Philippians 1:10 That you may approve things that are excellent; that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ. Some of us have seen the glorious blue of the Rhone, as it leaves the Lake of Geneva. A little way down, we have seen the Arve, loaded with mud, rush into the same channel. We have watched the two streams flow side by side, each in its own division of the channel, as if the pure could not permit the impure Co mingle with it. But the earthly insinuates itself fully at last, and the river flows on, its colour still blue, but sadly changed from the heaven-like blue of its beginnings. Have we not often mourned, brethren, to see something like this in a Christian life — the hue of earth spreading itself lamentably over the hue of heaven? Faith in Christ brings the water from "the upper springs," to make the stream pure and sweet; but the muddy and bitter water from the world ever presses in, to mar and pollute. But "love, abounding in knowledge and in all judgment," can keep the stream clear, so that it reveals itself truly as a branch of the "pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, which proceedeth out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." (R. Johnstone, LL. B.) Parallel Verses KJV: That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; |
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