The Church at Thessalonica
(extract)
At Thessalonica the coming and kingdom of the Lord Jesus
had been especially received through the apostle’s ministry; and in the
epistles to the church there he still feeds them with further light upon that
great doctrine. But while he does that, he has also to correct a certain
practical error which was peculiar to them.
Thus we clearly discern
different conditions in the grace and knowledge of the different churches. And
all these things happened unto them for ensamples, as much as the things that
happened to Israel in the wilderness; and they are here in the same way written
for our learning (I Cor. 10). And we may bless God that we have this His own
inspired answer to so many anxieties and questions that might arise in our
hearts while walking one with another. In what I have said I may not have
altogether rightly discerned the standings of the several churches; but I have
no doubt of the fact that they were different. I speak of the churches as known
by the epistles addressed to them severally. Into some of these lamps of the
sanctuary more oil had been poured than into others.
That fact which I
have already noticed so clearly shows us this - that the apostle withheld from
the Corinthians the revelation of the mystery which he so fully makes known to
the Ephesians. And this at once shows how impotent and unwarranted the
requisition is, that the minds of all the disciples should be found exactly
according to one measure and standing before the fellowship of the church can
be allowed or administered. Nay, so far from this, I am free to believe that if
a member of the church at Ephesus had visited Corinth, he would have found them
so concerned with questions and strifes which had never troubled him or his
brethren at home, as might have left him in doubt respecting them. And so one
going from Corinth to Ephesus would have found them so occupied with such truth
which he had never heard of at home, that he might have suspected, in modern
language, that they were all in the clouds at Ephesus. I can thus suppose, from
their different measures of light and attainment in Christ, that they might not
well have known what to do.
Now, I believe we see among the saints at
the present what we thus might have seen among the churches of old; we have our
Ephesian and Corinthian difficulties still. The truths received by some
disciples are treated as mere speculation by others, and the condition of some
is low and doubtful. The large and blessed mind of God, which filled the
apostle, could of old survey them all, and provide for them all, and feed them
at Ephesus and trim them at Corinth. But we are weak and narrow hearted; and
the only result commonly is, to walk in mutual distance and suspicion. Thus we
do not understand one another’s speech, and we are scattered. But better
is it to be scattered than to be brought together on the terms of any bond
short of God’s own bond in the Holy Ghost. Whereto we have already
attained, in that let us walk by the same rule, hoping for more. But let us not
force beyond that by any fleshly compacts. The fear of God must not be taught
by the commandment of men.
And in connection with this, I would notice
the state of Job and his three friends; for I believe that it illustrates the
same thing which this state of the churches does. Job could not understand the
truth which was in their thoughts, nor could they allow that which he had of
God’s mind in his; they were but partially in the light, and, through the
remainder of darkness that was in them, they mistook the way and jostled each
other. And the correction lay only in God, and in the end He applied it. They
were all accepted- God proved Himself the adequate Healer of all their
divisions,