PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Great Texts of the Bible — Volume 17
James Hastings · 205,313 words · 212 reading sections
Section 1
!>:^■i!^ :i.nf)' -'^m'' .(..Ml ;■' Si i m ^^: )??;>r ,i:r Mipi«ll!li!i^l(r.&-'!::>MiyiH:>;;;: '•Ml-'-- \'i'}l-: •;;s:;;;';';;;:;.;!;'jl«:i;:;!;;:i;!iiH:i:;;;;!:;;;;:;^ ^H OF Pf^il^ THE JREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE MAP 31 1926'' THE GREAT T ' OF THE BIBLE EDITED BY THE REV. JAMES "HASTINGS, D.D. EDITOR OF…
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2. Unity will never be secured by banishing the question of the Church from our public speech ; unity is to be gained only by arriving at right views about the Church. It is difference of view that keeps us apart at present ; it is only a true under- standing of the Church that will ever bring us together. ^ Behind al…
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(2) Fundamentally, the word is " an assembly " ; not ecclesias- tical, but civil. Nor is it used exclusively in the ecclesiastical sense in the New Testament. The town clerk of Ephesus "dismissed the assembly." The word used by St. Luke would bear the interpretation that " he set free the Church." But there is no confu…
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^ There is a particular conception of the nature of the Church to which I desire to give prominence and distinctness, believing that in this conception is to be found the key which will reduce into order the various notions which the word " Church " sets floating in our minds. In our Collect for All Saints' Day the ter…
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1 J. LI. Da vies. 2 J. Parker. 12 THE CHURCH defacing hand ; but as in that there may be the crushed and defaced pillar, and the ugly rents and fissures and gaps even in the central tower, so the visible Church of Christ has been torn by heresies and schisms, her very safety threatened, her very central tower shaken …
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Then thro' the mid complaint of my confession, Then thro' the pang and passion of my prayer, Leaps with a start the shock of His possession, Thrills me and touches, and the Lord is there. Scarcely I catch the words of His revealing. Hardly I hear Him, dimly understand, Only the Power that is within me pealing Lives …
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^ By holding fast at home Christ's truth in greater purity ; by growth in love ; by devotion deepened and increased ; by more frequent and earnest communion; by a wider, more enduring, more steadfast unity ; by being more filled with the Spirit ; by being transfigured into Christ's likeness ; by sitting always beneath …
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Salvation is not only the rescue and deliverance of a man from evils conceived to lie round about him, and to threaten his being from without, it is also his healing from evils which have so wrought themselves into his very being, and infected his whole nature, that the emblem for them is a "sickness unto death," of wh…
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^ " Grace " is a word our fathers understood and loved better than we. It was defined as " favour." And favours even of God are not agreeable to the proud spirit of man. But no common term can ever exhaust, or express, this great and rich idea. " Grace " expresses and denotes at once the feeling that prompts the favour…
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^ The play of chances which brings up a ternion or a qua- ternion is nothing compared to what has been required to prevent the combination of which I am reaping the fruits from being dis- turbed. If my origin had been less lowly in the eyes of the world, I should not have entered or persevered upon that royal road of t…
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2. Why is faith selected as the channel of salvation ? (1) Faith has been selected as the channel of grace because tlure is a natural adaptation in faith to he used as the receiver. Suppose that I am about to give a poor man an alms ; I put it into his hand — why ? Well, it would hardly be fitting to put it into his e…
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30 SALVATION THE GIFT OF GOD controversies and the need for definition. He said that, of course, we must have doctrine. I assented, remarking that the form must be more or less human. " After all," he said, " after all, the greatest thing is faith." Having said this, he paused, and then recited, giving earnest emphasi…
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GoD's Workmanship. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them. — Eph. ii. lo. This chapter contains an argument which is a good illustration of the two-edged way in which the sword of the Spirit cuts enemies who come from different directio…
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Come to me, 0 ye children! And whisper in my ear What the birds and the winds are singing In your sunny atmosphere. For what are all our contrivings, And the wisdom of our books, When compared with your caresses, And the gladness of your looks ? Ye are better than all the ballads That ever were sung or said; For …
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Now, if every Christian is a true poem of God, and if the Holy Catholic Church is the supreme Divine epic " created " in our world, who is the Hero of the composition ? Our text answers ^ T. Davies, Sermons, ii. 116. ' IT, H. Jowett, in The Examiner, Nov. 19, 1903, p. 508, 40 GOD'S WORKMANSHIP that the Hero is the …
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*-^ Life " in Christ " is, in other words, a progressive realization of a personal fellowship with God in thought, word and deed, which brings an ever-increasing power of discerning Him in His works and a surer faith by which we apprehend the invisible (Heb. xi. 1). Thus the Christian appropriates in action little by l…
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* W. J. Dq,wson, The Pivine Challenge, 113. EPHESIANS II. 10 45 ^ I think, as I look back over my life, that there is hardly a single thwarting of my wishes, hardly a single instance where things seemed to go against me, in which I cannot even now see, that by God's profound mercy they really went for me all the whil…
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^ Mrs. Watts, in George Frederic Watts, ii. 250. ^ T. Champness, New Coins from Old Gold, 86. 8 A. Lewis, Sermons Preached in England, 143, EPHESIANS II. lo 47 3. The sense of a high vocation will go far to redeem life from failure. Our consciousness of being in touch with God would be deepened if we would only recog…
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Lord, in my spirit, one by one Thou dost repeat the wonders done At Thy creative work begun. When first I came from out the night, The earliest sense that woke was sight, And Thou didst say, "Let there be light." I saw pass by Thy shining car ; I had no thought of near or far; I tried to catch the bright day-star. B…
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I. The Disabilities of Aliens. 1. The Gentiles hitherto had been in the position of strangers and sojourners. As aliens they had no rights of citizenship, and all they could look for was temporary hospitality. They had no real standing within the commonwealth. Gentiles and Jews stood apart in their agelong traditions…
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EPHESIANS II. 19 57 great idea launched upon the world. One confused fisherman, with a few men of like mind of whom he was the leader, formed the solitary rock in the midst of a world of shifting sand, and upon this rock Jesus would build His Church — a society embody- ing His spirit, living according to His laws, ste…
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^ The devout meditation of the isolated man, which flitted through his soul, like a transient tone of Love and Awe from unknown lands, acquires certainty, continuance, when it is shared- in by his brother men. "Where two or three are gathered together " in the name of the Highest then first does the Highest, as it is w…
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2. They now belong to the fellowship of the saints. — They are citizens in the holy state — the commonwealth of the people con- secrated to God — citizens with full rights and no longer strangers or unenfranchised residents. The idea of the chosen people all through the Old Testament is that they are as a whole consecr…
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The prominent characteristic of a family is mutual affection. A family is held together by love. There is the love of the father for each and all, and there is the love of all for him and for each other. And so it is in the Divine family. " God is love " ; pure, infinite, eternal love. This, as it is the glorious summa…
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^ The Nation some time ago gave the story of a business man, the inheritor of an honoured name and honourable business traditions, who had a temptation put in his way to abandon the old methods of his firm, and join a great trust that cared more for its dividends than the welfare of its workmen. There was money in it, …
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I. The Materials of the Building. The Temple of God is made up of " the blessed company of all faithful people," the apostles and prophets being the foundation, * Henry Ward Beecher. EPHESIANS II. 20-22 71 and Christ Himself the chief corner-stone. This is that one body into which we are all baptized by one spirit…
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In next order the soot sets to work; it cannot make itself white at first, but instead of being discouraged, tries harder and harder, and comes out clear at last, and the hardest thing in the world ; and for the blackness that it had, obtains in exchange ^ C. B, Keenleyside. EPHESIANS II. 20-22 73 the power of refle…
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^ The plain historic truth in regard to the Christian Church is this, that from the beginning the Christian Church has held an ^ R. Vaughan Pryce. EPHESIANS II. 20-22 75 attitude towards Jesus that absolutely forbids His classification with other men, that absolutely lifts Him above all that have ever trodden the ear…
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The image is that of an extensive pile of buildings, such as the ancient temples commonly were, in process of construction at different points over a wide area. The builders work in concert, upon a common plan. The several parts of the work are adjusted to each other ; and the various operations in process are so har- …
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But both St. Peter and St, Paul invariably explain that this holiness in the sense of consecration implies a demand for holiness in the sense of purity of life. " Ye are the temple of God," says St, Paul, " and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy." And so St. Pe…
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3. Tlie actual is ever approximating to the ideal. — The work keeps moving on. Just as, when any great building is being erected, you see here and there the different workmen engaged with the particular portion which devolves upon them, so it is with the holy temple St. Paul speaks of in the text. The ministers and ste…
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With infinite delight. ^ Paul seems to say to these Ephesians : " You have in your city a magnificent temple, the wonder of the world, the temple of Diana. It bears witness to man's need of worship. But you 84 SPIRITUAL ARCHITECTURE know that that temple is not really a habitation of God. The eternal Spirit of God d…
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^ Dr. Dale was spending a summer holiday at Grasmere, and had walked over to Patterdale to spend the day with Dr. Abbott, the headmaster of the City of London School, an able and prominent Broad Churchman. In the early evening his friend started with him to set him on his way home, still intent on the questions, religi…
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^ We all live in the sublime. Where else can we live ? That is the only place of life. And if aught be lacking, it is not the chance of living in heaven, rather it is watchfulness and medita- tion, also perhaps a little ecstasy of soul. Though you have but a little room, do you fancy that God is not there, too, and tha…
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^ Few of us can fail to have been struck with the solemnity and high tone of this prayer. It may be that some of us have thought that it contained a higher standard of feeling and life than we could hope to reach, and therefore have been tempted to abandon the consideration of it in silence ; whilst others, striving to…
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2. There is, however, an immediate and pressing necessity for this prayer, but it is rather implied than expressed. When he wrote this letter and offered this prayer, Paul was a prisoner in Eome, a circumstance which appears to have had a very depressing, if not a staggering effect on the newly-converted brethren at Ep…
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^ The old customary, seemly attitude in prayer was standing. So Jesus said when He described the penitent publican, "He stood afar off and prayed "; so when He commanded His disciples and said : " When ye stand praying, forgive ! " So in the godly fear of our fathers I still remember the awe that seized me as a boy whe…
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1 J. W. Ewing, The Undying Christ, 71. EPHESIANS III. 14, 15 99 (1) The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ means " the Father " of our Lord's teaching, of those good tidings which He came to bring home to our minds and hearts. That is quite good grammar, and quite good theology. It is (most emphatically) " the Father " …
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(1) That means, first of all, that God is love, that behind all the suffering, the misery, the inequality, and the injustice which confront us in this wild and irregular scene of human life, there beats always and everywhere the heart of a Father, the heart of a personal and impartial love. You ask how it was that Chri…
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IV. The Families. " Every family, in heaven and on earth." 1. "I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom [not the whole family, but] every family in heaven and on earth is named." The point of St. Paul's original phrase is somewhat lost in translation. The Greek word for family (patria) is based on that ior father (…
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^ John G. Paton, iii. 52. "^ Cardinal Newman, in Life of David Brown, 239. io6 THE FATHER AND THE FAMILIES Divine Head. Now he shows how through the experience of tlie Church on earth the manifold wisdom of God is made known to the heavenly hierarchy. Now he declares that marriage, in which the distinctive gifts and…
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checks the selfish endeavour to satisfy them. At the same time the school offers new interests which may brighten home. Out of the home, too, must spring the spirit of purity. For home has its own proper warnings when the occasion comes. The knowledge of the elder may guard the innocent from falling ; and the young hav…
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No clever, brilliant thinker she, With college record and degree; She has not known the paths of fame ; The world has never heard her name; She walks in old long-trodden ways. The valleys of the yesterdays. Home is her kingdom, love her dower ; She seeks no other wand of power To make home sweet, bring heaven near, …
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That we might know Him, Thou didst come and live; That we might find Him, Thou didst come and die ; The son-heart. Brother, Thy son-being give — We too would love the Father perfectly. And to His bosom go back with the cry. Father, into Thy hands I give the heart Which left Thee but to learn how good Thou art ! ' A. M…
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^ In Paul's opinion a Christian had no right to be weak. To Timothy, his spiritual son, he wrote, " Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." To the Colossians, " We desire that ye might be strengthened with all might, accord- ing to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-sufferin…
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Lord, in asking for fervour, I am asking for Thyself, for nothing short of Thee, 0 my God, who hast given Thyself wholly to us. Enter my heart substantially and personally, and fill it with fervour by filling it with Thee. Thou alone canst fill the soul of man, and Thou hast promised to do so. Thou art the living Flame…
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^ Mr. Macgregor's nature presented a union, difficult for those who did not know him to understand, of feeling, of intellect, and strength of will. If feeling "overpowered" him for the moment, it was not suffered to carry him away. No im- pulse was allowed to master him for which he could not find intellectual justific…
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III. The Agent. « Through his Spirit." 1. In comparing the characters of Greek and Eoman story de- scribed in Plutarch's "Lives" with those depicted in unfading colours in the Old and New Testaments, one feels that both of these great picture galleries are filled with portraits of men of * A. Ealeigh, The Way to th…
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1 Edward White. EPHESIANS III. i6 127 ^ God will show him — if a man wishes to be like Christ, and to work like Christ, at doing good ; God will teach him and guide him in all puzzling matters. And do not be afraid of being called cowards and milksops for bearing injuries patiently; those who call you so will be like…
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^ R. W. Dale, Lectures on the Ephesians, 246. ^ The Life of William Eobertson Smith, 543. EPHESIANS III. i6 129 we read that he was " full of power." According to the teaching of this Apostle, God hath given us the " spirit of power," which is also the spirit " of love and of a sound mind." So the strength that we mu…
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(.3) It is a power for service. — " Tarry ye in the city of \ Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high." There f is no such force for the spreading of Christ's Kingdom, and the \ witness-bearing work of His Church, as the possession of this I ^ J. A. Hammerton, Stevensoniana, 313. 2 Hugh Stowell BroAVD, i…
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EPHESIANS III. i6 133 2. And what are the riches of God's glory ? Who of us can conceive them ? Think of the riches of God's material glory. "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof." The gold mines and the forests, the gardens and the prairies, the mountains and the seas are all God's. The stars in the heaven…
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EPHESIANS III. i6 135 ^ A ship was rounding Cape Horn, where, as you may know, on account of the fogs and storms, the sun may not appear in view for many days together. The ship of which I am speaking had encountered violent storms ; the weather was intensely cold, so that icicles were hanging from the mast and yard-a…
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EPHESIANS III. i6 137 and gleams like a fine opal in the light, or like an ancient glass vessel from Cyprus or Phoenicia, when all the finer harmonies of the solar spectrum are unceasingly at play. And it is true of the Church as well as of the world that the Never-Changing One is to be sought in the Ever-Changing Man…
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201 (Armstrong), 221 (Hannah), 224 (Edmondstone). Keswick Week, 1905, p. 49 (Moore). Literary Churchman, xxv. (1879), 380. Christ in the Heart. I bow my knees unto the Father, , . . that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.— Eph. iii. 17. 1. This is the central petition of the Apostle's prayer — "that Chri…
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There are at least three kinds of external or material influences by which the life of the spirit may be stifled and destroyed ; superstition, sensuality, and worldly self-indulgence. These three causes of mischief may mix and intertwine with a wonderful complexity. It is one of the favourite devices of sensuality to t…
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(3) Self-indulgence. — Those who think too much of their mere comfort are exposed to the subtle temptation of forgetting the law of duty, the law of self-sacrifice, obedience to which is the proof and token that Christ is dwelling in our hearts by faith. * Bacon, Essmjs, " Of Superstition." '^ David Watson, The Herita…
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^ F. L. Hosmer. EPHESIANS III. 17 149 is not how a living Christ influences His disciples. What is meant is no mere influence derived but separable from Him, however blessed and gracious that influence might be ; it is the presence of His own self, exercising influences which are insepar- able from His presence, and …
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1 G. G. Findlay, The Epistle to the Ephesiam, 189. 2 S. D. Gordon, The Crowded Inn, 59. EPHESIANS III. 17 151 II. In the Heart. 1. "The heart," in the language of the Bible, ;iever denotes the emotional nature by itself. The antithesis of " heart and head," the divorce of feeling and understanding in our modern sp…
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Speak to me, my God ; And let me know the living Father cares For me, even me; for this one of His children, — Hast Thou no word for me ? I am Thy thought. God, let Thy mighty heart beat into mine, And let mine answer as a pulse to Thine. See, I am low ; yea, very low ; but Thou Art high, and Thou canst lift me up to T…
1,204 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.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.