[27] Cf. xii. 6: 'Let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith.' [28] Col. ii. 16: 'Let no man judge you in respect of a sabbath day.' [29] This is probably implied in Acts xx. 7. [30] 1 Cor. xvi. 1. [31] _Philippians_, on 'the Christian Ministry,' p. 181. The language in the immediate context I cannot make my own. But the statement quoted is surely true. And to this day I suppose, for those living in religious communities and similar institutions, there is very little practical difference between Sundays and week-days. This almost complete absence of distinction, however, must always come about, if it is to be legitimate, by raising the week-days to the spiritual level of the Sundays, and not by the opposite process. [32] Especially in the Pastoral Epistles: but also in the epistles to the Thessalonians and Corinthians. [33] 1 Cor. viii. 13. [34] Cf. 1 Cor. x. 30: 'Why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks.' 1 Tim. iv. 3, 4: 'Meats, which God created to be received with thanksgiving.... For every creature of God is good ... if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer. Cf. Acts xxvii. 35: 'And when he had taken bread, he gave thanks to God in the presence of all: and he brake it, and began to eat.' [35] Matt. xxvi. 26; cf. Luke xxiv. 30. {159} DIVISION V. § 7. CHAPTER XV. 1-13. _Unselfish forbearance and inclusiveness._ It was essential, as has been said, that men whose prejudices and instincts were different should live in the same church and eat at the same love feast. This would require a large-hearted and unselfish self-control. Formerly, as in Syria and Palestine, it was the Jews who occupied the position of vantage in the Christian communities, and were not disposed to tolerate the ways of the Gentiles. Now the tables are turned, and the Gentiles are in the majority. The danger is now that those whose instincts are Gentile should bear hardly upon the minority whose prejudices are more or less Jewish. Such St. Paul anticipates, or knows from Priscilla and Aquila, will be the danger among the Roman Christians. Formerly Judaic narrowness had been a formidable danger. It had developed a most perilous heresy, and St. Paul had dealt with it as a deadly poison. Now what remained {160} of Jewish feeling was a weakness to be generously borne with. It affords St. Paul an opportunity of falling back on the general principle, that the measure of Christian strength and full-grown manhood is the readiness to bear the weaknesses of others.