Luke 21:15

I will give you a mouth and wisdom. — The promise, even in its form, reminds us of that given to Moses when he drew back from the task of uttering God’s message to His people (Exodus 4:15). The inward faculty of thought, the outward power of uttering thought in words, should both be given. The words are not without their importance as bearing on the supposed distinction between verbal inspiration and that which is confined to thoughts. So far as it goes, it is against that distinction. And indeed, useful as it may seem in theory, as meeting some of the difficulties, real or supposed, which attach to the theory of verbal inspiration, it seems clear, even on purely psychological grounds, that, as men think through the medium of language, the inspiration which extends to thoughts must extend also, and under the same laws and conditions, to the words in which they are expressed. What those laws and conditions are is a wider question, on which this is not the place to enter. The answer is to be found in a reverential and careful induction from the facts which the phenomena of inspiration present to us.

Adversaries. — Another favourite word of St. Paul’s (1 Corinthians 16:9; Philippians 1:28, et al.), and used by no other writer in the New Testament except St. Luke.