James Nisbet Commentary - 1 Corinthians 16:13 - 16:13

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

James Nisbet Commentary - 1 Corinthians 16:13 - 16:13


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

WATCHING FOR DUTIES

‘Watch ye.’

1Co_16:13

Our subject is watchfulness.

I. We must watch our duty to God.—What is it? We know God only in His relation to ourselves; and to ourselves God is a Father.

(a) ‘Watchthat you may never be drawn aside to think of God but as a Father.

(b) ‘Watchyour prayer; watch against wandering thoughts or mere formality.

(c) ‘Watchthat you always have some work in hand which you mean to be specially for the service of God, and ‘watch’ that that work does not degenerate into a work done to please yourself, or for some temporal good, or for applause, or for self-exaltation, or self-satisfaction, but for God.

II. Watch your duty to yourselves, your duty to your own soul.

(a) ‘Watchfor your soul’s sake, and for your own sake that you do not willingly allow any pleasure, any society, any business, any thought or imagination which your own conscience tells you is injurious to your inner life.

(b) ‘Watchconscience; always listen to its still small voices; obey instantly its promptings if it be ever so little a thing.

(c) Watch the body. Do not neglect it; do not count it religion to speak slightingly or think disparagingly of the body. Therefore for religion’s sake look well to the health of the body.

III. Watch your duty towards your fellow-creatures.—No one is isolated. God has placed you one in a great system.

(a) Watch your duty to the whole world.

(b) Watch your duty to the Church. Your duty is to further in every way you can its union, its peace, its holiness, its growth; to use and enjoy all its ordinances that God has provided for your soul’s growth and health and happiness; its services and its sacraments, especially Holy Communion, regularly, devoutly, believingly. Take that part—which belongs to you of the laity—in all the services by making the responses distinctly.

(c) Watch your duty to your own inner circle of relations and friends and neighbours. Remember that that which God has put near to you involves a duty on your part.

Duties are not things which come haphazard and may be done anyhow; they must be ‘watched for’ at all times, and only by watchfulness can we do them.

Rev. James Vaughan.

Illustration

‘As friend to friend; friends of the soul; “as heirs together of the grace of life,” always looking out for opportunities to do some real good; be true sympathisers in one another’s sorrows, and equally rejoicing in one another’s joys. And the rich to the poor, be bountiful, generous, kind, never condescending; that is offensive; be more respectful to a poor man than to a rich man, caring both for the body and soul of your poorer neighbours, imparting something to both, and, as stewards for God, of your knowledge and education, and your property and your leisure; consecrating all to Him in His poor whom God has given to be the channels to Himself. Making your charities not an impulse, but a principle—an amount given carefully and deliberately, proportioned to your means. Making giving a privilege which you have from God, in the spirit of your Master, and for His dear sake Who loves all alike, and died for all, and who is specially identified with the poor and afflicted. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” ’



SOURCES OF SPIRITUAL STRENGTH

‘Quit you like men, be strong.’

1Co_16:13

We are conscious of our weakness, our need is strength, but how shall we attain to it? Elsewhere St. Paul, using the same military metaphors that we have seen here, tells his people how that strength is to be obtained. ‘Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.’ From the words of the Apostle two things are clear: (a) First, he regards every man as engaged in a separate personal struggle with a real spiritual power of evil; and (b) he insists upon every man’s need of Divine strength. The Apostle would say, when he says here, ‘Be strong,’ as he says elsewhere, ‘Be strong in the Lord.’ Do not go unready, unprepared, unarmed, into the struggle against evil.

Let me remind you of a few of the means by which we seek to attain that spiritual grace, that Divine help, without which the spiritual combat will certainly be a failure.

I. Prayer.—First of all, there is the weapon of prayer. Here we have always before us the example of our Lord Himself. What is prayer? All of you know it is not a mere asking for something, above all it is a contact of spirit with spirit, of person with person; it is the contact with God Himself, putting ourselves in touch with Him. If you doubt prayer, or the power of prayer, just remember for a moment, again in this instance also, what the experiences of spiritual men have been, how they have found prayer to be this very power in their lives, how they have proved it, how they have lived by it.

II. The devotional reading of the Scriptures.—Or, again, there is the devotional use of the Holy Scriptures. This use of the Holy Scriptures is much more rare than it used to be, and the Bible is much less read than it used to be, even by good, church-going religious people. No doubt there are reasons for this. One reason is the enormous multiplication of every form of literature, especially ephemeral literature. People who read four or five newspapers a day have no time obviously to read the New or the Old Testament. Partly it may be caused by what is supposed to be the unsettlement of the basis of Holy Scripture. Most people hear something, if they know little, about Higher Criticism, but we may be sure that, whatever has happened to the Holy Scriptures, nothing has happened to make their devotional value less than it used to be. Questions of date or authorship do not really affect spiritual power. Experience shows still, as it used to show, that the Holy Scriptures can make men wise unto salvation.

III. The Holy Communion.—Or once more, there is the Supper of the Lord, or the Holy Communion. Here again I am afraid one may assume that a large part of one’s hearers have excommunicated themselves. It ought not to be necessary now for one to say that the Holy Communion is not, what it used so often to be regarded as, a sort of mark or test of superiority. Believe me, it is not for strong men, but for weak men, for those who know and feel and realise their own weakness. Hesitate before you pass it by, before you let it go.

It is Christ Who calls us into His fight. It is Christ Who leads us, Christ Who arms us. Let us pray for grace so to trust in Him that when it is over, or when it is ended, we may be able to say, like His Apostle, that we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.

Rev. H. R. Gamble.

Illustration

‘The devil is often made a subject of mirth and ridicule, but our Lord’s language is utterly meaningless unless it signified that there is a real spiritual power of evil. He always seemed to find it hanging on the frontiers of His own life, tempting all along the way, especially in the hours of weakness and sorrow. May we not also appeal to the experience of spiritual people, of all those who have entered with all their power into the personal struggle against evil? Is it not a fact that the more earnestly they have engaged in it the more they have been sensible of struggle with a real spiritual power, force, kingdom, method of evil? Nay, may we not say of ourselves, is it not our own experience in the darkest hours of temptation, when the worst thoughts come, when the most awful strain is put upon us, do we then find it difficult to believe in the working of a personal power? Nothing can be more foolish than to underrate the power with which we are engaged, or may be engaged.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

MANLINESS AND STRENGTH

Let me suggest one or two things that may help to give the manliness and the strength which I think we all want in our religion.

I. In reading the Bible, let me advise you to deal with your Bible as you deal with facts.—Jesus died in my stead. It is a fact. Then I shall never die. It is a fact. Jesus rose. All His people are His members; then they were there; then they rose in Him; then I have risen; then I lead a risen life, and I must rise more and more. It is a fact. The Holy Spirit is in me. Then I can do anything. Yet not I, but He. It is a fact. God is my Father. He loves me infinitely. There is no room for any fear. It is a fact. Christ is always at my side, like a brother. I may tell Him anything. It is a fact. Christ never leaves His own work unfinished: then He won’t leave His own work unfinished in my soul. It is a fact. Christ will soon come, and when He comes, He will ask me what I have done for Him; and according to my answer I shall be for ever. My eternity is at stake upon it. It is a fact. These are all facts, historical facts. Accept them as facts. Do not dwell upon abstruse things half so well as you dwell upon simple things. Do not try to fathom God. It is the simplicity of truth which is the power and the life of truth.

II. When you pray, pray about the things you care for, temporal and spiritual.—Do not pray general, unpersonal prayers. Pray for the things you have on your heart at that time. This, only this, will give reality to prayer. And as you pray your prayer, however poor it be, believe that Christ presents it and makes it effectual; and remember that He Who has put it into your heart to ask, much more has it in His heart to give. Therefore in your prayer be importunate; be confident. Use a great deal of repetition. There is no earnestness without repetition. Repetitions are not ‘vain repetitions.’ Pray strong prayer. ‘The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.’

III. Do not live either above, or below, what you really are.—Seem what you are and be what you seem. Do not say what you do not thoroughly feel; what you thoroughly feel, say it, and say it anywhere, and say it like a man. Be natural about it. Speak in a natural voice. Use natural expressions. Avoid canting phraseology. Anything affected, anything unnatural, either affects, or makes, unreality. Realise the Manhood of Christ—its gentleness and its strength. It will help and fortify your manhood. It will make you really a man. For manhood is manhood when it is like, and part of, the Manhood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Religion is a good life with a right motive.

Illustration

‘Many persons are feeling that there is a want of reality in the religion of the day—that we need more manliness; and because there is so much unmanliness, which is unreality, therefore Christianity is so weak and uninfluential. There is great truth in the charge. It is, indeed, a very hollow age in many things! Art and skill are gone very high; and one of the great achievements of art is to be able to conceal a great many things, and to make good surface where there is very little underneath. And we live in everything under high pressure. And high pressure taxes things beyond their natural state, and debilitates them. Things, too strained, avenge themselves by lassitude and weakness. Everything has grown sensational. Books are sensational. Works of benevolence are sensational. The very enterprises of commerce are sensational. Religion has become, and is becoming every day, more and more sensational. Feeling is everything. The appeal is to feeling. Feeling thrives; feeling restores; feeling saves. It is a condition of heart where, naturally, the young plants run up fast and unhealthily.’



STRENGTH OF SPIRIT

‘Be strong.’

1Co_16:13

Over and over again in Holy Writ we find this short, stirring text. We find it in the mouth of Moses, when, handing over his leadership to Joshua, he bid him more than once ‘be strong.’ It was echoed by the people of Israel, when they vowed to follow their new leader as they had followed the old, if only he would ‘be strong.’ The Lord Himself declared that the Divine power and presence which had been with Moses should be with Joshua, so long as he kept to the command, thrice repeated, to ‘be strong.’ David’s last charge to Solomon urges the same sure method of ruling men.

The appeal is not to the body, nor to the intellect, but to the spirit.

I. Be strong to take the right side.—That is seldom an easy thing. When St. Peter feared to be known as a disciple of the Lord Jesus, and thrice denied Him, it was because he dared not be strong for right. When Pilate gave over the innocent Jesus to be scourged and crucified, it was because he feared the people. And when we know we ought to take our stand openly and bravely for the right, but hold back because we are afraid of the sneers and laughter of our companions, or of the loss of their good opinion, or of our place in the world, wherein are we better? ‘Be strong,’ and take the side of Christ, cost you what it may, unpopular though it be.

II. Be strong in your repentance.—For men are often sadly weak in their dealing with their own souls. They will not dare to look at their sins as God looks at them. They deceive themselves, and try to bury their faults out of their sight. It was said by a master of the spiritual life that most men had a dark room in their hearts where they dare not go with a light. Be strong to be candid with yourself and with God. Be strong to repent of the past. Be strong to believe in the forgiveness won for every earnest penitent by the strength of the sacrifice of Calvary.

III. ‘Be strong’ to fight the battle of a Christian’s life.—When the cross of baptism glittered in shining drops upon your young brow, words were said over each one of you which solemnly dedicated you ‘manfully to fight under His banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant unto your life’s end.’ That battlefield is in your own heart, and there you will find your foe. Every temptation to tell a lie, to be dishonourable, to overreach another; every desire to be lazy and careless, selfish and slovenly; every time you are moved to be gluttonous, sulky, unkind, vain, impure, is a challenge from the enemy of your soul. Then, in the name of God, ‘be strong.’ Strong to drive away the foul thought which is brooding, like some hideous night-bird over its prey, over your heart. Strong to control a hasty temper; strong to speak the simple truth; strong to do your plain duty. I know of no better motto for a young man’s life than that furnished by these two words. Kingsley wrote them down when once asked for his favourite text. Let each of us take them and write them over all our life, to be uttered each morning on our knees, ere we go forth to our work and to our labours. ‘Be strong’ against the temptations of the coming day. ‘Be strong’ faithfully to do its duties, bravely to bear its trials, humbly to accept its joys.

Rev. Professor H. C. Shuttleworth.

Illustration

‘When the martyrs died a cruel death rather than risk their loyalty to Jesus Christ, they were strong in spirit. Weak women and children were among them, simple and unlearned men were among them. But all knew what it meant to “be strong.” Many will recall the beautiful Academy picture “Diana or Christ,” which proclaims better than words how a weak maiden could “be strong.” Many will have read, in our most popular tale of school life, the true chapter which tells how a young, weak boy knelt down to pray in the midst of a crowd of jeering, bullying schoolfellows, and taught them and us to “be strong.” ’