RESPONSIBILITY AND GIFT

^[p. 83] RESPONSIBILITY AND GIFT

The way to obtain the blessing of the Lord is to do the thing that He wishes you to do. It is not a question of gift merely, but to please Him who hath chosen us.

The number of young men among you in the assembly is to my mind a great responsibility. I do not know how much gift there may be there, but there is often more gift than is manifested. Many are gifted who are not as yet so free from human dependence that they can enter on prominent service.

Moses had the desire to serve 40 years before he was fit to enter on the service. So also with others. I conclude Paul was two years in Arabia. All I desire to bring before you ... is the responsibility as to so many possible servants of the Lord.

... Paul’s word to Timothy, you can take or apply to yourselves. “The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2: 2).

The elder ones generally are better taught, that is, they have studied the truth more earnestly and laboured more to understand it than the younger ones. The elder ones have been like the first settlers in a new country; they had all the rough work to do before they reached the good of the soil. Those who succeed them have not so much labour to reach the soil as their predecessors, but surely the first who had more labour had also the best of the soil.