PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Great Texts of the Bible — Volume 10
James Hastings · 176,380 words · 181 reading sections
Section 1
V. 10 c THE GREAT TEXTS-II OF THE BIBLE RDTTED BY THE REV. JAxMES HASTINGS, D.D. EDITOR OF "THE EXPOSITORY TIMES" "THE DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE' "THE DICTIONARY OF CHRIST AND THE GOSPELS" AND "THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION AND ETHICS " ST. LUKE NEW YORK CHARLES SGRIBNER'S SONS EDINBURGH : T. & T. CLARK PRINTED…
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4 NO ROOM ^ It used to be brought as an objection against the trust- worthiness of St. Luke's Gospel that there was no evidence other than his that such an enrolment was known at that time or in that region. Why the evidence of this ancient document should be regarded as less valuable than that of another on such a po…
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H When I was travelling in Armenia and Kurdistan some three years ago, it befell me more than once or twice to have to spend the night in the stable, "because there was no room in the inn " ; and the difference in actual accommodation was not so great as you might have supposed. The East Syrian people amongst whom I wa…
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^ Thomas Erskiue, The Brazen Serpent, 263. ST. LUKE II. 7 9 to lay his head." And the solitude was all the greater as the end drew near. Jerusalem would have none of Him ; one of His own little company covenanted to betray Him. He went into the Garden that He might face all that was coming and be ready for it, taking…
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ST. LUKE II. 7 II Lord is seeking. He seeks not my credal statements but my personal faith. He solicits not my creed but my person, not my words but my heart. And so do we offer Him all these sub- stitutes in the place of the dwelling He seeks. And if these are all we have to offer, " the Son of man hath not where to …
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ST. LUKE II. 7 13 founded, and goes on with her preparations. When all is ready, a knock is heard at the door, and a poor woman with an infant at her breast begs the charity of a night's lodging. Eager Heart, sad and disappointed, yet feeling that she cannot refuse such a request, gives up to the distressed wayfarers …
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Yea, in the night, my soul, my daughter, Cry, — clinging Heaven by the hems ; And lo ! Christ walking on the water Not of Gennesareth, but Thames. 1. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?" This is / the house our Kedeemer seeks, the wonderful inn of the soul. Let us go and look inside that inn, for it has many …
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(3) Let us pass into another room in the inn — the room of the imagination. It is the radiant chamber of ideals and fancies and visions and dreams. In this room we may find Prospect Window , / and the Window of Hope. It is here that we look out upon the "^ morrow. And it is here that life's wishes and plans may be foun…
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we have no time to think about Christ. " The cares of this world choke the word," and the Speaker of the word is forgotten. Yes, we may entertain so many cares that the Lord cannot get in at the door. And yet all the time the gracious promise is waiting : Cast all your care on Him, for He careth for you. And what, the…
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For our wonder and our war; But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings And our peace is put in impossible things Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings Eound an incredible star. To an open house in the evening Home shall all men come, To an older place than the Eden And a taller town than Eome. To …
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The Circumstances. 1. The Shepherds. There were many great men and many wealthy men in Palestine. There were scholars of the most profound and various learning. There were lean ascetics who had left the joys of home, and gone away to pray and fast in deserts. But it was not to any of these that the angels came, and i…
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Lovelier than the world can show: For Christmas bringeth Jesus, Brought for us so low. Earth, strike up your music, Birds that sing and bells that ring; Heaven hath answering music For all Angels soon to sing: Earth, put on your whitest Bridal robe of spotless snow: For Christmas bringeth Jesus, Brought for us so…
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Christ has been speaking thac word ever since. He came to speak it. He came to deliver man from those fears. He smiles upon our fears to-day. He almost laughs them away in the sunshine of His power and confidence. The Incarnation is God's answer to human gloom, despondency, and pessimism. What are ST. LUKE II. lo, II …
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III. The Message. 1. "There is born ... a Saviour." A Saviour! What a thrill of joy must have shot through the hearts of these astonished men as they listened to the word of wondrous import. A Saviour ! Then indeed man is to be saved ! Through the long, dark, weary ages man had been groaning in miserable captivity to…
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He might have come in regal pomp, With pealing of Archangel trump — An angel blast as loud and dread As that which shall awake the dead . . . He came not thus ; no earthquake shock Shiver'd the everlasting rock ; No trumpet blast nor thunder peal Made earth through all her regions reel; * Lyman Abbott. ST. LUK…
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ST. LUKE II. lo, II 37 and the fulness of the creature — dwelt bodily. All things were gathered together in one in Him — both those which are in the heavens and those which are in the earth — even in Him. His Incarnation was the crowning miracle of grace, as the creation of man was the crowning miracle of nature.^ ^ …
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"What means that star," the Shepherds said, "That brightens through the rocky glen?" And angels, answering overhead, Sang, " Peace on earth, good-will to men ! " 'Tis eighteen hundred years and more Since those sweet oracles were dumb; We wait for Him, like them of yore; Alas, He seems so slow to come ! But it wa…
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II In an Oxford College Chapel is a famous Nativity window. From the Infant, lying in the midst, light is made to stream on all around. So, through the Christmas chapter, ending with our text, light streams from the manger on the Christmas feast ; tingeing alike its festi^dty and fun, its tender memories and associatio…
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^ Handel, entering fully into the spirit of this narrative, represents the angel as singing this announcement ; and there can be no doubt that he is right. This was a grand solo sung by one ^ T. D. Bernard, Smgs of the Holy Nativity, 116. ST. LUKE II. 13, 14 47 of the leading choristers of heaven. But when the angel…
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ST. LUKE II. 13, 14 49 that first. A world is redeemed. Millions on millions of human beings are rescued from everlasting death. Is not this the thing uppermost in the angels' thoughts ? Is not this mighty blessing bestowed on man the first thing that they proclaim ? No, it is only the second thing : the first thing i…
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ST. LUKE II. 13, 14 51 the angelic host — " might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God." Here then is the explanation of the angels' song, of this " Glory to God in the highest," this melody of heaven, to bear a part in which they invite and challetige the listening children of men upon earth. T[ Of God'…
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^ Placed in the midst of Europe, the Emperor was to bind its races into one body, reminding them of their common faith, their common blood, their common interest in each other's welfare. And he was therefore, above all things, claiming indeed to be upon earth the representative of the Prince of Peace, bound to listen t…
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\ The Christian may have, must have, an outer life in the world, of training, toning, educating — in fact of " tribulation " ; ^ Madame Guyon, in Life by T. C. Uphara, 130. 2 A. Moody Stuart, Recollections of John Duncan, 218. 56 THE SONG OF THE HEAVENLY HOST but with equal certainty he has a true life, an inner li…
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And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: \ " God is not dead ; nor doth He sleep I The Wrong shall fail, The Eight prevail, With peace on earth, good- will to men!"^ (4) The 'peace of a solaced life. — ^We are not allowed to live our life untempted, untroubled…
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But in what sense can God be well pleased with men ? He cannot be well pleased with their sins, or even with their folly. \J No ! He is well pleased with men in so far as they are capable of salvation in Christ, are capable, that is to say, of being made Christlike. On the other hand, as He declared at the baptism of C…
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^ Simeon, bravely patient, outlasts the time of silence : while the winds of God blow where they list, and gently stir the surface of his soul, breathing deep to sources of emotion, springs of thought, centres of will, and faculties of being, which all re- ceptive and expectant wait for impulses of life, co-operant wit…
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6S A TOUCHSTONE OF CHARACTER disavow any knowledge of the inner mysteries of science. In your knowledge or ignorance you accept the fact you cannot alter, the fact that this world owes light and heat and colour and beauty to the sun which God has set to rule our day and night. Jesus Christ is as obtrusive and fixed a …
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' A. Connell. 70 A TOUCHSTONE OF CHARACTER Omnipotence cannot reconcile two absolutely antagonistic things. It is past even the power of God to let a man have free will and yet not have it, to make men free and yet slaves; and if God gave men free will, then in the long run it was a dead certainty that some one so en…
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III. A Sword in the Soul. "Yea and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul." 1. Simeon saw that the work of salvation would in some mysterious way be the work of a warrior, and that the same sword as wounded Him would pierce the heart of His mother also. This vision of a coming battle did not lessen his faith in…
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O Holy Mother, pierced with awful grief, Oppressed with agonizing, nameless fears, Beyond all human power of relief Are these thy tears. Thy tender, spotless, holy Babe lies there — Is He unconscious of thine agony ? Doth He not even now thy burden share, Thy sorrow see ? His Body sleeps ; but ah ! that sacred Hear…
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\ Lockwood had a religious mind, and retained through life his faith in the Christianity his parents had taught him. The chatter in the magazines about such matters had never interested him, and not even the symposia of eminent men, paid three guineas a sheet, about immortality had engaged his attention. He knew enough…
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3. First of all, then, we have the fact stated. Apocryphal histories of the infancy are full of marvellous tales ; but none of 83 84 THE GROWTH OF THE CHILD JESUS these is trustworthy, and nearly all are glaringly false. There are many blanks in the narratives we possess, but it appears that after the presentation …
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^ The words recall, and are meant to recall, three othei childhoods : (1) First, the childhood of John the Baptist. Of him too St. Luke has told us that " the child grew and waxed strong in spirit " ; and still earlier he has related that many were led to ask, " What manner of child shall this be ? And the hand of the…
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^ The work of an inferior artist arrives at a certain amount of perfection through a series of failures, which teach him where he is wrong. By slow correction of error he is enabled to produce a tolerable picture. Such is our development. The work of a man of genius is very different. He has seen, before he touches pen…
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^ The human form is considered to be the highest expression of beauty and perfection for the following reasons. It is adapted to the greatest number of uses, its powers within the limits of its strength being certainly, as far as the hand is concerned, inex- ' A. Whyte, The Walk, Conversation, and CJiaracter of Jesics…
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* A. Whyte, The Walk, Oonversation, and Character of Jesus Christ our Lord, 47. ST. LUKE II. 40 93 and life-mistakes; and yet men may be no wiser than before Before the same temptations they fall again in the self-same way they fell before. Where they erred in youth they err still in age. A mournful truth ! " Ever le…
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Besides this, there was that other not less sacred book, or revelation, of nature, where God's thoughts are written and em- bodied in the things that are made. And of this book the child Jesus was a constant and diligent student. The vale of Nazareth is described by travellers as one of the most beautiful spots to be f…
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1 G. A. Chadwick. ST. LUKE — 7 98 THE GROWTH OF THE CHILD JESUS duty of that lowly life bound Him to the Father. Those silent years were doubtless rich in experiences which are not written down, which were not told to any, but which were forming and confirming the faith in which He was to live and work and die. ^ Ch…
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* S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Rome Ideals, 112. loo THE GROWTH OF THE CHILD JESUS that mistake. You think every day and every hour of God's grace to you as the chief of sinners. And though our Lord thought without ceasing of the grace of God that had come to Him ; it was not the same kind of grace as that is which h…
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McClelland (T. C), The Mind of Christ, 21. MacDonald (G.), The Hope of the Gospel, 40. Maclaren (A.), After the Resurrection, 193. Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxviii. (1882), No. 1666 Talbot (E. S.), Some Aspects of Christian Truth, 208. Thome (H.), Notable Sayings of the Great Teacher, 63. …
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His brothers called Him Lord.^ 2. How is the text to be translated ? The Authorized Version is "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" The Eevisers have changed this into " Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house ? " The Greek, taken literally, says, " Wist ye not that I must be in the of my …
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2. Is this freedom which Christ claims the prerogative of His sole Sonship — of His unique relation to the Father ? Have we no part or lot in that demand ? Surely that Sonship of His has been made ours. Into its prerogatives we are baptized. In Christ, by Christ, we too are endowed with peculiar responsi- bilities. We …
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^ Both Joseph and Mary were speechless as soon as the Holy Child let them see how full of folly their conduct had been and how much they had misunderstood Him and hurt Him. They bad treated Him as if He had taken the Passover much too seriously. They found fault with Him for His devotion to His Father's business, and t…
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2. We may call this principle of life a sense of responsibility. The word is perhaps stiff and abstract, and yet I think it helps us to part of the truth. " I must be about my Father's business," or, if we take the E.V., " in my Father's house " ; it comes to nearly the same thing. '* I must be." He is not His own. He …
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Tj When men begin all their works with the thought of God, acting for His sake and to fulfil His will, when they ask His blessing on themselves and their life, pray to Him for the objects they desire, and see Him in the event, whether it be according to ^ 0. E. Jeflferson, My Father^ s Business, 113. ii6 ALWAYS AT HO…
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ii8 ALWAYS AT HOME of the authoritative voice of His Church, that He set His thoughts to work for themselves. He indeed asked questions. He set free His inquiring spirit, but He did it facing the fulness of the responsibility, bringing His inquiries into the light of the best learning, laying out His mind at the feet …
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126 ALWAYS AT HOME is God's house a place of reverence, it is also a place of joy and gladness and shouting. ^ There is a power in public worship, in the utterance of common sorrows, needs, and hopes, in the prayer that is breathed and the praise that is sung in concert, not with the crowd that fills the sanctuary, b…
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22 (T. V. Tymms) ; Ixxxi. 33 (H. M. Burge). Churchman's Pulpit : Sermons to the Young, xvi. 78 (A. P. Stanley). Sunday Magazine, 1876, p. 850 (R. H. Smith) ; 1885, p. 734 (F. R. Havergal) ; 1895, p. 136 (B. Waugh). ««4 Always at Work. And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be ab…
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4. What do these words signify ? They claim Sonship — " my Father " ; they claim also the necessity of obeying the demands of Sonship — " I must " ; and they claim that what the Father demands of the Son is Service — "about my Father's business." So we have — I. Sonship. II. Surrender. III. Service. Sonship. "My Fat…
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We are not warranted in affirming that the child meant all that the man afterwards meant by the claim to be the Son of God; nor are we any more warranted in denying that He did. ST. LUKE — 9 I30 ALWAYS AT WORK We know too little about the mysteries of His growth to venture on definite statements of either kind. Our …
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132 ALWAYS AT WORK and here is the beginning, the very first time that the word occurs on His lips, " I must." Mark that great word " must." It was one of Jesus* earliest words, and He used it to the end. He was not ashamed to say that there were some things which He was obliged to do. Let no boy ever hesitate to say…
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* J. Vaughan, Children's Sermons, 150. 134 ALWAYS AT WORK The law of His childhood was the law of His manhood. Just as one of your little ones floating a walnut-shell upon a bowl of water calls into operation all, or nearly all, the laws that operate when an ocean-liner is launched, so within the utterance of this ch…
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^ John Vassar once spoke to a lady about her soul, and the lady told her husband of what he had said. " I should have told him," said her husband, " to mind his own business." " If you had been there," said the lady, " you would have thought it was bis business." ^ (1) One part of that redemption which was the busines…
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* C. H. Spurgeon. 138 ALWAYS AT WORK following His example, or not, and His loving mercy is with us all the time.^ (2) Another part was to offer Himself a sacrifice. Twenty-one years from this Passover, He Himself must be the slain Lamb, His must be the blood shed. These shadowy typical ceremonials will then be abol…
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^ Fawcett's great principle (which, of course, he shared in general with Mill) was one which would only be disputed in general terms by an Egyptian anchorite or an Indian faquir — Live in camel's-hair raiment, and you may fairly denounce the rich and regard poverty as a blessing. Fawcett, who preferred broadcloth, held…
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All tremulous with love. And, as entranced I gaze, Sweet music floats to me from distant lyres: I see a temple, round whose golden spires Unearthly glory plays! Beyond those azure deeps I fix thy home, — a mansion kept for thee Within the Father's house, whose noiseless key Kind Death, the warder, keeps ! 2 1 A. C…
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2. The first meeting of Jesus and John is a unique scene. They were of nearly the same age ; they were related according to the flesh ; they were both men of prophetic endowment, sent to produce in their native country a religious reformation. Yet, in spite of these and other points of resemblance, there could not have…
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^ Euskin, Modern Painters ( Works, iv. 268). ST. LUKE III. 21, 22 149 I. The Circumstances of the Baptism. Before we attempt to enter into the meaning of the Baptism of Jesus, whether for Himself or for us, it will be well to bring before our minds the events that took place on the occasion of it, as they are repor…
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The opening of the heavens was a magnificent emblem: it gave, at the very beginning of the Saviour's ministry, a vision, and, as it were, an epitome, of the whole work He came to do. He saw, it may be, for a brief moment, the glorious realm from which He had come to earth, and to which, through sorrow and toil. He was …
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iv. The Voice. A "voice from heaven" was a familiar method of communi- cating the will of God. For examples of such voices in the Old Testament see Gen. xxi. 17, xxii. 11, 15; Ex. xix. 19, xx. 22; 1 Kings xix. 12, 13. In the Gospels the Father's Voice is heard thrice — at the Baptism and the Transfiguration (cf. 2 Pet…
912 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical edition (1910); OCR text from Internet Archive. OCR may contain scanning/transcription errors. Verify quotations against page images when precision matters.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.