2 Corinthians 9:13-14 Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection to the gospel of Christ… 1. Christ brought us truth on the highest questions of all, and taught us that truth most fully. We prize, and justly prize, the great masters who gave us the knowledge of nature — Copernicus, Galileo, Newton; Darwin; but more momentous still are the instructions of Moses, Isaiah, and the great moral masters of the ages. Here Christ is supreme. He vindicated and disclosed the spiritual world and the spirituality of man with surpassing authority and power. He made it impossible henceforth that the race should lose itself in materialism and sensuality. In Christ we have in its fulness the precious doctrine of grace, forgiveness, peace. 2. Christ brought righteousness. He secured to us the power of purity. He inspires the strength by which the highest goodness is attainable. 3. Christ brought us hope. He came into the world in an age of weariness and despair, and He made everything to live by putting into the heart of the race a sure and splendid hope. The advent of Jesus mightily enriched the race in incorruptible treasure — in knowledge, kindness, purity, and hope. How much it enriched us none may tell. The gift is "unspeakable." Have we received the unspeakable gift? Men do not readily believe in and accept the highest gifts. They are often strangely blind. Did they welcome Gutenberg? Did they strew flowers for Columbus? The world did not believe in these great donors; the gifts they brought were too grand. So, when the "unspeakable gift" was given, men stood aloof in insensibility or scorn. Christ came to His own, but they received Him not. The message of God's redeeming mercy is disregarded by multitudes of nominal Christians. Every now and then we hear of a superb masterpiece being discovered in a house where for years it has been neglected and unknown. The picture has been the butt of wit, it has had penknives through it, it has been relegated to the attic. But in how many houses is the gospel, the masterpiece of God, ignored and despised! The savage living in a land of rich landscapes, of gorgeous birds, of priceless orchids, of reefs of gold, of mines of diamonds, of stores of ivory, and yet unconscious of it all, possessing nothing but a hut and a canoe, is a faint image of thousands in this Christian land who are living utterly unmindful of the boundless spiritual treasure close to their feet. Some of us have received the crowning gift of God; but we have not fully received it. That is a striking passage in Obadiah: "The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions." What a great deal belongs to us that we do not possess! It lies beyond us untouched, unseen, unrealised. Our poor experiences are not the measure of the gift of Christ. We have the dust of gold rather than the gold itself, a few rose leaves rather than the garden, grape gleanings rather than the vintage. And let us not miss the great practical lesson of the text. The theme of the chapter is that of ministering to the saints. If God has been so magnificent in His generosity to us, what ought we to deny our brother? Our thanks for Heaven's infinite gift must be expressed in our practical sympathy with the sons and daughters of misfortune and suffering. (W. L. Watkinson.). Parallel Verses KJV: Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men; |
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