Sunday Morning at the Birmingham Christadelphian Ecclesia, No. 103
“Exhort one another daily.”—Paul.
p. 22We cannot do better, on the present occasion, than return to the consideration of Paul as the model which Christ has avowedly set forth for the study and imitation of all succeeding generations of disciples. So many other models are pressed upon our attention in modern times, and we are in daily contact with so much that is alien to the case and the principles of Paul, that it is a matter of necessity that we look closely at, and conform as much as we can to, the standard to which Christ would have us rise. God said to the adversary of Job: “Hast thou considered My servant Job that there is none like him in the earth—one that feareth God and escheweth evil?” The case before us is as if Christ said to us: “Hast thou considered my servant Paul, who is a chosen vessel unto me, and an example of what I desire to see in all my brethren?”
We have looked at him in the ardour of his devotion to Christ; in his modest self-estimate, yet courageous assertion of personal truth, and in his disinterested concern for the poor. There are many other notable points in the picture. The most conspicuous, perhaps, is that in which he presents so complete a contrast to the secular-minded “civilisation” of our day—namely, his constant, practical, robust-minded unaffected recognition of God. God is in the foreground of all he does, says, or thinks. God is not a theory with him—not a doctrine merely—not an intellectual conception—but a fact perceived and taken into account in as matter-of-fact a way as a man does his friend or the weather. His gospel is not merely the gospel of the Kingdom: it is first the “gospel of God.”—(1 Thess. ii. 9.) He thought of himself as a personal agent of God, by whom God approached men with entreaty to be conformed and reconciled to Him, in a personal sense. “We are ambassadors of Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you, in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”—(2 Cor. v. 20.) To the Athenians he placed the presentation of God first: “Whom ye ignorantly worship Him declare I unto you—God who made the world and all things therein.”—(Acts xvii. 23.) “He commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” Again, to the men of Lystra, he said: “We preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, who made heaven and earth and the sea and all things that are therein.”—(Acts xiv. 15.) The message from God—the gospel in its technical sense—is placed second, which is a natural order of ideas. This message is summarised in the fact of His “having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He hath purposed in Himself.”—(Eph. i. 9.) A man aware of this message, but not acquainted, and in friendship with God Himself, is not in the circle of the saintship to which we are invited by the hand of Paul. Let us beware of those beggarly presentations of Paul’s gospel, p. 23which leave out its warmth and its colour and its glory. The love of God is the first feature of the house of God, which Paul laboured to establish. Without it, Paul’s doctrines become so many rattling bones with which slaves of the flesh may perhaps make music to themselves, like the dusky buffoons of modern minstrelsy, but which are of no benefit to anybody unless they are in fervid love with God, from whom they originate. It was the fault Jesus found with the Pharisees that, with all their compliances with Moses, “they had not the love of God in them.”—(Jno v. 42.) They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.—(Jno. xii. 43.) It is the possibility (illustrated in more cases than one) that we may acknowledge Christ and know the elementary facts of the truth, and yet, while having thus a name to live, be dead, knowing not the Father, who is the head of Christ, and apart from whom Christ has no meaning. To love God was more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. This was the sentiment of one of the Scribes, the expression of which elicited from Christ the remark that he was not far from the kingdom of God.—(Mark xii. 34.) So, to love God is more than all money-spending, meeting-holding, and doctrine-defining that men may engage in, without a sanctifying recognition of the Creator of heaven and earth. These things have their place, but if they are without Paul’s love of God, they are as salt without savour. It was the first of the great commandments—that men should love God with all their strength and soul and mind. This is the “first commandment” both of the law and the gospel. It is one exemplified in the case of Paul, who, even before his enlightenment, worshipped the God of his fathers, and was zealous towards Him (Acts xxii. 3), and afterwards was a living embodiment of it in all its manifold relations.
In our day, men are ashamed to acknowledge God. Even when there is a professional recognition of Him in a ceremonial way, as with the clericals, it is obscured in Latin words (Deus Volente) and these are pared down to their smallest form—their first letters. Men, who think they ought at all events to appear pious, propose to do so and so—“D.V.” This is very different from Paul’s straightforward, sincere and manly—“if the Lord will.” “D.V.” is reducing the recognition of God to its smallest and most scrubby dimensions. It is not in reality a recognition and confession of God, but a slavish compliance with conventionalism—conventionalism of the most odious type—the conventionalism of the Gentile apostacy from apostolic truth and simplicity—a respectable system which overshadows the world with the shadow of death and from which every earnest man will seek to deliver himself by a return to the clear and healthy and saving example of Paul.
His recognition of God even in common things, is constant and natural. He is, in fact, a good example of what James means when he refers deprecatingly to those who say, “To-day, or to-morrow, we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain.” Says James (iv. 14), “Ye know not what shall be on the morrow. . . . Ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that.” This was the habit of Paul, our example from Christ. Parting with the brethren at Ephesus, he said, “I will return again unto you if God will.”—(Acts xviii. 21.) Writing to the Corinthians as to the prospect of a visit, he says (1 Cor. iv. 19), “I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will.” So to the Romans, he says he had “Made request in prayer that he might have a prosperous journey to them by the will of God” (i. 10); and he asks them to pray that “he might come to them with joy by the will of God.”—(xv. 32.) The brethren following his example when p. 24they could not dissuade Paul from running into danger at Jerusalem, said, “The will of the Lord be done.”—(Acts xxi. 14.) Peter, in the same line of things, recognised that if any brother found himself in circumstances of suffering, it was the will of God (1 Pet. iii. 17), and “according to that will”—(iv. 19.) If a door was opened to Paul, it was opened to him “of the Lord.”—(2 Cor. ii. 12.) If Paul lived in all good conscience, it was “before God.”—(Acts xxiii. 1.) If he spoke with special emphasis, it was before God in Christ.—(2 Cor. xii. 19.) If he abstained from lying, it was before God.—(Gal. i. 20.) If he addressed himself to Timothy in a specially-solemn way, it was before God.—(1 Tim. v. 21; 2 Tim. iv. 1.) If he desired a witness to the truth of his assertions, it was God whom he served.—(Rom. i. 9; Phil. i. 8; 1 Thess. ii. 5.) If he desired to comfort the brethren, his appeal was to the fact that God was faithful, who would not suffer them to be tempted above that they were able to bear (1 Cor. x. 13), and who was able to make all grace abound toward them (2 Cor. ix. 8), and so on, through many numerous examples. Paul, like the Lord himself, set Jehovah always before him. It was the constant vision of his mental man. He is our example. Do not be satisfied with any other. Beware of the blighting influence of refined society, or the example of the vulgar herd in this matter. The world lieth in wickedness. It knows not God. Its ways and thoughts and habits are odious in His eyes; and we are in danger of being conformed to all these. Listen to the command of the Spirit by Paul, which says, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed in the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove (or realise in yourselves) what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”—(Rom. xii. 2.) “In all thy ways acknowledge Him.”
In view of Paul’s habitual recognition of God, it is natural to find that he was a man of prayer—another feature of our model to consider. Almost his first appearance on the page of New Testament history exhibits him in this aspect. Jesus said to Ananias, when directing him where to find Saul of Tarsus, “Behold he prayeth.”—(Acts ix. 11.) Immured in prison at Philippi, in the darkness and silence of night, “Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises.”—(Acts xvi. 25.) Bidding farewell with the Ephesian brethren at Miletus, “he knelt down and prayed with them all.”—(xx. 36.) Visiting at the temple, he prayed.—(xxii. 17.) Even before a large ship’s company, “he gave thanks to God in presence of them all.”—(xxvii. 35.) He prayed for the brethren—“We pray always for you”—(2 Thess. i. 11.) “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, making request for you all with joy.”—(Phil. i. 4.) “I make mention of you always in my prayers.”—(Rom. i. 9.) “We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you” (Col. i. 3), “night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face.”—(1 Thess. iii. 10.) He often asks the brethren to pray for him: “Brethren, pray for us.”—(2 Thess. iii. 1; Heb. xiii. 18.) “Strive with me in your prayers to God for me.”—(Romans xv. 30.) “I trust, through your prayers, I shall shortly be given to you.”—(Philem. 22.)
He makes it a matter of urgent exhortation that the brethren should give themselves to prayer: “Pray always with all prayer in the spirit.”—(Eph. vi. 18.) “In everything, by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known unto God.”—(Phil. iv. 6.) “I will that men pray everywhere.”—(1 Tim. ii. 8.) “Pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”—(1 Thess. v. 17-18.)
p. 25Paul’s familiar communications with the brethren were tinged with the same spirit of godliness. There is no levity; no avoidance of allusions to the truth to conciliate unjustified men, the fear of whom bringeth a snare He exemplified in himself the exhortation he gave to the brethren: “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt . . . sound speech, that cannot be condemned . . . neither jesting nor foolish talking, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks.” When he saw the brethren, on his journey towards Rome, “he thanked God and took courage.”—(Acts xxviii 15.) His salutations are all divine. Examine every epistle: he brings God and Christ into all his greetings. Are we to follow Paul or the paganism of modern atheistic custom? Modern paganism will soon be swept from the face of the earth, and make way for the glory of the Lord, which will be inscribed even on the bells of the horses. If we conform to the world, we shall perish with the world. Our part—our duty—our wisdom is to conform to the image of the new man of which Christ has given us so abundant an example in Paul.
There are several other features. Paul was affectionately interested in the brethren. He writes to the Thessalonians: “Being affectionately desirous of you, we are willing to have imparted to you not the gospel of God only, but our own souls also, because ye were dear unto us.”—(1 Thess. ii. 7.) This is a contrast to the social ideal of the nineteenth century, of which polite indifference is a prominent feature. It is considered weak to be affectionate, and small to be sympathetic. Men harden each other in pride, and miscall it by many fine names, which gloss over the monstrosity, and perpetuate a strained and tyrannous etiquette which blights the fruit of the spirit. Paul represents a totally different school, viz, the school of Christ, who himself was meek and lowly, and not ashamed even of tears. He wept at the death of Lazarus; he wept over Jerusalem; he made supplication with “strong crying and tears”—(Heb. v. 7.) Paul also appears before us as a tender-hearted man, moved frequently to tears. He “served the Lord with many tears.”—(Acts xx. 19.) He “ceased not to warn every one of the brethren, night and day, with tears.”—(verse 31.) He wrote to the Corinthians “with many tears.”—(2 Cor. ii. 4.) He told the Philippians—even weeping in the act of writing—of false brethren, who were the enemies of Christ.”—(Phil. iii. 18.) He was touched at the entreaties of the brethren; who sought to dissuade him from going, in the teeth of danger, to Jerusalem. He said, “What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? I am willing, not only to be bound at Jerusalem but to die for the name of the Lord Jesus.”—(Acts xxi. 13.) In this, also, we have an exhibition of his courage and enterprise in the service of Christ, as well as his susceptibility to tender emotion. The ideal brother of Christ, as represented in Paul, is not all head: he is a tender-hearted, loving man.
There be many who are called brethren, through whom the truth is brought into reproach, who conform not at all to the Pauline standard. They are contentious without being faithful; intelligent, without being loving; courageous, without being humble; bold, without being reverent. They are self-assertive, without being regardful of others; sensitive to human opinion, without the fear of God; manly and resolute, without being sympathetic and considerate. Wise men will resist the influence of this class, and seek to neutralise it by the exhibition and assertion of the model Christ has given us in Paul. This model we have only partially outlined in the matters passed in review. It is in the power of every one to make its closer acquaintance in the daily and attentive reading of Paul’s most p. 26wonderful epistles. The details exhibited, however, present a sufficiently complete picture for practical purposes.
Summarising them, we have found a man of good conscience and modest self-estimate; yet of bold self-assertion, when necessary; an earnest, ardent, devoted, thorough-going friend and servant of Christ; supremely, yea, exclusively interested in Christ’s affairs on earth, for which he entertained an appreciation amounting to enthusiasm. We have found him a benevolent man, mindful of the needs of others; interested in the brethren: solicitous of their welfare, and compassionate of the poor. We have found him a man of sympathy, of affection, and of tenderness of heart, even to tears. We have found him, above all, a lover of God, a man of prayer, with constant recognition and regard for the will of God in all his matters, and a constant exemplification of sobriety and godliness.
In these particulars, we have a copy set before us by Christ to imitate. Shall we give up the attempt because it is difficult? Our copying may be blundering and blotted in the first stages; but, with perseverance, like the children who pore over the desks at school, we shall find the process grow easier with every effort, until, at last, we shall attain to a degree of approximation that may, at first, seem impossible. Let us remember that in the master of the school, we have a merciful and faithful high priest, who knows our infirmities, and will make allowance for our shortcomings, if only we are attentive and diligent scholars. He ever liveth to make intercession for us; and in all our struggles with the old man within, and the seductive world without, having himself suffered, being tempted, he is able also to succour them that are tempted. Such is Paul’s assurance to us (Heb. ii. 15), who also says, in view of the very fact (iv. 16): “Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
EDITOR.