1 Corinthians 12:24. For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked:
Here is a lesson for us with regard to church-fellowship,-always to take most notice of those who are the least noticeable, and to be most gentle with those who require the most tenderness. You know that there are some of our fellow-members who are not all we should like them to be. We believe that they are children of God; but they are, somehow or other, "cut on the cross." They are crotchety, and weak in many ways. Now, we should try, as far as ever we can, to adapt ourselves to them. If you have ever had the gout very badly, you know that, if a person walks across the room too heavily, you feel it. Do you, therefore, say to your father, when he is thus laid aside, "You cannot expect me to take notice of such a thing as that? Nor would you be so cruel as to say to anybody else, "If he has a gouty foot, I cannot help it, and I shall tread on it every now and then." No; you are not so brutal as that. So, if there be a member of the body that is more tender than the rest, and especially if that tenderness is the result of disease, let us try to minister to it as far as ever we possibly can. Let us give "more abundant honour to that part which lacked."
1 Corinthians 12:24. For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked:
Here is a lesson for us with regard to church-fellowship,-always to take most notice of those who are the least noticeable, and to be most gentle with those who require the most tenderness. You know that there are some of our fellow-members who are not all we should like them to be. We believe that they are children of God; but they are, somehow or other, "cut on the cross." They are crotchety, and weak in many ways. Now, we should try, as far as ever we can, to adapt ourselves to them. If you have ever had the gout very badly, you know that, if a person walks across the room too heavily, you feel it. Do you, therefore, say to your father, when he is thus laid aside, "You cannot expect me to take notice of such a thing as that? Nor would you be so cruel as to say to anybody else, "If he has a gouty foot, I cannot help it, and I shall tread on it every now and then." No; you are not so brutal as that. So, if there be a member of the body that is more tender than the rest, and especially if that tenderness is the result of disease, let us try to minister to it as far as ever we possibly can. Let us give "more abundant honour to that part which lacked."