_PERSONAL EXPERIENCE_ ‘Examine yourselves, … prove your own selves.’ 2 Corinthians 13:5 Nothing unusual in this advice, but something very remarkable in purpose for which it is given by St. Paul. He is appealing to their personal experience for proof of the truth of their new faith. He thus state... [ Continue Reading ]
_CO-OPERATION IN THE TRUTH_ ‘We can do nothing against the truth; but [only] for the truth.’ 2 Corinthians 13:8 Is that not a satisfying picture of our relationship to truth? The truth—the reality of things—is outside there; moving along its own path, pressing forward towards its proper goal, set... [ Continue Reading ]
_CHRISTIAN PERFECTION_ ‘This we also pray for, even your perfecting.’ 2 Corinthians 13:9 (R. V.) Times of revival are times of spiritual danger. Peril comes from two seemingly opposite quarters. On the one side there is the tendency to exaggerate, on the other to belittle, God’s truth. We suffer... [ Continue Reading ]
_A THREEFOLD BENEDICTION_ ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost.’ 2 Corinthians 13:14 Upon this text I base what is to me the absolute inference, that in the mind of St. Paul, when he wrote his salutation to the Corinthian Church, Jesus Chri... [ Continue Reading ]