2. Exhortation—a term bearing relation to Christian dangers, failings, and temptations. Warnings, revelations of the evils of sin, searching pictures of the common experience of frail men, calls to neglected duties—these are "exhortations," and a faithful ministry must deal largely with them. It must reach the worldly minded, the almost drunken, the man whose hands are stained with dishonest or ungenerous deeds, the injurer of the widow and the fatherless, the selfish, the proud, the unforgiving. He must "warn all the wicked from the error of their way."
3. Comfort—a term bearing relation to Christian sorrows. The pastor's words are to be holy words of quiet, tender memories of past goodnesses, gentle whispers of the stability of the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, which may lift suffering souls up to their rest in the bosom of the heavenly Father, and lull the tired heart into a sweet sleep upon the "everlasting arms." What would Christian life be without its comfortings? It is no little thing that our pastors can bring balm for wounded hearts; leaves for the healing of bruised hearts; whispers of the eternal love for doubting hearts; and upliftings for downcast, tear-filled eyes, so that they may see the great High Priest "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," and "tempted even as we are."—R.T.
1 Corinthians 14:5
The Church's edification the object sought in the trust of Christian gifts.
"That the Church may receive edifying." In classifying the Christian gifts, talents, and endowments, the first broad distinction to be made is between such as direct attention to the possessor, and such as give the possessor a gracious power of influence on others. Gifts which glorify the man who has them are not to be despised; but the apostle conceived that gifts which take men out of themselves, and only find their exercise in the help and blessing of others, are rather to be sought. The man who can speak in ecstatic language or in an unknown tongue, may seem to be supremely endowed, and men may be disposed to envy his gift; but it only draws attention to him; it only excites feeling; it bears no relation either to intellectual or moral culture. It serves its ends, and possibly these are simply to call attention to Christian preaching, and bring men into relation with the Christian teachers. The question which decides our estimate of the value of the different gifts is this—How does each bear upon spiritual profit; upon the edifying of the Church? "The teacher of religious truth to others, who thereby builds up the whole edifice of the body of Christ, is a greater one than he who is himself benefited by being possessed of profound but uncommunicable emotion." Opening this point, we notice—
I. THE INTEREST OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE CHURCH. The Church is a body made up of units; but it is not a mere aggregation of units; every unit is related vitally with every other unit, and in mutual helpfulness a common life is maintained. Schism comes when the interest of the individual is centred in self. The useless members of a Church are those who are satisfied to get, not to give. Each member ought even to nourish his own personal piety with a view to aid the healthiness and vigour of the whole body. Illustrate by the modern discovery of the formation of living beings from germ cells. These do not lie side by side; they divide and form new cells, so that every single cell may be said to be in the whole creature, interested in the vitality of the whole.
II. THE PROOF OF THAT INTEREST IN THE DEVOTION AND USE OF INDIVIDUAL GIFTS. Gifts are not personal privileges, signs of special favour to individuals; they are always trusts committed to individual members of the Church for the use and benefit of the whole. A man only looks at his gift aright when, in the presence of the Church, he says, "This gift is for you; I hold it for your use. Find me the sphere in which I may serve you best in the use of the gift." How sublime the riches and strength of Christ's Church would be if each endowed man and woman would lay his gifts on the altar of the Church's service!
III. THE CULTURE AND PROGRESS OF THE CHURCH ARE ONLY SECURED BY SUCH DEVOTION AND USE OF GIFTS. Illustrate by taking the separate endowments and fitting them to their parts of the Church's edifying. Take:
1. The aesthetic or artistic gift; show how it bears upon the culture of the Church's sense of the beautiful, helping thus to worthy conceptions of one side of the Divine nature.
2. The musical gift; showing how it bears upon edifying by the relief of overcharged feeling, and aids in knitting the Church together by the common expression of common emotions.
3. The preaching and teaching gift; which stands related to mental culture, intellectual edification.
4. The literary gift; which in these days becomes the great defensive agency, by which the evils of the Church are kept off from her, so that she may duly thrive and grow. Others may be mentioned, or subdivisions of these may be taken. Press the importance of encouraging in each member full loyalty to the Church; and show that this becomes a valuable agency in spiritual edification, because it ensures the full and self denying devotement of all the members' powers to the Church's well being. The true and full upbuilding of a Church includes many things, great and small, and so there is need for the use of what we estimate as lesser and greater gifts.—R.T.
1 Corinthians 14:7-11
Christian intelligence the medium of Christian growth.
The point presented in these verses appears to be that the Church is not really edified, save as the teachings presented to it appeal to the understanding. "Everything for use, and everything in its place, is a rule, the apostle is saying, that holds in spiritual gifts and exercises, as in everything else. If you speak with tongues, let it not be as only making strange noises, but let some one interpret, that the tongues may edify, and not be sounds without a meaning. It will not do for Christians to be more unmeaning and idle in spiritual gifts than even things without life themselves, the pipes, and harps, and trumpets, and drums of music; for these, when they give a sound, give it with distinctions that have a meaning and a power, else they are nought to us. Are voices and tongues to be less intelligent and significant than tubes of unconscious horn or metal?" (H. Bushnell, D.D.). Inquire:
1. How far it is true that all influences bearing upon the edification of the Church must appeal to the understanding. So far as edification includes right views of truth and right feelings about truth, the fitting acceptance of a Divine revelation, and the worthy expression of the principles declared in that revelation, the appeal must be to the mind.
2. Under what limitations must this statement be set. John Howe says, "Nor do I believe it can ever be proved that God never doth immediately testify his own special love to holy souls, without the intervention of some part of his eternal Word, made use of as a present instrument to that purpose, or that he always doth it in a way of methodical reasoning therefrom." God usually works through the understanding, but he may use influences which bear at once upon heart and emotion. It must be observed, however, that such influences are but of temporary benefit, if they are not duly supported by intellectual considerations and mentally established principles.
3. Argue from these points the value and importance of an adequately educated and fully cultured ministry; showing, and efficiently illustrating, the relations of such an instructive ministry to
1 Corinthians 14:20
The Christian both a child and a man.
The apostolic counsel here given bears immediate relation to the exaggerated estimate of the value of the "gift of tongues" which prevailed in the Church at Corinth. "Their conduct in exalting these 'tongues,' against which he has been warning them, is a proof that they are yet children in knowledge. They ought to be full grown; the only thing in which they ought to be children is evil, and in that they cannot be too young, too inexperienced; they should be merely 'infants.'" There is a sense in which all Christians must be children. There is a sense in which all Christians must be "men," "perfect," "full grown." To express the thought of the apostle in a sharply defined sentence—"Be childlike, but not childish." Refer to Bible sentiments about children. It seems always impressed with the little idea of evil which young children have. Take a thousandfold forms of human sin and transgression, and you will find that the little child can form no conception of the meanings of the terms in which you express them. The young child is the type of simplicity and innocence. But, in this passage, the apostle is rather thinking of the friendliness of children, of their readiness to forgive; they seldom or ever are found "bearing malice." Illustrating the point that the Christian should be both a child and a man, we notice—
I. WHAT CHILD CHARACTERISTICS SHOULD WE FIND IN A CHRISTIAN? George Macdonald, in a Christmas sermon, given in 'Adela Cathcart,' very suggestively says, "It is as if God spoke to each of us according to our need: My son, my daughter, you are growing old and cunning; you must grow a child again, with my Son, this blessed birth time. You are growing old and selfish; you must become a child. You are growing old and careful; you must become a child. You are growing old and distrustful; you must become a child. You are growing old, and petty, and weak, and foolish; you must become a child—my child; like the baby there, that strong sunrise of faith and hope and love, lying in his mother's arms in the stable." The characteristics of child nature which ought to be found, nourished into the fulness of beauty, in Christian hearts and lives are such as these—each will prove suggestive of illustration
"If these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:8).
II. WHAT MANLY CHARACTERISTICS SHOULD WE FIND IN A CHRISTIAN? A man differs from a child in this, that what he is he is by force of will, and not as a mere accident of his being. What in a child we properly call innocence, in a man we call virtue. The proper manly characteristics are such as
It is true that the Christian estimate of the manly is not precisely that which the world favours. The world has ever chiefly extolled the active virtues, and associated the passive virtues almost exclusively with womanhood. But in the Lord Jesus Christ has been presented to us the perfect type of manhood: we can concieve or wish nothing higher or more sublime; and we find the passive and active virtues fully represented and harmoniously blended in him. The world's best thought of manhood and womanhood meet in him; and so woman and man can make him their ideal. Nothing can be sublimer for a life aim than to seek to be a child as Jesus was, and, at the same time, to be a man as noble as Jesus was.—R.T.
1 Corinthians 14:20
The power of Christianity on intellect.
This text directly encourages the cultivation of intellect, and supposes that Christianity will exert a practical and helpful influence on such cultivation.
I. CHRISTIANITY WILL HELP TO MAKE US INTELLECTUAL MEN. Christianity recognizes no model, ideal man, save one whose whole circle of faculties has been duly developed, and certainly that noble part, the mind. It presents to us its ideal man in the person of Jesus Christ; there we see what it proposes to bring all men up to, and behold, in the very beginnings of Christ's life we read that "he grew in wisdom and in stature," exhibiting a surprising intelligence, which astonished the great doctors in the temple. A willingly ignorant Christian is an anomaly, a strange being, an imperfection, essentially incomplete; he has not felt, or he has resisted, the full force of the Christly principles and requirements.
1. Christianity comes into the world to rescue man from his fallen condition. Man's self willed fall involved his mind as well as his will, and the restorative applies to the fallen mind. The mind suffered sadly, lost its guiding truth, lost its harmonies, lost its place of rule, which was usurped by the passions of the body.
2. History confirms the relation of Christianity to intellect. Illustrate times of Wickliffe and Luther, etc.
3. The Christian services and duties help the intellect. Other religions are mostly ceremonial, making only routine demands. Christian services are essentially spiritual things, applications of mind to God's written Word, contemplations of Divine and heavenly realities, ordering of the thoughts so as to fashion them into prayers; these, and many other things, actually, by their own direct influence, storing and training the mind. The public Christian worship is intelligent. Its praises are expressed in the words of cultivated poets. Our Bible is the utterance of learning as well as of inspiration. Our preaching is the product of study and thought, and its appeal is made to the understanding as well as to the heart.
4. Christianity, with its revelations and doctrines, provides the very best food for the mind. It is the highest of sciences. It is the philosophy of the Infinite and the Absolute—it is the science of God.
5. Christianity makes the cultivation of the intellect a matter of direct counsel. It bids us "with all our getting get understanding," and assures us that "wisdom is to be chosen rather than riches." And the apostle complains that the believers do not mentally grow as fast as they should—that he has to feed them with the milk of first principles, when they ought to be able to take the strong meat of the Christian mysteries. If this be the relation of Christianity to mind, then two things are manifest.
II. CHRISTIANITY PREVENTS OUR BECOMING INTELLECTUALLY PROUD MEN. It does so:
1. By announcing mysteries that are at present unfathomable by the human intelligence.
2. By making clear the distinction between speculation and knowledge.
3. By setting forth prominently its teaching of man's entire dependence on the Divine help. If we know anything, we know it only as God's revelation to us.
III. CHRISTIANITY KEEPS US FROM BEING ONLY INTELLECTUAL MEN. The mind may be cultivated and the morals neglected, so that a man may become dry, and cold, and hard, and unlovely. Men may be mentally vigorous and morally weak; intellectual giants, but slaves to passion. Christianity keeps men from this
1 Corinthians 14:24
Preaching to unbelievers.
Previously the apostle had shown that the proper sphere of the Christian prophet was the teaching of the Church, so that its members might be edified, exhorted, and comforted. Now he intimates that this is not the only influence exerted by Christian prophesying; it has its power also on the "unbeliever" and the "unlearned." In the early Church the claims of worship were met by attendance on the temple and synagogue services, and the Christian meetings were, at first, simply gatherings for edification, and prayer; so preaching and teaching were the prominent features of them. Gradually worship and edification became united in the Christian meetings, and a Christian cult, as well as Christian doctrine, was formulated. Then a greater publicity was given to the meetings; unbelievers were allowed to come in, and the preaching came to bear direct relation to them. We observe that—
I. A FAITHFUL MINISTRY WILL BE A POWER ON UNBELIEVERS. It may seem that a ministry adapted to believers is not suited for the arresting, convincing, and converting of the impenitent; and this is made a complaint against those who occupy the pastoral office. It may be advisable that for this particular work a class of evangelists, or missioners, should be raised up, but it may fairly be urged that in the regular Church ministry there should be, and may be, a real converting power. For:
1. Faithful preaching is the exertion of spiritual power; and this all must feel and respond to, in greater or less degree. When God speaks to men by tempests, plague, or famine, every one must feel it more or less; all must hear the voice. An assembled congregation is for the time shut in with God, and all must feel, in some degree, caught by the power of God. We have many cases, in history and within experience, in which the results have been much grander than the means used could indicate. Illustrate by the day of Pentecost, times of revival, seasons of hallowed emotion in Christian services. These are times of spiritual power which all must feel, times of life or of death to men.
2. Faithful preaching wilt liberate and arouse the human conscience. The preaching which fills believers with a new sense of God will arouse the conscience of unbelievers to the conviction of his existence and claims. The preaching that reveals the deep horror, the moral helplessness, and the final ruin of the sinner, will stir the conscience of all who hear it. The things that lull the Christian conscience to sleep are the very things which lull to sleep the sinner's conscience. Men's "refuges of lies," from which they have to be driven, are much the same.
3. Faithful preaching must include the aspects of truth directly suited to reach the unbeliever. He who would "declare the whole counsel of God" must be often dealing with the simplest foundation truths. He speaks to many weak, unlearned believers, who cannot bear "strong meat," and so he must be very often laying down the groundwork of hope; and every sermon may thus gain its helpful adaptation to unbelievers. We have to be constantly presenting such great first principles as these: "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." God is the Father of all the human race. He finds expression for his Fatherhood in a gracious redemption of his erring children. The Divine Spirit is the source of all goodness in man. Jesus is the only, but he is the all sufficient Saviour. Apart, then, from those direct appeals which ministers may be at times constrained to make, their whole preaching should prove a power unto salvation.
II. A FAITHFUL MINISTRY WILL EXERT A PARTICULAR KIND OF POWER ON UNBELIEVERS. 1 Corinthians 14:24, 1 Corinthians 14:25, speak of three things:
1. Impression. "He is convinced of all." He is interested, seized, held to thought, even, it may be, against his will. The trifles that agitated him are gone; his purpose in coming is forgotten; he is impressed, held by the force of preached truth. Illustrate by scenes in the itinerant labours of George Whitefield or John Wesley.
2. Knowledge of self. "Secrets of heart made manifest." Sometimes the minister seems to us as if he knew all about us. He brings to memory our wrong doings, he reveals to us our bad motives, our heart wrongness. We see the corruptness of our inclinations and purposes. We feel convicted of the master sin of ungodliness.
3. Sense of God. (Verse 25.) The merely shadowy thought of God becomes substance, the idea becomes reality. In the sanctuary God seems to come out of the dim distance and look us in the face. God's claims and relations go searchingly through our souls. God's love and redemption seem to be great glories far up out of our reach. The minister's sense of God is borne in upon us, compelling us to say, "God! What is God to me?" So sabbath preaching is the savour of life or of death to us all. Under its influence are we being won to God? If not, what shall we say? O guilty will, that decides not for Christ! O mournful worldliness, that plucks men back from the very threshold of life!—R.T.
1 Corinthians 14:34, 1 Corinthians 14:35
Woman's place in Christian worship.
Three points may be taken for due explanation and enforcement.
I. The Eastern, Jewish, and pagan sentiments concerning the public position and relations of woman.
II. The practical difficulties which arose when women were converted to Christianity, and became conscious of personal religious life, and the endowment of spiritual gifts.
III. The ways in which St. Paul's teachings on this subject require to be modified in adaptation to Western civilization, and the wiser, better conceptions of woman's mission, which are happily characteristic of modern times.—R.T.
1 Corinthians
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