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Observe here, 1. A most important and necessary duty exhorted to; namely, to redeem the time. This cannot be done in a natural sense: time, once past, is irrecoverably lost, we can no more recall it; but in a moral sense, time may be said to be redeemed, when our diligence to improve it is redoubled, when we do much work in a little time.
To redeem time, supposes and implies a right knowledge of the use and end of time, and high valuation of the worth and excellency of time, and resolution to rescue it out of the hands of those that would devour it: idleness, excess of sleep, inordinate adorning of the body, immoderate recreations, vain company, an excess of worldly business, all these are robbers of our time, and time must be rescued out of their hands.
Quest. Who are the persons more especially concerned to redeem time?
Ans. All those that are young: such as have idly wasted a great part of their time;
all that are ignorant and graceless; all that are weak and aged, and have but a few sands in their glass; all those that are recovered from sickness; and all such as, through poverty, restraint or service, are scanted of their time,
should wisely redeem it, and industriously improve it, for God and their souls: because upon this moment depends eternity, and according to our present choice will be our eternal lot.
Observe, 2. The apostle's argument here, to excite all persons wisely to redeem their time; namely, because the days are evil; that is, full of sin, by the scandalous lives of professors; full of error, by the subtility of heretical seducers; full of affliction and misery, by reason of sharp and hot persecutions. When days are most evil, most sinful and calamitous, then it is a Christian's duty to improve his time well and wisely, for God and his soul! Redeem the time, because the days are evil.