Expositions of Holy Scripture: the ActsMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: the Acts
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Acts -- Commentaries
Take the first of the two miracles. 'Aeneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee
whole: arise, and make thy bed.' That first clause points to the great
difference. Take the second miracle, 'Jesus Christ put them all forth,
and stretched out His hand, and said, Damsel, arise!' 'Peter put them
all forth, ... and said, Tabitha, arise!' but between the putting forth
and the miracle he did something which Christ did not do, and he did
not do something which Christ did do. 'He kneeled down and prayed.'
Jesus Christ did not do that. 'And Jesus put forth His hand, and said,
Arise!' Peter did not do that. But he put forth his hand _after_ the
miracle was wrought; not to communicate life, but to help the living
woman to get to her feet; and so, both by what he did in his prayer and
by what he did not do after Christ's pattern, the extension of the hand
that was the channel of the vitality, he drew a broad distinction
between the servant's copy and the Master's original.
The lessons from the differences are such as the following.
Christ works miracles by His inherent power; His servants do their
works only as His instruments and organs. I need not dwell upon the
former thought; but it is the latter at which I wish to look for a
moment. The lesson, then, of the difference is that Christian men, in
all their work for the Master and for the world, are ever to keep clear
before themselves, and to make very obvious to other people, that they
are nothing more than channels and instruments. The less the preacher,
the teacher, the Christian benefactor of any sort puts himself in the
foreground, or in evidence at all, the more likely are his words and
works to be successful. If you hear a man, for instance, preaching a
sermon, and you see that he is thinking about himself, he may talk with
the tongues of men and of angels, but he will do no good to anybody.
The first condition of work for the Lord is--hide yourself behind your
message, behind your Master, and make it very plain that His is the
power, and that you are but a tool in the Workman's hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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