Romans 12:11

“ As to zeal, being not indolent; fervent in spirit; taking advantage of opportunity. ”

With respectful consideration, Romans 12:10, there is easily connected the disposition to render service, which is here denoted by the word: not indolent.

This in its turn, in order to overcome the resistance of selfishness, in cases where to oblige requires self-sacrifice, and must be, not a natural disposition only, but a powerful movement, due to the impulse of the Divine Spirit, and like an inner fire kept up unceasingly by action from above: fervent in spirit. The word spirit undoubtedly refers here to the spiritual element in man himself, but that as penetrated and quickened by the Divine Spirit. In reading these words, we see the believer hastening, with his heart on fire, wherever there is any good to be done.

The third proposition presents an important variant. The Alex. and Byz. documents read τῷ Κυρίῳ (serving) the Lord. The Greco-Lat. text reads τῷ καιρῷ (serving) the time, the season, the occasion; adapting yourselves to the opportunity. This expression is somewhat strange, but it is common enough in profane Greek; comp. the καιρῷ λατρεύειν (see Meyer), and in Latin the tempori servire (Cicero). The very fact that this phrase is without example in the N. T. may speak in favor of its authenticity. For it is far from probable that any one would have replaced so common an expression as that of serving the Lord by that of serving the time, while the opposite might easily happen, especially if abbreviations were used in writing. The context must therefore decide, and it seems to me that it decides in favor of the Greco-Latin reading. The precept: serve the Lord, is too general to find a place in a series of recommendations so particular. The only means of finding a certain suitableness for it would be to understand it thus: “While employing yourselves for men, do it always with a view to the Lord and His cause.” But it would be necessary to supply precisely the essential idea. On the contrary, the meaning: “serving the opportunity,” or “adapting yourselves to the need of the time,” admirably completes the two preceding precepts. Zeal, according to God, confines itself to espying providential occasion, and suiting our activity to them; it does not impose itself either on men or things.

There follows a third group, the three elements of which form a small well-connected whole.