For we are not like so many others, who peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as men sent from God. Sermons
1. By mixing up with it foreign, inharmonious, merely human, teachings. 2. Or by making the gospel revelation into a stiffened, formal creed, over the precise terms of which we may wrangle and dispute. 3. Or by displacing the true motive in preaching it, and giving place to low aims, and purposes of merely selfish ambition, and longing for the praise of men. The appeal of the text has its special force when we remember of what things the Judaizing party accused the apostle. St. Paul's enemies forced this appeal from him. Usually it is enough that the sincere and true man should keep on his faithful way, little heeding the opinions or accusations of others, trusting the care of his reputation to God. But occasions do arise when something like public vindication becomes necessary, and a man is called to assert his conscious integrity. Of this we have two very striking instances recorded in Scripture. Samuel, when set aside by the mistaken longing for a visible king, felt deeply hurt, though more for the insult thus offered to Jehovah, the ever-present but invisible King, than for his own sake. He pleaded thus with the people: "I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day. Behold, here I am: witness against me before the Lord, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it you" (1 Samuel 12:2, 3). And David, misunderstood and slandered, turns to speak to God in the bearing of the people, and says, "Judge me... according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me" (Psalm 7:8). Consider - I. THE GREAT GOSPEL TRUST. 1. On the one side, the trust of Divine revelation and message. Illustrate by the direct communications of the Divine will made to the ancient prophets. These they were expected to deliver with all simplicity and completeness, and without making any additions of their own to them. 2. On the other side, the trust of men's souls. The world was given to the apostles as the sphere in which their gospel message was to be delivered. Such a trust demanded seriousness, sincerity, and holy zeal. It should ever call out the best that is in a man. II. THE PERIL OF ITS INJURY THROUGH THE GUILE OF THE SELF SEEKER. Men will surely take their impressions of it from the character of the men who preach it. If we get a soiled idea of the gospel preacher, as an insincere, self-seeking man, it is only too likely that we shall have a soiled and stained image of the gospel that he preaches in our minds. Men can make golden glowings or deep shadows rest on the gospel that they declare, the message which they have in trust. III. THE FORCE OF IT AS PRESERVED WHEN THE AGENT IS GUILELESS AND SINCERE. The stream gets no foulness as it flows through him. Illustrate how men of transparent character and beautiful piety put honour on religion. The commendation of Christ's gospel to men is (1) the pure and stainless Christ himself, and then (2) the graciousness and charm of his servants who are like him. The force behind gospel preaching is the life of the men who preach. The simple-minded, sincere, uncorrupted man may positively make additions to the practical power of the gospel upon men. Distinguish, however, between simplicity and moral weakness, and also between guilelessness and ignorance. The simplicity required is "unity" as opposed to "double mindedness;" it is being wholly for God. ? R.T.
For we are not as many, which corrupt the Word of God. The expression has the idea of self-interest, and especially of petty gain, at its basis. It means literally to sell in small quantities, to retail for profit. But it was specially applied to tavern keeping, and extended to cover all the devices by which the wine-sellers in ancient times deceived their customers. Then it was used figuratively as here; and Lucian speaks of philosophers as selling the sciences, and in most cases (οἱ πολλοι a curious parallel to St. Paul), like tavern keepers "blending, adulterating, and giving bad measure." There are two separable ideas here. One is that of men qualifying the gospel, infiltrating their own ideas into the Word of God, tempering its severity, or perhaps its goodness, veiling its inexorableness, dealing in compromise. The other is that all such proceedings are faithless and dishonest because some private interest underlies them. It need not be avarice, though it is as likely to be this as anything else. A man corrupts the Word of God, makes it the stock in trade of a paltry business of his own, in many other ways than by subordinating it to the need of a livelihood. When he exercises his calling as minister for the gratification of his vanity, or when he preaches not that awful message in which life and death are bound up, but himself, his cleverness, his learning, humour, fine voice or gestures, he does so. He makes the Word minister to him, instead of being a minister of the Word; and that is the essence of the sin. It is the same if ambition be his motive, if he preaches to win disciples to himself, to gain an ascendency over souls, to become the head of a party which will bear the impress of his mind.(J. Denney, B. D.) I. WITH CONSCIOUS HONESTY. "As of sincerity" in direct antagonism to all duplicity and hypocrisy. No man can preach the gospel effectively who is not a true man — true to himself and to the doctrines he proclaims. He must be uninfluenced by prepossessions, by sectarian bias, by worldly interests or fame. No man can have this conscious honesty —1. Unless he preaches his own personal convictions of the gospel. Not the opinions of others, nor even his own opinions, but convictions self-formed, vital, and profound. 2. Unless his own convictions have been reached by impartial, earnest, and devout study. The man who thus preaches, preaches a fresh, living, mighty gospel. II. WITH CONSCIOUS DIVINITY. "Of God, in the sight of God," i.e. — 1. From God. He must feel that he has a Divine commission. 2. Before God. "In the sight of God." He must feel that the God who hath sent him confronts him. This consciousness will make him — (1) (2) III. WITH CONSCIOUS CHRISTLINESS. "In Christ." There are two senses in which we are said to be in another. 1. In their affections. Without poetry or figure we are in those, in the hearts of those who love us. The child is in the heart of the loving parent, etc. Thus all Christ's disciples are in His heart, in His affections. They live in Him. 2. In their character and spirit. Thus the admiring student lives in the character and spirit of his loved teacher, the admiring reader in the thoughts and genius of his favourite author, etc. This is the sense that is specially implied in the text. What is the spirit of Christ? It is that of supreme love to the Great Father and self-sacrificing love for humanity. (D. Thomas, D. D.). People Corinthians, Paul, TitusPlaces Achaia, Corinth, Macedonia, TroasTopics TRUE, Christ, Commissioned, Communion, Contrary, Corrupt, Corrupting, Fraudulent, God's, Hucksters, Message, Motives, Peddle, Peddlers, Peddling, Presence, Profit, Sight, Sincerity, Speak, Teachers, Trade, Transparent, UnlikeOutline 1. Having shown the reason why he came not to them,6. he requires them to forgive and to comfort that excommunicated person, 10. even as he himself upon true repentance had forgiven him; 12. declaring why he departed from Troas to Macedonia, 14. and the happy success which God gave to his preaching in all places. Dictionary of Bible Themes 2 Corinthians 2:17 1690 word of God Library The Triumphal Procession'Thanks be unto God, which always leadeth us in triumph in Christ and maketh manifest through us the savour of His knowledge in every place.'--2 COR. ii. 14 (R.V.) I suppose most of us have some knowledge of what a Roman Triumph was, and can picture to ourselves the long procession, the victorious general in his chariot with its white horses, the laurelled soldiers, the sullen captives, with suppressed hate flashing in their sunken eyes, the wreathing clouds of incense that went up into the blue … Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. 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