Christian Sobriety, or Seriousness
A. Jessop, D. D. 1 Thessalonians 5:8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. The two great elements indispensable for the existence of a really grand character are elasticity and steadfastness — elasticity, without which a man gets crushed by every slight failure; and steadfastness, without which he will be turned aside from his purposes by unworthy motives, and be tempted to forget the end of his efforts in the contemplation of the means whereby they are to be attained. For keeping alive this elasticity, a man must know how to be wisely gay; for keeping up this steadfastness, he must know how to be sober. And so Christian sobriety must be based upon a reasonable estimate of the importance of life and the seriousness of all things here below. The trifler who has no higher ambition than to amuse himself, mistakes the meaning of all things on earth. He sees no further than the outside of things, and treats them as a savage does a toy, which, when it does not frighten him, affords him endless mirth. The man or the boy who has got to feel that God's eye is on him morning, noon, and night, and who is learning to realize that the smallest incident of every hour has and must have an influence upon all his future prospects for good or evil — the man or the boy who is impressed with the momentous truth that every day as it passes carries with it an imperishable record of his deeds and words and thoughts, and that the time must come when he will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account of the deeds done in the body — he cannot fail to be serious, and will become more and more so in proportion as he realizes these things, and in proportion as he lives in remembrance of them every hour. But as he lays hold of the fact that God loves him and all men, and that, with all his weakness and inconstancy, he is yet not left unsupported by the Spirit's grace — though he may be serious, he will not be sad. (A. Jessop, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. WEB: But let us, since we belong to the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and, for a helmet, the hope of salvation.