Galatians 1:17 Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. The value of such retirement, if circumstances admit of it or suggest it, before entering on the decisive work of life, can hardly be exaggerated. Many a young man, whose education is complete (as the phrase goes), and who knows, or thinks that he knows, what to do for himself or his fellow-creatures, is often painfully disappointed when his plans for immediate action suddenly break down, and he has to remain for a while in comparative obscurity and inaction. It seems to him to be a loss of time, with little or nothing to redeem the disadvantage. He is wasting, he thinks, his best years in idleness. He may, of course, so act as to make that phrase justifiable. It need not be so. A prudent, no less than a religious man, will thankfully, if he can, avail himself of such an opportunity for consolidating his acquirements, for reviewing the bearing of his governing convictions, for estimating more accurately the resources at his disposal for extending or contracting his plans, at least for reconsidering them. A religious man will, above all, seize such an opportunity for testing and strengthening his motives, and for cultivating an increased intimacy with those means and sources of effective strength which he will need so much hereafter. (Canon Liddon.)Observe — I. God sometimes raises up and qualifies His agents without human intervention. II. Such agents are duly qualified and may be tested by their fruits. III. As a rule, they have assigned them some new department of labour. (J. Lyth.) Parallel Verses KJV: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. |
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