PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Pastoral Epistles
Plummer, Alfred · 126,196 words · 173 reading sections
_The Pastor'S Behaviour Towards Women.--The Church Widow._
"Honour widows that are widows indeed. But if any widow hath children or grandchildren, let them learn first to shew piety towards their own family, and to requite their parents: for this is acceptable in the sight of God.... Let none be enrolled as a widow under threescore years old, having been the wife of one ma…
708 wordsSECTION 62_The Pastor'S Behaviour Towards Women.--The Church Widow._
2. There is the widow who "hath children or grandchildren." Natural affection will cause these to take care that their widowed parent does not come to want. If it does not, then they must learn that "to show piety towards their own family and to requite their parents" is a paramount duty, and that the congregation must…
772 wordsSECTION 63_The Pastor'S Behaviour Towards Women.--The Church Widow._
2. The difference in the work assigned to them points in the same direction. As already stated, the special work of the widow was intercessory prayer and ministering to the sick. The special work of the deaconess was guarding the women's door in the churches, seating the women in the congregation, and attending women a…
659 wordsSECTION 64_The Pastor'S Behaviour Towards Women.--The Church Widow._
The later order of widows, which grew up side by side with the Apostolic order, and in the end supplanted, or at any rate survived, the older order, came into existence about the third century. It consisted of persons who had lost their husbands and made a vow never to marry again. From the middle of the second century…
960 wordsSECTION 65_The Pastor'S Behaviour Towards Women.--The Church Widow._
One object throughout these directions is the _economy of Christian resources_. The Church accepts the duty which it inculcates of "providing for its own." But it ought not to be burdened with the support of any but those who are really destitute. The near relations of necessitous persons must be taught to leave the Ch…
577 wordsSECTION 66Chapter Xv.
[58] The Council in Trullo (A.D. 691), the great authority for discipline in the Greek Church, fixed the age of forty for admission to the office of a deaconess and sixty for that of a widow. [59] In the middle recension of the Ignatian Epistles we read "I salute the keepers of the holy doors, the deaconesses in Chris…
765 wordsSECTION 67Chapter Xv.
It has been seriously doubted whether the words "Lay hands hastily on no man" do refer to the ordination of the official elders or presbyters. It is urged that the preceding warnings about the treatment of charges made against presbyters, and of persons who are guilty of habitual sin, point to _disciplinary_ functions …
826 wordsSECTION 68Chapter Xv.
It remains to ascertain the meaning of the curious parenthesis "Be no longer a drinker of water," and its connexion with the rest of the passage. It was probably suggested to St. Paul by the preceding words, "Beware of making yourself responsible for the sins of others. Keep your own life above suspicion." This charge…
830 wordsSECTION 69Chapter Xv.
"And some men also they follow after." There are cases in which men's sins, though of course not less manifest to the Almighty, are much less manifest to the world, and even to _themselves_, than in the case of flagrant, open sinners. The consequences of their sins are less conspicuous, less easily disentangled from th…
902 wordsSECTION 70Chapter Xvi.
[67] Tertullian (_De Bapt._, xviii.) seems to understand St. Paul to be speaking of the imposition of hands after _Baptism_ (Acts viii. 17, xix. 6), which can hardly be correct. [68] Manning's _Sermons_, vol. iii., p. 74, Burns, 1847. [69] Huxley's _Lay Sermons_, Essay I. Macmillan. _THE NATURE OF ROMAN SLAVERY AND …
763 wordsSECTION 71Chapter Xvi.
But when we look at the institution from a _moral_ point of view, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that its effects have been wholly evil. (1) It has been fatal to one of the most wholesome of human beliefs, _the belief in the dignity of labour_. Labour was irksome, and therefore assigned to the slave, and conse…
683 wordsSECTION 72Chapter Xvi.
But it would be a vile task to rehearse all the horrors and abominations to which the cruelty and lust of wealthy Roman men and women subjected their slaves. The bloody sports of the gladiatorial shows and the indecent products of the Roman stage were partly the effect and partly the cause of the frightful character of…
823 wordsSECTION 73Chapter Xvi.
The Apostle's injunctions to slaves who have Christian masters is worthy of special attention: it indicates one of the evils which would certainly have become serious, had the Apostles set to work to preach emancipation. The slaves being in almost all cases quite unfitted for a life of freedom, wholesale emancipation w…
791 wordsSECTION 74Chapter Xvi.
That day has not yet come, but the progress already made, especially during the present century, leads us to hope that it may be near. But the extinction of slavery will not deprive St. Paul's treatment of it of its practical interest and value. His inspired wisdom in dealing with this problem ought to be our guide in …
666 wordsSECTION 75Chapter Xvii.
[70] _Laws_, 777 D. [71] Tacitus, _Ann._ xiv. 42-45; iii. 14; comp. ii. 30 and iii. 67. _THE GAIN OF A LOVE OF GODLINESS, AND THE UNGODLINESS OF A LOVE OF GAIN._ "Wranglings of men corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth, supposing that godliness is a way of gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain: fo…
720 wordsSECTION 76Chapter Xvii.
But what St. Paul says of the opinions of these perverted men is exactly the converse of this: not that they supposed "gain to be godliness," but that they supposed "godliness to be a means of gain." They considered godliness, or rather the "form of godliness" which was all that they really possessed, to be a profitabl…
829 wordsSECTION 77Chapter Xvii.
"We brought nothing into the world." What right then have we to be discontented with what has since been given to us? "We can take nothing out." What folly, therefore, to spend all our time in amassing wealth, which at the time of our departure we shall be obliged to leave behind us! _There_ is the case against avarice…
713 wordsSECTION 78Chapter Xvii.
And when we take into account the difficulties and dangers which a large increase in the things of this world places in the way of our advance towards moral and spiritual perfection, we have a still stronger case against the fallacy that increase of wealth brings an increase in well-being. The care of the things which …
899 wordsSECTION 79_The Epistle To Titus.--His Life And Character._
In wealthy Ephesus, with its abundant commerce, the desire to be rich was a common passion; and St. Paul feared--perhaps he knew--that in the Church in Ephesus the mischief was present and increasing. Hence this earnest reiteration of strong warnings against it. Hence the reopening of the letter in order to tell Timoth…
719 wordsSECTION 80_The Epistle To Titus.--His Life And Character._
Yet another point of resemblance should be noted. Here, as in 1 Timothy, there is no careful arrangement of the material. The subjects are not put together in a studied order, as in a treatise with a distinct theological or controversial purpose. They follow one another in a natural manner, just as they occur to the wr…
710 wordsSECTION 81_The Epistle To Titus.--His Life And Character._
That Titus should twice have been sent as the messenger and representative of St. Paul to a Church in which difficulties of the gravest kind had arisen, gives us a clear indication of the Apostle's estimate of his character. He must have been a person of firmness, discretion, and tact. There was the monstrous case of i…
657 wordsSECTION 82_The Epistle To Titus.--His Life And Character._
One thing, however, we may accept as certain:--that the time when St. Paul was being carried a prisoner to Rome in an Alexandrian corn-ship which touched at Crete, was _not_ the time when the Church in Crete was founded. What opportunity would a prisoner have of doing any such work during so short a stay? Cretans were …
726 wordsSECTION 83_The Epistle To Titus.--His Life And Character._
Titus shares with Timothy the glory of having given up everything in order to throw in his lot with St. Paul, and of being one of his most trusted and efficient helpers. What that meant the Epistles of St. Paul tell us:--ceaseless toil and anxiety, much shame and reproach, and not a little peril to life itself. He also…
709 wordsSECTION 84Chapter Xix.
_THE CHURCH IN CRETE AND ITS ORGANIZATION.--THE APOSTLE'S DIRECTIONS FOR APPOINTING ELDERS._ "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that were wanting, and appoint elders in every city, as I gave thee charge; if any man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having children…
728 wordsSECTION 85Chapter Xix.
The injunction implies that there are cases in which the father is a good Christian, but he has not succeeded in making his children good Christians. Either they have not become believers at all; or, although nominal Christians, they do not conduct themselves as such. They are profligate, riotous, and disobedient. This…
757 wordsSECTION 86Chapter Xix.
There are several points of interest in connexion with St. Paul's directions to Titus respecting this need and the best way of meeting it. First. It is Titus himself who is to appoint these elders throughout the cities in which congregations exist. It is not the congregations that are to elect the overseers, subject t…
737 wordsSECTION 87Chapter Xix.
Such men, wherever he can find them,--and "_if_ any man is blameless" is not meant to hint that among Cretans it may be impossible to find such,--Titus is to "_appoint_" as elders in every city. In the A.V. the phrase runs "_ordain_ elders in every city." As we have seen already (Chap. V.), there are several passages i…
928 wordsSECTION 88Chapter Xix.
And this is the end which all Christian ministers have to keep in view, and which they too often exchange for ends that are far lower, and far removed (it may be) from the cause with which we choose to identify them. And as time goes on, and we look less and less with a single eye at the will of God, and have less and …
258 wordsSECTION 89_Christianity And Unchristian Literature._
[72] It is worth while here to repeat the caution that the Apostle's language by no means implies that the "elder" or "bishop" _must_ be a married man with children. But it implies that he will generally be such; and in appointing him, the character of his family must be carefully considered. "One of themselves, a pro…
932 wordsSECTION 90_Christianity And Unchristian Literature._
But the quotations are of other interest than their bearing upon the question as to the Greek elements in the education and teaching of St. Paul. They have a bearing also on the question of Christian use of profane authors, and on the duty of self-culture in general. The leading teachers of the early Church differed w…
703 wordsSECTION 91_Christianity And Unchristian Literature._
With the exception of atheistic philosophy, which was not worth the risk, Origen encouraged his scholars to study everything; and he gave them a regular course of dialectics, physics, and moral philosophy, as a preparation for theology. Augustine, who ascribes his first conversion from a vicious life to the _Hortensius…
690 wordsSECTION 92_Christianity And Unchristian Literature._
In the period between Jerome and Gregory the Great two facts had had a calamitous effect upon the cause of liberal education. (1) The inroads of the barbarians almost destroyed the imperial schools in Gaul and Italy. (2) The miserable controversies about Origen produced an uneasy suspicion that secular study was prejud…
822 wordsSECTION 93_Christianity And Unchristian Literature._
"We should be shrinking from a plain duty, did we leave out Literature from Education. For why do we educate except to prepare for the world? Why do we cultivate the intellect of the many beyond the first elements of knowledge, except ... to fit men of the world for the world? We cannot possibly keep them from plunging…
617 wordsSECTION 94Chapter Xxi.
[73] =chrêsta homiliai= instead of =chrêsth' homiliai=. [74] Lightfoot on "Seneca and St. Paul," in _Philippians_, pp. 288, 300. [75] J. H. Newman, _The Scope and Nature of University Education_, pp. 336-342. The whole discourse, "The Church and Liberal Education," is an eloquent and noble vindication of the claims o…
691 wordsSECTION 95Chapter Xxi.
No one can read through the indications which the Apostle gives of what he means by "wholesome teaching," without perceiving the key-note which rings through it all;--_sobriety_ or _sobermindedness_. The aged men are to be taught to be "temperate, grave, _soberminded_." The aged women to be "reverent in demeanour," "th…
827 wordsSECTION 96Chapter Xxi.
It was absolutely necessary that the latter condition of mind should be the predominant one, and should control the other; that the ecstasy should be exceptional and the sobermindedness habitual, and that the sobermindedness should not be turned into self-exaltation by the remembrance of the ecstasy. There was so much …
887 wordsSECTION 97Chapter Xxi.
But sobermindedness will not only keep us from being pleased with ourselves for our impassioned feelings about spiritual things, and help us to turn them to good account; it will also preserve us from what is even worse than allowing them to pass away without result, viz., talking about them. To feel warmly and to do n…
694 wordsSECTION 98Chapter Xxii.
[76] This makes one again inclined to regret that the Revisers here and elsewhere have left "doctrine" as the translation of =didaskalia=, while they have in most cases substituted "teaching" for "doctrine" as the translation of =didachê=. It would hardly be possible to confine either English word to either Greek word …
848 wordsSECTION 99Chapter Xxii.
"To _adorn_ the doctrine of God." How is the doctrine of God to be adorned? And how are slaves capable of adorning it? "The doctrine of God" is that which He teaches, which He has revealed for our instruction. It is His revelation of Himself. He is the author of it, the giver of it, and the subject of it. He is also i…
703 wordsSECTION 100Chapter Xxii.
But slaves,--and such slaves as were found throughout the Roman Empire in St. Paul's day,--what have they to do with the adornment of the doctrine of God? Why is this duty of making the Gospel more beautiful specially mentioned in connexion with them? That the aristocracy of the Empire, its magistrates, its senators, i…
809 wordsSECTION 101Chapter Xxii.
The cases in which masters and mistresses were converted through the conduct of their own slaves were probably by no means rare. It was by the gradual influence of numerous Christian lives, rather than by organized missionary effort, that the Gospel spread during the first ages of the Church; and nowhere would this gra…
676 wordsSECTION 102_Hope As A Motive Power.--The Present Hopes Of Christians._
"In all things." That all-embracing addition to the Apostolic injunction must not be lost sight of. There is no duty so humble, no occupation so trifling, that it cannot be made into an opportunity for adorning our religion. "Whether ye eat, or drink, or _whatsoever ye do_, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. x. 31). …
651 wordsSECTION 103_Hope As A Motive Power.--The Present Hopes Of Christians._
Most of us make far too little of this "blessed hope." It is of incalculable value; first, as a test of our own sincerity and reality; and secondly, as a source of strength to carry us over the difficulties and disappointments which beset our daily course. There is perhaps no more certain test of a Christian's earnest…
677 wordsSECTION 104_Hope As A Motive Power.--The Present Hopes Of Christians._
All this tends to show how much is lost by those who make no effort to cultivate in their minds a feeling of joy at the thought of "the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ." They lose a great source of strength by neglecting to cultivate what would be a powerful motive to help them on the r…
797 wordsSECTION 105_Hope As A Motive Power.--The Present Hopes Of Christians._
The failure to find any golden age in either of these two divisions of the period covered by the New Testament ought to put us on our guard against expecting to find it in any subsequent period. And it would not be difficult to take each of the epochs in the history of the Church which have been selected as specially b…
710 wordsSECTION 106_Hope As A Motive Power.--The Present Hopes Of Christians._
The very possibility of seriously raising such questions as these is in itself a reason for taking courage, even if we cannot answer all of them in the way that would please us most. There are at any rate good grounds for hoping that much is being done for the advancement of Christ's dominion, and that the prayer "Thy …
569 wordsSECTION 107Chapter Xxiv.
[80] Including the English and American bishops, invitations to two hundred and nine prelates were issued for the Lambeth Conference in 1888. _THE DUTY OF OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY, WITH ITS LIMITS; THE DUTY OF COURTESY WITHOUT LIMITS._ "Put them in mind to be in subjection to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to…
712 wordsSECTION 108Chapter Xxiv.
The Apostle does not here argue the case. He lays down certain positions as indisputable. The loyal Christian must submit himself to those who are placed over him; he must render obedience to existing authorities. There is one obvious limit to this which he indicates by a single word to be noticed hereafter, but with t…
754 wordsSECTION 109Chapter Xxiv.
St Paul, therefore, is doing no more than restating what the Lord had already taught both by word and example. Christians must show submission to rulers and constituted authorities, and must yield ready obedience to magistrates, even when they are heathen. As heathen they were no doubt rebels against God, however littl…
745 wordsSECTION 110Chapter Xxiv.
It was because men believed, or professed to believe, that Christians were grievous offenders or dangerous citizens, that they brought them before the magistrates. And the same holds good of the religious persecutions of which Christians have been guilty against other Christians. Nowhere can we point to a case in which…
726 wordsSECTION 111Chapter Xxiv.
It would be difficult to point to a precept which is more habitually violated by Christians at the present day, and therefore more worthy of being constantly brought to the front and urged upon their consideration. There are plenty of precepts both of the Old and of the New Testament, which are habitually violated by t…
472 wordsSECTION 112Chapter Xxv.
_THE CO-OPERATION OF THE DIVINE PERSONS IN EFFECTING THE NEW BIRTH.--THE LAVER OF REGENERATION._ "But when the kindness of God our Saviour, and His love toward man, appeared, not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and r…
828 wordsSECTION 113Chapter Xxv.
It is the Apostle's object in this condensed doctrinal statement to emphasize the fact that it was "not by works in righteousness which _we ourselves_ did," but by the work of the Blessed Trinity, that we were placed in a state of salvation. He does not stop to make the qualifications, which, however true and necessary…
756 wordsSECTION 114Chapter Xxv.
And in speaking to the Jews at Jerusalem of his own admission to the Church, St. Paul uses the same forms of the same word as he uses to the Corinthians of their admission. The exhortation of Ananias to him, as he lay at Damascus, was "And now why tarriest thou? Arise, and _be baptized_, and _wash away thy sins_" (=apo…
769 wordsSECTION 115Chapter Xxv.
In what way is the employment of perceptible means a help to us? In two at least. It serves the double purpose of being both a _test_ of faith and an _aid_ to faith. 1. The acceptance of Divinely appointed means is necessarily a test of faith. Human intellect is apt to assume that Omnipotence is above using instrument…
1,000 wordsSECTION 116Chapter Xxvi.
It is God's gracious purpose that all should have the privileges in full. In baptism He washed us from our sins, He gave us a new birth, He poured out His Holy Spirit upon us richly, through Jesus Christ; "_in order that_, being justified by His grace, we might be made heirs according to hope of eternal life." [81] =l…
755 wordsSECTION 117Chapter Xxvi.
But the testimony which these passages bear to the authenticity of this Epistle is not the main reason for their being quoted here. Their interest for us now consists in the light which they throw upon the history of the word "heresy," and upon the attitude of the primitive Church towards heretics. "Heresy," as Tertul…
762 wordsSECTION 118Chapter Xxvi.
Another important thing to remember in reference to the strong language which St. Paul and other writers in the New Testament use with regard to "heresies" and erroneous doctrine, and the still stronger language used by early Christian writers in commenting on these texts, is the downright wickedness of a good many of …
769 wordsSECTION 119Chapter Xxvi.
We have not exhausted the teaching of the Apostles respecting this plague of self-assertion and independent teaching, which even in their time began to afflict the infant Church, when we have considered all the passages in which the words "heresy" and "heretical" occur. There are other passages, in which the thing is p…
651 wordsSECTION 120Chapter Xxvi.
What, then, does St. Paul mean when he directs Titus to "refuse" such a person after once or twice admonishing him? Certainly not that he is to excommunicate him; the passage has nothing to do with formal excommunication. It is possible to maintain that the direction here given may _imply_ excommunication; but it is al…
768 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.