apostles” are mentioned; and, in an office of so much honour as this, it is probable that there would be not a few claimants to it in the world. To set up a claim to what they _knew_ they were not entitled to would be a falsehood, and as this seems to have been the character of these men, the Saviour, in the passage before us, does not hesitate to designate them by an appropriate term, and to call them _liars_. The point here commended in the Ephesian church is, that they had sought to have a _pure ministry_, a ministry whose claims were well founded. They had felt the importance of this, had carefully examined the claims of pretenders, and had refused to recognize those who could not show, in a proper manner, that they had been designated to their work by the Lord Jesus. The same zeal, in the same cause, would be commended by the Saviour now. 3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and [98]hast not fainted. 3. _And hast borne._ Hast borne up under trials; or hast borne with the evils with which you have been assailed. That is, you have not given way to murmuring or complaints in trial, you have not abandoned the principles of truth and yielded to the prevalence of error. ¶ _And hast patience._ That is, {63} in this connection, hast shown that thou canst bear up under these things with patience. This is a repetition of what is said in ver. 2, but in a somewhat different connection. There it rather refers to the trouble which they had experienced on account of the pretensions of false apostles, and the patient, persevering, and enduring spirit which they had shown in that form of trial; here the expression is more general, denoting a patient spirit in regard to _all_ forms of trial. ¶ _And for my name’s sake hast laboured._ On account of me, and in my cause. That is, the _labour_ here referred to, whatever it was, was to advance the cause of the Redeemer. In the word rendered “_hast laboured_” (κεκοπίακας) there is a reference to the word used in the previous verse――“thy labour” (κόπον σου); and the design is to show that the “labour,” or trouble there referred to, was on account of him. ¶ _And hast not fainted._ Hast not become exhausted, or wearied out, so as to give over. The word here used (κάμνω) occurs in only three places in the New Testament: “Lest ye be _wearied_, and faint,” He. xii. 3; “The prayer of faith shall save the _sick_,” Ja. v. 15; and in the passage before us. It means properly to become weary and faint from toil, &c.; and the idea here is, that they had not become so wearied out as to give over from exhaustion. The sense of the whole passage is thus rendered by Professor Stuart:――“Thou canst not bear with false teachers, but thou canst bear with troubles and perplexities on account of me; thou hast undergone wearisome toil, but thou art not wearied out thereby.” The state of mind, considered as the state of mind appropriate to a Christian, here represented, is, that we should