responsibility: first to the Lord, and secondly to his brother.  It is all

too easy to say: 'It is corban', to shirk our responsibility to our brethren

under the plea that all is 'unto the Lord'.  It is also easy to put the

service of our fellows on a plane higher than service to the Lord.  We need

the well -balanced presentation of the Word that links together holiness and

natural affection (2 Tim. 3:2,3) as parts of one whole.  The sad story of

Cain is a record of double failure.  We immediately call to mind his reply,

'Am I my brother's keeper?'  And we must also remember that he had already

grievously failed in rendering to the Lord His due.  An important symbol of

service is that of the 'keeper', or 'watchman' as the word is also

translated.  Adam is described as a 'keeper' (Gen. 2:15): 'And the Lord God

took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep

it'.  We must avoid confusing the two words here.  'To dress it' refers to

the ordinary work of the garden; the same Hebrew word occurs in Genesis 2:5:

'There was not a man to till the ground'.  'To keep it', on the other hand,

refers to the need for watchfulness as though the attack of an enemy were

a possibility.  How Adam failed to 'keep' the charge entrusted to him, we all

know to our grief.  That the 'keeping' had a direct connection with the tree

of knowledge and the tree of life, Genesis 2:16,17 and 3:24 bear witness:

'So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of

Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the

way of the tree of life' (Gen. 3:24).

At the end of the Old Testament in the Book of Malachi we find the

'The priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law

at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts' (Mal. 2:7).

The Levitical priesthood, while primarily a sacrificing priesthood, was

also the 'keeper' of the law, the 'keeper', not only in the sense of one who

obeys and observes its precepts, but of one who watches over, guards and

preserves inviolate the trust committed.  This is a phase of ministry that is

solemnly referred to by the apostle Paul in his last epistles:

'That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost

which dwelleth in us' (2 Tim. 1:14).

'O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane

and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called' (1

Tim. 6:20).

It is good to know that He Who looks to us to keep the trust committed

to us, will Himself be our constant support.  It was this that was Paul's own

stay, for he says in the context of the passage above:

'I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep

that which has been entrusted against that day' (2 Tim. 1:12).

There are suggestions in these passages as to the evils against which

the 'keeper' should be on his guard, evils that spring from the same source

as that which ruined Adam in the beginning.  In referring to 'profane and

vain babblings and the antitheses of knowledge falsely so called', the

apostle alludes to that specious system later known as Gnosticism which,

under different forms and names, still survives today.