If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the dead rise not?
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Beasts at Ephesus
Note here--
I. A low judgment of human nature.
1. There is no good reason for taking the text literally. Had such a terrible struggle taken place it would have been recorded in the Acts, and often referred to by Paul himself.
2. By wild beasts he means men, gross and savage in wickedness. Heraclitus called the Ephesians
èḉñéá
. If we refer to Act_19:1-41. we shall find that certain men were entitled to the designation. We read of them “being full of wrath,” of the whole city “filled with confusion,” of some “crying out one thing and some another.” They seem to have been bereft of reason and given up to the wildest fury of passion.
3. Paul was not alone in classifying such men with beasts. The Baptist called some of his hearers vipers, and Christ compared such men to swine. The Bible speaks of wicked men in two stages lower than humanity.
(1) The sensual, who are in a state where the senses rule the soul, where the animal is supreme. Is not this the state of the mass of men? The great question is, What shall we eat, what shall we drink? etc.
(2) The devilish. Men have the power of getting lower than the beasts. By the power of their imaginations they kindle their passions into a diabolical heat, and, by bringing theelements of nature into new combinations, they generate and nourish unnatural appetites.
II. A fierce struggle for human nature. “I have fought with.” Paul fought with men for men.
1. The battle was inevitable to his mission. He was the messenger of truths that struck directly at their prejudices, their habits, their greed (Act_19:27).
2. The battle was most benevolent on his part. Love, not anger, was its inspiration. He fought for them by fighting against their prejudices and their sins.
3. the battle was most unequal in circumstances. Numbers, authority, influence, wealth, were all arrayed against one penniless foreigner. In moral battles numbers are an inferior consideration. One man in truth may conquer a nation in error.
III. A great problem for human nature. “What advantageth it me?” etc. The apostle does not say either that there would be no advantage in a godly struggle for truth were there no future life, nor that such a struggle was to be conducted with a view of advantage. He puts the question and leaves it to be answered. Our answer will be that on the assumption that there is no future life, godliness will be--
1. Of physical advantage to man. The habits of life promoted by Christianity are conducive to bodily health and longevity.
2. Of mental advantage to man. It generates sentiments, it starts trains of thoughts, it awakens hopes, which yield to the mind a happiness which nothing else on earth can afford. If Christianity is only a dream, it is a dream from which we would not awake.
3. Of social advantage to man. Christianity has proved itself to be infinitely the best system for promoting the peace of families, the order of society, the prosperity of nations. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
Fighting beasts at Ephesus
It would be greatly to the satisfaction of our curiosity if we could mention exactly what was the historic form of this trial. And there is an interpretation of this passage which insists that Paul was once compelled to fight literally with wild beasts. Indeed, tradition has caught up the story, and told us that he braved the beasts most dauntlessly in the attack, and, while the audience waited to see him torn in pieces, he suddenly invoked the powerful interposition of high heaven with a wonderful gesture of his outstretched hand. The suppliant animals refused to do him harm. Lions came cringing to his feet, and, like so many tame dogs, began licking his wounds where the scourge blows had broken the skin. Now we have in 2 Corinthians a complete catalogue of Paul’s sufferings; but fighting in the arena is not among them. We understand this text, therefore, as a figurative description of the great conflict he had with wild Ephesian men; and with such an interpretation the question comes within the reach of every Christian put under severe conflict. When any good man is forced into a fight he is often constrained to ask, “What advantageth it me?” It so happens that the inquiry has a right noble answer.
I. The fine possession of a manly reminiscence. We always have a high respect for a difficulty we have actually surmounted. Evermore there remains deep in our hearts the joyous consciousness for once at least of having stood true when under fire.
II. Quickened growth in grace. Conflict makes men sober and thoughtful; then it makes them gentle and kind; then it makes them forbearing and charitable.
III. Power for leadership among men. Men trust the veterans from hard-fought fields.
IV. Fellowship with Christ (Heb_12:3). Those who are persecuted for Christ’s sake receive precisely what He received; the disciple is mot above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord.
V. It renders more luminously welcome the heavenly outlook. “No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast.” All will be peace and rest and satisfaction. (C. S. Robinson, D.D)
Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.
The house of feasting, or the epicure’s measures
1. The text is the epicure’s proverb, began on a weak mistake, thought witty by an undiscerning company, and prevailing greatly because it strikes the fancy and maintains the merry meeting. The pagans recommended sensuality in this life because they knew of no enjoyments in another.
2. They are to be excused rather than us. They placed themselves in the order of beasts, making their bodies but receptacles of flesh and wine; therefore they treated themselves accordingly. But why should we do the same things who have higher principles, and the revelation of immortality?
3. To reprove the follies of mankind and their improper motions towards felicity. Note--
I. That plenty and the pleasures of the world are no proper instruments of happiness. A man must have some violence done to himself ere he can receive them. If we go beyond what is needful, we put that to hazard which nature has secured. It is not nature that desires superfluities, but lust. By a disease we acquire the passion for luxuries, which eventually become necessaries, and then cease to gratify. Contrast the happiness of the virtuous poor man in his cottage, his sound sleep, quiet breast, easy provision, sober night, healthful morning, and joyous heart, with the noises, diseases, passions, which fill the houses of the luxurious and the hearts of the ambitious.
II. Intemperance in eating and drinking is opposed to the epicure’s design. The voluptuous man has the least share of pleasure.
1. It is an enemy to health which is a handle by which we can apprehend pleasure, and the same which makes life delicious. For what content can a full table administer to a man in a fever? Health carries us to Church, and makes us rejoice in the communion of saints; but an intemperate table makes us lose all this. It bears part of its punishment in this life, and has this appendage, that unless it be repented of it is not remitted in the life to come. The epicure’s genial proverb might be a little altered. “Let us eat and drink, for by this means to-morrow we shall die”; yet it is not so, for such men lead a healthless life; they are long in dying, and die in torment. What folly for men to pray for healthy bodies, and then pour in loads of flesh and seas of wine. The temptations which men meet with from without in these cases are in themselves most unreasonable, and soonest confuted. He that tempts me to drink beyond measure, what does he, but tempt me to lay aside my reason, or civilly invite me to a fever? When Athens was, destroyed by the plague, Socrates escaped through the temperate diet to which he had accustomed himself. He had enough for health, study, philosophy, and religion; but he had no superfluities to bring on groans and sickly nights. All gluttons are convinced of the excellence of temperance in order to moral felicity and health; for after they have lost both they are obliged to go to temperance to recover them. Fools, not to keep their health by the means which they seek to restore it! Such men “heap up wrath against the day of wrath.” When the heathen feasted their gods they gave nothing but an animal, poured a little wine on the altar, and burnt a little frankincense: but when they feasted themselves they had many vessels of Campanian wine, turtles, beeves, wild boars, etc. And little do we spend on charity and religion; but we spend so much on ourselves that we make ourselves sick, and seem to be in love with our own mischief.
2. A constant full table is less pleasant than the temperate provisions of the virtuous, or the natural banquets of the poor. “Thanks be to the God of nature,” said Epicurus, “that He hath made that which is necessary to be ready at hand, and easy to be had; whilst that which cannot easily be obtained is not necessary at all,” i.e., in effect it cannot be constantly pleasant: for want makes the appetite and the appetite makes the pleasure; so that men are greatly mistaken when they despise the poor man’s table. Fortune and art give delicacies, nature gives meat and drink; and what nature gives fortune cannot take away, whilst every change can take away what is only given by fortune. Moreover, he that feasts every day, feasts no day; and however a man treats himself, he will sometimes need to be refreshed beyond it. A perpetual fulness will make you glad to beg pleasure from emptiness and variety from humble fare.
3. Intemperance is the nurse of vice, and no man dare pray to God for a pure soul in a chaste body, if he lives intemperately, “making provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” For in this case he will find “that which enters him shall defile him,” more than he can be cleansed by vain prayers that come from his tongue and not from his heart.
4. Intemperance is the destruction of wisdom. “A full gorged belly never produced a sprightly mind.” The heavy and foul state of an intemperate person may be compared to the sun, clouded with fogs and vapours, when it has drawn too freely from the moisture of nature. But temperance is reason’s girdle and passion’s bridle, the strength of the soul and the foundation of virtue.
5. Intemperance is a dishonour to the nature, person, and manners of a man. But naturally men are ashamed of it, and night is generally a veil to their gluttony and drunkenness.
III. Some rules and measures of temperance.
1. Our natural needs. Hunger, thirst, and cold, are the natural diseases of the body; food and raiment are their remedies, and therefore the measures. But in this there are two cautions--
(1) These are only to be extinguished when they are violent or troublesome, and not to the utmost extent and possibilities of nature.
(2) These must be natural, not artificial and provoked: for many men make necessities to themselves, and then think they are bound to provide for them.
2. Reason. Eating and drinking so as to make the reason useless or troubled is intemperate. Reason is the limit beyond which temperance never wanders. Intemperate men are so stripped of the use of reason that they are not only useless as wise counsels, but have not reason enough to avoid inflicting evils upon themselves.
3. The fitness of the body for useful service. Overloaded with food or drink, the mind cannot think, nor the body work with any sprightliness. (Jeremy Taylor.)
The folly of thoughtlessness of religion
Is it not foolish to be living in this world without a thought of what you will do at last? A man goes into an inn, and as soon as he sits down he begins to order his wine, his dinner, his bed; there is no delicacy in season which he forgets to bespeak. He stops at the inn for some time. By and by the bill is forthcoming, and it takes him by surprise. “I never thought of that--I never thought of that!” “Why,” says the landlord, “here is a man who is either a born fool or else a knave. What! never thought of the reckoning--never thought of settling with me!” After this fashion too many live. They eat, and drink, and sin, but they forget the inevitable hereafter, when for all the deeds done in the body the Lord will bring us into judgment. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
