Matthew 10:27 What I tell you in darkness, that speak you in light: and what you hear in the ear, that preach you on the housetops. You sometimes see a man in the community who is always a source of light to his fellow-citizens. His words cast their illumination round every subject. When a great crisis comes men stand and listen until they hear him speak, and when he has spoken the city knows its duty. But do we think that every conviction leaped in a moment into his consciousness? that he has never struggled into the certainties which he gave to other men so clearly? that it is not by some transmission through his experience, often clouded by doubt and bewilderment, that the abstract truth has passed into the clear, sharp, tangible statement of duty which his fellow citizens catch from him? But nowhere was this more evident than in the history of Christ's disciples. Two books stand next to one another in the New Testament — The Gospel of St. John and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. What are the pictures in the two books? In the one the disciples are hearing Christ speak, and always missing His real meaning. Again and again, on page after page, we seem to see that wistful, disappointed look upon the Preacher's face. They will not understand Him. He is speaking to them in darkness. In the other book those same apostles are preaching clear, strong, definite truth from Jerusalem to Rome; that which was vague and dim has passed into them and come out from them sharp and bright; the light has been focussed in their natures and characters, and the hearts of men are springing up under its influence as it comes to them. What Jesus had told them in darkness they are now speaking in light. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)There is a higher motive than fear, viz., trust in the Father who cares even for the sparrows. (Benham.) Parallel Verses KJV: What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. |
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