Ecclesiastes 10:1
Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): A great many flies may fall into a tarbox, and no hurt done. A small spot is soon seen in a swan, but not so in a swine.
J. R. MILLER (1840-1912): It is sad to see how some strong and noble characters are marred by little, yet grievous faults and blemishes. One man is generous, but he desires always to have his charity praised. Another is disposed to be kind and helpful, but by his manner hurts or humiliates the one he befriends. Another is unselfish and devout, but is careless of promises and engagements; he makes appointments and never thinks of them again; he borrows money, and does not repay it.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): A Christian’s character is spoilt by the omission of any one virtue―that “but” spoils it all―it is the dead fly which has got into a very good pot of ointment and made the whole of it stink.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Any putrefaction spoils perfume; and so a foolish act ruins the character of him who has the reputation of being wise and good.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): A good name is like precious ointment, valuable and fragrant.
C. H. SPURGEON: You may be in the Church and yet you may not have a good name as a member of it. I mean as to your own personal character as a Christian, for some professors are in the pot of ointment, but I wish we could pick them out, for they are flies and they spoil everything! There are such in this Church—oh that they had gone elsewhere! If only they would have flown into a pot of the world’s honey, or something of that kind! For them to get into the Church’s ointment is a great pity.
J. R. MILLER: One writes, “Our greatest failures often happen in the little things of life.”
C. H. SPURGEON: Some get a name in the Church for quarrelling and fault-finding. “Oh,” people say, “if anybody can pick a hole in the sermon, I know who it is.” You need only have half-a-dozen words with this crab apple critic and you surely and speedily lose what enjoyment you have had during the service. Alas, that many Christian women have not a good name, for they are addicted to gossiping.
J. R. MILLER: Carelessness and thoughtlessness are themselves such serious moral blemishes that they make impossible any excuse for delinquencies resulting from them. We need to look to the infinitesimals that make perfection or mar it. No fault is too small to be worth curing, and no fragment of beauty is too small to be worth setting the mosaic of character.
MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): Every one ought so to live that nothing evil can be said of him, and that he give offence to no one.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): There is a sanctity about the Christian character which should be kept inviolate. If you are sons of God, you should be “blameless and harmless in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, shining among them as lights in the world,” Philippians 2:15. I pray you, then, walk circumspectly, and in a way “worthy of your high calling,” yea, “worthy also of Him who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.”
ADAM CLARKE: Alas! alas! in an unguarded moment how many have tarnished the reputation which they were many years in acquiring!
JOHN TRAPP: Fine linen is sooner and deeper stained than coarse canvas.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): You can ruin your reputation. After building up with great care your good name, for some years, and acquiring respect and esteem from those who knew you, in one single hour, by yielding to some powerful temptation, you may permanently fix a dark stain upon your character, which no tears can ever wash away, or repentance remove—but which will cause you to be read and known of all men, until the grave receives you out of their sight. You may render yourself an object of the universal disgust and abhorrence of the pious—and be the taunt and scorn of the wicked.
JOHN GILL: Sin, which is folly, is like a dead fly; not only light and mean, and base and worthless, but hurtful and pernicious, deadly, and the cause of death; and what may seem little, a peccadillo, or, however, one single act of sin may injure the character of a wise and honourable man, and greatly expose him to shame and contempt, and cause him to stink in the nostrils of men; and to be reproached by men, and religion and government to be reproached for his sake. Thus the affair of Bathsheba and Uriah, what a slur did it bring on the character of David, so famous for wisdom and honour, and for religion and piety?―and the idolatry of Solomon, the wisest of men; Jehoshaphat, that good king, entering into affinity with Ahab; and pious Josiah going to war with the king of Egypt, contrary to the word of the Lord; with many other instances.
JOHN TRAPP: If Jacob deals deceitfully, the banks of blasphemy will be broken down in a profane Esau thereby. If his unruly sons falsify with the Shechemites, he shall have cause to complain, “Ye have made me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, ” Genesis 34:30…If Samson go down to Timnah, the Philistines will soon have it, “told” it will be “in Gath, published in the streets of Askelon,” 2 Samuel 12:14—the enemies of God will soon compose comedies out of the Church’s tragedies, and make themselves merry in her misery.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): The world will make no allowances for human infirmity, or the force of temptation; but, looking with envy on superior excellence, are happy to seize every shadow of abuse to degrade to their own level those who excel them, and to triumph that they are no better than themselves.
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): People on the outside say, “What! Is that one of your Christians? Does he belong to Christ and yet do thus and so?”
JOHN GILL: How careful men eminent for gifts and grace should be of their words and actions; since the least thing amiss in them is easily discerned, and soon taken notice of, as the least speck in a diamond, or spot in fine linen, clean and white. And there are wicked and envious persons enough watching for their halting, glad to have an occasion against them, and improve everything to the uttermost.
CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Indeed in a path, where every step is strewed with snares, and beset with enemies, great need have we of the caution, “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,” Ephesians 5:15.
MATTHEW WILKS (1746-1829): Did you ever see a tom cat walking on the top of a high wall that was covered with bits of broken glass bottles? If so, you had just then an accurate illustration of what is meant by the injunction, “See that you walk circumspectly.”
