Our modern problems must be met with attention, with firmness, with practical purpose, with due regard to history, and with submission to revealed truth. But if they are to be solved indeed they must be met outside the spirit of self, and in the communion of the Christian with Christ, by the power of the Spirit of God.
[244] Observe that St Paul utterly repudiates the thought of "pleasing" (ἀρέσκειν) where it means a servile and really compromising deference to human opinion (Gal. i. 10).
[245] The noble word ὑπομονή, as we have remarked already, is rarely if ever merely passive in New Testament usage.
[246] So read, not ἡμᾶς. The point of the mention here of "you" is manifest.
[247] Reading γὰρ not δέ, and omitting Ἰησοῦν just afterwards.
[248] Γεγενῆσθαι, the perfect. But perhaps read γενέσθαι.
[249] In the received Hebrew Text the word את, "with," is absent, and the rendering may be, in paraphrase, either, "Ye Nations, congratulate His people," or "Rejoice ye Nations, who are His people." Either the great Rabbi-Apostle read את, or he gave the essence of the Mosaic words, not their form, (using the Lxx. rendering as his form,) to convey the thought of the loving sympathy, before God, of Israel and the Nations.
CHAPTER XXXI
ROMAN CHRISTIANITY: ST PAUL'S COMMISSION:
HIS INTENDED ITINERARY: HE ASKS FOR PRAYER