The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 319

much significance le intended to lie ln the statement as here introduced. Let us consider this announcement of J eBUs- L IN ITS APPLIOATION TO ANANIAS. It is intended to remove the objection of Ananias, by suggesting to him : 1. 'l'hat Christ did not overlook had not overlooked the specialty of the case. 2. That Christ would be himself' answerable for th;, education of Saul for hi~ :work, faili~g the antecedents that Ananias supposen. would have been of more auspw1ous promise. a. That that education would not fail to be what, in ite character and the severity of its discipline, would both (1) attest the reality _of the ~hange ~assed upon Saul . and (2) co1;1firm and deepen that change. 4•. Possibly Christ may, m the mode of his reply, desire also very condescendingly to still any smallest germ of (1) personal envy or (2) forwardness to suspicion lurkino- in the character of Ananias. It ie very_certain that the mischief of these two very thi~gs, unacknowledged and covered over with finer words, has amounted to a total result of very great disaster during the career of the Church, ever since the personal intervention of Jesus has been absent. How often did Jesus in the days of his flesh stand by the sorry sinner round whom surged the murmur of the envious multitude! I\ut the half-stifled and cautiollll envy and suspicion of the wary individual has often proved itself a more cruel enemy to souls, and must be a more offensive obstacle, in the eyes of Jesllll, to his work making way in some poor guilty but struggling soul. Certain it is that- • Since our dear Lord in bliss reposed, High e.bove mortal ken," his Ohurch has, times without number, made to pass through severest quarantine heart- broken volunteert for his service. The effects he.ve been all deteriorating and disastrous. They would have been ruinous save for the still steady, if invisible, rule and headship of Jesus Obrist. The Church (whether only so named or so in deed and in truth), mistaking duty and right, has failed in such cases to note sufficiently the Divine treatment as here illustrated in the three days' blindness and fasting of Saul, succeeded by the confidence and trust of the great Master, given immediately in the kindliest and most unreserved manner. II. 1N ITS APPLICATION TO SAUL HIMSELF. Jesllll bids .Ananias lose no time, but "go n at once to bear to Saul the message, so far as the way could be prepared for it by human lips; and herein suggests to us to notice certain relations of this language to Saul. 1. Christ, having chosen his servant, apprises him both faithfully and early of whe.t awe.its him. No false, nor tempting, nor too favourable gloss is put by him on his own "most worthy" service. 2. He apprises him also of what is expected of him. If Jesus show to any one, whether in the ways of apostolic time or in the ways of time present, "how gree.t things he shall suffer for his Name's sake,"" how great things" life and circumstance and earthly lot are likely to wake him "suffer," "how great things" his divinest directest call shall impose upon him to" suffer,"-it must be that he is addressing a call to him that shall invoke all his heroism. It is very much as though the condescending Jesus did here introduce the Christian hero into the possible ranks of his own blessed Church. .All must come of him, all does surely come of hiru ; but if it be possible, something shall be credited to the range of human virtue. Manifestly Saul was a good instance by which to set forth this. He had been conspicuous; he had been a hero of some sort; he had shown lavish energy, which shall no longer be sacrificed to lavish waste. Thus from the first Jesus gives a tone to certain of his servants-those, to wit, who are of the sort to answer to it readily and really. Life and bbour and the success of real usefulness do often largely own to original impulse and early impression. 'l'he high-pitched thought and purpose and feeling of youth and of first effort are rarely lost, when they are genuine to begin with. Th_ey tell and count and sw~ll. to the echo as yee.r and period pass by. Nor can it be demed that 1:11any _a true Chns~rnn life falls under the condemnation of being a feeble and an ~nfrwtful life, because 1t ':as n?t. at the first appealed to with power. It never g?t the 1dee. of t~enchancy: And rndec1s10n -its watchword-was snare and delusion to 1t. 3. lie appnses hrm of what may be cal- culated upon, as acting like a certain and safe oheck to both pride or vanity and self-con- fidence. How many have fallen upon the very thr~shold of what wo1;1ld have _bee_n e. p-cat spii-itual career through one or both of these thmgs I Aud the pnde ecdes1ast1cal 316 THE ACTS OF TilE APOSTLES.