1 Timothy 5:17-22 Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine.… A suggestive anecdote comes to us just now from New York. One of the good clergymen of that city lately travelling, was engaged in pleasant conversation with a friend. He presently found himself greatly annoyed by a drunken fellow-passenger on the seat in front, who recognized him, and persisted in trying to take his share in the conversation. At last, losing all patience, our clerical friend arose, and, pushing his annoyer aside rather roughly, exclaimed: "You are drunk, and I don't want to have anything to do with you." At this his unfortunate interlocutor was for a moment silent, and then, turning and gazing reproachfully at the irritated clergyman, replied, in a tone so loud as to be heard nearly through the entire car: "Mr.—, 'pears to me you don't care very much about my soul." It is one thing, truly, to care about the souls of the intelligent, and the cultivated, and the agreeable and the clean, to say nothing of the temperate, and quite another thing to care about the souls of the ignorant and the ill-mannered and the unclean. And yet it must not be forgotten that the claims of this latter class are just as strong upon the Christian Church and the Christian worker, as the former, and that in our efforts to bring men to God we are not to select those who present themselves agreeably to us, but are to take them as they come. Parallel Verses KJV: Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine. |
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