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‘I seek not yours, but you.’ _There_ speaks a disinterested love which feels obliged, and yet reluctant, to stoop to say that it _is_ love, and that it _is_ disinterested. But he will still not call on them for hospitality. Men are usually quick to suspect others of the vices to which they themselves are prone. The one was of comparatively rare occurrence; the other was constant and was the ordinary course of duty It is a matter of obligation for a child to provide for an aged and helpless parent; but commonly the duty is that of a parent to provide for his children. We get a property in things by putting our industry into them by ways of use, culture, and improvement. The only true notion of a Christian is a man who can truly say, ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’And that is the only kind of life that is blessed; our only true nobleness and beauty and power and sweetness are measured by, and accurately correspond with, the completeness of our surrender of ourselves to Jesus Christ.
Lastly, and only a word. I draw no line of distinction, in this respect, between what a man spends upon himself, and what he spends upon ‘charity,’ and what he spends upon religious objects. The parents provide for the children out of love, and look for love and obedience in return.‘To lay up.’ The idea can be used of amassing a fund.
And how great and blessed a property it is to have, we can only see by a careful computation of the values by which he measures it. 12 Il faut se glorifier... Cela n'est pas bon.
Here we find the nations all at work for each other in so many different climes and localities, preparing one for another articles of comfort, sustenance, and ornament, and then commerce, intervening, makes the exchanges, so that every people is receiving back to itself supplies that the whole human race, we may almost say, has been at work as producers to contribute.II.
2 Corinthiens 12:14 Voici, pour la troisième fois je suis prêt à aller chez vous, et je ne vous serai point à charge; car ce ne sont pas vos biens que je cherche, c'est vous-mêmes. Paul felt like a father toward the church in Corinth; and he was willing, therefore, to labor for them without compensation.Behold, this is the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be a burden to you: for I seek not yours, but you: for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the childrenCommentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole BibleExpository Notes with Practical Observations on the New TestamentHeinrich Meyer's Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New TestamentJohann Albrecht Bengel's Gnomon of the New TestamentMatthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy BibleFor the children ought not to lay up for the parents:I. So I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia. Happy would it be for the Church of God, and happy for the world at large, if such dispositions obtained amongst the hearers, wherever the Gospel is proclaimed! God evidently means to make every community valuable to every other, and so far at least every man to every other. (1) First, as he has come to look himself on the eternal in everything, he has a clear perception of souls as being the most real of all existences—more real than lands and gold and a vastly higher property, because they are eternal, and the title, once gained, is only consummated by death, not taken away. Those which arise out of the text, as pertaining to the people, are,1. We presume not to compare ourselves with the holy Apostle: we know full well how remote we are from him in every attainment: yet we hope that, in some small measure, we may adopt his language in the text, and say, “We seek not yours, but you.” (Would to God that we could affirm it as fully, and as confidently, as Paul himself!) New International Version (NIV) Brethren, the surrender of ourselves to Jesus Christ in acts of direct Christian activity and service, will be the outcome of a real surrender of ourselves to Him in love and obedience.I cannot imagine a man who, in any deep sense, has realised his obligations to that Saviour, and in any real sense has made the great act of self-renunciation, and crowned Christ as his Lord, living for the rest of his life, as so many professing Christians do, dumb and idle, in so far as work for the Master is concerned. There is only one thing that will set them to work, and that is that they shall live nearer their Master, and find out more of what they owe to Him; and so render themselves up to be His instruments for any purpose for which He may choose to use them.This surrender of ourselves for direct Christian service is the only solution of the problem of how to win the world for Jesus Christ.