Zeal without knowledge.
And he began to speak, etc. The true knowledge is not learning, not even knowledge of the Scriptures as a written Word, but knowledge of the way of God. Priscilla and Aquila may know more, in this sense of knowledge, than Apollos. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned.
I. THOSE WHO PREACH AND TEACH SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR IT.
1. Much harm is done by zeal without true knowledge.
2. Progress cannot be rapid where knowledge is imperfect.
3. No amount of fervor in the spirit should be allowed to supersede a careful knowledge of the truth.
II. THE WAY OF GOD IS NOT THE WAY OF JON THE BAPTIST, BUT THE WAY OF CHRIST.
1. Many things about Jesus may be known, and still the saving truth of spiritual life in him may be unknown.
2. Repentance preparatory to faith, not instead of it.
3. The way of God in Christ is not a reformed Judaism, but an entirely new method of religion; spiritual, not formal; by the law of love, not by the law of works. New wine in new bottles. Defective views of the gospel still prevalent. Morality substituted for faith, ritualism for spiritual religion. The way of God is the way of a new creation.—R.
HOMILIES BY P.C. BARKER
Tent-making a sermon.
Paul has left the mockers, the procrastinators, and the believers, each to reap the fruits he has sown, and, departing from Athens, has reached Corinth. And here we find him the center of so natural a touch of history, that it speaks its own fidelity. No "cunningly devised" history would have interpolated such an incident as this before us. Nothing but the truth of history could find its niche here. So distinctly as it is recorded, it must be charged with some useful suggestions.
I. PAUL PUTS HONOR ON MERE LABOR WITH THE HANDS. It were of those matters of exceedingly curious interest, not vouchsafed to us, and not necessary to "our learning," if we had been told, what Paul earned as wage; or otherwise how he sold what he made. Of one thing we will be sure, he did neither ask nor take more than was the right price.
II. PAUL PUTS ITS REAL HONOR ON THE APOSTOLIC AND MINISTERIAL OFFICE. He does this partly, in one of the most effective of ways, viz. by withdrawing from that office its merely superficial honor. He strips it of mere dignity, of case, and of professionalism.
III. PAUL PUTS HONOR ON INDEPENDENCE, EVEN IN THE APOSTOLIC OFFICE. True, in Christianity as in Judaism, that those who minister at the altar have right to live by the altar, and that the exchange of things temporal and "carnal" (1 Corinthians 9:11-14) for things spiritual is sure to be to the preponderating gain of those who part with the former. Yet there may be times when the day shall be won by one clear proof, and that the proof of disinterestedness (1 Corinthians 9:15-18).
IV. PAUL PUTS HONOR ON THE FREEDOM OF CHRISTIANITY FROM ANY SET AND ARTIFICIAL CLASS DISTINCTIONS. The man who speaks and who does the right and the good is the disciple of Christ. And discipleship is not determined, or regulated, or modified, in any way whatsoever by the kind of work to which it puts its hand. A man who prays in all the secrecy of the closet may do more than the man who preaches in all the publicity of the Church. A man who gives may haply, on occasion, do more than either. And a man who works at the humblest craft may not only be not second to an apostle, hut may be truest apostle himself. How often have heart and mind died away, and nothing been reaped for want of hand and foot! The union of the practical with the devotional is often just as truly the sine qua non, as the union of the devotional with the teaching and preaching of the highest seraph-tongue.
V. PAUL STRIKES AT THE DEEP-LYING PRINCIPLE, SO WELCOME AND HONORED WHEN RIGHTLY EMBRACED, OF THE SELF-SUPPORTING CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. This is its honest pride. It asks air and light. And it asks love and faith, trust and trial. And it thereupon asks nothing more, till of it, it comes to be asked, and passionately, what devout, grateful, adoring return in its surpassing condescension it is willing to receive. Beneath not infrequent disguises, Christianity has been a long history of giving and not taking, giving and not even receiving, till hand and heart have become one. And men, suppliant in loving and overflowing devotion, have begged their Master, Lord, and Savior to accept of themselves and their all.—B.