Bible Commentaries

The Unalterable Gospel

Galatians 1:8

I. It is always the work of a critical stage in the history when the ways of escape are rigidly limited in number. The most appalling situations in life are not those from which we may flee through many doors. The graver the complications that face us, the fewer the feasible schemes of salvation from their cruel entanglement. And such common analogies have their special application to the subject of sin. If redemption is possible, it is inconceivable that it should be by a score of expedients, one equally good with another. If there be no Divine Galatians 1:8

Bishop Briconnet, the reforming prelate who was appointed in1516 to the See of Meaux, was a timid and anxious Galatians 1:14

Even in quite intermediate stages, a dash of enthusiasm is not a thing to be ashamed of in the retrospect; if St Paul had not been a very zealous Pharisee, he would have been a colder Christian.

—R. L. Stevenson.

References.—I:15.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi. No656. I:15 , 16.—H. S. Seekings, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xvii. p555. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No1585 , p75. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p102; ibid. vol. vi. p374. I:15-17.—R. W. Dale, Fellowship with Christ, p216. I:16.—Expositor (4th Series), vol. viii. p138; ibid. (5th Series), vol. iv. p48.

Galatians 1:16-17

When Shibli Bagarag returned from the well of Paravid, with the brimming phial in his hand, Noorna said to him, "Hadst thou a difficulty in obtaining the waters of the well?"

He answered, "Surely all was made smooth for me by thy aid. Now when I came to the well I marked not them by it, but plunged, and the depth of that well seemed to me the very depth of the earth itself, so went I ever downward; and when I was near the bottom of the well I had forgotten life above, and lo! no sooner had I touched the bottom of the well when my head emerged from the surface! "twas wondrous."

—George Meredith, The Shaving of Shagpat.

References.—117.—Expositor (5th Series), vol. x. p354; ibid. (6th Series), vol. i. p78; ibid. vol. viii. p231; ibid. vol. xi. p359. I:18.—T. Vincent Tymms, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxx. p356. I:19.—H. A. Smith, Preacher's Magazine, vol. x. pp437 , 505. Expositor (5th Series), vol. iv. p307. I:21.—Ibid. vol. ii. p32. I:23.—C. Parsons Reichel, Sermons, p60. I:23 , 24.—J. Keble, Sermons for the Saints" Days, p113. I:24.—R. Allen, The Words of Christ, p41. J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p194. II:1.—John Watson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p305. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p332. II:1-10.—Ibid. (5th Series), vol. ii. p104; ibid. vol. iii. pp84 , 92 , 175 , 255 , 262; ibid. vol. iv. pp43 , 298; ibid. vol. vii. p327; ibid. vol. ix. p224; ibid. vol. x. p265.