Romans 12:11

In business. — Rather, in zeal; the reference is to the spiritual and not to the practical life, as the English reader might suppose.

Fervent. — In the literal and etymological sense boiling or seething. The temperament of the Christian is compared to water bubbling and boiling over the flame.

In spirit — i.e., not “in the Holy Spirit,” but “in that part of you which is spirit.”

Serving the Lord. — Some of the extant Græco-Latin codices, and others known to Origen and Jerome, read here by a slight change of vowels “serving the time”; no doubt wrongly, though the expression might be compared with 1 Corinthians 7:29; Ephesians 5:16, et al.