In What a Variety of Ways We May Serve and Benefit Others
1 Peter 4:7-11
But the end of all things is at hand: be you therefore sober, and watch to prayer.…


Doing good to others rejoices every human heart that is not totally callous and corrupt. Doing good to others engages the approbation of every man.

I. HOW GREAT IS, FIRST, THE DIVERSITY OF SITUATIONS AMONG MANKIND, AND HOW VARIOUS THEREFORE THE OPPORTUNITY AND THE INDUCEMENT TO BE USEFUL TO ONE ANOTHER IN DIFFERENT WAYS! How many classes and descriptions of persons fill up the interval between the monarch or the prince and the meanest of his subjects! And how various their destination; how various the sphere of action assigned them; how manifold the good and useful that each may contrive, adopt, and do therein! If the government is watchful over the public tranquillity and safety; if the magistrate maintains the laws in their due respect, and protects the individual in his property; if one preceptor teaches the child the elements of human knowledge, another instructs the youth in the higher branches of science; if the statesman is attentive to the several exigencies of the country and provides for its great concerns; the countryman produces a plentiful supply of food from the furrows of his plough and the fields he industriously cultivates; the manufacturer and the mechanic work up and improve the products of the country; the tradesman brings them into circulation, and the merchant barters the surplus against those of other nations; thus thousands of hands are set in motion which none of those could perform without neglecting their own, and which are equally indispensable with theirs. And how much good now may every one do, if he does what belongs to him with willingness, with fidelity, with a heart benevolently affected towards his brethren, participating in their happiness and cheerfully concurring to promote it!

II. CONSIDER AGAIN HOW DIFFERENT THE WANTS OF MANKIND AND HOW VARIOUS THEIR SUFFERINGS, AND THENCE JUDGE IN WHAT A VARIETY OF WAYS ONE MAY SERVE AND BE USEFUL TO ANOTHER. Here are wants of the body — food, raiment, lodging, health, strength; there wants of the mind — information, knowledge, wisdom, virtue, inward peace, pleasure, hope, content. Here is the want of necessaries; there the want of the commodious, the elegant, the agreeable. Here are corporeal sufferings — weakness, debility, mutilation, decrepitude, pain, sickness, lingering death; there are sufferings of the soul — vexation, trouble, anxiety, grief, dejection, doubt, remorse, pangs of conscience, melancholy, despondency, peril of despair. Here is the want of advice, there of support; here of courage, there of prudence; here of means and implements of trade, there of abilities for it; here of understanding, there of alacrity and application; here of moderation, there of patience; here of modesty and diffidence, there of self-importance and confidence. And thus the matter stands in numberless other cases. The necessities of the one are not the necessities of the other; the sufferings of the one are not the sufferings of the other. What is wanting to the former is possessed by the latter. Every one may therefore in various methods give "rod receive, administer relief and accept relief, comfort and be comforted, serve and submit to be served, communicate benefit and satisfaction and enjoy benefit and satisfaction,

III. CONSIDER THIRDLY, HOW NUMEROUS AND VARIOUS THE CAPACITIES AND POWERS, THE GIFTS AND ACQUIREMENTS OF MANKIND ARE, AND THENCE JUDGE HOW GREAT THE VARIETY OF WAYS IN WHICH THEY MAY SERVE AND ASSIST AND BENEFIT EACH OTHER. No one is exactly that which another is; no one has precisely that which another has; no one knows all that another knows; no one can and may do whatever another can and may. One has understanding; and how various the species of it are! Here is a profound, collected, there a comprehensive and excursive; here a quick but volatile, there a slow but solid understanding. Another has authority and strength, and how various are these in their kinds! Here is strength of mind, there strength of body; here the power of beauty, there the power of eloquence; here the command of oneself and the passions, there the authority of the ruler and the commander over his subjects; here impetuous, overwhelming, there mild, insinuating, yet more irresistible force. And who is able to recount the infinite variations of human capacities and powers and endowments and their analogies to each other? One has ingenuity, an extensive, strong turn for invention; the other has judgment and dexterity in execution. One quickness and pliancy to the business of the present moment; the other persevering, indefatigable patience for intricate and tiresome undertakings. One an ardency to animate all around it; the other cool consideration and resolution to put a stop to this devouring flame. And now let each exchange his capacities and endowments and possessions against those of the other; now let every one apply the particular talent entrusted to him, as often as he has the proper motive and opportunity for it; what a blessing would the prodigiously various commutation of kind offices, of assistance and support, of benevolence and beneficence, be to all in general and to each in particular!

IV. CONSIDER LASTLY, HOW MANIFOLD AND DIFFERENT THE METHODS IN WHICH YE MAY SERVE YOUR BRETHREN, IN WHICH YE MAY DO THEM ALL THE GOOD THAT YE ARE ABLE. Thinking and speaking, keeping silence and hearing, giving and lending, partaking and borrowing, bearing and suffering and relieving, doing and not doing, are so many different methods of serving and being useful to others, and each the best in its proper season, the most productive of beneficial consequences.

(G. J. Zollikofer.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.

WEB: But the end of all things is near. Therefore be of sound mind, self-controlled, and sober in prayer.




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