The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 168

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-5.-Excision of a flagrant offender from the Church. No haste was evinced. by the apostle to reach a question that gave him much anxiety. Among the striking phenomena incident to mind as connected with body, the rate of movement in ideas is worthy of notice. Certain classes of ideas, such as those associated with instinctive action, are very rapid. And equally noticeable is the fact that thoughts involving the spontaneous intellect are more swift than those belonging to the volitional inrellect. And, moreover, the same man thinks with more rapidity in some moods than in others. We all know how the physical heart is accelerated in its beat and how the lungs breathe faster under certain circumstances; and, beyond doubt, there is a co-relation in• these phenomena between mind and matter. Now,at first sight, this fact may not strike us, but, on a nearer view, we see that intellectual and moral discipline is very intimately bound up therewith. Take the case of St. Paul in the matter under consideration. Here was a scandal in the Corinthian Church, a case of incest, a son taking his father's wife, publicly known, so shocking as to be under the ban of heathenism. A man such. as St. Pnul, intense, full of impulse, with a temperament eal?er to act on the spur of the moment-a man whose sensations instantly turned into sensibilities, and whose thoughts naturally tended to immediate word8 and deeds,-this man, in one of his most anxious seasons as an apostle, holds bis painful solicitude in check and will not utter his heart till the way has been fully prepared. Rare self-control this, and most honourable-all the more so, indeed, as he had other grounds for just indignation. But he was writing "for Christ's sake," and this was enough. He will not hurry to relieve his overfull mind. Other things had to be said first. The glory of his Lord as the Wisdom and Power of God, the Divine idea in the ministry, the broad contrast between preaching the gospel and all utterances merely human, the evil of partisanship, the humiliation and suffering of the apostles, ann especially his fatherly care over sons disturbing the peace of the Christian household,-all these truths were to be set forth, illustrated,. enforced, before he entered on practical questions. Is there not something here worthy of reflection? The world's practicalness is not very tolerant of general ideas and their elaboration. With it, brain and hand are near neighbours; its thoughts and actions hasten into alliances. If a proper degree of precaution he used, this is unquestionably a wise general rule. There is indeed " A tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken nt the flood, leads 011 to fortune ; • ili2 'fHE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHlANS. [cu. v. 1-13.