Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 21:19
In your patience possess ye your souls.
19. In your patience possess ye your souls ] Rather, with the better reading, By your patience ye shall gain your souls or lives. Mar 13:13. The need of patience and endurance to the end is very prominently inculcated in the N. T., Rom 5:3 ; 2Th 3:4; Heb 10:36; Jas 1:4, &c. Endurance, not violence, is the Christian’s protection, and shall save the soul, and the true life, even if it loses all else.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 19. In your patience] Rather, your perseverance, your faithful continuance in my word and doctrine. Ye will preserve your souls. Ye shall escape the Roman sword, and not one of you shall perish in the destruction of Jerusalem. Instead of , possess, or preserve ye, I read , ye shall preserve. This reading is supported by AB-B, five others; both the Syriac, all the Arabic, AEthiopic, Vulgate, all the Itala except two, Origen, Macarius, and Tertullian.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Patience is either passive, seen in a quiet, free, and courageous suffering those evils which God will please in his providence to order us for our portion; or active, seen in a quiet believing, waiting for, and expectation of what God hath promised.
Possess your souls, that is, yourselves; do not decline suffering for my names sake, but live in the exercise of Christian courage and fortitude until the Lord will please to release you. In this sense James expounds this prase, Jam 1:4, But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Others say, possess your souls is the same with save your souls. So it seems to be expounded by Mat 24:13, and Mar 8:13, But he that shall endure to the end shall be saved.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
In your patience, possess ye your souls. By patiently bearing all afflictions, reproaches, indignities, and persecutions, enjoy yourselves; let nothing disturb or distress you; possess that peace and joy in your souls, which the world cannot take away; see Ro 5:3. The Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions read, “ye shall possess”: and the sense may be this; by patient continuance, or by perseverance in the ways of God, and the truths of Christ unto the end, ye shall be saved; shall find your lives, and enjoy your souls, as in Mt 10:22.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Ye shall win (). Future middle of , to acquire. They will win their souls even if death does come.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Possess ye [] . Wrong. See on ch. Luk 18:12. Rev. rightly, ye shall win.
20 – 36. Compare Mt 24:15 – 42. Mr 13:14 – 37.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “In your patience,” (en te hupomone humon) “in your endurance,” in what you endure, undergo, or experience, whatever it is. “For tribulation worketh patience,” Rom 5:3-4.
2) “Possess ye your souls.” (ktesesthe tas psuchas humon) “You all get control of your soul-life,” or be master over, keep under control, your whole life and passions, Heb 10:36; 1Co 9:26-27; Jas 1:4. Exercise your faith in Jesus Christ with perseverance under all obstacles.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Luk 21:19
. In your patience. Here Christ enjoins on his followers a different method of defending their life from what is dictated by carnal reason. For naturally every man desires to place his life in safety; we collect from every quarter those aids which we think will be best, and avoid all danger; and, in short, we do not think that we are alive, if we are not properly defended. But Christ prescribes to us this defense of our life, that we should be always exposed to death, and walk
through fire, and water, and sword, (Psa 66:12.)
And, indeed, no man will commit his soul into the hands of God in a right manner, unless he have learned to live from day to day constantly prepared to die. (132) In a word, Christ orders us to possess our life both under the cross, and amidst the constant terrors of death.
(132) “ Sinon qu’estant tousjours prest a mourir, il ait apprins de vivre comme le jour vient, sans faire son conte de demeurer jusques au lendemain;” — “except that, being always ready to die, he has learned to live, as the day comes, without reckoning on being alive till tomorrow.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(19) In your patience possess ye your souls.Better, By your endurance gain ye your lives. The verb, unless used in the perfect tense, always involves the idea of acquiring rather than possessing, and the command so understood answers to the promise, He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved, in Mat. 23:13, Mar. 13:13. Some of the best MSS., indeed, give this also as a promise, By your endurance ye shall gain.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
“In your patience endurance you will win your souls.”
Note how in the chiasmus this statement parallels the earlier “It will turn out to you for a testimony” (Luk 21:13). By their patient endurance as they gave testimony to Him and endured persecution they would gain in its fullest realisation the eternal life that they have received through Jesus. They will not lose their souls (Luk 12:5; see especially Mar 8:36). So the essence of these verses is twofold. The dreadful persecutions that must be faced and the certain security of all who are in Christ.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Luk 21:19. In your patience possess ye your souls. “Keep the government of your own spirits through grace in these awful scenes, which will bear down so many others; and you will secure the most valuable self-enjoyment, as well as be able most prudently to guard against the dangers which will surround you.” See the Inferences.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
19 In your patience possess ye your souls.
Ver. 19. In your patience possess ] That is, enjoy yourselves, however the world goes with you. He that cannot have patience had need made up his pack and get out of the world, for here is no being for him. Burleigh, lord treasurer, was wont to say that he overcame envy more by patience than pertinace.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
19. ] By your endurance (of all these things), ye shall acquire (not, possess , which is only the sense of the perf. ) your souls: this endurance being God’s appointed way, (in and by) which your salvation is to be put in your possession.
. as , Mat 16:25 , ch. Luk 9:24 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Luk 21:19 . or , ye shall win, or win ye; sense the same. Similar various readings in Rom 5:1 , or .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Matthew
TWO FORMS OF ONE SAYING
Mat 24:13
These two sayings, different as they sound in our Version, are probably divergent representations of one original. The reasons for so supposing are manifold and obvious on a little consideration. In the first place, the two sayings occur in the Evangelists’ reports of the same prophecy and at the same point therein. In the second place, the verbal resemblance is much greater than appears in our Authorised Version, because the word rendered ‘patience’ in Luke is derived from that translated ‘endureth’ in Matthew; and the true connection between the two versions of the saying would have been more obvious if we had had a similar word in both, reading in the one ‘he that endureth,’ and in the other ‘in your endurance.’ In the third place, the difference between these two sayings presented in our Version, in that the one is a promise and the other a command, is due to an incorrect reading of St. Luke’s words. The Revised Version substitutes for the imperative ‘possess’ the promise ‘ye shall possess,’ and with that variation the two sayings are brought a good deal nearer each other. In both endurance is laid down as the condition, which in both is followed by a promise. Then, finally, there need be no difficulty in seeing that ‘possessing,’ or, more literally, ‘gaining your souls,’ is an exact equivalent of the other expression, ‘ye shall be saved.’ One cannot but remember our Lord’s solemn antithetical phrase about a man ‘losing his own soul.’ To ‘win one’s soul’ is to be saved; to be saved is to win one’s soul.
So I think I have made out my thesis that the two sayings are substantially one. They carry a great weight of warning, of exhortation, and of encouragement to us all. Let us try now to reap some of that harvest.
I. First, then, notice the view of our condition which underlies these sayings.
Think of the inward resistance and outward hindrances to every lofty life. The scholar, the man of culture, the philanthropist-all who would live for anything else than the present, the low, and the sensual-find that there is a banded conspiracy, as it were, against them, and that they have to fight their way by continual antagonism, by continual persistence, as well as by continual endurance. Within, weakness, torpor, weariness, levity, inconstant wills, bright purposes clouding over, and all the cowardice and animalism of our nature war continually against the better, higher self. And without, there is a down-dragging, as persistent as the force of gravity, coming from the whole assemblage of external things that solicit, and would fain seduce us. The old legends used to tell us how, whensoever a knight set out upon any great and lofty quest, his path was beset on either side by voices, sometimes whispering seductions, and sometimes shrieking maledictions, but always seeking to withdraw him from his resolute march onwards to his goal. And every one of us, if we have taken on us the orders of any lofty chivalry, and especially if we have sworn ourselves knights of the Cross, have to meet the same antagonism. Then, too, there are golden apples rolled upon our path, seeking to draw us away from our steadfast endurance.
Besides the hindrances in every noble path, the hindrances within and the hindrances without, the weight of self and the drawing of earth, there come to us all-in various degrees no doubt, and in various shapes-but to all of us there come the burdens of sorrows and cares, and anxieties and trials. Wherever two or three are gathered together, even if they gather for a feast, there will be some of them who carry a sorrow which they know well will never be lifted off their shoulders and their hearts, until they lay down all their burdens at the grave’s mouth; and it is weary work to plod on the path of life with a weight that cannot be shifted, with a wound that can never be stanched.
Oh, brethren, rosy-coloured optimism is all a dream. The recognition of the good that is in the evil is the devout man’s talisman, but there is always need for the resistance and endurance which my texts prescribe. And the youngest of us, the gladdest of us, the least experienced of us, the most frivolous of us, if we will question our own hearts, will hear their Amen to the stern, sad view of the facts of earthly life which underlies this text.
Though it has many other aspects, the world seems to me sometimes to be like that pool at Jerusalem in the five porches of which lay, groaning under various diseases, but none of them without an ache, a great multitude of impotent folk, halt and blind. Astronomers tell us that one, at any rate, of the planets rolls on its orbit swathed in clouds and moisture. The world moves wrapped in a mist of tears. God only knows them all, but each heart knows its own bitterness and responds to the words, ‘Ye have need of patience.’
II. Now, secondly, mark the victorious temper.
This noble word of my texts does mean a great deal more than that. It means active persistence as well as patient submission. It is not enough that we should stand and bear the pelting of the pitiless storm, unmurmuring and unbowed by it; but we are bound to go on our course, bearing up and steering right onwards. Persistent perseverance in the path that is marked out for us is especially the virtue that our Lord here enjoins. It is well to sit still unmurmuring; it is better to march on undiverted and unchecked. And when we are able to keep straight on in the path which is marked out for us, and especially in the path that leads us to God, notwithstanding all opposing voices, and all inward hindrances and reluctances; when we are able to go to our tasks of whatever sort they are and to do them, though our hearts are beating like sledge-hammers; when we say to ourselves, ‘It does not matter a bit whether I am sad or glad, fresh or wearied, helped or hindered by circumstances, this one thing I do,’ then we have come to understand and to practise the grace that our Master here enjoins. The endurance which wins the soul, and leads to salvation, is no mere passive submission, excellent and hard to attain as that often is; but it is brave perseverance in the face of all difficulties, and in spite of all enemies.
Mark how emphatically our Lord here makes the space within which that virtue has to be exercised conterminous with the whole duration of our lives. I need not discuss what ‘the end’ was in the original application of the words; that would take us too far afield. But this I desire to insist upon, that right on to the very close of life we are to expect the necessity of putting forth the exercise of the very same persistence by which the earlier stages of any noble career must necessarily be marked. In other departments of life there may be relaxation, as a man goes on through the years; but in the culture of our characters, and in the deepening of our faith, and in the drawing near to our God, there must be no cessation or diminution of earnestness and of effort right up to the close.
There are plenty of people, and I dare say that I address some of them now, who began their Christian career full of vigour and with a heat that was too hot to last. But, alas, in a year or two all the fervency was past, and they settled down into the average, easygoing, unprogressive Christian, who is a wet blanket to the devotion and work of a Christian church. I wonder how many of us would scarcely know our own former selves if we could see them. Christian people, to how many of us should the word be rung in our ears: ‘Ye did run well; what did hinder you’? The answer is-Myself.
But may I say that this emphatic ‘to the end’ has a special lesson for us older people, who, as natural strength abates and enthusiasm cools down, are apt to be but the shadows of our old selves in many things? But there should be fire within the mountain, though there may be snow on its crest. Many a ship has been lost on the harbour bar; and there is no excuse for the captain leaving the bridge, or the engineer coming up from the engine-room, stormy as the one position and stifling as the other may be, until the anchor is down, and the vessel is moored and quiet in the desired haven. The desert, with its wild beasts and its Bedouin, reaches right up to the city gates, and until we are within these we need to keep our hands on our sword-hilts and be ready for conflict. ‘He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.’
III. Lastly, note the crown which endurance wins.
And such self-control which is the winning of ourselves is, as I believe, thoroughly realised only when, by self-surrender of ourselves to Jesus Christ, we get His help to govern ourselves and so become lords of ourselves. Some little petty Rajah, up in the hills, in a quasi-independent State in India, is troubled by mutineers whom he cannot subdue; what does he do? He sends a message down to Lahore or Calcutta, and up come English troops that consolidate his dominion, and he rules securely, when he has consented to become a feudatory, and recognise his overlord. And so you and I, by continual repetition, in the face of self and sin, of our acts of self-surrender, bring Christ into the field; and then, when we have said, ‘Lord, take me; I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me’; and when we daily, in spite of hindrances, stand to the surrender and repeat the consecration, then ‘in our perseverance we acquire our souls.’
Again, such persistence wins even the bodily life, whether it preserves it or loses it. I have said that the words of our texts have an application to bodily preservation in the midst of the dreadful dangers of the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. But so regarded they are a paradox. For hear how the Master introduces them: ‘Some of you shall they cause to be put to death, but there shall not a hair of your heads perish. In your perseverance ye shall win your lives.’ ‘Some of you they will put to death,’ but ye ‘shall win your lives,’-a paradox which can only be solved by experience. Whether this bodily life be preserved or lost, it is gained when it is used as a means of attaining the higher life of union with God. Many a martyr had the promise, ‘Not a hair of your head shall perish,’ fulfilled at the very moment when the falling axe shore his locks in twain, and severed his head from his body.
Finally, full salvation, the true possession of himself, and the acquisition of the life which really is life, comes to a man who perseveres to the end, and thus passes to the land where he will receive the recompense of the reward. The one moment the runner, with flushed cheek and forward swaying body, hot, with panting breath, and every muscle strained, is straining to the winning-post; and the next moment, in utter calm, he is wearing the crown.
‘To the end,’ and what a contrast the next moment will be! Brethren, may it be true of you and of me that ‘we are not of them that draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the winning of their souls!’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
patience = patient endurance.
possess ye = ye shall possess. Occurs only here, and Luk 18:12. Mat 10:9. Act 1:18; Act 8:20; Act 22:28. 1Th 4:4.
souls = lives. App-110.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
19.] By your endurance (of all these things), ye shall acquire (not, possess, which is only the sense of the perf. ) your souls: this endurance being Gods appointed way, (in and by) which your salvation is to be put in your possession.
. as , Mat 16:25-, ch. Luk 9:24.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Luk 21:19. ) in your patience, to which ye have been called. A Paradox. The world tries to obtain the safety of its followers souls by repelling force with force. Not so the saints: Rev 13:10 [He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. But, Here is the faith and patience of the saints].-) ye shall obtain (ensure) the safety of (Mat 24:13 [He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved]), with enjoyment and lasting advantage to yourselves.[224]-, your souls) Even though ye should lose all other things. [Patient endurance is the most conducive of all things. By struggling and kicking back against (the pricks) we consult worst for our true interest.-V. g.]
[224] is the reading of AB Origen 1,295d: possidebitis in a and Vulg.: acquirers in c. (adquirite, gain or ensure the safety of; not possess as Engl. Vers., which would be ) is the reading of Dd and Rec. Text. Bengels words are cum usufructi vestri, literally, with the usufruct of yourselves.-E. and T.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
The Winning of the Soul
In your patience ye shall win your souls.Luk 21:19.
Our Lords sojourn upon earth was now drawing to a close; and, in proportion to the magnitude of approaching events, His statements rose in dignity and importance. Not like a false teacher, seducing with pleasant prospects, but as one who would not conceal the dark future, however disheartening it might be, He draws up the veil, and bids His disciples behold, as in a mirror, the scenes of trouble and conflict in which they would have to wrestle; He causes to pass before their eyes, as in a vision, the fiery persecutions and sanguinary struggles in which Christianity was to be cradled and baptized; and, addressing His followers as those who were to share in the sufferingnay, to go hand in hand into the furnaceHe assures them with the promise In your patience ye shall win your souls.
In the Authorized Version this verse is treated as if it were merely an exhortation to the disciples to be patient under the pressure of persecution and peril. But that is not what our Lord said at all. He did not bid these disciples possess their souls in patience. He said a far more striking and significant thing. He said that it was by patient endurance they were to win, to get possession of, their soulsYe shall win your souls! It is a notable and suggestive saying. It is perfectly true that some of the commentators take all the suggestiveness out of it by explaining that it really means nothing more than this: that, if the disciples remain steadfast in the midst of all their troubles, and do not turn apostate, then they shall win life in the resurrection of the just. This is, indeed, how the Twentieth-century Testament translates the verse: By your endurance you shall win yourselves life. But I cannot help feeling that such a translation is a case of conventionalizing and stereotyping what is a very unconventional and unusual expression. At any rate, I am going to take the phrase at its face value. Ye shall winye shall gain possession ofyour souls. And the main and central suggestion of the phrase to me is this: our souls are not given to us ready-made, finished and complete. They have to be made. They are prizes to be won. We do not start with themwe gradually get possession of them. Life, says Browning somewhere, is a stuff to try the souls strength on and educe the man. I know of no sentence that constitutes a more illuminating commentary on this word of Christs. The soul is not an inheritance into which we are born; it is something we make and fashion and win for ourselves out of the varied discipline and experience of life.1 [Note: J. D. Jones, The Hope of the Gospel, 98.]
In one of Westcotts letters he has this most significant reference to the words of the text: Of all the changes in the Revised Version, that in Luk 21:19 is the one to which perhaps I look with most hope. We think of our souls as something given us to complete, and not as something given to us to win. It is a most suggestive distinction, and the failure to recognize it has been fraught with perilous mistakes. There is a very big difference between possessing a thing and making it entirely your own. For instance, I may possess a book, but the winning of its treasure is quite another thing. I may have come into possession of a musical instrument, but to woo and win its secret melody is quite another thing. It was one thing for Britain to come into possession of the Transvaal; it is quite another thing to win the people of the Transvaal to our rule. And these analogies may help us in the interpretation of the text. To win the soul is to bring all its rebel powers into willing homage to King Jesus. To win the soul is to elicit all its latent music and cause it to spring forth in constant praise. To win the soul is gradually to constrain all that is within us to praise and bless His holy name.2 [Note: J. H. Jowett, in The British Congregationalist, March 4, 1909, p. 178.]
I
The Promise
Ye shall win your souls.
1. What is meant by a man winning his own soul? We can understand winning others to the side of right; but here it speaks of a man winning his own soul as if he could be, so to speak, the maker of his own soul, along with its Creator. If we thoughtfully turn over the subject for a little while we shall see that there is deep significance in this fact. We do not come into the world fully developed. Man is born with a great many potentialities. God creates nothing perfect, but everything for perfection. There is a certain sense in which a man wins his body. When we look at a child lying helpless in its cot, we think what a long way it has to travel, so far as its bodily structure is concerned, before it can stand forth in the full strength of manhood. If that child were restrained from all exercise of its powers it would be helpless all its life. But as it puts forth its power it gains power, and the result is that at length it stands forth in the strength of manhood. It is precisely the same in regard to the mind. If any one were kept in absolute intellectual sluggishness, the mind would never be developed. Education depends not so much on putting knowledge into the childs mind as on drawing power forth from it by the exercise of power. Thus it may be said that a man may win his mind. And we can understand the same thing in regard to the bodily and mental power; but the time will come when the body and the mind have done their work, when the spiritual nature should receive its full development. And when this has been achieved, then a man may be said to have won his own soul.
Every time we choose the hard right way rather than the easy wrong way we gain soul. Every time we sacrifice ease and comfort to do service to our fellows, we gain soul. Every time we say a kindly word and do a loving deed, we gain soul. When F. N. Charrington gave up a fortune to fight the drink, he gained soul. When Frank Crossley gave up comfort in Bowdon, and went and lived in Ancoats to minister to the poor, he gained soul. When Dr. Peter Fraser give up position and fame at home to go and be a missionary in the far-off Khassia hills, he gained soul. For the soul lives and grows and expands on love and kindness and sacrifice. Our heart is always enlarged when we run in the way of Gods commandments.1 [Note: J. D. Jones, The Hope of the Gospel, 108.]
2. There may be a loss or shrinkage of soul. The heat and drought of worldliness cause the souls of men to shrink. Their very souls seem sometimes to become dry, hard, and small in selfishness. The process of soul-wasting and soul-shrinking is continually going on in the world. There was a man born apparently for large things. His mothers eye brightened as she looked down through the years away into his golden prospects. His fathers pride saw him climbing thrones of power. At thirty, at fifty, people who knew him when a boy, speak of what a man he might have been. Some sin at the root of the life has shrivelled the soul, which once began to grow. When a soul is dissipated before the body decays, when mans worldly interests destroy his capacity for truth and honour, chivalry and love, when sin exhausts his force as weeds do the soil, then a man is losing soul. Every departure from love and truth means shrinkage of soul; every trick, every falseness leaves a man so much less a living soul.
Men have I seen, and seen with wonderment,
Noble in form, lift upward and divine,
In whom I yet must search, as in a mine,
After that soul of theirs, by which they went
Alive upon the earth. And I have bent
Regard on many a woman, who gave sign
God willed her beautiful, when He drew the line
That shaped each float and fold of beautys tent:
Her soul, alas, chambered in pigmy space,
Left the fair visage pitiful-inane
Poor signal only of a coming face
When from the penetrale she filled the fane!
Possessed of Thee was every form of Thine,
Thy very hair replete with the Divine.1 [Note: George MacDonald, Sonnets Concerning Jesus (Poetical Works, i. 253).]
3. The winning of the soul is a continuous process. The religious life is the fulfilment of ones own nature in truest, largest ways. It is the unfolding of ones truest self, under the Fatherhood of Godthe God who gives the life, sustains and nourishes it. It is the Divine within us responding to the Divine in Godreaching out and striving to measure itself up in beauty beside His perfect life. It is a spiritual energy welling up from within and realizing itself in all lovely thoughts and deeds, in purity of heart, high aspirings and service of mankind.
This conception of the religions life as developed from within is true to the now known laws of nature. Nothing in nature is superadded, put in from the outside; all is the result of the wonderful processes of fulfilment from within, the first germ of life gradually expressing itself in a million forms and beauties.
Growth is a vital as distinguished from a mechanical process; it partakes, therefore, of the mystery which envelops the essence of life wherever it appears; it is inexplicable and unsolvable. It cannot be understood and it cannot be imitated; it has the perennial interest and wonder of the miraculous. As we study it, the impression deepens within us that we are face to face with a method which not only transcends our understanding but from which our finest skill is differentiated, not only in degree, but in kind. Men have done wonderful things with thought, craft, and tools; but the manner of the unfolding of a wild flower is as great a mystery to-day as it was when science began to look, to compare, and to discover. Between the thing that grows and the thing that is made there is a gulf set which has never been crossed. Mechanism is marvellous, but growth is miraculous. From the seed to the fruit, from the egg to the perfected animal, from the primordial cell to the complete man, the process by which life evolves its potency and discloses its aims is the process of growth. No other method is known to nature, and the universality of this method, and the completeness with which, so far as we can see, life is limited to it, put it in importance on a level with the mysterious force to which it is bound in indissoluble union. Hence, next in importance to the fact of life, comes the method of life-growth, not by additions from without, but by evolution from within.1 [Note: H. W. Mabie.]
4. The growth of the soul, though imperceptible, may be none the less real. Nature moves slowly, advancing by hairs-breadths, augmenting by the scruple. If we had lived on this earth from its very beginning until now, we should have thought it standing still, so tardy its action and minute the individual result; but if we recall the geological age when not a plant was on the earth, and then compare that barren epoch with the modern world blushing like a rainbow with ten thousand flowers, it is patent, after all, that the development of the planet has gone on un-restingly, however silently and deliberately. It is the same with the history of civilization. Had we lived through the long ages since man first appeared on the earth until now, we should have thought him ever standing still, so gradual and insignificant have been the successive changes and transformations of which he has been the subject; but compare the flint instruments, the rude vessels, and the grotesque decorations of a primitive kitchen-midden, with the splendid treasures of an International Exhibition, and the progress is as indisputable as it is glorious. So with the spiritual development of the race; we cannot mark the steps of its onward march; but the moral barbarism of the ages, by fine degrees which escape our eye, passes into the pure splendour of the millennial world. What is to last for ever takes a long time to grow. And so it is also with the spiritual development of a mans life.
Most men, when they grow old, are satisfied to be what they are. They have lived their lives, and wait quietly for the final summons. Their habits are too rigid to be easily changed, and they have no longer the force to make the attempt. Or they become indifferent, first about outward things, and then about themselves. Or they live in the past and think of what they have been, not of what they are, still less of what they may become. Or, if unsatisfied with themselves, they despair of improvement and sadly say, with Swift: I am what I am. Jowett, as we know, thought very differently. To the last he wished to make the most of life, improving not others only, but himself. With him moral growth was a life-long process; the ideal was always before him, leading him upwards and onwards. Often weary, often in pain, conscious of failing powers in body and mind, through doubt and failure, he toiled on,
still hoping, ever and anon,
To reach, one eve, the better land.
I wonder whether it is possible, he asks, in writing to a friend, to grow a little better as one grows older. What do you say? I rather think so. Will you take the matter into consideration for you and for myself? People seem to me to have lost the secret of it, and to keep to the old routine, having taken in about as much religion or truth or benevolence as they are capable of. Against this I venture to set the homely doctrine, that we should be as good as we can, and find out for ourselves ways of being and doing good.1 [Note: Abbot and Campbell, Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, ii. 352.]
Thy hills are kneeling in the tardy spring,
And wait, in supplications gentleness,
The certain resurrection that shall bring
A robe of verdure for their nakedness.
Thy perfumed valleys where the twilights dwell,
Thy fields within the sunlights living coil,
Now promise, while the veins of nature swell,
Eternal recompense to human toil.
And when the sunsets final shades depart,
The aspiration to completed birth
Is sweet and silent; as the soft tears start,
We know how wanton and how little worth
Are all the passions of our bleeding heart
That vex the awful patience of the earth.1 [Note: G. C. Lodge, Poems and Dramas, i. 76.]
II
The Mastery of the Soul
1. The first essential in the struggle to win our souls is self-mastery. We say that a man is self-possessed. What do we mean by that but that there resides in the man a power which holds all his faculties at command, and brings them into service in spite of all distractions? There can be no better phrase to express it. He possesses himself. He can do what he will with that side of the self which he chooses to use. Nothing takes away his courage. He has that in possession. Excitement and tumult do not take away the clearness of his mental vision. He keeps his eye on his theme. He has possession of his tongue. No confusion takes from him the power of lucid speech: and, above all, that deep-lying personality of the man is not thrown off its feet. It asserts itself. Men as they look and listen, perhaps as they rave, say, The man is himself. He is not what our threats or our tumult or our opposition make him. We cannot take his manhood away from him. He has himself in hand. He is self-possessed.
The figure which our Lord uses will perhaps be best understood through the physical analogy. Instances are common enough among us of those who have lost the mastery over some physical power. It may be a case of paralysis. It may be a species of atrophy. It may be the result of disease, or the result of neglect. But the power over the limb, let us say, for any effective service, has been lost. And we are so constituted in this marvellous physical organism that from the loss of one power the whole body suffers. Now, supposing it be possible by some treatment to recover the possession of the lost power: to reanimate the paralysed limb, renew, and as it were recreate, the decaying or decayed faculty, so that once again its full activity and use lies at the service of the willthis would be the winning of the physical organism. Well, that is not an idea which it is difficult to transfer to the spiritual nature. Who is there who has not known instances of an atrophied conscience? Who has not known, alas, men with a withered faith as real, if not so visible, as the withered hand of the man whose misery moved the compassion of Christ? Do you suppose any man would excite the pity of God for a withered hand, and none for a withered heart? Yet men who have thrown all their force into their intellect and allowed their affections to wither are a tragic reality. It is possible, as we know, not from prophet lips alone, but from our own experience, to lose the vision of God. More, it is possible to lose the power of vision. This it was that was in the thought of Christ, surely. Ye shall win your soulsrecover your mastery over these God-given powers and faculties.1 [Note: C. S. Horne, The Souls Awakening, 257.]
Man is not God but hath Gods end to serve,
A master to obey, a course to take,
Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become.
Grant this, then man must pass from old to new,
From vain to real, from mistake to fact,
From what once seemed good, to what now proves best.
How could man have progression otherwise?2 [Note: R. Browning, A Death in the Desert.]
I shall have frequent occasion to refer to the letters of Jonathan Otley, a most true pioneer in geological science, and to avail myself of his work. But that work was chiefly crowned in the example he leftnot of what is vulgarly praised as self-help (for every noble spirits watchword is God us ayde)but of the rarest of moral virtues, self-possession. In your patience, possess ye your souls.3 [Note: Ruskin, Deucalion (Works, xxvi. 294).]
2. Self-possession comes by self-surrender. We never own ourselves till we have given up owning ourselves, and yielded ourselves to that Lord who gives us back saints to ourselves. Self-control is self-possession. We do not own ourselves as long as it is possible for any weakness in flesh, sense, or spirit to gain dominion over us and hinder us from doing what we know to be right. We are not our own masters, then. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the bondservants of corruption. It is only when we have the bit well into the jaws of the brutes, and the reins tight in our hands, so that a finger-touch can check or divert the course, that we are truly lords of the chariot in which we ride and of the animals that impel it.
The first thing to do is the thing which those men had already done to whom Jesus gave this promise that they should win their souls. What they had donethe first decisive step which they had taken in the work of finding their liveswas not, indeed, to acquaint themselves with all knowledge, or to peer into all mysteries. They had not even lingered at the doors of the school of the Rabbis. But when One who spake as never man spake, and who looked into mens souls with the light of a Divine Spirit in His eye, came walking upon the beach where they were mending their nets, and bade them leave all and follow Him, they heard the command as coming from the King of Truth, and at once they left all and followed Him. They counted not the cost; they obeyed, when they found themselves commanded by God in Christ.
We are ever ready to think it was easy for those who saw Christ to follow Him. Could we read His sympathy and truthfulness in His face, could we hear His words addressed directly to ourselves, could we ask our own questions and have from Him personal guidance, we fancy faith would be easy. And no doubt there is a greater benediction pronounced on those who have not seen, and yet have believed. Still the advantage is not wholly theirs who saw the Lord growing up among other boys, learning His trade with ordinary lads, clothed in the dress of a working man. The brothers of Jesus found it hard to believe. Besides, in giving the allegiance of the Spirit, and forming eternal alliance, it is well that the true affinities of our spirit be not disturbed by material and sensible appearances.1 [Note: Marcus Dods, The Gospel of St. John, 57.]
3. When we have mastered our souls, we have won a victory which determines all minor issues. A great battle is raging. There is a fort which is the key to the whole position. Whichever side can win and hold that, is victor. Here, then, the general masses his troops. Other parts of the field are carried by the enemy. The outposts are driven in. The batteries are captured. Troops cannot be spared for these. Everything is concentrated upon that fort, and at last it is taken. The dead and dying lie in heaps round it, but the flag waves over. It has been taken at the sacrifice of minor positions, but these are of no account now. The enemy will abandon these of his own accord. He has nothing to gain by holding them any longer. They are commanded by the superior post; and, in the light of the fact that the general holds the point from which he can command the whole field and dictate terms, his former dealing with the inferior positions is explained and justified. He could afford to sacrifice them for the sake of holding the key to the field. The lesser thing was wisely given up for the greater. Well for us if we can carry that principle into our spiritual warfare. Well for us if we shall clearly recognize the soul as the key to the position. Well for us if we can wholly take in the meaning of the words, What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
It happens that I have practically some connexion with schools for different classes of youth; and I receive many letters from parents respecting the education of their children. In the mass of these letters I am always struck by the precedence which the idea of a position in life takes above all other thoughts in the parentsmore especially in the mothersminds. The education befitting such and such a station in lifethis is the phrase, this the object, always. They never seek, as far as I can make out, an education good in itself; even the conception of abstract rightness in training rarely seems reached by the writers. But, an education which shall keep a good coat on my sons back;which shall enable him to ring with confidence the visitors bell at double-belled doors; which shall result ultimately in the establishment of a double-belled door to his own house;in a word, which shall lead to advancement in life;this we pray for on bent kneesand that is all we pray for. It never seems to occur to the parents that there may be an education which, in itself, is advancement in Life:that any other than that may perhaps be advancement in Death; and that this essential education might be more easily got, or given, than they fancy, if they set about it in the right way; while it is for no price, and by no favour, to be got, if they set about it in the wrong.1 [Note: Ruskin Sesame and Lilies (Works, xviii. 54).]
III
The Discipline of the Soul
In your patience.
1. There is need of patience. See what a fearful campaign is mapped out for these disciples of His. War and natural convulsion in the earth; the machinery of civil government arrayed against the faith; domestic affection changed to gall; kindred turned into persecutors; hatred from every quarter. But see the point on which Christ fixes the disciples attention. It is not how all this persecution and sorrow are going to affect fortune and life and domestic relations. That needs no comment. It is not how the disciple is going to be able to break the force of these blows. He will not be able to break it. It may put an end to his life. But it is what the disciple is going to win and bring out of it all. Something is to be suffered. He does not conceal that; but something, and that the greatest thing, is to be won.
In the prefatory note of Christinas Face of the Deep she once more mentions her sister [Maria] though not by name:
A dear saintI speak under correction of the Judgment of the Great Day, yet think not then to have my word correctedthis dear person once pointed out to me Patience as our lesson in the Book of Revelation. Following the clue thus afforded me, I seek and hope to find Patience in this Book of awful import. Patience, at the least: and along with that grace whatever treasures beside God may vouchsafe me.1 [Note: Mackenzie Bell, Christina Rossetti, 63.]
2. We are all placed differently because of different temptations; but, whatever our position, we can win something out of the circumstances of our life. In the Epistle to the Romans it is said, We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet, the Apostle adds, In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. During lifes battle we win that which will carry us into greater life beyond. So life may be looked on as a school where the young are trained. The exercises they are engaged in to-day they will never care for again, but meanwhile they are being shaped for the great world. These books and exercises will be simply waste paper by-and-by, but the strength and vigour of mind they generate will be always valuable. Life, then, is a great school in which there are no holidays, in which a man is always being shaped and trained for a greater life on the other side. Let a man go forth to business to confront some great temptation, and let him, in his integrity, by Gods grace stand firm and strongthat man will go to bed at night having gained soul.
Astronomers tell us that one, at any rate, of the planets rolls on its orbit swathed in clouds and moisture. The world moves wrapped in a mist of tears. God alone knows them all, but each heart knows its own bitterness, and responds to the words, Ye have need of patience.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
3. The patience here spoken of is not merely submission, but active persistence, constancy. It is not enough that we shall stand and bear the pelting of the pitiless storm, unmurmuring and unbowed by it; we are bound to go on our course, bearing up and steering right onwards. Persistent perseverance in the path that is marked out for us is especially the virtue that our Lord here enjoins. It is well to sit still unmurmuring; it is better to march on undaunted and unswerving. And when we are able to keep straight on the path which is marked out for us, and especially on the path that leads us to God, notwithstanding all opposing voices, and all inward hindrances and reluctances; when we are able to go to our tasks of whatever sort they be, and to do them, though our hearts are beating like sledge-hammers; when we say to ourselves, It does not matter a bit whether I am sad or glad, fresh or wearied, helped or hindered by circumstances, this one thing I do, then we have come to understand and to practise the grace that our Master here enjoins.
Wherever the flowers of the North are distributed they prevail; they establish themselves in all climates, driving out the native flowers. On the other hand, the flowers of the South cannot establish themselves here. The explanation is that what the northern blooms have endured has made them robust and victorious. The Christian religion is one of endurance. This was first and pre-eminently true of our Lord. The first ages of the Church were ages of martyrdom. Ever since then the Christian faith has borne the weight of opposition and trial. As the glacial period has made the flowers hardy, so the discipline of suffering has made the Church of Christ the very home of patience, power, heroism. In this power of patience we win our soulswe realize ourselves, save ourselves everlastingly.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson, The Gates of Dawn, 103.]
When the Duke of Wellington saw a painting of Waterloo which represented him sitting on horseback with a watch in his hand anxiously scanning the hour, the great soldier ridiculed the picture, declared the posture false, and told the artist to paint the watch out. No battle is won with a watch in our palm. The victory over our own nature and the victory that overcometh the world are gained in patient faith and endeavour.
4. Christ manifested the patience that He recommended. The patience of our Lord is remarkable. Isaiah prophesied of Him: He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law. Nothing is more wonderful than the serenity of our Lord in the prosecution of His great mission. His zeal was a flaming fire, and His desire to see of the travail of His soul in the establishment of His kingdom of universal righteousness and peace was intense, with an intensity into which we cannot enter; but the calmness with which He carried out His purpose was that of the measured and majestic movements of nature. He was never flurried or betrayed into the agitation of hurry; but, whilst kindling with sublime and mighty enthusiasm, He proceeded to fulfil His destiny without haste and without pause.
He who waited so long for the formation of a piece of old red sandstone will surely wait with much long-suffering for the perfecting of a human spirit.2 [Note: Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, ii. 242.]
Grant us, O Lord, that patience and that faith:
Faiths patience imperturbable in Thee,
Hopes patience till the long-drawn shadows flee,
Loves patience unresentful of all scathe.
Verily we need patience breath by breath;
Patience while faith holds up her glass to see,
While hope toils yoked in fears copartnery,
And love goes softly on the way to death.
How gracious and how perfecting a grace
Must patience be on which those others wait:
Faith with suspended rapture in her face,
Hope pale and careful hand in hand with fear,
Loveah, good love who would not antedate
Gods will, but saith, Good is it to be here.1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]
The Winning of the Soul
Literature
Brooke (S. A.), The Kingship of Love, 144.
Cox (S.), Expositions, ii. 149.
Herford (B.), Anchors of the Soul, 160.
Horne (C. S.), The Souls Awakening, 253.
Jones (J. D.), The Hope of the Gospel, 98.
Lamb (R.), School Sermons, i. 191.
Maclaren (A.), The Beatitudes, 118.
Martin (A.), Winning the Soul, 3.
Parks (L.), The Winning of the Soul, 1.
Smyth (N.), The Reality of Faith, 135.
Snell (B. J.), The All-Enfolding Love, 17.
De Soyres (J.), The Children of Wisdom, 92.
Vincent (M. R.), The Covenant of Peace, 269.
Voysey (C.), Sermons, ii. (1879), No. 8.
Watkinson (W. L.), The Ashes of Roses, 31.
Watson (F.), The Christian Life Here and Hereafter, 310.
Christian World Pulpit, lv. 212 (J. Brown); lvii. 86 (F. Lynch); lxxx. 300 (F. Y. Leggatt).
Church of England Pulpit, xxx. 303 (J. Seller); xliv. 292 (E. M. Venn); lxii. 39 (W. C. E. Newbolt).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
Luk 8:15, Psa 27:13, Psa 27:14, Psa 37:7, Psa 40:1, Rom 2:7, Rom 5:3, Rom 8:25, Rom 15:4, 1Th 1:3, 2Th 3:5, Heb 6:11, Heb 6:15, Heb 10:36, Jam 1:3, Jam 5:7-11, Rev 1:9, Rev 2:2, Rev 2:3, Rev 3:10, Rev 13:10, Rev 14:12
Reciprocal: Psa 112:7 – shall not Psa 131:2 – myself Pro 1:33 – and shall Ecc 7:8 – the patient Mat 24:6 – see Luk 21:9 – when Rom 12:12 – patient 2Co 6:4 – in much 2Th 2:2 – shaken Jam 1:4 – let 2Pe 1:6 – patience
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
PATIENCE
In your patience possess ye your souls.
Luk 21:19
I. Patience never seems to be an heroic remedy, least of all in the face of action so overwhelming and scenes so terrific as those which Christ predicted as He sat with that little knot of anxious men on the summit of Olivet on that momentous evening.
II. And yet there are times when patience is by no means a counsel of despair, but when rather the contest lies between the power of inflicting and the power of bearing, when in the working out of great issues all depends on the capacity of those involved to bide their time, to refuse to be crushed, to hold out until the right moment.
III. So here, in answer to their nervous question as to the when and how, our Lord is impressing on them that, as far as they are concerned, all will depend on their powers of bearing, that they are not to regard themselves as so many pawns on the board which will be sacrificed to the movements of the bigger pieces, that every individual counts with God, that the patience will have to last on through suffering, even possibly through physical death; that although they may be hated and persecuted by friends, and in some cases put to death, yet still in the highest sense not a hair of their heads should perish. And, therefore, He would say, Make your souls your own. Keep your heads, keep your independence, be as those who can say that their souls are their own, and so (in accordance with another reading of these words) they shall win their souls, and save their lives, in all that makes life valuable, in all that counts as living.
Rev. Canon Newbolt.
Illustrations
(1) The historian of the Crimean War has told us of the trial of courage which came upon our young soldiers at the battle of the Alma, when they were halted for a considerable time under fire, with no impetuosity of onslaught, nothing to take the chill from their blood or to inspire them with a feeling of actionsimply to stand and be shot at, and to be told this was war.
(2) The doctors will tell us of one of the most common and dangerous diseases which attack our suffering humanity that nothing that medical skill can do will arrest it, only the smallest alleviations are possible, everything must be directed to brace up the patient to endure the blows of the storm while the tempest is at its height. It is a battle between onslaught and endurance until the crisis is past.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
9
Christians should not let persecutions or other trials cause them to lose patience. If they will endure through to the end they will possess or save their souls. It means the same as Mat 24:13; endurance and patience are the same.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Luk 21:19. In your patience, or stedfastness, ye shall win your souls, or lives. In the endurance of these predicted afflictions they should gain, or come into the possession of, their true life. If Luk 21:18 refers to physical safety this promise also does. In means: in this God appointed way, not strictly, by means of it. The whole verse is not a command but a promise: and the E. V., following an incorrect leading, misleads the reader. The word souls (or lives) opposes that view of Luk 21:18, which refers it to the preservation of every hair in the resurrection.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
21:19 In your patience {d} possess ye your souls.
(d) Though you are surrounded on all sides with many miseries, yet nonetheless be valiant and courageous, and bear out these things bravely.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
By persevering faithfully when persecuted they would preserve their lives (Gr. ktesesthe tas psychas hymon). That is, they would not die before it was God’s will for them to die (Luk 21:18). Some interpreters believe that this verse simply restates in different terms the principle that those who endure to the end will experience salvation (Mat 24:13; Mar 13:13). [Note: E.g., Martin, p. 257.] Matthew and Mark recorded a principle for disciples living just before the Lord’s return. Those who remained faithful to the end of the Tribulation would enter the kingdom without dying (Mat 24:13; Mar 13:13). However the differences in terminology in Luke argue for a different meaning here. This verse seems to be an additional promise. It cannot mean that martyrs can earn justification by remaining faithful rather than apostatizing since justification comes by faith, not works (cf. Rom 2:7). It may mean that perseverance will earn an eternal reward (cf. Luk 21:36; Rev 2:10).