Lamb Bhepherding his &aints, and in John authority from me, 88 I also have received ui. 16 in the oharge to St. Peter to shep• from my Father (oomp. John xvii 18; u. herd Christ'& sheep. It is not easy t.o deter• 21 : Luke ::ai.i. 29 : Acbl ii. 83). mine whether the " rod" (/l#l3os) is a king's Ver. 28,-1 will give mm the· morning l!lleptre, as in Heh. i. 8, or a shepherd's staff, star. In eh. xxii. 16 Christ himself is "the 118 in l Sam. :z:vii. 43: Micah vii. 14: e.nd Bright and Morning Star." Therefore here Zech. xi. 7. A.a the VeBBela of pottery are he promises to give himself to him that broken to shivera. The future tense is a overoometh, The morning ste.r has ever false reading; the insertion of "they"- been proverbial. for brightness and beauty, •• ahall tM!J be broken "-is a false rendering. and, as the harbinger of the day, is the ~unpi{:lew, "to shatter," occurs in a literal bringer of light, life, and joy. Moreover, a sense in Mark v. 4 and John xix. 36: and star is often a sign of royalty: " There in a fignrative sense in Luke ix, 39 and shall come a star out of Jacob, and a aceptre Rom. xvi. 20. As I also have received !rom shall rise out of Israel" (Numb. xxiv. 17); my :Father, The Greek is ,l,s KC&;,@ e'l;..71,p.., and as su<ih it appeared to the Wise Men not Ka.ll@r ,,,.:, l7'.a./:lov. He shall receive (Matt. ii. 2).
HOMILETICS. Vers.1-7.-Ephesus: the declining Ohurch. This letter to the Church at Ephesus, as well as all the others, is sent to the Church through its "angel." It is not very ea.ay for an English reader to understand to what office in the Church such an expres- sion can refer. 'fhe various meanings of" bishop" or "overse(lr," "pastor," "messenger," have been assigned. We do not accept either to the exclusion of any other. We will, however, indicate some ,historic matters concerning Church officers, and then leave the student to draw his owt. conclusions. It is well known that some of the offices of the earliest Christian Churches were named after those of the later Jewish synagogue.1 The word "presbyter" is one of these. Among the synagogue officers we find one to which, by reason of our different form of organization and worship, we have no exact parallel. This officer was appointed to be the leader of Divine worship, going up before the ark, to conduct the service. He was not one ordained to a permanent office; but exercised it only as he was occasionally appointed thereto. Any lay member of the congregation might thus serve, provided he possessed the necessary qualifications. He was required to be in sympathy with the people, pure in life, or-0ering well his family, with a good voice, able to read and expoun<l, and to conduct with a devotional spirit the worship of the people, to whom he must be acceptable, as their representative therein. He was regarded as their legate ;, the mouthpiece of those who were prasent, and the deputy of those who were absent through illness or otherwise. '!'here should not be any fierce dieputatiou about this, for evidently we bave no such officer in any of the main forms of Church government. There are those whose duties correspond in some respects, but none whose position is precisely the same. What name should we give him? Not bishop, and not pastor; for his was not a permanent office. Noi a president; for he did not belong to the rulers of the synagogue-he acted only for the time as leader of the worship, as expounder of. truth; as the people's mouth- piece in prayer. 'l'he Jews had a name for such a one. He was called the "angel of the Church." Now, it is far more likely that, at the outset of Christian Church-life, it would be easy to find men who could occasionally than such as oould permanently discharge such duties. In the transition period between tbe passing away of the synagogue-forms and the settlement of new ones, it would be natural to use the old and familiar phrase, "the ang~l o~ the Church,'' although the office indicated by the name in former days was mergmg mto the more sacred one of a permanent overseer of the Church. Although, therefore, there is now no office in the Church preci;;ely corre- sponding to this old Hebraistic phrase, yet it is intensely interestin" to find it retained as one of the last dying echoes in Scripture of the ancient forms; a~ a connecting link between the old and the new. At that time, if any message were sent to a Church, it would' be sent to them through the "angel," who had to conduct their worship, at any rate pro tem. But whether Ephe11us or any one of the seven Churches had, at • See articles by Rev. J. E. Yonge, M.A., in the <Jlerg'Jlman'a Magan~ vol. i,. ne11; ,erles, 1887. OB. IL 1-29 J THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE. 69