Ephesians 4:2 With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; Meekness is one of the elements of long suffering. Paul is thinking of the mutual relations of those who are in Christ, and his words imply that there will be large occasions for the exercise of this grace in the conduct and spirit of our Christian brethren. We are not to assume that all those who are honestly loyal to Christ will keep His precepts perfectly, or that in all those who have received the Divine life the baser elements and passions of human nature have been extinguished. Our Christian brethren will sometimes treat us unjustly. They will judge us ignorantly and ungenerously. They will say harsh things about us. They will be inconsiderate and discourteous. They will be wilful, wayward, selfish. They will make us suffer from their arrogance, their ambition, their impatience, their stolid perversity. All this we have to anticipate. Christ bears with their imperfections and their sins; we too have to exercise forbearance. In forbearance, meekness and love are blended. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;WEB: with all lowliness and humility, with patience, bearing with one another in love; |
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