaves to serve their masters and masters to be fair to their slaves. He tells citizens to respect authority and to pay their taxes. He has some very practical and outspoken words to say about telling lies, losing one’s temper, stealing, using bad language and being cantankerous; about impurity of deed and word; about wasting time and getting drunk; about being cheerful, appreciative and humble. He urges on his Philippian friends the Christian virtues of humility and unselfishness; of joy, prayer, peace and contentment. It is a Christian duty, he tells the Thessalonians, to work for your living and not to be idle. He is quite clear that the Christian life is a life of moral purity. Above all, Christians are not to seek revenge, but to love each other, and all men, for love is the fulfilling of the law.

–From “Men with a Message” (London: Longmans, 1954), p. 66.

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