Proof of his apostleship had been the demand of the disaffected portion of the Corinthians; "but prove your own selves is St. Paul's exhortation. "Examine not me, but yourselves, whether you are truly in the faith; put yourselves to the proof concerning Christ's presence with you which you seek in me" (Conybeare and Howson). No one can help seeing how natural this advice was to the apostle, and how suitable to these noisy and fault-finding Corinthians. On the one hand, St. Paul was a man whom casual observers could easily misunderstand. His temperament, his habit of introversion, his intense self-consciousness, exposed him to constant misconception. Again, he was a born leader of men. Such a leader as he could not escape a severe probation while acquiring the ascendency to which he was predestined. Leaders who adapt themselves unscrupulously to times and circumstances gain a quick mastery. Leaders that shape contingencies to their high purposes and bring men into sympathy with a lofty ideal in their own souls must have creative genius, and exert it under sharp and continual opposition. To this class of leaders the apostle belonged. Furthermore, his position was unique by reason of the fact that his apostleship necessarily placed him between the two great rival forces of the age, Judaism and Gentilism to show what the Law meant as a Divine institution; to show what Gentile civilization and culture meant as a long existing providence; to harmonize as far as might be the truths in each; in brief, to mediate between their claims as widely organized economies, and put them on common ground as it respected Christianity and its supreme authority, and do away with the distinction of Jew and Gentile as to the conditions of salvation; - this was the most difficult task ever committed to a man. Owing to its intrinsic character, it brought him at every turn in contact with prejudices and passions which justified themselves in the one case by the miracles of Jehovah, in the other by the prescripts of government, and in both by the venerable sanction of ages. What wonder, then, that his career as a public man among public men was specialized quite as much by systematic and vindictive misrepresentation as by a success unequalled in the influence exerted over the thought and morals of the world! On the other hand, look at these young Christian communities, situated often wide apart and unable to strengthen each others' hands, planted in the midst of peoples hostile to their creeds and still more to their virtues, and dependent in most instances on the nurture of a single apostle; look at them in a state hardly more than inchoate, and can we be surprised that they were in some cases the subjects of intestine disturbance, nay, of violent commotion? "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble," were "called;" but the "weak things of the world," "base things, and things despised," were "chosen," for the most part, as the original materials of that edifice which was to show in its proportions, its symmetry, its permanence, the workmanship of the Hand unseen. The "called" and the "chosen" were eventually to vindicate the wisdom of the call and the choice. Let us not overlook, however, the disadvantages inseparable at the time from the crude elements that constituted the early Churches. Without dwelling on these at length, suffice it to say that they were imperilled by a corrupt Judaism on the one side, and a most corrupt paganism on the other, the agencies and influences of which sought them as a prey to their lust of avarice and ambition. Now, the Church at Corinth was notably in this state of exposure. Gallic, the Proconsul of Achaia, had protected St. Paul against the fury of the Jews, and the Greeks had used the occasion to wreak their vengeance on the Jews. Retaliation was the order of the times. Baffled by a Roman official, insulted and beaten by a mob of Greeks, the Jews were not likely to forget the apostle, and we can imagine with what zest they would enjoy the zeal of the Judaizing emissaries, and how they would diligently foment the efforts made for his disgrace in Corinth. To what extent this was carried by the Jews as a body we can only conjecture. Certain it is, however, that for several years Corinth was the seat of a most active and uncompromising warfare on St. Paul. Once more, and finally, he comes before us in the passage under notice in an attitude unmistakably stern and authoritative. Is Christ in you, be asks the Corinthians, or are ye reprobates? Prove yourselves, apply the test, find out whether or not you are in Jesus Christ and share his spirit, and if you cannot stand the test, know then that you are reprobates. He expresses the hope that they will not find him a reprobate (unapproved or spurious) if they put him to the test of exercising his authority. Yet he trusts that the test of his power will be avoided, and prays that they may "do no evil." If they should act as he prayed they might, then there would be no necessity for him to demonstrate his authority, and, in that happy event, he would appear "unapproved," i.e. not tested as to the display of his power. Welcome such unapproval! It would be in exact conformity to the spirit and end of his apostolic administration, which was in accordance with the truth of the gospel and designed to show forth that truth. What is the test of a great and wise ruler? The test is the uselessness of a punishing power (except in extreme cases and as an ultimate resort), because his subjects govern themselves. Such was the apostle's argument. Nothing against the truth, all for the truth, Christ the Truth; this was the beautiful summation in which he rested. If this should apparently exhibit his weakness, what a glorious weakness it would be! Apostolic judgment made needless by self-government; what could be a grander testimony to the truth and excellence of his work among them? Then, verily, they would be strong. "Perfection" in the order and unity of the Church, "perfection" of individual character, was the object of his prayer, and hence this Epistle. Whoever teaches Christianity as God's truth cannot fail to teach much else besides. These verses are maxims of infinite wisdom. What man in authority, what statesman in the affairs of a nation, what father at the head of a family, what office holder in the Church, if he would bear his faculties so meekly and be thus "clear in his great office," would not be a providence of instruction and helpfulness in the world] Decay of reverence for law begins in decay of reverence for men who administer the law. Unhappily enough, this decline in reverence for law is one of the growing perils of the age. It is peculiar to no form of government. It is spreading everywhere as an atmospheric evil, and threatening like an epidemic to travel roared the globe. Power to build up, not to destroy; this is St. Paul's idea of power divinely bestowed. And accordingly we see what a blessed discipline it was to him personally and officially; and having accomplished this result in his own soul, it is not remarkable that it achieved its ends in this distracted and corrupted Church at Corinth. - L.

The prayer is —

I. FOR THE PERFECT RECOVERY WHICH WOULD RESULT FROM "NOT DOING THE EVIL." The vices that infested the Corinthian Church are those which have been the bane of the Church from the beginning.

1. Rebellion against the supreme authority of the Divine Revealer and Inspirer of truth in the person of the apostle. There was a tendency to rely on the light of their own reason, and to criticise revelation. Rationalism in the individual is fatal to religious stability and growth, and in the Church is the root of all disorganisation, and must be put away before either can put on "perfection."

2. Lax maintenance of some of the vital doctrines of the Christian confession — the direct result of the former. The Corinthian heretics assailed the resurrection generally, and Christ's resurrection in particular. Hence their doctrinal errors went perilously near to an abandonment of the atoning death of Christ; and it was not to be wondered at that they misapprehended the design of the Sacrament. Obviously the integrity of their faith was in his thought in verse 8.

3. Neglect and irreverence in divine service, which invariably follow hard upon laxity of doctrine. The flagrant disorders rebuked in the First Epistle were doubtless checked, but this Epistle indicates that the same leaven was at work; and the final prayer includes the removal of that spirit of disorder, and the observance of all that is "decent" (ver. 7) in its wish for their restoration to perfection. Never was this prayer more needed than now. Two kinds of dishonour are done to the divine service — the one taking away its simplicity and discerning more in ordinances than they have to show; the other robbing everything external and symbolical of its true value, and reducing religious ceremonial to the level of mere human arrangement. Both are equally distant from ecclesiastical perfection. From the equal sins of excess and defect may we be saved.

4. The spirit of faction, closely connected with the preceding elements of disorder and imperfection. This evil seems to have been rebuked by the First Epistle in vain (1 Corinthians 12:20), and it might seem as if the apostle had a presentiment of the calamities which would befall the Church through this spirit of division; for he sets no limit to his indignation in dealing with it. And it was with a distinct apprehension of its exceeding sinfulness that he expressed the hope that they would cease to do this evil, and wished their "perfect restoration to order."

5. The violation of Christian morality. In 2 Corinthians 12:20, 21 there is obvious reference to those two classes of moral offence from which, in 2 Corinthians 7:1, they had been exhorted to cleanse themselves.(1) The sins of the spirit are summed up in the completest of those catalogues for which St. Paul's Epistles are remarkable.(2) The sins of the flesh are lamentable. Many were no less infamous in their secret sensuality than in their open turbulence. And this condition was the necessary result of the other elements of disorder.

II. FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF ALL THE COMPLETENESS WHICH MAY BELONG TO A CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Note the wonderful fact that a Church encompassed by such corruptions should be prayed for as capable of immediate and perfect amendment as the result of energetic co-operation with Divine grace. Paul knew that the enemies of order and purity were only a minority, and it may be that his Master gave him a secret assurance of success. And this is an abundant encouragement to us in our day. There need be no more than a step between great disorder and a sound amendment.

1. The bond of ecclesiastical perfectness is, in Paul's view, a compact organisation vivified and kept in living unity of the Holy Spirit. It was this for which he prayed. The Greek term expresses the apostle's ardent wish that the community might be "perfectly joined together" under one discipline: all factions suppressed, and the separate congregations of the city united in one corporate body for common worship, communion and work. And it expresses the Holy Spirit's will concerning us that division and discord should cease. Lawlessness within a church itself and bitterness towards other churches are both alike inconsistent with its corporate perfection.

2. The Church's order of worship may even on earth attain a certain standard of perfection; and this must be included in the present prayer. Happy the Christian congregations who seek to attain in the Spirit's own method the ideal which the Spirit proposes; avoiding the two extremes, of a ceremonial that stifles the simplicity of devotion, and of a bareness and poverty which dishonour the holy name of Him who is in the midst. That there is such a perfection of praise and prayer attainable as shall make the place where the disciples meet the antechamber of heaven, and the Christian communion the earnest of an eternal fellowship, let us never doubt.

3. Paul's ideal of corporate perfection included a noble theory of mutual help. These epistles are a complete depository of the social principles of Christianity. Their teaching is that every member of the body must in his vocation and stewardship render back to Christianity all that in Christianity he receives, and give to the community the fullest advantage of whatever talent he as an individual may possess. This ideal is most fully realised when charity has the disposal of the Church's wealth; where employment is given in various ways to the diversified talents of its members; where mutual exhortation and encouragement are secured by periodical meetings; where, in short, every joint, according to its deferred function in the common organisation, supplieth the measure of its effectual working to the edifying of the body in love.

4. The apostle's ideal embraces a high standard of Christian morality. The purity of the Church must be guarded by a rigid discipline. But this discipline is of two kinds.(1) It is ecclesiastical. Where that is relaxed the Church is already on its way to dissolution, or worse.(2) But the more effectual discipline is the maintenance of a high standard of morality in the common sentiment of the people through the instruction of the Christian ministry. It is not, however, because the world expects it or because consistency demands it, that the "approved" Church aims at a lofty ethical standard. It is because Christ is in it (ver. 5), and prompts by His Spirit to every good word and work. Where vice reigns, or even moral laxity, the Church is in the way to declare itself "reprobate." Its perfection, however, as prayed for by St. Paul, is its aim at a perfect holiness.

5. The end of perfection is charity. Note the apostle's extraordinary anxiety for the due and cheerful exercise of benevolence towards the poor Christians at Jerusalem. And we may regard this as only one illustration of that boundless compassion towards the miserable inhabitants of this sin-stricken world which every Christian community is bound by its allegiance to Christ to exhibit. No other excellence, and no combination of excellences, will compensate for the lack of this. Conclusion: Scarcely any reference has been made to the individual believer, because the peculiar word demands an ecclesiastical application. Still, every application of scriptural truth finds its way to the individual. Let every one, then, who hears this "wish" bethink himself of his own soul, and ask what there is in himself of disorder and imperfectness, and seek to bring his own heart into the "unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," so making sure that his own part is contributed to the Church's perfect harmony.

(W. B. Pope, D. D.)

Corinthians, PaulAchaia, CorinthAppear, Approved, Credit, Demonstrated, Disapproved, Doubtful, Evil, Failed, Honest, Honorable, Met, Nothing, Order, Ourselves, Prayer, Reprobate, Reprobates, Seem, Sincerity, Stood, Test, Though, Unapproved, Whatever, Wrong1. Paul threatens severity, and the power of his apostleship, against obstinate sinners.
5. And, advising them to a trial of their faith,
7. and to a reformation of their sins before his coming,
11. he concludes his epistle with a general exhortation and a prayer.

2 Corinthians 13:5-6

     8028   faith, body of beliefs
     8820   self-confidence

Self-Examination
The Corinthians were the critics of the apostles' age. They took to themselves great credit for skill in learning and in language, and as most men do who are wise in their own esteem, they made a wrong use of their wisdom and learning--they began to criticise the apostle Paul. They criticised his style. "His letters," say they, "are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible." Nay, not content with that, they went so far as to deny his apostleship, and for once …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858

How to Use the Prayer-Book
Before the Service.--If possible be in your place a few moments before the appointed hour, that you may collect your thoughts and prepare for the service. On entering, go at once quietly to your seat, kneel down, and say a short prayer for yourself and your fellow-worshipers. The Collect for the Nineteenth or the Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity, or the Collect, "Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open," at the beginning of the Communion Office, you may find appropriate. When you have said …
Jacob A. Regester—The Worship of the Church

"And if Christ be in You, the Body is Dead Because Sin,"
Rom. viii. 10.--"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because sin," &c. This is the high excellence of the Christian religion, that it contains the most absolute precepts for a holy life, and the greatest comforts in death, for from these two the truth and excellency of religion is to be measured, if it have the highest and perfectest rule of walking, and the chiefest comfort withal. Now, the perfection of Christianity you saw in the rule, how spiritual it is, how reasonable, how divine, how …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Sermon.
The great and blessed God that made heaven and earth, the seas and the great fountains of the deep, and rivers of water, the Almighty JEHOVAH, who is from everlasting to everlasting. He also made man and woman; and his design was to make them eternally happy and blessed. And therefore he made man in his own image; "in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them:" He made them after his own likeness holy, wise, merciful, just, patient, and humble, endued them with knowledge, righteousness, …
William Penn—A Sermon Preached at the Quaker's Meeting House

Reprobation.
In discussing this subject I shall endeavor to show, I. What the true doctrine of reprobation is not. 1. It is not that the ultimate end of God in the creation of any was their damnation. Neither reason nor revelation confirms, but both contradict the assumption, that God has created or can create any being for the purpose of rendering him miserable as an ultimate end. God is love, or he is benevolent, and cannot therefore will the misery of any being as an ultimate end, or for its own sake. It is …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology

On Being Filled with the Spirit
Text.--Be filled with the Spirit.--Eph. v. 18. SEVERAL of my last lectures have been on the subject of prayer, and the importance of having the spirit of prayer, of the intercession of the Holy Ghost. Whenever the necessity and importance of the Spirit's influences are held forth, there can be no doubt that persons are in danger of abusing the doctrine, and perverting it to their own injury. For instance, when you tell sinners that without the Holy Spirit they never will repent, they are very liable …
Charles Grandison Finney—Lectures on Revivals of Religion

The Clergyman and the Prayer Book.
Dear pages of ancestral prayer, Illumined all with Scripture gold, In you we seem the faith to share Of saints and seers of old. Whene'er in worship's blissful hour The Pastor lends your heart a voice, Let his own spirit feel your power, And answer, and rejoice. In the present chapter I deal a little with the spirit and work of the Clergyman in his ministration of the ordered Services of the Church, reserving the work of the Pulpit for later treatment. THE PRAYER BOOK NOT PERFECT BUT INESTIMABLE. …
Handley C. G. Moule—To My Younger Brethren

The Greatest of These is Love.
"The greatest of these is Love."-- 1 Cor. xiii. 13. That the shedding abroad of Love and the glowing of its fire through the heart is the eternal work of the Holy Spirit, is stated by no one so pithily as by St. Paul in the closing verse of his hymn of Love. Faith, Hope, and Love are God's most precious gifts; but Love far surpasses the others in preciousness. Compared with all heavenly gifts, Faith, Hope, and Love stand highest, but of these three Love is the greatest. All spiritual gifts are precious, …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

Of the Character of the Unregenerate.
Ephes. ii. 1, 2. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. AMONG all the various trusts which men can repose in each other, hardly any appears to be more solemn and tremendous, than the direction of their sacred time, and especially of those hours which they spend in the exercise of public devotion. …
Philip Doddridge—Practical Discourses on Regeneration

The Third Wall.
The third wall falls of itself, as soon as the first two have fallen; for if the Pope acts contrary to the Scriptures, we are bound to stand by the Scriptures, to punish and to constrain him, according to Christ's commandment; "Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every …
Martin Luther—First Principles of the Reformation

Concerning the Scriptures.
Concerning the Scriptures. From these revelations of the Spirit of God to the saints, have proceeded the Scriptures of Truth, which contain, I. A faithful historical account of the actings of God's people in divers ages; with many singular and remarkable providences attending them. II. A prophetical account of several things, whereof some are already past, and some yet to come. III. A full and ample account of all the chief principles of the doctrine of Christ, held forth in divers precious declarations, …
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity

Assurance of Salvation.
"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may knew that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." (1 John v. 13. ) There are two classes who ought not to have Assurance. First: those who are in the Church, but who are not converted, having never been born of the Spirit. Second: those not willing to do God's will; who are not ready to take the place that God has mapped out for them, but want to fill some other place. …
Dwight L. Moody—The Way to God and How to Find It

Testimonies.
"Without faith it is impossible to please God."--Heb. xi. 6. In order to prevent the possibility of being led into paths of error, faith is directed, not to a Christ of the imagination, but to "the Christ in the garments of the Sacred Scripture," as Calvin expresses it. And therefore we must discriminate between (1) faith as a faculty implanted in the soul without our knowledge; (2) faith as a power whereby this implanted faculty begins to act; and (3) faith as a result,--since with this faith (1) …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

The Christian's Peace and the Christian's Consistency
PHILIPPIANS i. 21-30 He will be spared to them--Spiritual wealth of the paragraph--Adolphe Monod's exposition--Charles Simeon's testimony--The equilibrium and its secret--The intermediate bliss--He longs for their full consistency--The "gift" of suffering Ver. 21. +For to me, to live is Christ+; the consciousness and experiences of living, in the body, are so full of Christ, my supreme Interest, that CHRIST sums them all up; +and to die+, the act of dying,[1] +is gain+, for it will usher me in …
Handley C. G. Moule—Philippian Studies

Concerning the Ministry.
Concerning the Ministry. As by the light or gift of God all true knowledge in things spiritual is received and revealed, so by the same, as it is manifested and received in the heart, by the strength and power thereof, every true minister of the gospel is ordained, prepared, and supplied in the work of the ministry; and by the leading, moving, and drawing hereof ought every evangelist and Christian pastor to be led and ordered in his labour and work of the gospel, both as to the place where, as to …
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity

Concerning Perfection.
Concerning Perfection. In whom this pure and holy birth is fully brought forth, the body of death and sin comes to be crucified and removed, and their hearts united and subjected to the truth; so as not to obey any suggestions or temptations of the evil one, but to be free from actual sinning and transgressing of the law of God, and in that respect perfect: yet doth this perfection still admit of a growth; and there remaineth always in some part a possibility of sinning, where the mind doth not most …
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity

Reprobation Asserted: Or, the Doctrine of Eternal Election and Reprobation Promiscuously Handled, in Eleven Chapters.
WHEREIN THE MOST MATERIAL OBJECTIONS MADE BY THE OPPOSERS OF THIS DOCTRINE, ARE FULLY ANSWERED; SEVERAL DOUBTS REMOVED, AND SUNDRY CASES OF CONSCIENCE RESOLVED. BY JOHN BUNYAN OF BEDFORD, A LOVER OF PEACE AND TRUTH. 'What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.'--Romans 11:7 London: Printed for G. L., and are to be sold in Turn-stile-alley, in Holbourn. Small 4to, 44 pages. EDITOR'S ADVERTISEMENT. This valuable tract …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

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