1 Corinthians 10

A castaway. The meaning is, Lest after having preached to others the doctrine of self-abridgment of indulgences in things lawful, I myself should fail when put to the test; literally, should be that which will not stand proof. The advice to abstain from things lawful, he gave them in the eighth chapter; then, in the ninth, he shows that he had only done what he advised; he had a right to a wife, and a right to be supported by pay, but he had abridged himself of both these rights (though every principle of the Old Testament established his right), simply in order to be beyond suspicion and gain the more to Christ. Read the two chapters (8 and 9) as one argument, and the whole will become intelligible. F. W. R.

1. MOREOVER, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers 2 were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in 3 the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same 4 spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was 5 Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in 6 the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after 7 evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is 8 written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit 9 fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. 10 Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. 11 Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. 12 Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admo- 13 nition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he 14 standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common 15 to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; 16 but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. 17 Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men; judge ye 18 what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of 19 Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For 20 we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. 21 Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the 22 altar? What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to 23 idols is any thing? But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to 24 devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye 25 cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the 26 Lord’s table, and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we 27 stronger than he?

MOST Christians have to learn by the painful experience of repeatedly falling into sin that our strength is absolutely nothing. But plainly we ought to learn it by habitually distrusting ourselves, by habitually guarding against everything like boasting, above all, by a habit of walking through the world with a consciousness that God is looking on us and willing to lead us. And if we would ask what are the tokens of our having learned the lesson, the answer is, that besides the quiet trust in God the chief token of our having learned to lean on God and not on ourselves is the avoidance of all unnecessary temptation. The man who goes into temptation in the way of duty may well feel certain that God will help him; for he may well feel that God sent him, and that he who sent will also protect. But any one who goes into temptation without any need can not feel this. He must rely, if he relies on anything, on his own strength. And so he proves that he has not yet learned the truth—that his own strength is a prop rotten at the foot and incapable of upholding him in any real trial. The humble Christian will so distrust himself that his life is constantly checked by the same thought which he expresses in the prayer, “Lead us not into temptation.” He will avoid what he has found dangerous or hurtful. For he knows that his enemy is one that he can not master, and he will therefore go nowhere unless Christ will go with him. F. T.—Thrice blessed the faithful love of Christ our Saviour, who constantly unveils himself to us, and, as with outstretched finger, points us to the abyss into which we are in danger of rushing whenever we trust more in our own hearts than on his unerring word. Are we reckless? He casts us down from our imagined heights; but when Satan would sift us and fling us forth as chaff, he thrusts aside the hand of the destroyer, and grasps compassionately ours and saves us ere we are awake. Assuredly, not our fidelity to Christ, but his own loyalty, inflexible even toward weak and faithless disciples, is the one ground of our hope. Let us trust henceforward upon nothing save his love alone. Van O.

1. The danger of the Corinthian Church lay in their false security. They were tempted to think that all things were safe to do because all things were lawful. They were ready to rest satisfied with the knowledge that they were God’s people and God’s Church. Now the apostle shakes this sense of their safety by reminding them that the ancient Church of Israel fell although it had the same privileges therefore he infers that spiritual privileges are not perfect security.

2. The passing through the Red Sea was the Israelites’ profession of discipleship to Moses. Then the die was cast, and thenceforward there was no return for them. One solemn step had severed them for ever from Egypt; and the cloud-guidance which then began kept the memory of this act before them by a constant witness in all their journeyings. So far, then, this is equivalent to baptism, which is discipleship: a sacrament or oath of obedience, the force of which is kept up and recalled by an outward sign. F. W. R.

3. The same spiritual meat. The “fathers” from the beginning had but one table, one feast, one bread. Sometimes it was typified by the flesh of the sacrifice; sometimes by the shew-bread; sometimes by the manna. But all these pointed to the one heavenly bread—Jesus, the Christ of God; to his broken body; to his flesh, which is meat indeed; to his whole person as the very and true bread of God, on which the Church has been feeding from the beginning, and will feed to the end. Bonar.

4. Spiritual Rock. Paul calls this mysterious fountain a spiritual rock, and the water which flowed from it spiritual water; and he calls them so, because they were designed to have a spiritual meaning, and to represent spiritual things—the one standing as an emblem of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the other shadowing forth those precious blessings of which he is the author. C. B.—That followed them. The rock did not literally follow them, as the rabbins have with dullness dreamed; but, go where they would, the wondrous waters from the rock flowed by their path and camp. Figuratively, therefore, it followed; the life of it streamed after them; they were never without its life-giving influence. As Christ said of the bread,

“This is my body,” so Paul declares, “That Rock was Christ”; not that the bread was literally transformed into his body, or that the rock was changed into Christ; nor, again, merely that bread represented the body of Christ, or that the rock represented Christ, but this—that which is wondrous in the bread and rock, the life-giving power in both, is Christ. The symbol as a material is nothing; the spirit in it—Christ—is everything.

6-10. Four special sins of the Israelites are mentioned by Paul as corresponding to the circumstances in which he found the Corinthian Church: idolatry, impurity, doubt, and discontent. “Is God among us, or not?” said the people in the wilderness, tempting Jehovah. Think you, we shall be less punished than they, if we similarly tempt our God? This chapter gives the answer. Here, then, we meet a very solemn truth: the sacrifice of Christ does not alter God’s will; it does not make sin a trifle; it does not make it safer to commit offenses. It does not abrogate but declares God’s law. And these Corinthians were boasting of their privileges, vaunting their liberties, talking of rights instead of doing duties, speaking of freedom, brotherhood, and reason, and all the time the same God who judged the people in the wilderness was ruling them by the same unalterable laws. F. W. R.

11. For our admonition. Christianity is the goal and end of all earlier revelations, and no other revelation follows upon it. Herein is the right given to the Christian to consider himself as the goal to which revelation, in the whole previous course of its development, points and ministers. N.

12. Wherefore, taught by their examples, let him that thinks himself safe, by being in the Church and partaking of the Christian sacraments, take heed lest he fall into sin, and so destruction from God overtake him. Locke.—He who takes no heed at any time to strengthen his nature has no right to plead its weakness; he who is the slave of all common temptations has no right to say that this one temptation overcame him because of its exceeding greatness. Christ knows that we are weak, and he tells us what we are to do to become strong. If we will not obey him, and will not practice his appointed remedies, then, if we remain weak, it is our own fault; it is not only the sin that dwelleth in us which doeth the evil thing, but we ourselves are habitually consenting, and make sin’s work altogether our own. T. A.

A child may play with fire, and that over a magazine of powder; but it is because he is a child. A man may play with temptations, do what he likes, rush with his powder-like nature into the flame; but it is because he is a childish man. W. I. B.—As long as there is fuel in the heart for a temptation, we can not be secure. He that has gunpowder about him had need keep far enough off from sparks; he that is either tender of his credit abroad or comfort at home had need shun the very shadow of sin; and he that would neither wound conscience nor credit, God nor the gospel, had need hate the garments spotted with the flesh. Brooks.—We must be always wakeful and on the lookout, and never deem ourselves secure; for there is no set time for the onset of him who is at war with us and is ready to attack us. Let us therefore be always thoughtful, always vigilant and prayerful; that so we may be able to remain unconquered, and, having escaped the devices framed by the enemy, be counted worthy of the loving-kindness coming from God, through the grace and compassions of his only-begotten Son. Chrys.

13. When Paul is endeavoring to strengthen the Corinthians against the trials they were exposed to, he sets out with assuring them “that no temptation had taken them but such as was common to man,” as well knowing that, till he had convinced them of this, all other arguments would be ineffectual. P.—The sufferings and temptations of the godly are lightened by the consideration of this as their common lot, their highway, and not new in the person of any. If we trace the lives of the most eminent saints, shall we not find every notable step that is recorded marked with a new cross; one trouble following on another, as the waves do, in an incessant succession? L.

God will make a way to escape. This at least is certain, that whatever may be the corruption of our nature, whatever the power of pain to stagger our virtue or of pleasure to seduce it, it is impossible we can be so formed or so situated by a just and good God as to be under an absolute necessity of transgressing those laws which he has laid down for the regulation of our conduct. We may rest assured that he will give us powers, either natural or supernatural, to balance our defects. In the common trials of our virtue, the common efforts of human nature and the common influences of the Holy Spirit will be able to support us; “if any temptation take us more than is common to man,” God will send us, provided we desire and endeavor to deserve it, more than common assistance; for his strength is made perfect in our weakness, and we may in that sense most truly say with the apostle, “that when we are weak, then in reality are we strong.” P.—God will either keep his saints from temptations by his preventing mercy, or in temptations by his supporting mercy, or find a way for their escape by his delivering mercy. Mason.

We must not be disappointed, cast down, or disheartened, because we find our self-improvement very much slower than we expect or like. We must not complain if a temptation, which we have had much trouble with, becomes stronger instead of weaker; if we fall after we have begun to think ourselves tolerably safe; if we try all manner of helps and aids and find them not enough. We must not complain if we find that earnest and warm prayers are followed in a few hours by feelings so cold that we can hardly keep in the strait path for want of impulse to do so; if very determined resolutions gradually wear out until, when the moment comes for acting on them, we even forget that we made them. Such results we shall surely find, for our enemy can take many shapes and still retain his power, and all our best endeavors will never repel him. God only can really give the victory; and God assuredly will. But God will not give it in the precise way that we ask for it. And hence it is that, beyond all other graces, the grace of perseverance is the one to which victory is promised; that perseverance which enables us, in spite of disappointment in ourselves, and of seeing no fruit of all our endeavors, and of coldness in the heart, and of poorness in the devotions, still to continue in the path which he has commanded; that perseverance shall one day be acknowledged as a proof of our being his children. F. T.

15. Judge ye.** Reason should have free course through the whole empire of religion—length, breadth, depth, height; it should not be hindered, but expedited; we should wish to give it wings; we should wish it to be as swift and as free in its movements as the heart ought to be in loving God, and the feet in running the way of his commandments. It is not the exercise of reason which is to be guarded against, but those perversions of reason which spring from pride, the spirit of sect, preconceived opinions, and depraved inclinations and habits. T. H. S.

16. Which we bless.** Literally, for which we speak good words of praise and thanks, as is plain from chapter 11 : 24, where this blessing is interpreted by the giving of thanks. The phrase here denotes the whole communicants joining together in blessing God over the cup, for his mercy in redeeming the world, through the blood of Christ. For both Luke and Paul, in their account of the institution, express this part of the action by having given thanks. M.

The Communion of the body and blood

of Christ. The great company of faithful Christians have fellowship, a joint and common interest, in the absent body and blood of Christ, as actually offered in sacrifice for their sins upon the cross. With the divine revenue of holy comfort, hope, and strength, which infallibly reaches them from their unseen treasury of blessings, they are sweetly satisfied. The covenant, by which they hold and enjoy their common interest in it, is in their actual possession. The great seal of that covenant, in the consecrated symbols of the Lord’s Supper, is often exhibited to their eyes. And from this visible evidence, this sensible assurance that their title is good, that “he is faithful who hath promised,” their faith gathers its richest income of present and of satisfying benefits. Thus it is that “the cup of blessing which we bless, and the bread which we break, are to them the communion of the very body and blood of Christ”; of the very sacrifice which was offered for their sins on the cross. J. S. S.—The word communion is properly “partnership”—“partnership in the blood of Christ”; all that the blood contains for the soul becoming ours—the whole blood becoming the property of each believer. All its blessings, the paid ransom, the canceled penalty, the forgiveness, the cleansing, the life, the joy, all becoming ours; we being partakers of Christ, partakers of his blood, partakers of his death and life. He then that takes that cup is committed to all that it symbolizes; he is counted as one with it; the possessor of its contents; the partaker of its fullness. He is to reckon himself one with Jesus in his death; and God reckons him such. Nothing less. He has the whole, or he has nothing!

17. Oneness with Christ and oneness with each other are embodied in these symbols. We are many, yet one; many members, yet one body and one head. All that he has is ours. His life, our life; his light, our light; his fullness, our fullness; his strength, our strength; his righteousness, our righteousness; his crown, our crown; his glory, our glory; his inheritance, our inheritance; for we are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

18-20. It is only in passing, and as an illustration of his argument on another subject, that the apostle introduces the Lord’s Supper here. The oneness of the worshiper, even in a heathen temple, with the whole religion or system of worship, and with the false god into whose temple he comes—this is his theme. Strange that, in connection with a pagan altar and a temple of devils, he should be led to give us one of the most striking of his statements regarding the supper. He takes the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils, places them side by side, and shows us the one from the other. Bonar.—He had already counseled them to abstain from partaking of heathen sacrifices for the sake of love, lest their example might lead their weaker brethren to sin by violating their conscience; now he takes higher ground, and this is his argument. Every sacrificial feast in all religions is a kind of worship, in the same way as all who partook of Christian sacrifices were Christians, and all who took part in Jewish were Jews; so all who sat at meat in idolatrous feasts formed one society with idolatrous worshipers. F. W. R.

21. “Ye can not be partakers of the Lord’s table and of the table of devils.” That is, “fellowship with Christ and fellowship with devils, in the sacred rites performed to each, are utterly incompatible things; and partaking, not literally of the tables themselves, but of what is present on the tables of both, is an impious profanation of Christ’s ordinance.” J. S. S.

22. The heathen would reckon any one that ate of their sacrifice as a fellow-worshiper with them of a demon; hence this participation by Corinthian Christians would be taken as a sanction of heathenism. Thus these religious banquets being not only an injury to the Church, but also to the heathen, the apostle, indignant at this wrong, breaks out into forcible language, “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than He?” F. W. R.

23. All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for 24 me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s wealth. 25 Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience sake: for 26 the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof. If any of them that believe not bid you to 27 a feast, and ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for 28 conscience sake. But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake: for the earth is the Lord’s, and the 29 fulness thereof: conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my liberty

30 judged of another man’s conscience? For if I by grace be a partaker, why am I evil spoken 31 of for that for which I give thanks? Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye 32 do, do all to the glory of God. Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, 33 nor to the church of God: even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.

1. Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you, brethren, that ye 2 remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. But I 3 would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman 4 is the man; and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his 5 head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. 6 For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman 7 to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. 8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man 9 created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to 10 have power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless neither is the man without 11 the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the 12 man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God. Judge in yourselves: 13 is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? Doth not even nature itself teach 14 you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long 15 hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering. But if any man seem to 16 be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.

ONE of the saddest things about the Christian life is, that it seems to ourselves to be split up into two separate parts, which we find it very hard, if not altogether impossible, to unite. We feel as if we lived in two different worlds. We have our moments of devotion and our hours of utter worldliness. We begin, for instance, the day with thankful acknowledgment to God for his mercies; and, howsoever sincere that may be, we know too well that it is going to be followed by a day of unthankful reception of them. We kneel down in the morning and ask God to guide us, and then we go out into the world and take guidance of vanity and selfishness. In a word, on the clear mountain-top we stand in the light of God’s face, and then we come down into the plain, and the earthly vapors shut out the blue. I suppose the best of us feel this apparently inevitable severing of our lives into two unlike portions. Is that distinction between sacred and profane a valid one? is there any reason why a man’s prayers should be more devout than his business? is there any need why the sanctity of life should be curdled together, as it were, into Sundays and acts of special worship, and not be diffused through the whole of life? Are we living on one principle from Sunday morning to Saturday night; or are we having one principle for Sunday and another principle for Monday, one principle for the ordinary tenor of our uneventful days and another principle for the crises and the solemn times? Do you and I keep our religion as princes do their crown jewels, only wearing them on festive occasions, and have we another dress for week-days and working days? Do we keep our love of Christ in our pews; or do we take it out into the street and the market- place with us, and work it out day by day, hour by hour, in patient endurance, in loyal love, in simple faith, finding that there is nothing little if Christ’s name be crossed over it, and nothing too great if it be approached in his strength? A. M.

It is necessary for the understanding of this Epistle that we should remember that it is an answer to a letter received from the Corinthian Church, and therefore constantly alludes to topics in that letter.

23, 24. “(But some one will say again), ‘All things are lawful for me.’ Nay, but not all things are good; though all things are lawful, not all things build up the Church. Let no man seek his own, but every man his neighbor’s good.” C.

25-28. True Christian freedom shows itself in self-restraint and tender forbearance toward the weak. So Paul, in full agreement with the spirit of the synod at Jerusalem, earnestly dissuaded the Corinthian Gentile Christians from eating meat offered to idols, lest they should offend the conscience of a weak brother, for whom likewise Christ died; while yet he at the same time asserts, on the other hand, that “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof,” and that every kind of food is, in itself, good, if it be eaten with thanksgiving. P. S.

25. “Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, eat, asking no questions for conscience sake.” You need not be troubled by the fact that the articles sold in the market have come from a temple, since their nature as food is unchanged; and, therefore, whether you wish to buy them for yourselves, or are invited to partake of them in the house of a heathen neighbor, you are not bound to inquire from whence they came. In this matter they were free to act as they pleased, and yet their liberty was not without limits, since in its exercise they must ever be regulated by Christian love. Accordingly Paul repeats to them what he had said to the Romans: “Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s wealth; let every man please his neighbor for his good.” “Take heed that this liberty of yours does not become a stumbling-block to the weak.” From these authoritative expositions of the law of expediency, it would appear: 1. That it applies and can apply only to things which are essentially indifferent. They must be lawful, else they never can be simply inexpedient, because, if there exists in them necessarily an element of evil, they belong to the class of things which are unlawful everywhere and always, to all persons and at all times. 2. That it applies only to special cases, and comes into operation only under special circumstances. Abstinence from the meats in question was not a rule binding all Christians at all times, on the ground that their use tended to mislead weak consciences. It became obligatory only when it was morally certain that the use of them would cause some one weak brother to stumble. So Paul understood it, and on this principle he acted. 3. That it limits the liberty of Christians in lawful things to this extent only, viz.: that they do not put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in the way of others who are weaker or less enlightened than themselves. When our actions terminate upon ourselves, the law which governs them is of a higher and more imperative nature than that of simple expediency, because, in such cases, if there is a reason for our abstaining from certain courses, or from the use of certain things, we shall find, if we examine it closely, that this reason is one not of a temporary but permanent kind. The things themselves may be, indeed, per se lawful, but they are not to us. Forsyth.

27. When he says, “and ye be disposed to go,” he well understands that there are some who will not be disposed. Kept back by no ascetic scruples or legal restrictions binding their consciences, they will be kept back by their very fullness and freedom and the uplifting sense of Christ which ennobles their life. They are free in a sense to do it, but they are also more free, too free to have any disposition that way. They are able to come down now and then it may be, and touch the plane of nature in ways of playfulness; but it will not be to launch themselves on tides of high excitement, and be floated clean away, but only to freshen a little the natural zest of things, and keep off the moroseness of a too rigid and total separation from the socialities and playtimes of the world. H. B.

29-31. “Now when I say conscience I do not mean thine own conscience, for thou knowest that the eating of such a dish is not a worshiping of the idol; but the conscience of the other, who views it in that light. Perhaps thou wilt reply, But why is my liberty ruled by another’s conscience? If by the free gift of God, to whom the earth belongs, I be allowed to partake of all kinds of food, why am I spoken of as an evil-doer for eating that meat for which I give thanks to God? In answer I say, For this very reason, that ye are allowed to partake of all kinds of food, whether ye eat, or drink, or whatever ye do, ye are bound to do all to the glory of God, by doing it agreeably to his will.” M.

By all who believe that there is any such thing as a moral authority for human life, that duty is a word with a meaning, and that responsibility is a fact, it will be granted that each of these three propositions is applicable to our intercourse and connections with each other: 1. That the moral significance of life is nowhere more vitally manifest than in what we do or fail to do for the characters of our neighbors. 2. That a large part of what is included in the term duty is what we owe to other men’s welfare, or their goodness, which is the same thing. 3. That society presents a scene of personal responsibility, peculiar to itself, where the materials of judgment are always accumulating. F. D. H.

31. Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. For indeed it is our privilege to be with him ever, and to have him ever with us; whether we eat or drink, or whatever thing, grave or light, we may be engaged in. There is nothing strange, nothing profane, nothing presumptuous in praying that Christ may be with us in all those common works which our daily life here brings with it. T. A.—The reception of food is a common action—homely, trivial, having nothing dignified or sublime about it. The implication of the text, then, is that in our common and trivial actions there is room and scope for glorifying Almighty God. In one word, we may either go through common life in a common way, tying up our religion to public worship on Sundays and private prayer on week-days, or we may go through common life with an uncommon motive—the thought of God, and the desire of pleasing and serving him in all things. E. M. G.—As in their work, so in their refreshments and rest, Christians may pursue all for him, whether they eat or drink, doing all for this reason, because it is his will; and for this end, that he may have glory; bending the use of all their strength and all his mercies that way; setting this mark on all their designs and ways, this for the glory of my God, and this further for his glory. This is the art of keeping the heart spiritual in all affairs, yea, of spiritualizing the affairs themselves in their use that in themselves are earthly. This is the elixir that turns lower metal into gold, the mean actions of this life, in a Christian’s hands, into obedience and holy offerings unto God. L.—The work of our sanctification consists simply in receiving, from one moment to another, all the troubles and duties of our state in life as veils under which God hides himself and gives himself to us. Every moment brings some duty to be faithfully performed, and this is enough for our perfection. The moment which brings a duty to be performed, or a trouble to be borne, brings also a message declaring to us the will of God. The secret of belonging wholly to God is simply this : to serve him in all that comes to you, in all that you have to do. An.

32. Give offence neither to the Jews, nor, etc.** To the unbelieving Jews, by giving them occasion to think that Christians are permitted to worship heathen idols; to the unbelieving Gentiles, by giving them occasion to think that you allow their idolatry by partaking of their sacrifices; to weak members of the Church of God, by drawing them through your example to eat of things offered to other idols, of the lawfulness whereof they are not fully satisfied. Locke.

33. Good pastors ought to desire in such sort to please men as that they may make the affection felt for them a kind of path along which they may lead their hearers’ hearts to love the Creator. “This is well expressed by Paul, ‘Even as I please all men in all things’; yet again he says, ‘If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.’ So Paul pleases men and does not please them; because in the very fact of his pleasing them he desires, not that he himself should please them, but that the truth should please them by his means. Gregory the Great.

In this chapter (11) we meet two extravagant abuses of Christian truth : first, concerning the conduct and deportment of Christian women (1-16), and next, respecting the administration of the Lord’s Supper. F. W. R.

2. It is customary with Paul to recognize whatever is praiseworthy in the church to which he is writing. In this appears his wisdom as a spiritual guide. The confidence of men is far more easily won and a hearing secured for whatever one has to say in the way of admonition and rebuke, if it appears that he nowise overlooks or undervalues what is good in them, that he does not willingly find fault, but is ready to acknowledge every real excellence with cordial approbation. Good and bad, moreover, stand frequently in close connection with each other. The good lies at the foundation, but the evil mingles its disturbing influence with the good, and hence it is through the latter that we can best reach and remedy the former. It is in the clear perperception of this relation, and in the skillful use of it for the correction of error, that Paul manifests his wisdom. Of this a striking example is furnished in this Epistle. N.

3. The doctrine which acts as pedestal to the column is that of Christ’s union as head with the believer. “The head of every man is Christ.” Never was this precious doctrine more nobly unfolded or more urgently pressed than in the writings of Paul himself. The acts of the Redeemer are for the redeemed. He took their nature, assumed their liabilities, answered for their delinquency, procured their pardon, accomplished their justification, and abides in connection with them for all the manifold ends of their salvation. For them he was born, for them he lived, for them he died, for them he rose, for them he ascended, for them he intercedes and reigns. He is made to each of them Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption. The funded treasury of his merits, his wisdom and his might, are theirs. J. W. A.

3-15. Paul had taught them that in Christ Jesus all national, social, sexual distinctions disappeared: “In him is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female.” Certain Christian women laid eager hands on this principle, and so mishandled it as to occasion a public scandal. Paul had taught the spiritual equality of man and woman; he had also taught the social subordination of the woman to the man. But these eager converts had not minds large enough to hold and reconcile both these great principles: they seized impetuously on that which fell in with their wishes and let the other go. And in our day there are men as well as women who find it difficult to reconcile Paul’s two principles, who are disposed to object, “If in spiritual nature, relation, responsibility, women are on an equality with men, how can they be subordinate to them?” To any such objectors it might be enough to reply: “Christ is the coequal Son of the Father, the ‘fellow’ of the Lord of Hosts; yet, in the complex, mysterious relations of the Blessed Trinity, Christ is the subordinate and dependent Son”; for here is an admitted case in which equality of nature and subordinate position coexist. Cox.—It is the doctrine of Paul that, as Christ is dependent on God, and man is dependent on Christ, so is woman dependent on man. Paul perceived that the law of Christian equality was quite consistent with the vast system of subordination running through the universe: “But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God”; which two things we see he distinctly unites in verses 11 and 12 when he says, “Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.” He asserts subordination in one sense, and denies it in another; and therefore bids the foolish question of “Which is the greater?” to cease for ever; for he distinguishes between inferiority and subordination, that each sex exists in a certain order, not one as greater than the other, but both great and right in being what God intended them to be. F. W. R.