they have, that they may indeed become such.' He has been telling them in parables what the Kingdom of Heaven, what the Church of Christ, is like; and now He shows by this short allegory of the man that is an householder, what sort of man a true teacher is. A Scribe among the Jews was an instructor in the Law of Moses. The word is applied here to a Christian teacher generally, to a minister of Christ's Gospel in particular, to one who from a Disciple or Scholar has been advanced to be an Apostle or Teacher.2 Such the Lord likens to a man that is an householder. It is not enough that he be a man, he must be a provident man. The Apostle is a Disciple and something more. The head of an house, the father of a family, is ever adding to and bringing out of his stores the treasures of the present year and of the past. He does not despise the last year's harvest because he is in the midst of another. He does not neglect to reap what lies before him because he has already laid up in store, He lays up from time to time according to the requirements of his family and household, and brings forth as the case requires, "things new and old;" the Law of Moses and the Gospel of Christ, the two covenants between God and man: for the New Testament is unfolded in the Old, and the Old Testament is unfolded in the New. There is a harmony between the two. The true Scribe can discover and set it forth. 3 CCXXIII. WOULD-BE FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST. St. Luke ix. 57-60. And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou 1 Hence the "therefore:" q. d. If you really understand, you will resemble such a character as I describe. It would serve to humble them and to set before them an ideal; shewing both what as yet they were not, and what they should strive to become. 2 A discipled scribe. 1 Cor. xii. 29. 3 A proverbial saying. Bengel, who cites Cant. vii. 13. 4 Aug. de catechizandis rudibus. c. iv. goest. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. 2 The first of these three would-be followers of Christ, as St. Matthew informs us, was a Scribe,' a teacher of the Law. He saw in Christ no more than a Rabbi, or teacher, superior to himself. He knew not what it was to follow Him. Our Lord tells him for what he must be prepared, even to share His privations who had not where to lay His head; no habitation of His own; worse off in this respect than the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. Thus He puts him to the test. He calls Himself here, what none other may call Him, by the name of His humiliation. He who for our sakes became man found no home in His own world.3 For such shelter as He had He was indebted to Disciples and men of low degree, as fishermen of Galilee, and the family of Bethany. With Disciples He deals otherwise than with Scribes. There is a tradition that Philip was the one to whom He said this. The overforward He bids count the cost. The slow He stimulates. There were, it might be, in this instance, unknown reasons, arising out of circumstances peculiar to the case, for refusing a seemingly reasonable request. Had this man been allowed to go, he might never have returned. To wait till he had buried his father meant to wait an indefinite time before he would obey the call, till his father in fact should die; which was almost the same as to decline it altogether. Our Lord does not discourage filial 5 4 1 St. Matt. viii. 19. 6 7 6 Witnessed by Clemens Alexandrinus. Philip had, we know, been once called already. St. John i. 43. Was this a second call, occasioned by some symptom of slackness? St. John vi. 5, 6; xii. 21, 26; xxi. 19. It was in fact a postponement sine die or ad Kalendas Græcas, which never come, piety, but he points out to this reluctant one, what as yet he seems to have no conception of, the pressing importance of proclaiming the Kingdom of God. That was a thing which might not be postponed to take its chance after the possible fulfilment of less important matters. There were people enough already to discharge these. The ancient Philosophers used sometimes to describe those who did not care for wisdom as dead, dead, that is, mentally. Those at all events who had not received, as this Disciple, a special call to a spiritual office, might be left to discharge mere secular duties. CCXXIV. THE SAME SUBJECT continued. St. Luke ix. 61, 62. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. 1 This third case of those who would "follow Christ but upon conditions" was that of one who seems to have volunteered, but requested leave to do what seemed even more reasonable, and less likely to involve delay, than the last. But our Lord knew it was not with him as with Elisha.2 He replied to the thought of his heart. In a proverbial sentence He shows that such a man as may be so described is not fit for the office to which he is called. It is like Lot's wife looking back and longing for Sodom while on the way to Zoar: "Their heart is divided." "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." The ploughs in those times, in that part of the world, were of the rudest description, little more than a mere log of wood, with a small share roughly driven in, which required constant watching that it might Heading of chap. in E. V. 2 Bengel notes the similitude of the plough presently, as proving that the case of Elisha must have been in mind. 1 Kings xix. 19, 20. perform its work. Any looking off on the part of the ploughman was a sign of unfitness. He must give his whole mind to his work. It is no good having your hand on the plough, if your heart is somewhere else. So the Lord would have him test himself. "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." "Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my Disciple." The ancients had a fable of one who went into the place of departed spirits and won back his wife by the music of his lyre; but his prayer was only granted on the condition that he should not look back till they had arrived again in the upper world. At the very moment, it is said, when they were about to pass the fatal bounds, he looked round to see if his Eurydice was following, and he beheld her caught back into the shades below. What was fabled of Orpheus may be a real instruction to us Christians, teaching us to persevere, lest we be wrecked even in sight of shore.1 CCXXV. THE STORM ON THE SEA OF GALILEE. St. Mark iv. 35-39. And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side. And when they had 1 The Christian Year, Eighth Sunday after Trinity. There is a memorable passage in the history of our church and country which may serve as an illustration here. When Gregory the Great sent Augustine (afterwards first Archbishop of Canterbury) with a band of missionaries to preach the Gospel in what was then more than half heathen Britain, they had not gone far, the history tells us, when their spirit failed them. Such were the reports that reached them of the ferocity of our forefathers that they halted on the road, asking to be excused from going to so barbarous a nation, whose language they did not understand. But Gregory with his great heart will not hear of it. He writes to them, in the spirit of this passage, an earnest letter which has come down to us, exhorting them to go forward. "Forsomuch," he says, "as better it were never to begin a good work than, after it is once begun, to go from it again, you must needs now fulfil the good work which by the help of God you have taken in hand . . . assuring yourselves that, after your great labour, eternal reward shall follow." See the letter in Fuller's Ch. Hist. Bk. ii. sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 3 1 It was the evening probably of that day in which our Lord spake the series of parables, sitting in the fishing-boat on that Galilæan sea, while the multitude stood upon the shore. Afterwards we find when He retired to the house, the house probably of Simon and Andrew at Capernaum,2 He expounded these things further to His Disciples and other inquirers. In the evening the multitude come together again, and the Lord proposes to His Disciples to cross the lake and pass over to the other side of the sea. So having dismissed the multitude, they took Him even as He was, worn out and weary with His hard day's work, on board the ferry-boat probably, which was wont to ply at that part of the lake. This notice of a convoy of "other little ships seems to denote that the one into which He had entered was not a large one, and so the more exposed to danger from this sudden storm. This Sea of Galilee, so travellers tell us, is subject to such storms, which often rise suddenly, but do not as suddenly subside. It is surrounded with mountains, and, as on other inland and land-locked seas, the wind sometimes sweeps down and causes the waters to boil. The windy storm amounts to the fury of a tempest, and the waves beat over the bulwarks of these low vessels and place them in real jeopardy. In such a storm the Lord was still asleep. He laid Him down in peace to take His rest as soon as He entered on board the boat, with no other bed but what the place afforded, the rude leathern cushion at the stern of 5 St. Matt. xiii. 1, 2. 2 St. Mark i. 29. 3 St. Mark iv. 10; St. Luke ix. 57-62. 4 St. Matt. viii. 18. |