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I. THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL WHEN RECEIVED INTO THE HEART, IN URGING MEN TO ITS PROPAGATION. Discoverers of hidden treasures have no motive for making them known. Discoverers of a remedy for a direful disease have a powerful motive for making it known, but not necessarily the disposition. But you cannot have a man who, renewed by the Spirit of God, does not seek the renewal of others. The wealth received from Christ is kept by disbursement; the cure accomplished by His blood is radical only as it seeks its extension. And gratitude to the Redeemer impels to a proclamation of redemption. So Philip felt the communicative and diffusive nature of true religion.

II. THE RECEPTION WHICH THE GOSPEL MEETS WITH EVEN FROM MEN OF OPENNESS AND SINCERITY. Men have their prejudices, like Nathanael, founded on some mistake or misapprehension, and these in process of time take the form of incontrovertible principles, just as proverbs are often quoted till they almost pass for Bible texts.

1. "Can deliverance be obtained from one who died as a malefactor?" Yes. "Out of Nazareth," out of shame and death we procure deliverance: for the substitute must take the place of the guilty and bear his doom. Examine and you will See you are putting Nazareth for Bethlehem, falsehood for truth, disgrace for glory. The very circumstances which cause the gospel to appear so humiliating are those which give to it its majesty and power.

2. "Can any virtue come out of a system which bases everything on faith?" Yes. Of all systems for the encouragement of personal holiness there is none like the Christian. For the man who looks to be freely justified by Christ knows that his justification cannot be evidenced but by sanctification.

3. Let, then, all who have taken up a taunt against the gospel, till they have virtually made the taunt itself gospel, learn that though they may be candid, like Nathanael, they may, like him, risk an immeasurable loss out of adherence to a surmise or saying which they have only to investigate to prove erroneous.

III. THE TREATMENT WHICH A PREJUDICED MAN SHOULD RECEIVE FROM A BELIEVER. Philip declined all controversy, though a fairer opening could hardly have been offered. His anxiety was to bring his friend into personal communication with Jesus. This was the method that had succeeded with himself, and he felt that it could not possibly fail with another. There was great wisdom in this; for it does not often happen that men are convinced by argument. So, to persuade a man to read the Bible is better than to draw him into a debate on its evidences. There is no evidence of Christianity like that which a man knocks out for himself with the simple apparatus of a Bible and a conscience.

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

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KJV: Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

WEB: Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and Peter.