I have confidence in you through the Lord that ye will be none otherwise minded--(Comp, Gal_4:11-20).
The troubled Church and its troublers
I. Paul’s treatment of the Galatian Church shows us--
1. To hope the best of men so long as they are curable.
(1) Objection: Those that hope the bestmay be deceived. Answer: In judgment but not in practice. It is the duty of love to hope the best. Those who suspect the worst are the oftenest deceived.
(2) Objection: We must judge of things as they are indeed. Reply: Judgment of things and persons must be distinguished. No uniform rule is sufficient by which to estimate a fellow creature. The worst have repented. The best have fallen.
2. How are we to be hopeful of men?
(1) Only for such things as they are able to perform,
(2) and these “in the Lord.” He only can give helping grace, exciting grace, and so lead to reformation.
3. Not to excommunicate them unless they are incurable. So long as they are curable we must use means to cure them.
(1) If the sheep or the ox that goes astray must be brought home (Exo_23:4), much more our neighbour.
(2) Christ brings home the lost sheep (Luk_15:1-5). So must every under-shepherd (Eze_34:4).
II. Paul’s treatment of the troubles of this church shows us--
1. That God watches over the Church by a special providence.
2. That the apostle’s doctrine is an infallible certainty.
3. That the troublers of Churches shall be plagued by the just judgment of God. (W. Perkins.)
Bearing the judgment
The consul Q.S. Caepio had taken the city of Toulouse by an act of more than common perfidy and treachery, and possessed himself of the immense hoards of wealth stored in the temples of the Gaulish deities. From this day forth, he was so hunted by calamity, all extremest evils and disasters, all shame and dishonour, fell so thick on himself and all who were his, and were so traced up by the moral instinct of mankind to this accursed thing which he had made his own, that any wicked gains fatal to their possessor acquired this name; and of such a one it would be said, “He has gold of Toulouse.” (Trench.)
