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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - 1 John 3:17 - 3:17
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
this world’s good - literally, “livelihood” or substance. If we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren (1Jo 3:16), how much more ought we not to withhold our substance?
seeth - not merely casually, but deliberately contemplates as a spectator; Greek, “beholds.”
shutteth up his bowels of compassion - which had been momentarily opened by the spectacle of his brother’s need. The “bowels” mean the heart, the seat of compassion.
how - How is it possible that “the love of (that is, ‘to’) God dwelleth (Greek, ‘abideth’) in him?” Our superfluities should yield to the necessities; our comforts, and even our necessaries in some measure, should yield to the extreme wants of our brethren. “Faith gives Christ to me; love flowing from faith gives me to my neighbor.”