just what they are: God's temple: let a man beware of destroying it.] — Worldly wisdom is spiritual self-deception: instead of magnifying human leaders these should be considered stewards of God's mysteries, and all of them (with all other things) belong to those who are Christ's: whether they are even faithful stewards cannot be known before the time of the Lord's coming. What has been said of Paul and Apollos in this figure of the steward applies to all: if the Corinthians have any superiority it has been given them; yet they are posing as if the probation were over and the reigning had begun, in contrast with the poor apostles who are exposed as a spectacle of persecution to men and angels. But all this is only admonition: this and Timothy's coming is to prepare for Paul's own visit.

2. Protest against tolerance of a reported case of shameless impurity: the direction in a former epistle 'to keep no company with the impure' related to such a case as this, not to the impure outside their ranks.

3. Protest against disputes between brethren being carried to courts of unbelievers. Rather be willing to be defrauded: instead of this they even defraud.

4. A fixed principle: the sensual and other evildoers cannot inherit the kingdom. What law may not forbid expediency does. Impurity is a sin, not against what is external, but against a man's own body: a body which is a member of Christ, a temple of the Holy Ghost.

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II

Points arising out of the Corinthian Letter

1. Questions growing out of the marriage relation discussed on the general basis that marriage intercourse is lawful, but perhaps not the most desirable thing in an exceptional period (of distress and the near coming of the Lord), also on the wider principle that all should abide in the general condition (e.g. circumcision, slavery) in which they were called. The principles are applied successively to married persons to those who are single, or married to unbelievers to virgin daughters. 2. The question of meats sacrificed to idols. As a matter of knowledge [but knowledge betrays to self-consciousness: it is love that really builds up] idols are nothing: but to the weak, who have not knowledge to see this, offence must not be given in a matter of mere eating.

Paul himself has all the rights of an apostle (eating and drinking, and leading about a wife, and support in things carnal from those to whom he ministers) but he uses none of these things. Nay, he positively refuses to use his rights: his only reward for preaching the gospel shall be that he be allowed to do it without charge. This, and the adapting of himself to all men, he does for the gospel, that he may have a share in its benefits: an athlete going into full training, lest after saving others he himself should prove a castaway.

Remember our fathers, how all had the same spiritual blessings, yet some displeased God and fell in the wilderness taking example from these let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.

To resume.

Run no risks of idolatry: just as your own Lord's Supper implies a participation in the body and blood of Christ, and just as those who eat the sacrifices of carnal Israel have communion with the altar, so to eat idol meats is to partake of the table of demons. The matter must be treated as one of expediency, not of law: there is no need to ask questions, but where attention is called to idol meats refrain for the sake of others. Even eating and drinking may be done to the glory of God. 3. Points of order. Women not to pray or prophesy unveiled: on principle [veiling the sign of subordination in the scale God, Christ, man, woman: nature, moreover, by the long hair of women points the same way], and because so the custom of the churches requires. - Behaviour at the common feast is not to be regulated as if it were a matter of appetite: from the Lord himself came the institution of the Lord's Supper as a memorial of himself. 4. Spiritual Gifts. In contrast with the dumbness of idol gods, there is for the followers of Jesus a Spirit who inspires even the simplest cry, 'Jesus is Lord.' All the diverse spiritual gifts proceed from one and the same Spirit. — Simile of the Body: As with the bodily parts, some are inferior, but have the more abundant honor bestowed on them, so that there is no schism, but on the contrary if any part suffers or is honoured all suffer or rejoice: so there are higher and lower spiritual gifts; but, while

the greatest are to be desired, LOVE is beyond all, without which the best are nought; love will abide when all the gifts are done away. — Love then is the main thing: of desirable gifts prophecy is better than tongues because more edifying to the church: tongues are chiefly a sign to the unbelieving. - Discord is produced in assemblies of the church by competition in spiritual gifts: let all things be done decently and in order. Women should not speak in the assembly at all. [What right has the Corinthian church to lay down principles as if they were the originators of the word, or as if there were no other churches? If any claim spiritual authority, Paul bids them receive his words on the authority of the Lord.]

5. The Resurrection of the Dead. Paul reminds the Corinthians how the very foundation of the faith preached, by which they are being saved, is Christ raised from the dead and seen by many, last of all by Paul himself: if there be no resurrection of the dead (as some are saying) the whole faith is vain, and its witness false. But Christ has arisen: a second Adam, first fruits of resurrection as the first Adam of the life that ends in death; beginning of the process that ends when the Son, having subjected to himself death as the last of all things, is himself subjected to God. Without this vain is the baptism for the dead, and vain the daily death that consists in the renouncing of all that makes life. Only corrupting intercourse could have begotten such thoughts. As to the mode by which resurrection is possible: the analogy of corn sown suggests how the body sown is not the body that rises, and yet each grain has its own body. Nature is full of differences and graduations. So for man there

is a natural body and a spiritual body. Though all will not die, for all the present corruption will put on incorruption. This is the 'death being swallowed up in victory.'

Conclusion: arrangements of the collection for the saints personal movements of Paul and others— salutations.

Second* Epistle to the Corinthians

Blessings to the God who comforteth in affliction, making affliction a means of comfort for others. Paul has thus been raised from an affliction he expected to be fatal, and has confidence in future comfort, with the prayers and to the rejoicings of the Corinthians. For he is conscious of having behaved with sincerity to the Corinthians, and he believes that they make their boast in him as he in them.

In this spirit Paul had purposed to make a double visit to Corinth he was prevented [not by fickleness: there is no uncertainty in the promises Paul preached, and the God of those promises gives the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts] by his determination not to come to them in sorrow. He had written to them in much anguish: but he who caused the anguish has been sufficiently punished, let him be forgiven by all, as he is by the Apostle.

At Troas, in spite of the open door for the gospel, the absence of Titus made Paul too anxious to stay, and he came into Mace

* It must not be assumed that this epistle is next in succession to the preceding in Paul's intercourse with the Corinthians. There are suggestions that other communications had passed between the two parties.