The Preacher's Complete Homiletic Commentary of the Books of the Bible: Volume 29 (of 32): The Preacher's Complete Homiletic Commentary of the Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and I-II ThessaloniansBarlow, George
Religion
The Preacher's Complete Homiletic Commentary of the Books of the Bible: Volume 29 (of 32): The Preacher's Complete Homiletic Commentary of the Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and I-II Thessalonians
Barlow, George
Bible -- Commentaries; Bible. Epistles of Paul -- Commentaries
+V. We must do good to all.+--1. From the grounds of love and
beneficence. 2. God is good and bountiful to all. 3. Do good to
others as we would they should do to us. 4. Our profession and the
reward we look for require us to do this.
+VI. There is no possibility of doing good to others after this
life.+--_Perkins._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 11-13.
_Apostolic Exposure of False Teachers._
+I. The apostle gives special emphasis to his warning by concluding
his epistle in his own handwriting.+--"Ye see how large a letter I
have written unto you with mine own hand" (ver. 11). The apostle
usually dictated his epistle to an amanuensis, except the concluding
salutation, which he wrote himself by way of authentication. At this
point of the epistle to the Galatians he appears to have taken the
pen from the hand of the amanuensis, and with his own hand written
the concluding sentences in clear, bold characters, thus giving the
utmost possible emphasis and solemnity to his words. They are a
postscript, or epilogue, to the epistle, rehearsing with incisive
brevity the burden of all that it was in the apostle's heart to say
to these troubled and shaken Galatians. He wishes to reimpress upon
his emotional readers the warnings he had already expressed against
the false teachers, to assure them of his intense regard for their
welfare, and to lay additional stress upon the peril of their
hesitating attitude. The more apparent and imminent the danger, the
louder and more earnest is the warning expressed.
+II. It is shown that the policy of the false teachers was to avoid
the suffering connected with the ignominy of the cross of
Christ.+--"They constrain you to be circumcised, only lest they
should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ." (ver. 12). The
false teachers were really cowards, though this accusation they would
be the first indignantly to resent. They wanted to mix up the old
faith with the new, to entangle the new Christian converts with
Mosaic observances. If they succeeded in persuading the Gentile
Christians to be circumcised, they would propitiate the anger of
their Israelite kindred, and dispose them to regard the new doctrine
more favourably. They would, with heartless recklessness, rob the
believer of all his privileges in Christ in order to make a shield
for themselves against the enmity of their kinsmen. Cowards at heart,
they were more afraid of persecution than eager to know and propagate
the truth. If a man will be a Christian, he cannot avoid the cross;
and to attempt to avoid it will not release from suffering. It is a
craven fear indeed that refuses to espouse the truth because it may
bring pain. "No servant of Christ," says Augustine, "is without
affliction. If you expect to be free from persecution, you have not
yet so much as begun to be a Christian."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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