Vout. XXXIV BROOKLYN, N. Y., JULY 1, 19138 No. 18 THE GREATEST THING IN THE UNIVERSE—PART I “*Covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet I show unto you a more excellent way.’’—1 Cor. 12:31. The Apostle James has declared that every good and every perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness or shadow of turning. Hence every gift from God would be a blessing. Even those upon whom God will execute the sentence of the second death may be said to receive something that is not really an injury to their best interests. In thinking over these different gifts of God, the Apostle Paul enumerates some of those that were given to the church in the beginning of this Gospel age. We read in the psalms: ‘¢Thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell amongst them.’’ (Psalm 68:18) Some of those gifts were given to the men who became followers of the Lord Jesus. After Jesus had ascended, all his followers were fo particularly wait until he would send them, from the Father, the power and blessing of the holy Spirit, which was to come to each sincere believer, and which was to be accompanied by gifts—by some outward gift and manifestation, useful and to be used. In our context the Apostle enumerates some of these gifts —apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, pastors; others received gifts of tongues, healings, power to perform miracles, power to cast out Satan, power to interpret tongues, power to discern spirits. Some received one of these and some another; some received several. St. Paul had various gifts, and declared that he spoke more tongues than they all. (1 Cor. 14:18) Jt would appear that the early church thought very highly of the gift of tongues. They became very anxious to have God give them this particular gift. But the Apostle tells them that God had still more valuable blessings than this of speaking with tongues, which they so earnestly desired. They were to distinguish between the different gifts, and they were to desire, were to prefer, the best —to exercise discrimination of mind as to which would be the best. gift. He declares that he would rather speak five words in a known tongue than to speak ten thousand in an unknown tongue, and not be able to interpret. He told them that they should pray for interpretation—that they should not only desire to speak in unknown tongues, but also desire to give the interpretation, or the proper meaning, in order to be understood. In his letter to the church at Corinth, chapters 12 and 14, he expressed the thought that these different tongues and gifts were all intended to minister to the church for their benefit as a whole. PURPOSE SERVED BY THE GIFTS The gift of tongues was given at that time to supply their lack otherwise. The early church had no Bible. Being put out of the synagogues, they had no access to the Old Testament, and the New Testament was not yet written. Therefore God’s people without these gifts would have had very little to help them—to teach them. None were qualified to teach the brethren. Only the power of God could give them this ability to teach. Therefore the Apostle Paul urged them not to forsake the assembling of themselves together. As they saw the great day of Christ drawing on, they should have great desire to come together and to discuss these things of God’s plan. And when they were assembled, it was of great advantage to them that some one should rise to speak. And they might desire, or pray, as the case might be, that God would send them some interpretation. In this way the church was drawn together and held together. They did not know what message would come in this way from the Lord. We are not to suppose that God would thus give any very deep doctrinal matters. But it does appear that in this way he gave his people some milk of the Word, until the New Testament should be arranged—written and collected in an available form. The Apostle Paul led off with these gifts to the church. The gifts of tongues, nevertheless, were surpassed by higher gifts, some higher arrangements’ for them. St. Paul would rather that they should be orators, public speakers, or have an interpretation of an unknown tongue. This would mean more of personal eontact with the Lord. Therefore they should desire such a gift in preference to one of less importance, Then the Apostle proceeds: ‘‘ Yet show I unto you a more excellent way!’’ something still better than those special gifts which he had been diseussing—hetter than speaking with tongues, better than working miracles, better than interpreting. He goes on to show that these things would pass away, and be no longer necessary to the church, but he was going to tel] them of things that would never pass away. Therefore they [5265] should discern and seek especially the best gift. They should not only discriminate amongst these gifts and choose the best, but they should be looking beyond these to a developed condition of heart which would be specially pleasing to the Lord, and would bring them into closer relationship with him. He proceeds to explain that this is love. They might have the gift of prophesying, of working miracles, of healing the sick, of speaking with tongues, of interpretation, and yet come short of ever attaining the highest blessing of the Lord, unless they should incorporate into their lives this better thing—LOVE. No matter how well able they might be to speak with tongues or to interpret or to work miracles, etc., this love was a far more important thing for them to have. Then he enumerates the various qualities of love—meekness, patience, brotherly kindness, ete. The sum of them all is love. It is love for the brethren, love for friends, love for neighbors, love for our enemies, which would do them good, and not at all wish to see them suffer injury. This, then, is the more excellent thing. Though the elements of love are developed qualities and may, therefore, properly be called fruits, they may be called gifts also. From the apple-tree we get gifts of apples; from the peach-tree we get gifts of peaches; from the pear-tree, gifts of pears, etc. Since we have to do with the development of these qualities of the Spirit, they are styled fruits of the Spirit. And they are far more excelent and far more to be desired than the merely mechanical gifts, which at the first came to all of God’s people, because of their special need, but many of which passed away shortly after the apostles died. LOVE—VARYING IN KIND The question naturally and properly arises, What is love? The Bible answers, ‘‘God is love.’’ As it is impossible to fully describe God in his greatness, so it seems impossible to fully describe all that would be comprehended in the word love. Love is the most powerful thing in the world; therefore love most nearly represents God, because he is the Supreme, Almighty One. We might say that God is not this, not that, not the other. And so with love—we might describe it by saying what it is not. Nothing can be right that is out of harmony with love, as nothing can be right that is out of harmony with God. The Apostle says, in describing love, that it does not think evil, does not vaunt itself, has not the disposition to be puffed up, is not easily provoked, does not take pleasure in iniquity, ete. We may, of course, remember that our word love is made to cover a variety of sentiments; for instance, the love of a hen for her chickens, her care over them; the love of a father and mother for their children, and their care over them. Love, then, includes this interest in all that are under one’s ¢are. God has this quality of sympathy which leads him to look out for the whole universe—all sentient creatures, all that have life. He is bound by Love to look out for all these, In human love—natural love—we find sympathy a very strong quality. Then we have a higher than mere sympathetic love—we have esteem, appreciation of some admirable quality. We say that we love certain traits in the character of some one. Again we have something more than mere sympathy and esteem; we have affectionate love. This is a very real and deep interest in every affair of the one we love— a deep, sympathetic love which would stop at nothing-—-even though it is an earthly love. The only thing that could be superior to it would be our love for the Almighty, which should dominate us as superior to this affectionate love. Later comes in the spiritual love for the Lord’s people which secks to avoid all fleshly preferences, seeking merely to live as a new creature, and to look after the welfare of the new ereature. Thus doing, we become closely united to the things of God and to all who are associated with us in the work of this Gospel age. This is the highest type of love on any plane of being—this into which we have entered. God is love. The more we grow up into this proper, spiritual love, the more we are growing up into the character-likeness of our Father, of which we read, ‘‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.’’—Matt. 5:48. This love does not stop with those who are appreciative of it, but also goes out to those who are unappreciative, knowing that something is hindering them from attaching any value to such love. Love, then, is so much of God’s likeness, the thing to be most appreciated, the thing without which all else in life is useless. To be devoid of love is to be devoid of God-likeness. And so the Apostle goes on to cnumerate the characteristics of this love—meekness, gentlencss, long-suffering, brotherly (195-196)
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