WORD STUDY

This is an example of a "participial clause," of which there are several in this section of Romans. The Greek word apostugeo appears only here in the entire New Testament writings. It never appears in either the OT or the Apocrypha. It means "to shrink away from with abhorrence; to have a horror of; to shudder at; dislike, abhor." The phrase "the evil" is often contrasted in Scripture with the phrase "the good" --- as in Luke 6:45.

SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

I Thess. 5:22 Psalm 97:10; 119:104

COMMENTARY

"Unless we shudderingly recoil from contact with the bad in our own lives, and refuse to christen it with deceptive euphemisms when we meet it in social and civil life, we shall but feebly grasp, and slackly hold, that which is good" (Maclaren, p. 264).

"It has been said that our one security against sin lies in our being shocked by it" (Barclay, p. 177).

"View with horror and dread and shrink from every evil deed as from a deadly poison. Wrongdoing is the poison of the soul. It unfits for heaven and educates for eternal ruin" (Lipscomb, p. 225).

"The ethical recoil from moral evil; .... Indifference toward sin, and especially an indulgent temper toward it, proves that there is no real love of holiness. The true measurement of a man's love of God, is the intensity with which he hates evil" (Shedd, p. 366-67).

"There are many Christians, and among them many preachers, who oppose evil, it is true, but they do it so faintly as virtually to countenance it. They will not publicly endorse evil; but they will either go quietly home, or get out of its way, and leave it to riot unrebuked. They do not abhor it. Not that they sanction it; for they do not; they merely do not stand in its way" (Lard, p. 389).

"Total commitment leaves neither time nor inclination to court evil" (Expos. Comm., p. 132).

"The Christian is to express his hatred of evil by a withdrawal from it and a loathing of it" (Wuest, p. 213).

"....shrinks, as with a physical horror, from that which is evil (even in those whom one loves) .... apo intensifies the idea of aversion or repulsion" (Expos. Greek, p. 691).

"Hate sin as you would hate that hell to which it leads" (Clarke, p. 139).

Home Page Romans 12:9-21 Files