Bodily labour and even suffering are sometimes felt to be less oppressive than mental anxiety and care. The Apostle Paul was familiar with all alike; and in his case a peculiarly sensitive and sympathetic nature caused him to feel more keenly and constantly than others might have done the pressure of daily anxiety for the welfare of the converts he had made and the Churches he had founded.

I. THE REASONS FOR ANXIETY WITH REGARD TO THE CHURCHES.

1. Their immaturity. They had been in existence but a few years, and were subject to the natural disadvantages of youth and inexperience. They needed diligent watching and tender, fostering care.

2. Their exposure to the insidious efforts of false teachers. Some of these sought to lead the Christians of the first age back into Judaism, others strove to introduce licence and lawlessness.

3. Their constantly recurring needs. Some needed the visits of evangelists or the appointment of pastors. Others needed the instructions or counsels which circumstances might render appropriate.

II. THE PRACTICAL PROMPTINGS OF APOSTOLIC ANXIETY. We see the evidences of Paul's sincere solicitude for the Churches in:

1. His frequent visits, by which he brought his personal influence to bear upon those whose welfare he sought and who naturally looked to him for help.

2. His Epistles, full of clear statement, convincing reasoning, earnest persuasion, and faithful warning.

3. His selection and appointment of devoted fellow labourers to assist him in the superintendence and edification of the youthful communities.

4. His fervent prayers, which abounded on behalf of all in whose spiritual well being he was interested.

III. THE PROFITABLE LESSONS OF APOSTOLIC ANXIETY.

1. A general lesson of mutual interest and sympathy. Who can read this language without feeling to what an extent it enforces the scriptural precept? - "Look not every man upon his own things, but every man also upon the things of others."

2. A special lesson of mutual helpfulness as the duty and privilege of all who occupy positions of influence and authority in Christ's Church. Some forms of Church government tend rather to isolate Christian communities than to draw them together. This tendency may be happily counteracted by compliance with the precept implicitly contained in this declaration of the apostle. - T.

Weariness means to wear away the nervous sensibilities. Paul felt this. It is not lassitude which comes from indifference, but the exhaustion felt by the earnest and faithful soul. Let us thank God for restorative power. In nature how blessed this is! So with grace!

I. WEARINESS COMES WITH TEMPORARY DISAPPOINTMENT AND DEFEAT. God has promised to perfect that which concerneth us, but the way of perfection is just the way which wearies us. We are disappointed at the slow progress. And we are human. Think of Rebekah! — "I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth." The motherly anxiety was at work. As we get older we feel "limitations" of power. Disappointment is a cloud, and we wait till the heavens are clear and the all-revealing light comes again! But we are defeated too! But first defeat has made many a true general, has quickened many an inventor, like Watt, Stephenson, and Brunel. Weariness comes to student, explorer, missionary, and philanthropist saddened with ingratitude. But this is not the weariness of sin, that not only exhausts, but destroys.

II. WEARINESS COMES WITH SELF-DISCOVERY. The volcano tells what is in the earth. The lightning reveals the latent electricity in the air. Passions and lusts reveal terrible possibilities in good men. David said, "I am weary with my groaning," and again, "I am weary of my crying." Conflict with sin in all its forms is weary work.

1. The roots are so hidden. Like some garden weeds have roots that never seem uprooted, long white threads that interlace the earth and strangle other plants.

2. The battle is so varied. Like Stanley's passage of the Falls, enemies on both banks and on the island, mid-stream.

3. The avengements are so real. There is no escaping the voice! Thou art the man. And the soul cannot pretend not to hear. But think of this same Paul. "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The answer is — Christ. More than conquerors!

III. WEARINESS COMES WITH UNBELIEF. The Greeks had an underlying sadness in their outwardly beautiful life. It is faith which gives life and zest. Thomas Carlyle says, "All epochs, wherein unbelief, under whatever form soever, maintains its sorry victory, should they ever for a moment glitter with a sham splendour, vanish from the eyes of posterity; because no one chooses to burden himself with study of the unfruitful." Men must be weary who have lost faith.

1. Round of same duties without a goal.

2. Growth a mockery merging into weakness.

3. Health into pain. Vision into dimness. Thought into blank!

IV. WEARINESS COMES FROM SOLITUDE. The regiment is thinning in which you started. You have seen many arms of the soldiers "dip below the downs" into the valley. You are beginning in a human sense to feel solitary. The Master was weary in solitude: "What, could ye not watch with Me one hour?" So was Paul: "At Athens alone." But the Christian is never alone. "I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you."

(W. M. Statham.)

The word "care" is "anxiety" — the same word by which Christ (Luke 8:4-15) designates one of the three influences by which the good seed is "stifled." St. Paul speaks here of it in the list of sufferings for Christ's sake. That anxiety which our Lord reproved (Matthew 6:25, etc.; Luke 10:41) has a namesake among the graces. St. Paul, who says (Philippians 4:6), "Be anxious about nothing," mentions this without apology as his daily experience. Just in proportion to the meanness of the one is the dignity of the other. The anxieties which choke the Word are commonly as selfish as they are earthly; those of which Paul was here capable are elevating, and, so far from choking the Word, grow out of it. Notice, respecting this care of all the Churches —

I. ITS UNSELFISHNESS. These people were nothing to him. They were neither kinsfolk, neighbours, nor countrymen. They were converts, but his idea of his responsibility towards them was not to do his duty and then leave it. He was solicitous, even to pain, about their continuous welfare.

II. ITS STRICTNESS.

1. As regards his government of the Churches, with what eagerness both of authority and argument does he throw himself into questions even of dress! (1 Corinthians 11:3-16; cf. 1 Timothy 2:13, 14). In our ritual controversies we are certain that he would have laid down, as it is now thought tyranny to do, the law of obedience (1 Corinthians 14:36).

2. His anxiety, as his Epistles show, was a doctrinal anxiety. He was fighting for Christ, and therefore was peremptory in his enforcement of doctrine.

III. INDIVIDUAL (ver. 29). True he made the world his province, but he took a personal interest in his converts. See how he deals with the incestuous person. He never suffered the supposed interests of Churches to eclipse the value of souls. I knew an archbishop who failed not, whatever his distance or occupation, to write at certain intervals to a common northern townsman whom he had reclaimed from intemperance for his establishment in grace.

(Dean Vaughan.)

I. THERE ARE TWO FAULTS WHICH ALTERNATE IN HUMAN CHARACTER — weakness and harshness.

1. We sometimes find a person who is extremely amiable, one invaluable in hours of distress, to whom we fly in sorrow. And yet in this character, so attractive at first sight, there may be a fatal defect. There may be a want of strength — a sympathy not only with the erring, which is right, but with the error, which is wrong.

2. On the other hand, we sometimes see a person of the greatest elevation and purity of character; we hear his judgment upon right and wrong; we fancy our own moral tone to be braced by his principles and example. And yet here too there may be something fatally wanting. He may be harsh, and have the effect of driving in upon itself, but not of correcting, that which is sinful in another. We feel, perhaps, that it would be impossible for us to confess a fault to such a person; therefore in his company we are tempted to deceive him if not ourselves, and that which is evil sinks the deeper in for being thus driven from the surface.

II. TURN NOW, AND SEE A CHARACTER WHICH, BY GOD'S GRACE, COMBINED BOTH THESE VIRTUES AND AVOIDED BOTH THESE FAULTS.

1. By nature it was a strong character. Those whom he regarded as in error St. Paul once persecuted to the death. But, as soon as the love of Christ touched his heart, without losing one particle of strength, he learned to add to it tenderness. Knowing how much he had been forgiven, he knew how to forgive.

2. Now therefore his language is, "Who is weak, and I am not weak?" Who is inexperienced or unstable in the life of God, living powerless in a perilous world, and I do not share his fears and sympathise with him to the full from the depth of my own experience? On the other hand, "Who is offended, and I burn not? " I am weak with the weak, but I am not weak towards their tempter. Read the passage in the first Epistle, in which he consigns to a terrible punishment the guilty person, and then read the passage in the second Epistle, in which, after a due interval of exclusion, he bids them to receive back and comfort the penitent offender.

III. THE LESSON FOR OURSELVES.

1. Amongst you some are weak, vigorous in body, it may be, quick in mind, and yet weak. Some of you feel it, and accuse yourselves of it: "I am so weak, so unstable, so irresolute, so soon shaken from my purpose." Now, then, St. Paul tells us here how we ought to deal with such weakness. He became weak along with it. This was the right way, he meant, to deal with weakness, to descend, as it were, to its level, and, in the very act of doing so, to help to raise it to his own. Do I recommend laxity of treatment? Far from it. Sympathy is not indulgence, for sympathy can rebuke severely, and severely punish. But there are two ways of doing everything; it is one thing to rebuke with sorrow, and another to rebuke or punish in coldness or in apathy.

2. "Who is offended, and I burn not?" It is the tendency of long carelessness, whether in an individual or in a community, to blunt the edge of the sense of sin. It is said of advancing age that its tendency is to make men more indulgent and less sanguine. Certainly we do find a great want in ourselves too often of righteous indignation. A strange companion, some of you may be saying, to that spirit of sympathy which has just been spoken of! St. Paul, however, did not think so. Now indignation is a dangerous quality to foster towards one of ourselves. But nevertheless it has its uses in the Christian scheme, and the loss of it causes a terrible injury to the health of a community, if not of an individual man. No tongue ever uttered words of such consuming indignation as those which Christ addressed to the Scribes and Pharisees. Would to God there were more who could be angry and sin not in the sight and hearing of some kinds of evil! It is the loss of this feeling which fills the courts of justice with records of unmanly aggressions upon the confiding and the feeble.

(Dean Vaughan.)

Many-sidedness, which is an invariable characteristic of all really great men, was indisputably a feature in St. Paul. No doubt it has risks and disadvantages. There is the chance of shallowness. It is often, and with supreme unfairness, identified with insincerity. Capriciousness, too, is imputed to these large and sensitive natures, because we cannot always find them in the same mood. Perhaps that one feature of nature which has done more than any other to conciliate the affection of the Church is sympathy. Sympathy is feeling with others, and it is quite a distinct thing from feeling for them. The latter is more of a quick and evanescent sentiment, good as far as it goes, but not often going far. Sympathy is a habit, or temper of mind, which means prayer and effort and sacrifice. Let us first select certain types of circumstance which sympathy springs to meet.

1. First, let us not forget our apostle's precept, "Rejoice with them that do rejoice," and not be so ignorant as to suppose that men do not value sympathy with happiness, though they may need it more in sorrow. All conditions of life, as well as all classes of men, claim and appreciate sympathy. Our Lord's presence at the marriage feast at Cana, as well as at the feast at Bethany after the raising of His friend Lazarus, is an instance in point. Disappointment and wounded self-love may occasionally have something to do with our lack of sympathy in a friend's happiness, but thoughtlessness and a certain lazy selfishness have more.

2. There are difficulties in religion, where honest and even reverent souls demand sympathy and do not always get it. Nothing so tends to discourage, or harden, or anger men into actual unbelief as a cold, harsh, dogmatic treatment of their difficulties. Sympathy here, indeed, must be prudent and frank.

3. It is hardly necessary to add how needful and blessed in hours of personal sorrow is the felt sympathy of a friend. People who don't know are apt, by way of excusing themselves for negligence, to allege that sympathy at such times has no real value. Little they know about it. Here, again, we must premise that true sympathy has nothing morbid or softening about it. It braces, while it sighs; it points to Christ, instead of leaning on man. If it means tact and skill, it also means courage and power. In conclusion, let us say other things about sympathy. No doubt there are some people in whom it is a born instinct; so to speak, it is neither hard for them nor easy. It is a matter of course, for it is a part of themselves. Yet, even in them, it needs educating and disciplining by experience. Then let us be careful how, with the best meaning possible, we express sympathy with troubles and losses of which we have no sort of personal knowledge, thereby, it may be, making our kindly intended consolations clumsy, ludricrous, or even painful. Let us leave it to those who do know what they are doing, and so avoid the danger of making a second wound in our attempt to heal the first. Once more, no quality of the soul, when it is genuine and ripe and wise, is so gratefully accepted, so tenderly cherished, so lavishly repaid, as this grace of sympathy, and it does not need money, talent, cleverness — only the presence of love. The love of God and the love of man react upon each other.

(Bp. Thorold.)

Aretas, Corinthians, Ephesians, Eve, Israelites, PaulAchaia, Corinth, Damascus, MacedoniaAflame, Angry, Astray, Burn, Caused, Concern, Danger, Fall, Falling, Feeble, Feel, Fired, Indignant, Indignation, Infirm, Intense, Inwardly, Led, Offended, Sin, Stumble, Stumbled, Weak1. Out of his jealousy over the Corinthians, he enters into a forced commendation of himself,
5. of his equality with the chief apostles,
7. of his preaching the gospel to them freely, and without any charge to them;
13. showing that he was not inferior to those deceitful workers in any legal prerogative;
23. and in the service of Christ, and in all kinds of sufferings for his ministry, far superior.

2 Corinthians 11:29

     5844   emotions
     5963   sympathy

2 Corinthians 11:21-29

     5109   Paul, apostle

2 Corinthians 11:21-30

     8820   self-confidence

2 Corinthians 11:23-29

     5565   suffering, of believers
     7708   apostles, function
     8481   self-sacrifice

2 Corinthians 11:23-30

     8358   weakness, physical
     8462   priority, of God

2 Corinthians 11:23-33

     8451   mortification

2 Corinthians 11:28-29

     5567   suffering, emotional
     8239   earnestness

Simplicity Towards Christ
But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.'--2 COR. xi. 3. The Revised Version, amongst other alterations, reads, 'the simplicity that is towards Christ.' The inaccurate rendering of the Authorised Version is responsible for a mistake in the meaning of these words, which has done much harm. They have been supposed to describe a quality or characteristic belonging to Christ or the Gospel; …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

This we have Undertaken in Our Present Discourse...
2. This we have undertaken in our present discourse: may Christ help us, the Son of a virgin, and the Spouse of virgins, born after the flesh of a virgin womb, and wedded after the Spirit in virgin marriage. Whereas, therefore, the whole Church itself is a virgin espoused unto one Husband Christ, [2028] as the Apostle saith, of how great honor are its members worthy, who guard this even in the flesh itself, which the whole Church guards in the faith? which imitates the mother of her husband, and …
St. Augustine—Of Holy Virginity.

Letter ii (A. D. 1126) to the Monk Adam
To the Monk Adam [3] 1. If you remain yet in that spirit of charity which I either knew or believed to be with you formerly, you would certainly feel the condemnation with which charity must regard the scandal which you have given to the weak. For charity would not offend charity, nor scorn when it feels itself offended. For it cannot deny itself, nor be divided against itself. Its function is rather to draw together things divided; and it is far from dividing those that are joined. Now, if that …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

What 'the Gospel' Is
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.--Mark i. 1 My purpose now is to point out some of the various connections in which the New Testament uses that familiar phrase, 'the gospel,' and briefly to gather some of the important thoughts which these suggest. Possibly the process may help to restore freshness to a word so well worn that it slips over our tongues almost unnoticed and excites little thought. The history of the word in the New Testament books is worth notice. It seldom occurs in those …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Protevangelium.
As the mission of Christ was rendered necessary by the fall of man, so the first dark intimation of Him was given immediately after the fall. It is found in the sentence of punishment which was passed upon the tempter. Gen. iii. 14, 15. A correct understanding of it, however, can be obtained only after we have ascertained who the tempter was. It is, in the first place, unquestionable that a real serpent was engaged in the temptation; so that the opinion of those who maintain that the serpent is only …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Of this Weakness of His, He Saith in Another Place...
13. Of this weakness of his, he saith in another place, "We made ourselves small among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children." [2510] For in that passage the context indicates this: "For neither at any time," saith he, "used we flattering words, as ye know, nor an occasion of covetousness; God is witness: nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others when we might have been burdensome to you as the Apostles of Christ: but we made ourselves small among you, even as a nurse cherisheth …
St. Augustine—Of the Work of Monks.

Wherefore they who Say that the Marriages of Such are not Marriages...
13. Wherefore they who say that the marriages of such are not marriages, but rather adulteries, seem not to me to consider with sufficient acuteness and care what they say; forsooth they, are misled by a semblance of truth. For, whereas they, who of Christian sanctity marry not, are said to choose the marriage of Christ, hence certain argue saying, If she, who during the life of her husband is married to another, be an adulteress, even as the Lord Himself hath laid down in the Gospel; therefore, …
St. Augustine—On the Good of Widowhood.

The Godly are in Some Sense Already Blessed
I proceed now to the second aphorism or conclusion, that the godly are in some sense already blessed. The saints are blessed not only when they are apprehended by God, but while they are travellers to glory. They are blessed before they are crowned. This seems a paradox to flesh and blood. What, reproached and maligned, yet blessed! A man that looks upon the children of God with a carnal eye and sees how they are afflicted, and like the ship in the gospel which was covered with waves' (Matthew 8:24), …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

Paul at Corinth
'After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth; 2. And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them. 3. And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought: for by their occupation they were tent-makers. 4. And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. 5. And when Silas and Timotheus …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts

For not Even Herein Ought Such as are Married to Compare Themselves with The...
10. For not even herein ought such as are married to compare themselves with the deserts of the continent, in that of them virgins are born: for this is not a good of marriage, but of nature: which was so ordered of God, as that of every sexual intercourse whatever of the two sexes of human kind, whether in due order and honest, or base and unlawful, there is born no female save a virgin, yet is none born a sacred virgin: so it is brought to pass that a virgin is born even of fornication, but a sacred …
St. Augustine—Of Holy Virginity.

But when He Might Use to Work, that Is...
15. But when he might use to work, that is, in what spaces of time, that he might not be hindered from preaching the Gospel, who can make out? Though, truly, that he wrought at hours of both day and night himself hath not left untold. [2518] Yet these men truly, who as though very full of business and occupation inquire about the time of working, what do they? Have they from Jerusalem round about even to Illyricum filled the lands with the Gospel? [2519] or whatever of barbarian nations hath remained …
St. Augustine—Of the Work of Monks.

Moreover, if Discourse must be Bestowed Upon Any...
21. Moreover, if discourse must be bestowed upon any, and this so take up the speaker that he have not time to work with his hands, are all in the monastery able to hold discourse unto brethren which come unto them from another kind of life, whether it be to expound the divine lessons, or concerning any questions which may be put, to reason in an wholesome manner? Then since not all have the ability, why upon this pretext do all want to have nothing else to do? Although even if all were able, they …
St. Augustine—Of the Work of Monks.

Which Thing Whoso Thinks Cannot have Been done by the Apostles...
6. Which thing whoso thinks cannot have been done by the Apostles, that with them women of holy conversation should go about wheresoever they preached the Gospel, that of their substance they might minister to their necessities, let him hear the Gospel, and learn how in this they did after the example of the Lord Himself. Our Lord, namely, according to the wont of His pity, sympathizing with the weak, albeit Angels might minister unto Him, had both a bag in which should be put the money which was …
St. Augustine—Of the Work of Monks.

And that which Follows Concerning Birds of the Air and Lilies of the Field...
35. And that which follows concerning birds of the air and lilies of the field, He saith to this end, that no man may think that God careth not for the needs of His servants; when His most wise Providence reacheth unto these in creating and governing those. For it must not be deemed that it is not He that feeds and clothes them also which work with their hands. But lest they turn aside the Christian service of warfare unto their purpose of getting these things, the Lord in this premonisheth His servants …
St. Augustine—Of the Work of Monks.

That the Ruler Should be a Near Neighbour to Every one in Compassion, and Exalted Above all in Contemplation.
The ruler should be a near neighbour to every one in sympathy, and exalted above all in contemplation, so that through the bowels of loving-kindness he may transfer the infirmities of others to himself, and by loftiness of speculation transcend even himself in his aspiration after the invisible; lest either in seeking high things he despise the weak things of his neighbours, or in suiting himself to the weak things of his neighbours he relinquish his aspiration after high things. For hence it is …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

"The Carnal Mind is Enmity against God for it is not Subject to the Law of God, Neither Indeed Can Be. So Then they that Are
Rom. viii. s 7, 8.--"The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." It is not the least of man's evils, that he knows not how evil he is, therefore the Searcher of the heart of man gives the most perfect account of it, Jer. xvii. 12. "The heart is deceitful above all things," as well as "desperately wicked," two things superlative and excessive in it, bordering upon an infiniteness, such …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Blessed Hope and Its Power
PHILIPPIANS iii. 17-21 The problem of the body--Cautions and tears--"That blessed hope"--The duty of warning--The moral power of the hope--The hope full of immortality--My mother's life--"He is able"--The promise of his coming The Apostle draws to the close of his appeal for a true and watchful fidelity to the Gospel. He has done with his warning against Judaistic legalism. He has expounded, in the form of a personal confession and testimony, the true Christian position, the acceptance of the …
Handley C. G. Moule—Philippian Studies

What the Ruler's Discrimination Should be Between Correction and Connivance, Between Fervour and Gentleness.
It should be known too that the vices of subjects ought sometimes to be prudently connived at, but indicated in that they are connived at; that things, even though openly known, ought sometimes to be seasonably tolerated, but sometimes, though hidden, be closely investigated; that they ought sometimes to be gently reproved, but sometimes vehemently censured. For, indeed, some things, as we have said, ought to be prudently connived at, but indicated in that they are connived at, so that, when the …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

An Essay on the Mosaic Account of the Creation and Fall of Man
THERE are not a few difficulties in the account, which Moses has given of the creation of the world, and of the formation, and temptation, and fall of our first parents. Some by the six days of the creation have understood as many years. Whilst others have thought the creation of the world instantaneous: and that the number of days mentioned by Moses is only intended to assist our conception, who are best able to think of things in order of succession. No one part of this account is fuller of difficulties, …
Nathaniel Lardner—An Essay on the Mosaic Account of the Creation and Fall of Man

St. Malachy Becomes Bishop of Connor; He Builds the Monastery of iveragh.
16. (10). At that time an episcopal see was vacant,[321] and had long been vacant, because Malachy would not assent: for they had elected him to it.[322] But they persisted, and at length he yielded when their entreaties were enforced by the command of his teacher,[323] together with that of the metropolitan.[324] It was when he was just entering the thirtieth year of his age,[325] that he was consecrated bishop and brought to Connor; for that was the name of the city through ignorance of Irish ecclesiastical …
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh

How to Make Use of Christ as the Truth, when Error Prevaileth, and the Spirit of Error Carrieth Many Away.
There is a time when the spirit of error is going abroad, and truth is questioned, and many are led away with delusions. For Satan can change himself into an angel of light, and make many great and fairlike pretensions to holiness, and under that pretext usher in untruths, and gain the consent of many unto them; so that in such a time of temptation many are stolen off their feet, and made to depart from the right ways of God, and to embrace error and delusions instead of truth. Now the question is, …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

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