I. ADAPTED. We are to conceive of the grace of God, not as a great mass, a quantity of which is duly measured out to meet our need, but rather as a treasury of various kinds and various colours, from which may be obtained just those threads that will match our circumstances and repair the disasters into which we have fallen.
II. TIMELY. Here we require to distinguish between what we think to be timely and what God thinks to be timely, remembering that God never delays, but is never hurried. He waits for the moment of extremity. "When the tale of bricks is doubled, then comes Moses." And it should also be shown that we may not look for some particular grace and help today, which God knows will only be required tomorrow. The very charm of "sufficient grace" is that it is precisely the thing "for the occasion." Those who are looking for kinds of grace for which they have no immediate and pressing needs will be in danger of missing the gracious provisions which their Lord is ever making for them. The way between earth and heaven is a ladder—Jacob saw it—and the angels came up and down it. We cannot reach the top by looking up; only by putting our feet up one round after another. And God is willing to be ever close beside us, holding us with his hand and strengthening us for each uplifted step.
III. ABUNDANT. That is assured in the fact that it is the grace of God, who is able to do exceedingly abundantly for us above all that we ask or think. The man with "sufficient grace" is efficient to all work, whether it be bearing or doing. He is nowhere alone; grace is with him.—R.T.
2 Corinthians 12:9 - Glorying in infirmities.
In introduction should be given some high and noble instances of triumph over disease, pain, or disability, in doing philanthropic and Christian work; e.g. Baxter, Robert Hall, H. Martyn, C. Pattison, F.W. Robertson, etc. Show that, while bodily strength may be consecrated to God's service, it is also true that physical weakness may serve him, and a man's very frailty glorify his Lord. This may be further opened out by showing how—
I. IT BEARS UPON HUMILITY. The grace which is the necessary completion and final adornment of Christian character. The grace which puts on Christian fruitage all the bloom. Humility is won by the pressure of God's hand upon us.
II. IT NOURISHES DEPENDENCE ON GOD. "When I am weak, then am I strong." This is the Christian paradox. Such dependence is not easy; it is one of the things to which experience of failure and frailty alone can bring us. He is fitted for life and for heaven who from his deep heart says, "I cannot, but God can."
III. IT CULTIVATES CHARACTER. We know that physical weakness bears directly and continuously upon temper, disposition, and virtue. Afflictions never test us, never bear upon the whole culture of character, as does continuous pain or frailty. "As the outward man perishes, the inward man is renewed day by day."
IV. IT KEEPS A MAN OPEN TO GOD. By its constant reminder of the need of God. The frail man proves the preciousness of prayer. F.W. Robertson most forcibly says of prayer, "The true value of prayer is not this—to bend the eternal will to ours, but this—to bend our wills to it." Frail, ever-suffering Paul laboured "more abundantly than they all," and astonishing still is the soul-work that can be gotten out of feeble men and women—with God's grace.—R.T.
2 Corinthians 12:16 - Caught with guile.
"Nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile? This expression occasions serious difficulty to the exegete. It may be that St. Paul is referring to the accusation made against him that, being a crafty man, he had caught the Corinthians with guile. He repudiates altogether such a charge, and pleads, as o, sufficient proof of his guilelessness, that no man could say he had ever used his official position to make personal gains. Archdeacon Farrar says, "Being confessedly one who strove for peace and unity, who endeavoured to meet all men half way, who was ready to be all things to all men if by any means he might save some, he has more than once to vindicate his character from those charges of insincerity, craftiness, dishonesty, guile, man pleasing, and flattery which are, perhaps, summed up in the general depreciation which he so indignantly rebuts, that 'he walked according to the flesh,' or in other words, that his motives were not spiritual, but low and selfish." He paraphrases the sentence taken as our text thus: "But stop! though I did not burden you, yet 'being a cunning person, I caught you with guile.' Under the pretext of a collection I got money out of you by my confederates! I ask you, is that a fact?" A possible insinuation of the Corinthians is hereby anticipated and refuted; and we need not treat the statement of the text as any acknowledgment by St. Paul that he had adopted any guileful schemes. No man could have been more thoroughly genuine, more honorably straightforward. The subject for our consideration may be treated under three divisions.
I. THE IDEA OF "CAUGHT WITH GUILE" THAT IS INADMISSIBLE IN CHRISTIAN WORK.
1. Anything approaching to "doing evil that good may come" is inadmissible.
2. So is any altering or qualifying the fundamental truths, claims, and duties of the gospel.
3. So is any kind of action that is immoral, or of which the morality is even doubtful. Illustrate by some of the guileful principles enunciated by the Jesuit fathers, and so mercilessly exposed by Pascal in the 'Provincial Letters.' Sincerity and simplicity are first virtues in Christian workers; both the man and his labours must be such as can be searched through and through. Guile, as the world understands the term, must not be once known among us, as becometh saints.
II. THE IDEA OF "CAUGHT WITH GUILE" THAT IS ADMISSIBLE IN CHRISTIAN WORK. In the sense of adaptation to capacity it is an essential feature of Christian service. This may sometimes appear to the onlooker as guile. In teaching children or uneducated people, truth has to be simplified, to be set in figure and parable, and broken up into parts and pieces, and such guilefulness St. Paul recognizes as valuable. He fed the people with "milk" when he knew that they were unlit to receive "strong meat" of truth. Our Lord himself was guileful in this good sense, for at the close of his intercourse with his disciples he said, "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." It may also be shown that there is a "quick wittedness" and skilful seizing of opportunities, which are gifts finding honourable spheres in the Christian Church.
III. THE IDEA OF "CAUGHT WITH GUILE" THAT NOBLE-MINDED MEN SHRINK FROM EMPLOYING. Such are the various sensational devices of modern revivalism. The masses are to be caught with the guile of trumpet, and drum, and dress, and excited meetings. We need not say that such things are inadmissible, because they are not morally wrong. But where there is a full sympathy with the Divine Lord, who "did not strive, nor cry, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets," all such guilefulnesses cannot but be painful. Anything approaching to an advertising of the gospel or the preachers of the gospel grieves the sensitive feeling of all who know that the gospel needs no such introductions, but is itself God's power unto salvation to every one that believes. Our "yea" had better be simple "yea;" with no blast of trumpet or roll of drum let us tell men of the life there is for all in Christ our living Saviour; and let our only guile be adaptation.—R.T.
2 Corinthians 12:21 - The humbling of God's ministers.
"I fear… lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you." "There is something almost plaintive in the tone in which the apostle speaks of the sin of his disciples as the only real humiliation, which he has to fear." The following points will be readily worked out and illustrated according to the experiences of the preacher:—
I. SUCH HUMBLINGS COME FROM SEEMING FAILURES. Compare our Lord's distressful reproach of Capernaum and other towns on the shores of the lake of Galilee. See also St. Paul's trouble over the failure of the Galatians from their primitive faith: "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?" etc.
II. SUCH HUMBLINGS COME FROM STRIFE AND DIVISIONS. As illustrated in the Corinthian Church (see 1 Corinthians it.). Such strife may arise from
III. SUCH HUMBLINGS COME FROM INDIVIDUAL BACKSLIDINGS. There is no sadder phase of experience for Christian ministers than the spiritual and moral failure of their converts, and of those whom they have most fully trusted in Christian life and work. So often men fall into temptation and are overcome in their middle life. When ministers look for the ripest fruitage, then there is blight and death; wealth, pleasure, vice, smite and kill the soul, and the pastor weeps over the toil of life that seems to have been all in vain. St. Paul spoke of the Corinthians as "his glory and joy;" and the things which he goes on to mention in this verse put shame on his work, for the gospel call is "not unto uncleanness, but unto holiness." And ministers spend their strength for nought if those who believe are not "careful to maintain good works."—R.T.
2 Corinthians
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