© 1994-2017, Scott Sperling
Seeking Wisdom as Silver
“We everyday see with what anxious diligence men seek for silver. They
fatigue their bodies, and waste their spirits; they destroy their health, and
expose their lives; they even wound their consciences, and expose themselves to
shameful deaths and everlasting misery, that they may load themselves with
shining clay. Shall the professed disciples of the great Teacher set less value
upon knowledge, than other men set upon silver?... It is therefore highly
reasonable, that we diligently and carefully use all those means which God hath
appointed for this end; that we hear sermons with earnest attention; that we
read and search the word of God, and make it the subject of our frequent
meditation; that we make use of edifying conversation; that we go to the wise,
who have the law of God in their hearts, whose mouths speaks wisdom, and
tongues talk of judgment. To the use of such means of improvement as these,
we must add prayer for the divine blessing, to render them effectual to our
instruction and salvation.”
– George Lawson (1749-1820)
Paul's Life and Service
"Paul, in the prosecution of his high purpose
and great commission,
We thus see him travelling from country to
country;
Enduring every species of hardship and
privation;
Encountering every extremity of danger;
Assaulted by the populace; punished by the
magistrate;
Scourged, beaten, stoned, and left for dead;
Expecting everywhere the same treatment and
the same dangers;
Yet when driven from one city, preaching in the
next;
Spending his whole time in proclaiming Christ
and Him crucified;
Sacrificing pleasure, ease, safety, worldly
position;
Persisting in this course for more than thirty
years;
Unaltered by the experience of ingratitude,
perverseness, prejudice;
Unsubdued by anxiety, want, labor, persecution;
Unwearied by long-continued conflict;
Undismayed by the prospect of a violent death:
The love of Christ and of souls his great
constraining motive;
A glorious monument of the power and riches of
divine grace."
-– Thomas Robinson (c. 1870), from
Suggestive Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle
to the Romans (1870), pg. 5
Seeking Wisdom as Silver
“We everyday see with what anxious diligence
men seek for silver. They fatigue their bodies, and waste
their spirits; they destroy their health, and expose their
lives; they even wound their consciences, and expose
themselves to shameful deaths and everlasting misery,
that they may load themselves with shining clay. Shall
the professed disciples of the great Teacher set less
value upon knowledge, than other men set upon
silver?... It is therefore highly reasonable, that we
diligently and carefully use all those means which God
hath appointed for this end; that we hear sermons with
earnest attention; that we read and search the word of
God, and make it the subject of our frequent
meditation; that we make use of edifying conversation;
that we go to the wise, who have the law of God in their
hearts, whose mouths speaks wisdom, and tongues talk
of judgment. To the use of such means of improvement
as these, we must add prayer for the divine blessing, to
render them effectual to our instruction and salvation.”
– George Lawson (1749-1820)
