SPEAKING
[p. 113] SPEAKING
Luke 4:21,22; Luke 7:14,15; Luke 11:14; Acts 14:1; Acts 14:8-10; Acts 14:23
JT The thought is that these scriptures may show the bearing of speaking on assembly conditions and formation. Luke particularly has in mind that there should be speaking, such as he calls attention to in the Lord. It is remarked that the Lord in Nazareth “began to say to them, To-day this scripture is fulfilled in your ears. And all bore witness to him, and wondered at the words of grace which were coming out of his mouth”. Luke mentions the effect of the Lord’s words on His hearers, and the apostle Paul’s words evidently corresponded: “they ... so spake that a great multitude of both Jews and Greeks believed”. Then, the lame man “heard Paul speaking”. Attention is called to that, not so much to what he said, but his speaking. Then, in the incident of the young man who was raised up, it says that he “began to speak”.
JJ Is it that the manner of the speaking would involve being in a certain spiritual state, that there is some spiritual state behind it?
JT Yes. As we come into the world and learn to use our vocal powers, they are apt to become damaged by the thoughts that are expressed through them. The words coming out of the Lord’s mouth would indicate the perfect use of human vocal powers. Romans shows that human vocal powers are used ordinarily to express what would damage them — the throat, the lips, the tongue. But Luke calls attention to perfect human speaking.
PL “The Lord Jehovah hath given me the tongue of the instructed, that I should know how to succour by a word him that is weary” (Isaiah 50:4).
JT That illustrates what I was thinking.
[p. 114] Rem Scripture refers to the words of Samuel, that none of them fell to the ground (1 Samuel 3:19).
JT The gospel of Luke opens with the prohibition of speaking in a certain one because he was unbelieving, as if to indicate that speaking should be in faith, and only in faith: “I believed, therefore have I spoken” (Psalm 116:10).
PL So that “As apples of gold in pictures of silver, is a word spoken in season” (Proverbs 25:11).
JT I suppose the young man in Nain might be taken to represent youth generally in worldly environments. He sat up and began to speak, but how differently he would speak now. He made a beginning. The Lord began, it says in chapter 4. Then, in chapter 11 which deals with assembly furnishings, we have a man who had a dumb demon, and the Lord cast the demon out, and “the demon being gone out, the dumb man spoke”.
JJ Do you think the speaking should be according to the light of the moment?
JT Well, I was thinking first of all of the organs, whether we can frame to speak.
JJ In connection with Zacharias there was light given for the moment, but he did not take it in, and therefore could not speak. Would that have any bearing on it?
JT Yes, he was prohibited from speaking, rendered dumb for a season, in that he was not in faith. But what one would like to see made clear is the formation for speaking in the assembly, so that the young may learn to frame, as it says in Judges, to speak and to pronounce spiritually.
Rem It is not a matter of the number of words you speak, because we read of five words in the assembly.
JT The point is to begin. The brethren will soon take notice if one begins according to the Model, for Luke gives us the Model in the Lord.
JHM It says too, “For of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). That is where the origin of things is, and if there is abundance there will be speaking.
Ques What had you in mind in specifying the organs — the throat, the lips and the tongue?
JT The powers that God has given in vocal operations, because I believe in the young they are deformed by use in the conveyance of wrong thoughts, thoughts that were never intended to pass through them at all.
Ques Has the mind in that way to do with the speaking — the thoughts of the mind?
JT The mind is the dominant thought in the man. Romans and Corinthians both bring out that the mind is the dominant faculty. There is the individual: “I myself”; that is, one arrives at consciousness in responsibility to God in Romans, and says, “I myself”, and then he says, “with the mind serve God’s law” (chapter 7:25). The mind is dominant. In 1 Corinthians 2:16 “we have the mind of Christ” is the same idea, the thinking faculty which is to dominate. Well, if that be renewed and it be the mind of Christ, then the thoughts are formed and conveyed through the organs according to God.
Ques Would Isaiah 6 show the order, first the cleansing of the lips and then the anointing?
JT That is good; the thinking is applied through the lips.
Ques What you said reminded me of Mordecai; he sought the welfare of his people, and spoke peace to all his seed (Esther 10:3). Is that a fitting end for a saint?
JT Just so. We get the thought in Romans that a believer comes into self-consciousness in relation with God. We may be self-conscious otherwise, but where there is self-consciousness in relation with God,
[p. 116] as morally under obligation to God, the mind becomes the great dominant faculty in the believer, and so in 1 Corinthians, “we have the mind of Christ”. There may be the tongue of angels, that is, great powers of oratory, without love, whereas, over against that, there are five words with the understanding or intelligence. Those are the words that count.
CSS “The sweet psalmist of Israel saith, The Spirit of Jehovah spoke by me, and his word was on my tongue” (2 Samuel 23:1,2). Would that be the result of discerning and seeking after? He says, “One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after” (Psalm 27:4).
JT That would show the tongue was available. The young can come to see the need for framing to speak properly, I mean in a spiritual sense, because we are so taken up with things and convey things that are of no moral value at all, that were never intended to pass through human vocal organs. The Lord standing up in the synagogue at Nazareth conveyed the divine thought in speaking; they “wondered at the words of grace which were coming out of his mouth”. And the young man in Nain who had died, sitting up and beginning to speak, is a suggestion of how young people begin to speak.
Rem The ministry of James comes in on the practical line suggesting that having begun, the mouth should be a fountain of perpetual sweetness.
JT How is he to continue? Just so.
PL Then the perfect man weighs his words in James. It all passes the balances of the sanctuary before it is put into circulation, so that it is not base coin but on the gold standard, so to speak. You want to put into currency what will have general circulation in Zion.
JT Romans would develop the sense that one has to be made over again, as it were, as to the use of his members and organs; and, as soon as one [p. 117] comes into self-consciousness with God, the obligation comes in, how I am going to use my tongue, my throat and my lips. The mind is to be conveyed through those organs, the renewed mind, and as in Corinthians, the mind of Christ in the christian.
JJ Do you think Luke would help especially to bring these conditions to pass?
JT That is what he has in mind. He is the one that brings in the priest, and the priest’s lips should keep knowledge. Of course, you might say the knowledge should be kept inwardly, which is true, that you keep your knowledge — “Keep, by the Holy Spirit which dwells in us, the good deposit entrusted” (2 Timothy 1:14) but the lips keep the knowledge, showing it is the means of conveyance that is in mind, that in which it is kept to be conveyed. It is not merely for myself, but kept to be conveyed. That is what Luke has in mind. Zacharias was listening to the most wonderful things about himself and his wife, but he was unbelieving, and the angel said, You will be dumb until it comes to pass; there is no use in giving you that knowledge; you cannot convey it; it is not in faith in you; “I believed, therefore have I spoken”; you do not believe, and therefore you are disqualified.
PL Do we get the thought in “The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright” (Proverbs 15:2), and “The lips of the wise disperse knowledge” (verse 7)?
JT That is the idea.
JJ Mary in chapter 10 would say, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight” (Psalm 19:14).
JT Quite so.
Ques What bearing would the healing of the man have in Mark 7 where the Lord put His fingers into his ears before he could speak right?
JT That is Mark’s side of this subject, and has a great bearing. It is a question of whether it should [p. 118] be presented from Mark or Luke, but I think Luke is the writer that suits for the moment what is before us. But we can see how that incident helps, for it brings out, as peculiar to Mark, the depths of feeling the Lord had in these matters. He spat and touched the man’s tongue, and looked up to heaven and groaned. That depth of feeling should be reflected in us. The man could not speak right; that is the point there, and the Lord felt it; the need of right speaking is so urgent.
Ques Should we be concerned in our local meetings about what is said?
JT That is what I hope the Lord will lead to. You like to see the young people beginning to speak, beginning in self-consciousness with God, the mind controlling. The mind says, Now that is not right. The mind is dominant in Romans. It is a question of the law of God, a question of what God requires, and that will reduce the volume of my speaking very much, reduce it, maybe, down to five words. But then I make a beginning; that is the point.
Rem This young man had a wonderful experience.
JT You would like to hear that young man. He made a start, but it does not say what he said. I suppose he heard the Lord say, “Youth, I say to thee”. What words those were coming from the lips of Christ. If I have heard the Lord’s voice in my soul I am prepared to speak that way. He began to speak, and there was never such speaking as that in that town before — a young man from the dead.
PL Would the sitting up suggest repose and dignity?
JT Quite so. He did not speak lying down as he had been. He sat up, which is a sort of position of dignity in the assembly.
JJ Do you think many are not able to speak because they have not reached the resurrection [p. 119] position?
JT Just so. He sat up at the word of Christ.
Ques Would the speaking have reference to what had been wrought by the Lord in raising him from the dead? His speaking would be wholly different from what it had been before.
JT You can picture that. He was a young man in the town of Nain, which, I suppose, represents the world in its attractiveness. How he would talk about the cricket matches and the like, and current events in the world, which young people love to talk about. But now he has been into death; what can he speak of now?
Rem In Romans 12 the renewing of the mind is set over against being conformed to the world. The mind has to be renewed, and it would be in this man’s case; that is what he would suggest.
JOS Would the exercise be set out in Psalm 19? In the first part of the psalm you have the divine speaking, and then the psalmist’s appreciation of the law of Jehovah, and the testimony of Jehovah and His judgments and commandments, and then he says in the last verse: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight”.
JT That corresponds with Romans: “So then I myself with the mind serve God’s law”. Well, certainly I ought to serve it in my speech.
Ques Would you say a little more about coming into self-consciousness with God?
JT I think that is what Romans 7 teaches us. “I myself” he says. He was in a quagmire or a fog earlier, but now he is on a solid footing, and he says, “I myself with the mind serve God’s law”, in fact, “I delight in the law of God according to the inward man”. Then he alludes to his mind in his consciousness with God; I serve the law of God, he says. Well, if I serve it, it works out in my speaking.
[p. 120] Ques Would it be right to look first of all for speaking to God in private?
JT That is the idea. Romans teaches us how we come into priesthood, and priesthood very largely is a question of speaking to God, but not altogether, because the priest’s lips keep knowledge for others too. I believe that God knows us; He comes down to our way of thinking and knows us by our prayers, by the way we speak to Him. He said to Moses, I know Aaron; you say you cannot speak; “I know that he can speak well” (Exodus 4:14). How did He know? God gets down to our way of thinking, and conveys that He has heard Aaron speak, and that means that he prayed, that Aaron was to be the priest and he prayed to God. I believe that is how the thing works out. God hears us speak. We are not so free with our tongues when we are speaking to God; we are careful in our words and the way we frame to speak to God.
Rem That is the one thing that Ananias is told about Saul of Tarsus. He gets direct communication from heaven as to the communications that had been going up to heaven unknown to him: “Behold, he prayeth”.
JAM Is it a forceful remark that Jehovah makes to Moses in that connection, “Who gave man a mouth?” (Exodus 4:11)?
JT That is what is in mind. God has given all of us a mouth to use. What use are we making of it? Have I come to learn how to speak? There are people, of course, who teach oratory and that kind of thing which is of little use. That is not what we are speaking of. It is a question of learning to use the organs spiritually, and if I am to learn how to use them I must think of Christ; He is the Model. Luke presents Him in that way, and so Romans, I believe, leads us on to consciousness with God. In speaking to God, I am thinking of God, and I obey the law of [p. 121] God, serve the law of God. You are to serve in newness of spirit in Romans; that is the priestly thought, and in that I am concerned about the principles that govern it, to serve the law of God, and that enters into my speaking.
CSS When the Lord says to the young man, “Wake up”, is it suggestive that I should have my eyes open to the greatness of the Person before I can speak and speak aright?
JT That is the way it works. You are impressed with the Being you are speaking to, and the more I pray, the less likely I am to be flippant in my words with others.
JJ It gives great weight to the passage quoted from Psalm 116: “I believed, therefore have I spoken”, because of what the apostle was going through at that time; there was such a moral state behind it. I mean, it is one thing to speak, and there is plenty of that, but it is another thing to be the thing you are saying, for there is to be no disparity between yourself and what you are saying. I thought that was what Paul was meaning there.
JT Yes; the Lord was altogether what He said.
Ques Does Psalm 39:1 apply? “I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue”.
JT That enters into what we are saying, because you become circumspect. If my ways are wrong, my speaking will be wrong. I like to bring myself into the picture always, which is as natural as water flowing down a hill, unless I am with God; but if I am with God I bring Christ into the picture. If I take heed to my ways I judge myself.
HMG “My heart is welling forth with a good matter: I say what I have composed touching the king” (Psalm 45:1).
JT That shows the King is in the picture, as we have been saying; you are thinking of Him. You take heed to your ways and you judge [p. 122] yourself.
JJ Do you mean that all speaking that is of God would leave behind an impression of Christ on those that hear, and not an impression of yourself? That is a real test.
JT That is the idea. If I do not take heed to my ways, I will bring myself in somehow, and so that is the impression left on my hearers.
PL So, almost immediately after this young man speaks, the Lord says, “Go, bring back word to John”. They were to bring Christ into the picture.
Ques Does the thought of hearing enter very largely into the thought of speaking? The Lord says, “Take heed therefore how ye hear” (Luke 8:18).
JT That is the case in Mark 7. The hearing and the speaking were correlated, and the Lord’s operation there brings out that the man spoke right. If I do not hear right, I do not speak right.
AWR According to Romans, would the confession of Christ as Lord be the first right speaking? In chapter 3 we have speaking wrongly, and then later the confessing with the mouth Jesus as Lord.
JT That is the public side. No doubt, there would be speaking to God before that.
Rem The speaking of John the baptist was not very much apparently in John 1, but great feeling entered into what he said, “Behold the Lamb of God”, and then it says, “And the two disciples heard him speaking, and followed Jesus”.
JT If we follow the incidents in Luke we get the order and the mind of the Spirit, and the Lord as the Model. Zacharias is prohibited from speaking, as much as to say, You will have to be silent. But in the interval Christ speaks. Then we have the Model, and then the young man raised from the dead who began to speak. Well, that will go on. Then, in chapter 11, we have the man with the dumb spirit, a very remarkable thing, that a person should be possessed by a dumb spirit, as if Satan is now preventing [p. 123] the speaking. In chapter 1 God is preventing the speaking, that is, He is passing a judgment that you are not qualified and there are those whose mouths must be stopped, but in chapter 11, Satan is preventing the speaking. It is the time for speaking, because the Holy Spirit is available in the chapter. The Lord is seen praying in a certain place, and evidently the disciple that saw Him praying was impressed, and said, “Lord, teach us to pray”, and the Lord teaches them how to pray. Then it goes on to say that the Father gives “the Holy Spirit to them that ask him”. Well, if that be so, Satan says virtually, it is time to stop people from speaking. If any one that has the Holy Spirit cannot speak, it is a serious matter, because the Spirit is given that we might speak; we are to say, “Lord Jesus”, by the Spirit, a most important matter, that I not only use the words, but I address the Lord, I speak to the Lord in the power of the Spirit: “Lord Jesus”. If those words resound in the assembly in the power of the Spirit, we have right speaking and a right state of things inaugurated in the assembly.
JJ Do you think the assembly is in view in all this?
JT There are those whose mouths the enemy would stop. Some of us are distressed that there are those who are the Lord’s, no doubt, and have the Spirit, but who never open their mouths in the assembly. Well, that is the devil. “Let me hear thy voice”, the Lord says (Song of Songs 2:14). The devil says, He will not hear your voice. That may be thought very lightly of, but it is serious.
AWR Just previous to the verse which refers to saying, “Lord Jesus”, it is said, “Ye were led away to dumb idols” (1 Corinthians 12:2).
JT That is remarkable. It says, “No one can say, Lord Jesus, unless in the power of the Holy Spirit”.
CWM It says that the Lord gave the young man back to his mother. Would that mean that young people should begin to speak rightly at home?
JT The thought of the mother might be enlarged upon. The young man comes under maternal influence amongst the brethren. He began to speak. Well, let him come under right influence now.
JJ What are we going to do with these dumb cases in the meeting, for there are several?
JT There are in every meeting, and the suggestion here is very serious, because Satan has put that dumb demon there. It is a dumb demon so that the person cannot speak, and it says that the Lord “was casting out a demon”. That is, attention is called to the transaction, not that He cast out the demon, but that He was doing it. We have to learn how the thing is to be done.
JJ It is a very great lesson to learn, so that we can do it.
JT The question is can we do it?
Ques Would it also suggest that the Lord is still doing it?
JT The Lord “began to say”, and here He is doing the thing, the thing is in operation.
CSS It is an advance on the other. It is continued.
JT I think so. In the other, the man was raised from the dead, and now the difficulty is a dumb demon, and the Lord is casting him out. We want to learn how to do that.
Rem The Lord says, “Ask and it shall be given to you” (Luke 11:9). If you are dumb in your asking, you do not get anything.
TK Would the two incidents in Luke 7 and 11 find a collective answer in Ephesians 5:14? “Wake up, thou that sleepest, and arise up from among the dead, and the Christ shall shine upon thee”, and then, verse 19, “speaking to yourselves in psalms and [p. 125] hymns and spiritual songs, singing and chanting with your heart to the Lord; giving thanks at all times for all things to him who is God”. You spoke not only of being individually exercised and aroused as to these things, but that it should find some assembly expression. Would Ephesians 5, which deals with the heart of Christ in relation to the assembly, bring that in at the end? So you have Christ, and the Spirit, and the Lord, and God. One would be exercised that we might not only wake up from the individual bier, the great procession of death, but be relieved from domination, finding ourselves free amongst the brethren, speaking to the Lord and to God, and then chanting with our heart to the Lord. Having learned to speak, would we learn to sing?
JT You have there the generality of speaking amongst us. Instead of speaking idle things in our ordinary conversation, we speak things that are profitable and edifying, and God has part in them.
PL A woman “lifting up her voice out of the crowd, said to him, Blessed is the womb that has borne thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea rather ...”. Speaking out of the crowd is not very productive. Is the speaking to be in an assembly environment if the Lord is going to take it on?
JT Of course, that speaking out of the crowd is Roman Catholicism; it is the thought of the ‘blessed Mary’. That is not priestly at all. Speaking out of the crowd is what brings in that sort of thing; it is not the temple of God. But with the man out of whom the dumb demon was cast, the inference is that he spoke in a spiritual way, because that is the point in the passage.
JJ Do you think the remedy lies in that very environment of chapter 11?
JT I think Luke 10 and 11 are the furnishing chapters for [p. 126] the assembly.
PL So the Lord starts with prayer.
JT That is the idea.
JJ Just a little before, it speaks of bread and fish and an egg; would not feeding on living food of that kind be the way to get out of this dumb state?
JT It is God: “of him, and though him, and for him are all things” (Romans 11:36). As we come into the assembly, surely God is to be before us, and we are to speak to God in the assembly. Now Luke, as we follow up this line in the gospel, shows the first assembly meeting in pattern in chapter 24. There were those two who had been to Emmaus, whose hearts burned within them, and they invited Him into the house and He broke the bread. They saw Him and knew Him and He vanished out of their sight, then they returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven and those with them gathered together, and they were speaking. That is the idea in Luke. John’s picture does not give them speaking at all, they were just there, but Luke presents the saints, as first gathered, speaking. Well, what were they saying? “The Lord is indeed risen and has appeared to Simon”. That is another thing. Well, that is excellent speaking, and exactly suitable for the moment, that the Lord was risen and was gracious to appear to a poor sinner that had denied Him. How beautiful that was! calculated to permeate the whole scene with grace. The two had their mouths opened immediately, and they said that the Lord “was made known to them in the breaking of bread”. How beautiful that was! another contribution, as it were, to the assembly, inaugurated from their side by suitable speaking. If they were all dumb, there would not be any of that, nor would the Lord come in either. It says, “as they were saying these things, he himself stood in their midst”. John does not present that side, but Luke does. While they were speaking, He [p. 127] came in.
CSS Do you think they said, Come into Thy garden?
JT Quite so. The speaking pleased the Lord.
Ques In Luke 11 the Lord speaks of using the finger of God — does that suggest the detail which He would employ in order to secure this speaking?
JT Just so.
TK Would those who are suffering from spiritual deformity hear something in the assembly in connection with the Supper in chapter 22, which would lead them to learn the Lord for themselves as on the way, as in chapter 24? The words of the Lord in connection with the institution of the Supper and the signalising of the bread and the cup would be familiar — to have heard those words from the Lord’s lips at that moment would be a grand thing. Would they not get help at the Supper in regard of speaking?
JT That is what we are at, which is what the two from Emmaus spoke of. They said that He “was made known to them in the breaking of bread”.
Rem Jeremiah said, “I cannot speak; for I am a child” (chapter 1:6), and it says, “Jehovah put forth his hand and touched my mouth” (verse 9).
PL But later he says that he must speak because “it was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones” (chapter 20:9).
JT When we come to Acts 14, we have the product of all this in apostolic ministry in material for the assembly. First, the two servants so speak that a great multitude believed. The speaking was such that they saw the result, but there was one man who was noticing Paul’s speaking; there was something about that speaking that struck him, and Paul, on the other hand, noticed that there was faith in the man. The interest the man evidenced in Paul’s speaking was to Paul an evidence of faith, “that he had faith to be healed”, and Paul spoke to him with a [p. 128] loud voice. I think there is something in that in testimony, in those who minister, and the result was he sprang up on his feet. Then, later in the chapter, we have the allusion to elders. This material is to be cared for. There is that in the assembly that recognises speaking, and sees that it is cared for. So the elders are chosen in each assembly. As in the case of the mother in Luke 7, the material secured on the principle is to be cared for, and hence the elders are chosen. That is, it is a question of what would suit the apostles; they chose the elders. This material is to be cared for, that the flow of speaking should be controlled. The spirit of control is another matter. The fruit of the work of God is one thing, the spirit of control in a motherly way is another, and I believe eldership is to promote right speaking, that what is said in the assembly is correct and suitable to God.
JJ And that there should be room for it.
JT There is plenty of scope for it, but under the spirit of control, so that we are not to be like the Corinthians, speaking at random, in tongues and what not. The point is the spirit of control.
PL Do the elders lead in that in Revelation 4 and 5 in regard of the Lamb?
JT In chapter 4 the elders are in the lead; they are on thrones and are crowned. The four living creatures refer to the youth amongst us; they have energy, but they need to be controlled. When the living creatures do so-and-so, the elders fall down and worship; they are satisfied; they represent the spirit of control. In chapter 5, where energy is needed, the living creatures come first, for they are the ones that have to do the heavy work, but the spirit of control is never lost sight of. In Revelation the elders are always in view.
AWR The last Psalm ends up with “high sounding cymbals”.
JT That is energy; “everything that hath breath”.
JJ It is striking that the Spirit came on the gentiles in speaking. “While Peter was yet speaking these words”, it says.
PL Do you think the elder in John’s epistle is concerned with regard to Gaius and his part in the assembly, that he should be under control, as distinct from Diotrephes and his babbling wicked words?
JT I am sure that is important. There should not be loose independent speaking amongst us. The young man began to speak and was delivered to his mother; his mother would regulate the speaking. That is the idea. So here, this lame man heard Paul speaking. The point is, not what Paul said, but how he said it, that kind of speaking. This man would be affected that way, and I believe the spirit of control brought in toward the end of the chapter is to regulate all this. Immediately, it is said, “And the priest of Jupiter who was before the city, having brought bulls and garlands to the gates, would have done sacrifice along with the crowds”. Well, all that is lawless effort.
JJ It was to bring themselves into the picture, whereas Paul brings God in.
JT That is right. All this is to bring out the need for eldership.
Ques Would that be exercised largely in influence?
JT Well, it is. It says, “Having chosen them elders in each assembly, having prayed with fastings, they committed them to the Lord, on whom they had believed”. That is how the assemblies were left in the region of Lystra. This pagan effort brought into christianity is mentioned here after this wonderful choice material in this man, the man taking notice of how the apostle is speaking; he heard him speaking. There is choice material there. Well now, Satan [p. 130] would come in to overthrow all that in this effort to make the apostles gods: “The gods, having made themselves like men, are come down to us”. How foreign all that is to what was going on in that man’s soul; he had faith.
PL And would the bulls provide volume instead of quality, the incoherent roaring of the bulls of Bashan that was a grief to the Lord instead of the speaking of God’s sons?
JT I am sure that is right, and you can see the contrast here. So it says, “But the apostles Barnabas and Paul, having heard it, rent their garments, and rushed out to the crowd, crying and saying, Men, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, preaching to you to turn from these vanities to the living God, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all things in them; who in the past generations suffered all the nations to go in their own ways, though indeed he did not leave himself without witness, doing good, and giving to you from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness. And saying these things, they with difficulty kept the crowds from sacrificing to them”. You can see the balancing word of the apostles, bringing God in to set aside this. Well now, this choice material that is represented in this man is to be cared for, The assemblies in that region were exposed to this lawless paganism that would be mixed up with christianity. How great is the need for wise, sober judgment amongst us! The man in Decapolis was sitting and clothed and in his right mind, and that man can be trusted. They chose them elders. It is not only what would suit Paul and Barnabas, but what would suit them.
Rem That man was left as the only vocal representative of the Lord in Decapolis. The Lord sent him to “relate how great things God has done for thee”, not only to say what the Lord did, but to express the Lord’s feelings in doing it.
JT You wonder how he could stand up in the city influence in Decapolis, but the Lord said he was to be there. But he is a balanced man, and I believe the elders here have in mind the choice material that has come about in this lame man. The enemy is present to overwhelm them with the grossest paganism, so they chose them elders in each assembly — not here in each city, but in each assembly.
JJ Is this one of Paul’s most serious chapters? He brings in these three places in 2 Timothy 3:11: “what sufferings happened to me in Antioch, in Iconium, in Lystra”?
JT I suppose it was the most serious moment in his history, himself stoned and left for dead, but the brethren encircling him.
PL So in localities God is to have a mouthpiece in testimony in the assemblies.
JT What is an assembly if it cannot speak? In Acts 11 it is said that the assembly had ears.
TK And is it interesting to see that there is perfect response to God as the result of this? It says, “They committed them to the Lord on whom they had believed. And having passed though Pisidia ... and thence they sailed away to Antioch, whence they had been committed to the grace of God for the work which they had fulfilled”. The assembly here in this place were able to open their mouths to God, to commend the servants back to Him. That must have been good speaking, speaking such as God would hear and which would support the testimony in the apostles.
JT The teaching of the chapter is that the speaking in the apostles corresponded to Christ, and then we have the material that accrued from it. Notice was taken of them in the material, as in Luke 4. The man heard Paul speaking, Paul on the [p. 132] other hand noticing faith in the man, that it is that kind of material. Then this attack of the devil in which paganism is introduced is the danger, and hence the need for that material being protected and cared for, mothered, as you might say, because eldership is mothering.
Ques Is the spirit of prayer and fasting introduced here to be maintained for the exercise of eldership?
JT Surely. The elders are to mother the youth. The Lord delivered the young man back to his mother as he began to speak; she is to regulate that speaking. And so here the elders are to look after this wonderful material illustrated in this man. So that the assemblies in these places are representative of God and right speaking.
JJ Does that not explain Paul’s great care for Timothy, who had fully followed up his doctrine? He had such a care for him.
JT Quite so; he was his child.
Rem I suppose to get the value of the speaking for ourselves our hearing must be mixed with faith. There is wonderful speaking going on today, and people say they do not understand and do not follow. Is it not a matter for their own faith?
JT Quite so. I believe, following on the thought of speaking. Luke contemplated the need of moral qualities represented in eldership, so that the young might be under control. When they have begun to speak there should be exercise to see that they continue.
Rem Apollos was defective in his speaking, and Aquila and Priscilla, hearing him, “unfolded to him the way of God more exactly” (Acts 18:26).
JT They “took him to them” first. That is a matter of brotherly care, for after all he was only a young christian. He had great vocal powers, great powers of speaking and was evidently an eloquent [p. 133] man, but he needed that control, which is most important.
Rem At first it says much of his eloquence but nothing of his contribution, but after he had passed through the hands of Aquila and Priscilla it says nothing of his eloquence but that he contributed much.
JT That is the thing. Having begun to speak, the great thing is to continue.