Expositions of Holy Scripture: the ActsMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: the Acts
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Acts -- Commentaries
The world said, 'You are Christ's men'; and the names which were
self-imposed and are now to be considered might be taken as being the
Church's explanation of what the world was fumbling at when it so
called them. There are four of them: of course, I can only just touch
on them.
(_a_) The first is in this verse-'_disciples_.' The others are
_believers_, _saints_, _brethren_. These four are the Church's own
christening of itself; its explanation and expansion, its deepening and
heightening, of the vague name given by the world.
As to the first, _disciples_, any concordance will show that the name
was employed almost exclusively during the time of Christ's life upon
earth. It is the only name for Christ's followers in the Gospels; it
occurs also, mingled with others, in the Acts of the Apostles, and it
never occurs thereafter.
The name 'disciple,' then, carries us back to the historical beginning
of the whole matter, when Jesus was looked upon as a Rabbi having
followers called disciples; just as were John the Baptist and his
followers, Gamaliel and his school, or Socrates and his. It sets forth
Christ as being the Teacher, and His followers as being His adherents,
His scholars, who learned at His feet.
Now that is always true. _We_ are Christ's scholars quite as much as
were the men who heard and saw with their eyes and handled with their
hands, of the Word of Life. Not by words only, but by gracious deeds
and fair, spotless life, He taught them and us and all men to the end
of time, our highest knowledge of God of whom He is the final
revelation, our best knowledge of what men should and shall be by His
perfect life in which is contained all morality, our only knowledge of
that future in that He has died and is risen and lives to help and
still to teach. He teaches us still by the record of His life, and by
the living influence of that Spirit whom He sends forth to guide us
into all truth. He is the Teacher, the only Teacher, the Teacher for
all men, the Teacher of all truth, the Teacher for evermore. He speaks
from Heaven. Let us give heed to His voice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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