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There is no duty which believers do more willingly hear, or more difficultly observe, than the duty of spiritually rejoicing: had our apostle called upon the blessed angels to rejoice, who have neither sin, nor sorrow, nor fear, nor sufferings, nor enemies to annoy them, that might have seemed agreeable; but is it at all congruous to persuade sinners loaded with guilt, and defiled with corruption, clothed with infirmities, assaulted with temptations, persecuted by the world! To bid them rejoice, may seem strange: but the wonder will cease, if we consider the object which he directs them to rejoice in, and that is the Lord, not in themselves but in the Lord Jesus Christ: My brethern rejoice in the Lord.
Learn hence, 1. That the Lord Jesus Christ is the great, sure, and perpetual joy of his own people; the object of joy is a present good, a precious good, a proportionable good, a perpetual good, such is our Lord Jesus Christ.
Learn, 2. That it is the duty of all sincere and serious christians to joy and rejoice in him. Finally, brethern, rejoice in the Lord, rejoice in his person, in the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that are found in him, which render him an object worthy of evangelical adoration; rejoice in his mediation, in the great things he has done and suffered for you, in the graces of his Spirit conferred upon you, and in the hopes of that glory to which he has entitled you.
To write the same things, that is, not the same things which I wrote before, but the same things which I preached to you before, and which you often heard by word of mouth from me before: though I inculcate and press the same truths upon you by my writing, which I have done by my preaching, it is neither grievous nor burdensome to me, nor unnecessary or unprofitable for you.
Learn hence, That the often repeating and frequent inculcating of such truths as are most useful and necessary for the instruction and edification of the hearers, ought to be esteemed neither burdensome by the minister, nor wearisome by the people.
Learn farther, That we have here St. Paul's judgment against oral tradition, which the church of Rome prefers before the written word; so did not St. Paul, knowing that what is delivered by word of mouth might soon slip out of the memory, but what is written is remaining: blessed be God for his written word.