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St. Paul, with all his gifts and all his triumphs as an apostle of Christ, led a life of constant trial. There was one very peculiar trial to which he was subjected, that of constant disparagement. Scarcely had he planted the Church at Corinth than another came after him to mar his work. One or two obvious remarks suggest themselves.

I. AND ONE IS AS TO THE CHARACTER OF THE SCRIPTURES GENERALLY, IN REFERENCE TO THEIR DETAILS OF FACTS. All the books of Scriptures are of what is called an incidental character. The Gospels were not written to give a complete life of Jesus. And in like manner the history in the Acts was not written to give a complete life of each of the apostles, not even of the two apostles principally spoken of, St. Paul and St. Peter. In each case specimens of the life are given, enough to exemplify the character and the history of the first disciples, by illustrating the principles on which a Christian should act, and the sort of help and support from above which he may look for in so acting.

II. Another remark, not wholly unconnected with this, is AS TO THE STYLE AND GENERAL CHARACTER OF THIS PARTICULAR PASSAGE AND ITS CONTEXT. "Ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise." It is what we call ironical language. And there is very much of this tone in these chapters. I would beg you to notice what a very natural person St. Paul was; how he expressed strongly what he strongly felt; how he did not allow a misplaced or morbid charity to keep him from exposing, as any human writer would seek to do, the fraudulent designs and underhand practices of those whose influence over a congregation he saw to be full of danger.

III. BUT I MUST DRAW MY THIRD REMARK FROM THE TEXT ITSELF, AND THUS PREPARE THE WAY FOR ITS BRIEF CONCLUDING ENFORCEMENT. St. Paul says, "If I must needs glory, I will glory in the things which concern my infirmities." I fear these words have been sometimes much misapplied. People have spoken of glorying in their infirmities. They have applied the words, all but avowedly, to infirmities of temper and of character, as though it gave them some claim to the estimation of Christians to be aware of their own liability to sudden outbreaks or habitual unsoundness of prevailing evil within. But now observe the three things to which St. Paul applies the term of infirmity or weakness.

1. The first of these is suffering — suffering for Christ's sake, suffering of a most painful kind and a most frequent repetition — bodily discomfort, bodily privation, bodily pain. Such was one part of his "infirmity." Suffering reminded him of his human nature, of his material frame not yet redeemed by resurrection.

2. The second kind of infirmity is denoted in these words, "that which crowds upon me daily, the anxiety of all the congregations." A keen sense of responsibility is his second weakness. He knew so much in himself, he had seen so much in others, of the malice and skill of the tempter, that when he was absent from a congregation, and more especially from a young congregation busy in the formation or in the charge of distant Churches, he was distracted with painful care, and even faith itself was not enough sometimes to soothe and reassure him. He called this anxiety an infirmity. Perhaps, in the very highest view of all, it was so. Perhaps he ought to have been able to trust his congregation in God's hands in his absence.

3. There was a third weakness, growing out of the last named, and that was the weakness of a most acute sympathy. "Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?" That is, whenever I notice or hear of a weakness in the faith of any one, such a weakness as exposes him to the risk of failing in his Christian course, I have a sense of interest and concern in that case such as makes me a very partaker in its anxieties. I cannot get rid of it by putting it from me. I feel that weakness of character as my weakness; I feel that weakness of faith as my weakness. That is one half of my sympathy. But there is, along with this, another feeling, "who is offended?" who is caused to stumble? who is tempted to sin? and I am not on fire with righteous indignation against the wickedness which is doing this work upon him? Sympathy with the tempted is also indignation against the tempter. Sympathy has two offices. Towards the offended it is fellow weakness; towards the offender it is indignant strength. I have dwelt upon these things for the sake of putting very seriously before you the contrast between St. Paul's weaknesses and our own. Our own infirmities are of a kind which a severer judge than we are of ourselves would certainly designate by the plainer names of defects, faults, and sins — indolence, carelessness, vanity, a desire for applause, a sensitiveness to ether men's opinions of us. Compared with such things, how withering to our self-love must be St. Paul's (so-called) weaknesses! The very least of them is a virtue beyond our highest attainments. Which of us ever suffered anything in Christ's behalf? Where is our sense of responsibility? — our anxiety about those committed to us?

4. Finally, I would give a wider scope to the language of the text, and urge upon each one the duty and the happiness of saying to himself in the words of St. Paul, "If I must needs glory, I will glory in those things which concern," not my strength, but "my weakness." The things on which we commonly pride ourselves are our advantages, our talents, our estimation with others, our position in society, the pleasures we can command, or the wealth we have accumulated. But these things, by their very nature, are the possession of the few. St. Paul tells us how we may glory safely, how we may glory to the very end. Glory, he says, not in your strength, but in your weakness. Has God denied to you His gift of health? Has He seen fit by His providence to impair any one of your bodily organs — your sight, your hearing, your enjoyment of taste, or your power of motion? Or have you been treated with neglect by some one to whom you had shown only kindness? Has the poison of disappointment entered your heart? It is just in these very things, or in any one of them, that St. Paul would have you glory. For God's gifts to us we may be thankful, but it is in His deprivations alone that we may glory. And St. Paul tells us why we may thus glory in our disadvantages, in our postponements, in our losses, in our bereavements. He says in another passage of this same Epistle, "Most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest (tabernacle) upon me." And he speaks yet again in the same spirit "of bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," being made like Him, that is, in His humiliation and in His death for us, "that the life also of Jesus," His living power as it is now put forth in His servants, "might be made manifest in our body." It is the dark side of life which brings us most closely, most consciously into connection with the supporting and comforting help of Christ within.

(Dean Vaughan.)

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KJV: If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities.

WEB: If I must boast, I will boast of the things that concern my weakness.