Romans 5:4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope: Faith, in its reproductive power and progress of growth, may be compared to the great Oriental banyan tree. It springs up in God, rooted in God's Word; and soon there are the great waving branches of experience. Then from these very branches the runners go down again into God's Word; and thence spring up again new products of faith, and new trees of experience, till one and the same tree becomes in itself a grove, with pillared shades and echoing walks between. So experience first grows out of faith; and then greater faith grows out of experience, the Word of God being all the while the region of its roots; and, again, a still vaster, richer experience grows out of that faith, till every branch becomes not only a product, but a parent stock set in the same word, and all expanding into a various magnificent and enlarging forest. (G. B. Cheever, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And patience, experience; and experience, hope:WEB: and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope: |
    |