The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the GalatiansFindlay, George G. (George Gillanders)
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Galatians
Findlay, George G. (George Gillanders)
Bible. Galatians -- Commentaries
From this point of view ver. 6 gains a very comprehensive sense. "All
good things" cannot surely be limited to the "carnal things" of 1
Cor. ix. 11. As Meyer and Beet amongst recent commentators clearly
show, the context gives to this phrase a larger scope. At the same
time, there is no necessity to exclude the thought of temporal good.
The Apostle designedly makes his appeal as wide as possible. The
reasoning of the corresponding passage in the Corinthian letter is a
deduction from the general principle laid down here.
But it is _spiritual fellowship_ that the Apostle chiefly
desiderates. The true minister of Christ counts this vastly more
sacred, and has this interest far more at heart than his own
temporalities. He labours for the unity of the Church; he strives
to secure the mutual sympathy and co-operation of all orders and
ranks-- teachers and taught, officers and private members--"in every
good word and work." He must have the heart of his people with him
in his work, or his joy will be faint and his success scant indeed.
Christian teaching is designed to awaken this sympathetic response.
And it will take expression in the rendering of whatever kind of help
the gifts and means of the hearer and the needs of the occasion call
for. Paul requires every member of the Body of Christ to make her
wants and toils his own. We have no right to leave the burdens of
the Church's work to her leaders, to expect her battles to be fought
and won by the officers alone. This neglect has been the parent of
innumerable mischiefs. Indolence in the laity fosters sacerdotalism
in the clergy. But when, on the contrary, an active, sympathetic
union is maintained between "him that is taught" and "him that
teacheth," that other matter of the temporal support of the Christian
ministry, to which this text is so often exclusively referred,
comes in as a necessary detail, to be generously and prudently
arranged, but which will not be felt on either side as a burden or
a difficulty. Everything depends on the fellowship of spirit, on
the strength of the bond of love that knits together the members of
the Body of Christ. Here, in Galatia, that bond had been grievously
weakened. In a Church so disturbed, the fellowship of teachers and
taught was inevitably strained.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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