Human responsiveness.
This word of Christ may be taken with that other on the same subject, which none of the evangelists recorded, but which we could ill have spared, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." We may consider??
I. WHAT WE HAVE TO GIVE. We have much that we can draw from if we desire to benefit and to bless our fellow-men.
1. Our possessions?봮ur money, our time, our books, our clothes, etc.
2. Ourselves?봮ur thought, our affection, our sympathy.
II. WHO SHOULD BE OUR RECIPIENTS. These should be:
1. Our kindred according to the flesh.
2. Our kindred according to the spirit?봮ur fellow-Christians, our fellow-members.
3. Our neighbours, those who, as the nearest and most within reach, should receive our kind thoughtfulness.
4. The children of want, of sorrow, of spiritual destitution, both at home and abroad. There is a sense, and that a truly Christian one, in which those who are in the saddest need and in the darkest error, aye, and even in the most deplorable iniquity, have the greatest claim on our pity and our help.
III. WHAT MAY BE OUR INCENTIVES.
1. That giving is that act which is most emphatically Divine. God lives to give?봳o bestow life, and health, and beauty, and joy on his creatures. Christ Jesus came to give himself for man.
2. That it is truly angelic.
3. That it is the heroic thing to do. Men have been true heroes in proportion as they have spent themselves and their powers on behalf of their kind.
4. That it is most elevating in its influence on ourselves and, when wisely directed, on those for whom it is expended.
IV. WHAT WILL BE OUR RECOMPENSE.
1. The Divine approval. "For God loveth a cheerful giver."
2. The unconscious and uncalculated reaction that will be received by ourselves, enlarging our heart and lifting us toward the level of the supreme Giver.
3. The response we shall receive from those we serve. This is the recompense which is promised in the text. "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure ??shall men give into your bosom." There is far too much ingratitude in this world; more, perhaps, than we are willing to believe, until sad experience has convinced us. Nevertheless, there is also a very large measure of human responsiveness on which we may safely reckon. If we give to others, men will give to us; if we love them, they will love us. Do not even the publicans so? (Matthew 5:46). Even those whose hearts have been unchanged by the truth and grace of Christ will respond to genuine kindness. Patronage they will recognize and resent; officialism they will distinguish and may endure. But the help which comes straight from the heart they will appreciate, and to him who gives it they will give a free and gladdening response. To the really generous man, as distinguished from the formal "benefactor" or the professional philanthropist, there will flow a stream of warm-hearted gratitude and affection which will far more than repay all the time and treasure, and even all the sympathy and service, that have been expended. The generous giver will be the recipient of
the substantial kindness of those whom he has tried to serve, and of many others outside that circle. And to these may be added that which, if its worth be less calculable, yet may be even more valuable and more acceptable than any or all of these?봳he prayers of the good. Selfishness often misses its own poor mark, and it always fails to bless its author with an inward blessing; but beneficence is always blessed. God rains down his large benedictions from above, and below men offer their glad and free contribution. "Give, and it shall be given unto you ??for with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again."?봀.
Christian teaching.
We may learn from this parable some truths of the greatest consequence to all those who are teachers of religion; and this will include not only all Christian pastors and evangelists, but all those who are training the young, whether at school or at home.
I. THAT THE WISDOM OF THE WORLD DEPENDS VERY LARGELY ON THAT OF ITS RELIGIOUS TEACHERS. The multitude have never yet been able to think great theological questions through; they have not attempted the settlement of them by their own examination. They have left that very largely indeed to their religious leaders. It is so in other departments of human knowledge, and so it has been and will be in the realm of 'religion. What our teachers teach the people will believe concerning the great and supreme questions affecting our relation to God, to our neighbours, to the future.
II. THAT BLINDNESS ON THE PART OF THE TEACHER MEANS DISASTROUS ERROR TO THE PEOPLE. "Both will fall into the ditch." Religious truth is the most elevating of all knowledge; but error in religion is the most injurious of all errors. Men can make mistakes in the realms of literature, of physical science, of philosophy, and even of political economy, without fatal consequences. But serious errors in religion are nothing short of calamities. Teacher and taught fall into a deep ditch, from which they do not escape without much injury, both done and suffered. These evil consequences include:
1. Departure and distance of the mind from the thought of God, from truth and wisdom.
2. Superstitions which degrade and demoralize; or, on the other hand, unbelief which robs the soul of its true heritage, and leaves life without nobility and death without hope.
3. Morbid fancies which prey upon the mind, or shocking cruelties practised on the victim of error himself or on others.
4. Spiritual death.
III. THAT THE TEACHER OF TRUTH IS LIMITED IN HIS INFLUENCE BY HIS OWN ATTAINMENTS. "The disciple is not above his master." It is indeed true that a teacher may bring a disciple into connection with Jesus Christ; and from him and from his followers and his institutions he may gain help which his first teacher could not have imparted; but this is not derived from the teacher himself. This man, as teacher, can only render to his disciples the good which he has in himself?봳he knowledge he has in his own mind, the worth he has in his own character, the wisdom contained in the principles on which he is fashioning his own life. Let every teacher be impressed with the serious truth of this limitation. He cannot give what he has not gained. He has to say, "Follow me so far as I am following Christ,"?봭ot a step further. If he ceases to acquire, if his path of progress in the knowledge or the likeness of God is arrested, there is stopped at the same hour his power of leading his disciples on and up those sacred and glorious heights. Therefore let him be always acquiring, always attaining.
IV. THAT THE FAITHFUL TEACHER HAS A VERY NOBLE OPPORTUNITY. Every one that has been fully instructed "shall be as his master." If he is a" true philanthropist who makes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before," what shall we not think of him who plants in the hearts of men true thoughts of God, of the human soul, of human life, of the future? This is the teacher's lofty function. And he can go beyond this. By the power of language, especially when that is illuminated by deep conviction and intense earnestness of spirit, he can pass on to his disciples so much of Divine truth, and he can communicate so much of heavenly wisdom, that they who "have been fully instructed," who are his mature or "perfect" disciples, will have in them the mind and temper which are in him. So that they will be "as he is," will think as he thinks, will feel what he feels, will live for the same objects for which he is living. Surely there is no nobler work that any man can do than this; it is well worth while the teacher's
Keenness and dulness of spiritual vision.
Of all the surprising things in this world there is nothing more wonderful than the way in which men mistake one another and misconceive themselves. Their vision is so seriously, so thoroughly distorted.
I. THE KEENNESS OF SPIRITUAL VISION some men exhibit. They have the nicest discernment of faults and failings in their brethren. There is nothing too minute to escape their notice and their condemnation. Censoriousness is a very great mistake in every light. Those who are guilty of "beholding the mote in their brother's eye" are wrong in four respects.
1. They do substantial injustice in their judgment and by their action; for they lay stress on the one small infirmity while they leave unregarded and unacknowledged many honourable acquisitions, many valuable virtues.
2. They are inconsiderate of the difficulties which the victims of their severity have had to contend with, and in doing battle with which they may have put forth the most commendable exertion.
3. They forget that every one of us is and will be subject to the judgment and (where it is due) the condemnation of God (see Romans 14:4, Romans 14:10).
4. They show a perverted ingenuity. It would be a most excellent quality to cultivate if they would only exert the same subtlety and patient observation in descrying the virtues and the beauties of those in whom they detect so many failures. This keenness of spiritual vision is a mistake in two other ways.
II. THE DULNESS OF SPIRITUAL VISION other men manifest. They do "not perceive the beam that is in their own eye." This fact in human experience is only too palpable. We see men whose souls are painfully charged with selfishness, or pride, or frivolity, or cruelty, or irreverence, or impurity, who have no conception that they are in grave spiritual delinquency and danger. There is not a mote but a beam in their eye, and they are blind to it altogether. They are not entitled to offer a judgment on the defects or transgressions of others, so far are they themselves from the straight line of truth. And any note of censure from their lips is utterly and even ludicrously misplaced.
III. OUR WISDOM IN VIEW OF THESE MISTAKES. It is to be far more concerned to be right and pure in our own hearts than to be keen in the detection and exposure of other people's shortcoming. Since men do so seriously and so fatally mistake their own spirit and condition, it behoves us to do these three things:
1. To examine our own. hearts with impartial and anxious eye.
2. To welcome any friendly counsel or warning that may be offered us; and "it is lawful to learn even from an enemy."
3. To be often and earnestly asking God to show us what is wrong within, that we may see ourselves as he sees us. "Who can understand his errors 9 Cleanse thou me from secret faults!" (Psalms 19:12, Psalms 19:13; and see Psalms 139:23, Psalms 139:24).?봀.