Luke 10:23-24 - Homilies By W. Clarkson

Apostolic advantage and disadvantage.

Our Lord compares the position of his apostles with that of the great and enviable of past times. We may follow his thought and may also pursue the same line of comparison in our own times. We look at their position—

I. As RELATED TO DISTINGUISHED MEN BEFORE THE ADVENT .

1 . It was one of some disadvantage ; they were men in a very much humbler position than many of the great in past days. Great kings had lived in a social state and with pleasant surroundings to which they could lay no claim; in society they were nowhere; of this world's luxuries and trappings they had nothing. Moreover, they were in a much less powerful position than some of the great men that had gone. Prophets had made or unmade kings; or they had delivered laws or changed customs, materially affecting the civil, social, moral, and religious life of the nation; witness Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Nehemiah, John. The apostles of our Lord were not doing anything of this kind when he spoke to them; they had done very little of a public character thus far; their influence had not been felt in the life of their countrymen.

2 . It was one of glorious advantage in one respect. They had the most distinguished honor of being the personal attendants upon the Messiah himself. They not only saw his face and heard his words, but they ministered to his wants; they rendered him service; and, by rendering him service, they contributed largely and importantly to the well-being of all later generations.

3 . It was one of greater honor than they themselves supposed; for he at whose feet they sat and of whose truth they drank was One very much higher than they imagined even their Messiah would be; and he wrought a greater good for a larger world than they conceived it possible even for the Anointed of God to work.

II. AS RELATED TO OURSELVES .

1 . Their position was one of supreme privilege in one great particular—they attended upon and they served Jesus Christ himself, in his own Person. That was an honor which stands by itself; it is unique; of its kind it is unapproachable. Let any disciple of the later time reach any imaginable position; he must feel that in actually ministering to our Lord, supplying his necessities, being sympathetically as well as bodily present "with him in his trials," helping him in his supreme and critical work, the apostles of our Lord stand pre-eminent.

2 . And in being the first to publish the gospel after our Lord's ascension they also stand in the very front rank.

3 . It was also a very distinct advantage to receive Christian truth direct , without intervening media, with nothing to subtract from it or to add to it; they had truth at the fountain source, uncorrupted by the channels through which it passed.

4 . But they were subject to some disadvantage also.