Luke 2:20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told to them. And then they returned to their fields, to their flocks, to their ordinary life; giving thus a beautiful example of pious diligence and fidelity in their vocation. An extraordinary privilege has been granted to them. They are not lifted up by it into pride and pretension and self-sufficiency and idleness. They are cheered by it in their common toil. This is all the gospel that some of them would hear on earth. They would die, probably, as they lived, tending their sheep, before the Good Shepherd openly appeared. In their example, they sanctify, they glorify, what we call common life. They dignify the duty, it may be the drudgery of the day. But what, after all, is common life? It is a relative phrase. Common life to these shepherds is the keeping of the sheep on those very fields where David was shepherd-boy before them, where Ruth gleaned after the reapers. Common life to the angels lies in the heavenly spheres, serving at the bidding of the King. This visit to the earth, on such an errand, is a remarkable exception to their ordinary experience. It is, if we may use the phrase, a point of high romance in their history. (Dr. Raleigh.)This is how all true-minded, simple-hearted inquirers have returned from their Christian investigations. It is questionable whether any man has ever closed the Bible in a mood of dissatisfaction who opened it with reverent determination to know how far it was a testimony from heaven. Christian investigation is not finished until it has brought into the heart a joy altogether unprecedented. The mere letter never brings gladness. Critics and disputants have found little in the Bible but a great waste of words; but penitent and earnest inquirers have returned from its examination with hearts overflowing with a new and imperishable joy. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. |
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