But if we take the other meaning, then he is, in true Pauline
fashion, bringing in a vivid and picturesque metaphor to enforce his
thought, and is thinking of the teaching which the Roman Christians
had received as being a kind of mould into which they were thrown, a
pattern to which they were to be conformed. And that that is his
meaning seems to me to be made a little more probable by the fact
that the last words of my text would be more accurate if inverted,
and instead of reading, as the Authorised Version does, 'that form of
doctrine which was delivered you,' we were to read, as the Revised
Version does, 'that form whereunto ye were delivered.'

If this be the general meaning of the words before us, there are
three thoughts arising from them to which I turn briefly. First,
Paul's Gospel was a definite body of teaching; secondly, that
teaching is a mould for conduct and character; lastly, that teaching
therefore demands obedience. Take, then, these three thoughts.

I. First, Paul's Gospel was a definite body of teaching.

Now the word 'doctrine,' which is employed in my text, has, in the
lapse of years since the Authorised Version was made, narrowed its
significance. At the date of our Authorised translation 'doctrine'
was probably equivalent to 'teaching,' of whatever sort it might be.
Since then it has become equivalent to a statement of abstract
principles, and that is not at all what Paul means. He does not mean
to say that his gospel was a form of doctrine in the sense of being a
theological system, but he means to say that it was a body of
teaching, the nature of the teaching not being defined at all by the
word. Therefore we have to notice that the great, blessed peculiarity
of the Gospel is that it is a teaching, not of abstract dry