can do no good by standing aloof on a height and flinging down the
Gospel to the people below. They must feel that we enter into their
circumstances, prejudices, ways of thinking, and the like, if our
words are to have power. That is true about all Christian teachers,
whether of old or young. You must be a boy among boys, and try to
show that you enter into the boy's nature, or you may lecture till
doomsday and do no good.

Paul instances three cases in which he had acted, and still continued
to do so, on this principle. He was a Jew, but after his conversion
he had to 'become a Jew' by a distinct act; that is, he had receded
so far from his old self, that he, if he had had only himself to
think of, would have given up all Jewish observances. But he felt it
his duty to conciliate prejudice as far as he could, and so, though
he would have fought to the death rather than given countenance to
the belief that circumcision was necessary, he had no scruple about
circumcising Timothy; and, though he believed that for Christians the
whole ancient ritual was abolished, he was quite willing, if it would
smooth away the prejudices of the 'many thousands of Jews who
believed,' to show, by his participation in the temple worship, that
he 'walked orderly, keeping the law.' If he was told 'You must,' his
answer could only be 'I will not'; but if it was a question of
conciliating, he was ready to go all lengths for that.

The category which he names next is not composed of different persons
from the first, but of the same persons regarded from a somewhat
different point of view. 'Them that are under the law' describes
Jews, not by their race, but by their religion; and Paul was willing
to take his place among them, as we have just observed. But he will
not do that so as to be misunderstood, wherefore he protests that in
doing so he is voluntarily abridging his freedom for a specific
purpose. He is not 'under the law'; for the very pith of his view of
the Christian's position is that he has nothing to do with that
Mosaic law in any of its parts, because Christ has made him free.

The second class to whom in his wide sympathies he is able to
assimilate himself, is the opposite of the former--the Gentiles who
are 'without law.' He did not preach on Mars' Hill as he did in the
synagogues. The many-sided Gospel had aspects fitted for the Gentiles
who had never heard of Moses, and the many-sided Apostle had links of
likeness to the Greek