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203 illustrations
An able minister requires two foundational elements: natural endowments and spiritual qualities.
This is no mere sentiment, but the living testimony of regeneration itself.
The commission 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature' was not spoken to the eleven apostles alone, but to all generations of Christ's Church.
Only *sections* of these households became Christian; notably, the masters themselves remained outside the faith.
First, the *phobos* (fear) of preparation for judgment itself.
The authority of their testimony rested on four unmistakable foundations.
Paul renounced the "wisdom of words" because human eloquence veils the gospel's truth.
Among those who reverently buried the martyr were devout men—not disciples, but Hellenistic Jews, perhaps from the very synagogue whose members had disputed with Stephen and dragged him before the council.
Because all members share identical stakes in eternity.
Consider any discipline of human knowledge: a man who disbelieves the principles of astronomy or geology yet pretends to teach these sciences will find his teaching rendered useless by his own heartlessness.
Standing amid the magnificent statues of Pallas Athene and Greek art, surrounded by educated philosophers who mocked new ideas, Paul possessed every reason to denounce their idolatry immediately.
This covenant embraced three distinct circles of blessing.
Yet when the earthquake shattered the prison doors and loosed the chains, something far more profound than physical tremor seized him.
Yet Maclaren observes that this solitude, rather than paralyzing the Apostle, clarified his method.
Christ does not warn His disciples of persecution as an unfortunate accident; He presents it as the necessary consequence of their union with Him.
Yet he 'obeyed at once,' unburdened by ignorance of his destination.
Had the Judaisers prevailed, the faith would have collapsed into merely another Jewish sect.
He had rough-hewn his plan with apostolic certainty.
Yet Luke captures something more profound than fearlessness: John's perfect humility before Christ.
The priests resented the teaching because it threatened their official prerogative.
First, the gospel illuminates what was previously hidden.
When our Lord declares, 'They know not Him that sent Me,' He establishes an axiom that reverberates through all ages: to turn away from Christ is necessarily to turn away from the Father.
This outburst reveals the nature of evil's opposition to Christ.
His gaze pierced beyond mere physical suffering to discern spiritual disease—the scattered, fainting condition of sheep without a shepherd.