Acts 20:17 And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church. Among the many features of Paul's Christianity as here depicted there is one which shines above the rest and gives a unity to the whole — his tears. Jesus had the same tears of sorrow when He wept in Gethsemane; tears of charity when He wept over the destiny of Jerusalem; tears of tenderness when He wept at the tomb of His friend Lazarus. Note, then, St. Paul's — I. TEARS OF SORROW. He is a Christian, not a Stoic; he does not pretend, nor did his Master, to stifle the expression of a pain he could not but feel, and which it would be affectation to disguise. Paul's whole ministry is a ministry of tears, in the sense of the Psalmist, when he says, "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy," etc. By the strength of his faith Paul anticipates the days of harvest, and triumphs in the midst of his tears. Here he weeps in the anticipation of "finishing his course with joy." What a picture of sorrows is that abridgment of his life written by his own hand (2 Corinthians 11:23-29), and He from whom no future event is concealed, has united, in a single expression, the sufferings and the apostleship of Paul (Acts 9:15, 16). The abundant tears with which the apostle was to bedew his path would not water the earth in vain. We lend an attentive ear to an advocate who has suffered in the cause which he defends. And further, sorrow and physical pain have a power over the heart of man, and obtain a respect peculiar to themselves. In order savingly to touch the heart of the most unbelieving amongst you, I should wish that there might stand in this pulpit the suffering Paul. But it is written, "Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple"! Well, your cross, where is it? What are the sacrifices and afflictions which your faith calls you to bear? Neither a frivolous nor a luxurious life can ever agree with the Christian course. We need men, not like Jabez, whose prayer is, "That thou wouldest enlarge our coasts and keep us from evil"; but men like St. Paul, who "always bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." II. TEARS OF CHARITY (ver. 31). Place yourselves in the position of those whom Paul thus warned. Imagine yourselves to be one of those who are beginning to attend to the gospel, or have not yet seriously considered it. The apostle does not give you any more rest than he does himself; he urges you during the day, he detains you far on in the night. Be will not let you go until he has obtained — what? Some favour? Ah! the greatest favour which you can show him is that of being converted to Jesus, or of serving Him with greater faithfulness. You resist his entreaties; but before you part with him, look at him: he weeps over the sins in which you continue — over the harm which your conduct does to the Church — over the stumbling block which you place before the world — above all, over the future which you are preparing for yourself! Do not these tears which you cause him to shed enable you to see into the very soul of his Christianity? I discover in them a whole body of Christian theology and morality; nay, truth and charity — truth, so clearly beheld, that it leads him to foresee that a dreadful misfortune will befall you if you persist in rejecting it; charity, so intense, that by it your salvation becomes almost as necessary to him as his own: what is this but his beautiful definition of Christian faith — "the truth in love," exhibited as a practical reality? I would ask, What is gospel truth, according to this man who entreats you with tears to receive it? Is it simply a refined Deism? You need not stop to examine his epistles and discourses, which are overflowing with the "good news" — you need only see him weeping at your feet. Is it only an interpretation, more or less sound; an opinion, more or less well established, which we must modestly defend without peremptorily affirming facts for fear of being guilty of pride and intolerance? Explain to me those tears of St, Paul if he has not before his eyes "a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries!" Now I will suppose that you have listened to the most urgent, the most eloquent, the most pathetic exhortations, and have not yielded. But that Christian orator entered your closet, and there, alone with you, without the slightest motive of human praise, entreated you to take pity on yourself, and at last, at the sight of your obstinate resistance, unable either to prevent your being lost, or to suffer you to be the cause of your own ruin, melts into tears; say, could you do otherwise than yield? Alas! we must not expect too much; many have seen these tears and have not yielded; but to resist a gospel thus preached, must there not be a heart of stone? III. TEARS OF TENDERNESS (vers. 37, 38). By a rare gift — of nature, shall I say, or, of grace? — St. Paul, uniting, as he did, opposite qualities, and tempering strength with gentleness, had one of the tenderest hearts that ever beat. What can be more affectionate than the language of the apostle to his Thessalonian brethren, his spiritual children? (1 Thessalonians 2:6-9; 1 Thessalonians 3:1, 2). But this love has its special attachments. There is not enough attention paid to the position which friendship occupied in St. Paul's life and apostleship. I only bring forward in proof the large number of brethren and sisters who are spoken of by name at the end of most of his epistles, and greeted, one by one, with the delicate tenderness of the deepest Christian love. Nor is this all. Amongst the many Christian friends who surround him, Paul has some to whom he is most deeply attached. Luke, Barnabas, Philemon, Epaphroditus, Epaphras, Tychicus, and, above all, Timothy and Titus, his supporters and helpers in his gospel labours. What mother ever wrote to her son a letter more full of solicitude than the 2nd Epistle to Timothy? The brightness of Paul's holiness might dazzle our eyes and seem unreal, could we not discover, throughout it all, traces of his human nature. But the character revealed by these tears forms also a main strength of his apostleship. This power operates in more ways than one. It operates by gaining hearts to the apostle himself. Every one feels himself drawn towards a man in whom the principle of love is so strongly developed; and, since the greatest obstacles to the gospel lie in the inclinations of men, by interesting the hearers in favour of him who proclaims the gospel you interest them in favour of the gospel itself. It operates by enlarging the apostle's sphere of action. This brotherly family, who surround such a loving master, form around him, as it were, a sacred phalanx, in which everyone, being placed at his post by this able general, furnishes his share towards the common resistance to the enemy. But it operates in yet a deeper manner. The warmth and fervour of the apostle's affections give to the gospel which he proclaims a simplicity, an air of truth, which greatly contributes to subdue the minds of men. Conclusion: The tears of the apostle have explained him to us. The strength of his apostleship arose from his personal Christianity, and his Christianity was a Christianity of tears. Weeping from sorrow, he subdued. others by gaining their sympathy; weeping from charity, he won others by love; weeping from tenderness, he carried others along with him by the simplicity of his gospel. (A. Monod, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church.WEB: From Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called to himself the elders of the assembly. |
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