I will read them as they appear in the Old Version:
"See, then, that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
redeeming the time."
The idea of the writer is that, as we pass through the world, we should
do it with our eyes kept intelligently open, looking about us on every
hand, trying to comprehend the situation, to see what things are, and
what we ought to do to play our part in the midst of them. Not
heedlessly, not unwisely, he says, perhaps hardly the harsh word
"fools," but as wise, as persons intelligently ready to take advantage
of the situation and make the most of the condition in which one finds
himself; redeeming the time, or, as the Revised Version has it, "buying
up the opportunity "; being ready, that is, to pay whatever price is
necessary in order to make the most of the situation.
This, then, is the spirit according to our text in which we should look
over the problem of life; and this is the method by which we should
attempt to guide its practical affairs.
That which people regard as the matter of most importance, any
particular theory or plan of life which they may hold to be for them
the most desirable, this, of course, is that to which they will direct
their chief attention, on which they will lavish their thought, on
which they will pour out their care, to which they will consecrate
their energies. If now the theory or plan of life be false, if it be
inadequate, if one is looking in the wrong direction for the success
that he desires, or if he expects to achieve the great end and object
of living by means which are not real, which do not match the actual
facts of the world and of human life, then of course his effort is so
far thrown away.
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