The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 2 — Section 103

Vers. 8, 4.- Tent-maJcing a sermon. Paul has left the mockers, the procrastinators, and the believers, each to rea.p the fruits he has sown, and, departing from A.thens, has reached Corinth. And here we find him the centre of so natural a touch of history, that it speaks its own fidelity. No "cunningly devised" history would have interpolated such an incident as this before us. Nothing but the truth of history could find its niche here. So distinctly as it is recorded, it must be charged with some useful suggestions. I. p AUL PUTS HONOUR ON HERE LABOUR WITH TRE HANDS. It were of those matters of ex:cP.ediDgly curi0us interest, not vouchsafed to us, and not necessary to" our learning," if we had been told, what Paul earned as wage; or otherwise how he sold what he made. Of one thing we will be sure, he did neither ask nor take more than was the right price. JL p AUL PUTS ITS REAL HONOUR ON THE APOSTOLIC AND MINISTERIAL OFFICE. He does this partly, in one of the most effective of ways, viz. by withdrawing from that office its merely superficial honour. He strips it of mere dignity, of ease, and of professionalism. III. p AUL PUTS HONOUR ON INDEPENDENCE, EVEN IN THE APOSTOLIC OFFICE. True, in Christianity as in Judaism, that those who minister at the altar have right to live by the altar, and that the exchange of things temporal and "carnal" (1 Cor. ix. 11-14) for things spiritual is sure to be to the preponderating ii:ain of those who part with the former. Yet there may be times when the day shall be won by one clear proof, and tbat the proof of disinterestedness (1 Cor. ix. 15-18). IV. PAUL PUTS HONOUR ON THE FREEDOM OF CHRISTIANITY FROM .A.l!fY BET AND ARTIFICIAL CLASS DISTINCTIONS. The man who speaks and who does the right and the good is the disciple of Christ. And discipleship is not determined, or regulated, or modified, in any way whatsoever by the kind of work to which it puts its hand. A man who prays in all the secrecy of the closet may do more than the man who preaches in all the publicity of the Church. A man who give, may haply, on occasion, do more than either, And a man who works at the humblest craft may not only be not second to an apostle, but may l,e truest apostle himself. How often have heart and mind died away, and nothing been reaped for want of hand and foot I The union of the practical with the devotional i, oft,en just. as truly the sine qua non, as the union of the devotional with the teaching and preaching of the highest. seraph-tongue. V. PAUL BTIUKBI! AT THE DEEl'-!.YilllQ PBINCIPLE, 80 WELCOME .AND HONOtJBEl: WBBK Oll, XVIII, 1-28.] TllE ACTS OF THE A-POSTLBS. 105