MAY 15TH, 1918

MAY 15TH, 1918

My Dear Brother, — There can be no doubt that 2 Timothy is the ‘gate’ at which we enter now and that in dealing with evil the principle is withdrawal or avoidance, but in this epistle the value of “every scripture” is spoken of, and surely 1 Corinthians is included.

Indeed, it being in a specific way the “commandment” of the Lord, it is a test (John 14; 1 Corinthians 14) as containing the principles by which we are to be regulated as seeking to walk together in the last days. Ezra and Nehemiah show that recovery from the world is marked by very humiliating circumstances for the people of God, but as we humbly accept them,

^[p. 157] bowing to the discipline of God, the land is before us. We see that in Nehemiah’s time, blessing was reached exceeding anything since Joshua’s time — spiritual intelligence, however, would keep us from regarding a few Christians walking together as the “assembly of God” in a locality, or that we should “put away” a wicked person as being such (the assembly). We would take humbler ground, but at the same time we would hold to the truth of the assembly, and we would not judge sin any the less by withdrawing from it or the guilty person rather than by ‘putting him away’. “Love of the truth” includes 1 Corinthians, and hence the truth taught in this epistle will be practised as far as possible by those who are spiritual. Those who love the truth even if conditions hinder our acting literally according to the instructions we treasure them for their own sake being ‘truth’ and maintain them in principle.

Affectionately yours in Christ.

James Taylor.