But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together,
​let not man put asunder. Mark 6-9

God made one man for one woman; therefore divorce is not permissible, unless the one act be committed which severs the nuptial tie. Then only is the bond broken by which husband and wife are one. There should be no compulsory celibacy. Some can live the single life; others cannot. Each must work out his own possibilities, and none may judge another.
It would appear that the fathers brought the little ones. They had a truer perception of the heart of Jesus than the disciples. All through the ages men have supposed that strength, wisdom, and wealth have the greatest attractions for our Lord, whereas it is precisely the reverse. Of such is His Kingdom.
​(F.B. Meyer)

During our first year of building the house, we slept on the ground next to the campfire. Every weekend we met and I cooked our meals on the fire, and helped as Lynn and those we hired helped us, and were able to be married in the house in the fall, November 27, of that year 1976. I still lived in New York, and had to make the 3 hour trip to meet Lynn, and we'd spend the time working on the land and house, and go back to our jobs on Monday's. During those years-every day, there was never any time to be bored. Lynn raised cattle, I saved and bought my first young Arabians, and began the dream of my childhood, raising and training them. We also raised my daughter Carrie- and took many vacation trips with her, 6 years of piano lessons, music events of all kinds, she went through 2 bikes, a guitar, and many kids that she brought to the house, and had picnics, and parties many weekends. She graduated with honors, and a music scholarship, and went to NYC to music college. She's gone on to accomplish many things in area ministries over the years. 
While at Newbury, I was born again, saved in March of 1978. A couple of months later, the fellowship I was attending wanted to have a baptism ceremony for those in our group who had gotten saved and wanted to be water baptized. I offered to have it at our home. On July 12, 1978 I along with 13 other's were baptized in our pond, and afterwards we had a celebration ceremony, with a lunch and a music group played-there were about 100 in attendance. I made the certificates that were signed by the elders of the fellowship, and given to each one who was baptized. It's a precious memory I'll never forget. 
Lynn and I left a part of ourselves there, that will never be forgotten. It molded us, and made us into the people we became, and the commitments, we held dear. We left it with knowing we had accomplished much of what was in our hearts together, but we had to continue on, to another part of our journey.

In 1996, Lynn and I knew it was time to leave our first home, and move. Lynn wanted more land, I did also, but, it took some time to find what we had in our hearts. We found a large piece of land in West Burke, Vt. and purchased it. Lynn was now retired, but I was still working, taking care of seniors in a retirement home in Newbury.
With these commitments, we continued to show horses, and juggled all of it somehow, I wonder at times, how we did it. But, at the time, we just kept going, and for us, it just seemed normal. I'm glad we didn't sit and dwell on the do's or don'ts, we went on each day with purpose, and responsibilities. 
When we bought the land, Lynn designed the house, and began to get the foundation and landscaping done. We moved into the home close to Christmas time, in 1997.
​During this time, Lynn's mother was needing care, and he spent many nights caring for her at home, until she passed away. My mother also came to stay with us, when she became disabled with diabetes and a partial foot amputation. We both took care of our parents until their death.
The riding lessons I gave during those years, and the horse shows kept us busy all the time. We took kids all over the state and several other's to weekend horse events, and some of them rode my horses in classes, as part of their schooling and lessons I gave at our home. I've many precious memories.

As I reflect on the life Lynn and I began 48 years ago today, I give the Lord Jesus the thanks, and appreciation for a life lived with direction, and for the man who he put in my path, who said he wanted me to share his life with. I'm looking forward to meeting him again-and talking over the things we shared. The accomplishments, the misunderstandings that he now has a better picture of, and mistakes we both made. But, the love, and union, hasn't changed, nor what we were able to achieve together. Nothing can take that away, or change it. In eternity, we will serve God, with the things we learned here. He's gone on before me, and waiting. I know I'll see him again, he said so, with a twinkle in his eye.
May God bless the memory of Lyndon Gene Couillard, till we meet again.
​Lorna Couillard

And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men followed him, crying, and saying, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us. And when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord. Mat 9:27-28

"The third of these miracles, which Matthew seems to reckon as the second in the group, because he treats the two former as so closely connected as to be but one in numeration, need not detain us long. It is found only in this Gospel. The first point to be observed in it is the cry of these two blind men. There is something pathetic and exquisitely natural in the two being together, as is also the case in the similar miracle, at a later period, on the outskirts of Jericho. Equal sorrows drive men together for such poor help and solace as they can give each other. They have common experiences which isolate them from others, and they creep close for warmth and companionship. All the blind men in the Gospels have certain resemblances. One is that they are all sturdily persevering, as perhaps was easier for them because they could not see the impatience of the listeners, and possibly because, in most cases, persistent begging was their trade, and they were used to refusals. But a more important trait is their recognition of Jesus as ‘Son of David.’ Blind as they are, they see more than do the seeing. Thrown in upon themselves, they may have been led to ponder the old words, and by their affliction been made more ready to welcome One who, if He were Messiah, was coming with a special blessing for them-’to open the blind eyes.’ Men who deeply desire a good are quick to listen to the promise of its accomplishment. So these two followed Him along the road, loudly and perseveringly calling out their profession of faith, and their entreaty for sight.
The next point is our Lord’s treatment. He let them cry on, apparently unheeding. Had, then, the two miracles just done exhausted His stock of power or of pity? Certainly His reason was, as it always was, their good. We do not know why it was better for them to have to wait, and continue their entreaty; but we may be quite sure that the reason for all His delays is the same,-the larger blessing which comes with the answer when it comes, and the large blessings which may be gathered while we wait its coming. Christ’s question to them, when at last they have found their way even indoors, holds out more hope than they had yet received. By it, Christ established a close relation with them, and implied to them that He was willing to answer their cry. One can fancy how the poor blind faces would light up with a flush of eager expectation, and how swift would be the answer. The question is not cold or inquisitorial. It is more than half a promise, and a powerful aid to the faith which it requires.
There is something very beautiful and pathetic in the simple brevity of the unhesitating answer, ‘Yea, Lord.’ Sincerity needs few words. Faith can put an infinite deal of meaning into a monosyllable. Their eagerness to reach the goal made their answer brief. But it was enough. Again the hand which had clasped the maiden’s palm is put out and laid gently on the useless eyes, and the great word spoken, ‘According to your faith be it unto you.’ Their blindness made the touch peculiarly fitting in their case, as bringing evidence of sense to those who could not see the gracious pity of His looks. The word spoken was, like that to the centurion, a declaration of the power of faith, which determines the measure, and often the manner, of His gifts to us. The containing vessel not only settles the quantity of, but the shape assumed by, the water which is taken up in it from the sea. Faith, which keeps inside of Christ’s promises (and what goes outside of them is not faith), decides how much of Christ we shall have for our very own. He condescends to run the molten gold of His mercies into the molds which our faith prepares.
These two men, who had used their tongues so well in their persistent cry for healing, went away to make a worse use of them in telling everywhere of their cure. Jesus desired silence. Possibly He did not wish His reputation as a mere worker of miracles to be spread abroad. In all His earlier ministry He avoided publicity, singularly contrasting therein with the evident desire to make Himself the center of observation which marks its close. He dreaded the smoky flame of popular excitement. His message was to individuals, not to crowds. It was a natural impulse to tell the benefits these two had received; but truer gratitude and deeper faith would have made them obey His lightest word, and have shut their mouths. We honor Christ most, not by taking our way of honoring Him, but by absolute obedience."
(Alexandar Maclaren)

​"Nothing is too hard for Jesus
No man can work like Him."
"We have a God who delights in impossibilities." Nothing too hard for Me. -- Andrew Murray

​God deals with impossibilities. It is never too late for Him to do so, when the impossible is brought to Him, in full faith, by the one in whose life and circumstances the impossible must be accomplished if God is to be glorified. If in our own life there have been rebellion, unbelief, sin, and disaster, it is never too late for God to deal triumphantly with these tragic facts if brought to Him in full surrender and trust. It has often been said, and with truth, that Christianity is the only religion that can deal with man’s past. God can "restore the years that the locust hath eaten" (Joe_2:25); and He will do this when we put the whole situation and ourselves unreservedly and believingly into His hands. Not because of what we are but because of what He is. God forgives and heals and restores. He is "the God of all grace." Let us praise Him and trust Him. -- (Sunday School Times)

For the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him,
​he kept him as the apple of his eye. Deu 32:9-10
A Choice Portion

The text teaches us that the Church of God is the Lord’s own peculiar and special property. “The earth is the Lord s, and the fulness thereof: the world, and they that dwell therein.” By creation, as well as by providence, Jehovah is the Sovereign possessor of the entire universe. Let none venture to dispute His claims, or say that He is not the great owner of all things, for thus saith the Lord, “Behold, all souls are Mine.” But He has a special property in His Church. As a king may have ample possessions, to all of which he has undoubted right, but still he has royal crown-lands which are in a very special sense his own; so hath the Lord of all a peculiar interest in His saints. As Osborne, and Balmoral, and Windsor belong to our sovereign by a tenure which differs from his title and claim to the United Kingdom, so the Church is the peculiar heritage of the King of kings. “The Lord’s portion is His people.” How are they His?
(1) We answer, first, by His own sovereign choice. He did so ordain to make His chosen and set His love upon them.
(2) They are not only His by choice, but by purchase.
(3) They are also His by conquest. Old Jacob, when he lay a-dying, gave to Joseph one portion above his brethren, which he had taken out of the hand of the Amorite with his sword and with his bow. The Lord Jesus can truly say of His people, that He hath taken them out of the hand of the Amorite with His sword and with His bow. Thy conquering hand, O Jesus, when nailed to the Cross, rent away Thy children’s chains. We are indeed the conquered captives of His omnipotent love.
​
2. In the second place, the text shows that the saints are the objects of the Lord’s especial care. “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth,”—with what object?—“to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.” The wheels of providence are full of eyes; but in what direction are they gazing? Why, that all things may “work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.”

3. The text includes the idea that the Church is the object of the Lord’s special joy, for a man’s portion is that in which he takes delight. See what terms He uses; He calls them His dwelling place. “In Jewry is God known, His name is great in Israel, in Salem also is His tabernacle, and His dwelling place in Zion.” “For the Lord hath chosen Zion; He hath desired it for His habitation.” Where is a man most at ease? Why, at home. We are expressly told that the Church is the Lord’s rest. “This is My rest forever, here will I dwell, for I have desired it.” As if all the world beside were His workshop, and His Church His rest. In the boundless universe He is busy marshalling the stars, riding upon the wings of the wind, making the clouds His chariot; but in His Church He is at rest, in Zion the Everlasting One spends His Sabbaths. Yet further, there is an unrivalled picture in the Word where the Lord is even represented as singing with joy over His people. Who could have conceived of the Eternal One as bursting forth into a song. Yet it is written, He will rejoice over thee with joy, He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing. As He looked upon the world, He spoke and said, “It is very good,” but He did not sing. And as He vieweth the works of providence, I hear not that He sings; but when He gazes on you, the purchase of Jesus blood, His own chosen ones, the great heart of the Infinite restrains itself no longer, but, wonder of wonders, God, the Eternal One, sings out of the joy of His soul. Truly, “the Lord’s portion is His people.”

4. Our text teaches us that God’s people are His everlasting possession. He will never sell His children at a price; nor if He could have better people instead, would He change them. They are His, and they shall be His while time lasts; and when time ends, and eternity rolls on, He never can, He never will cast away His chosen people. Let us in this rejoice and be exceeding glad. “The Lord’s portion is His people.” (C. H. Spurgeon)

God’s dealings with His ancient people. God “found” Israel. Of His own inscrutable love, God chose to take this people to Himself; He found them, and made them into a nation for His praise. And it is said, “He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness.” I apprehend that this expression may relate as well to the position in which the children of Israel were at first found of God, in slavery in Egypt, as to their position during their forty years’ sojourn in the wilderness. Then it is said further, that “He led him about.” This is in allusion to the circumstance that God did not lead the people by a straight path through the wilderness, from the margin of the Red Sea towards the promised land; but in place of this, forty years were occupied in a circuitous route. And as He thus led the people about, “He instructed” them. He instructed them by many a type, by many a providential dealing, by many statutes and ordinances such as were given to no other nation besides. He instructed them by mercies, by warnings, by judgments; He instructed them by many a token of loving kindness, by many an interposition of power, by many a signal manifestation of His determination to bless the obedient and to punish the transgressors. And during the whole period, it is further said, “He kept him as the apple of His eye.” He shielded them by His power, made it plain to all their enemies that the broad shield of Omnipotence was thrown over them, and that He was determined to protect them from peril, and to put them in possession of the land which He had promised to their fathers that He would give them.
​
II. Such is the literal application of the words. Now, let us look at their spiritual accommodation—their accommodation to the spiritual Israel of God.

1. First, here is the believer “found” of God. “We love Him because He first loved us.” Where does God find him? “In a desert land,” etc. There is nothing in creation from which we can obtain the supply of the soul’s spiritual wants. And even after a person has been found of God the description still holds. We have no fixed habitation upon earth; and we are in constant danger from enemies. But oh! it is a blessed thing to know, that just as God of old found His people Israel in the waste howling wilderness and in the desert land, so He finds His people still; and the proof of His finding them is that He leads them. And here, too, the description given in the text is very accurate, for it is said, “He led him about.”

2. Often manifold trials enter into the dealings of God with His people; He permits them to encounter sharp afflictions, unexpected trials, it may be heartrending bereavements; He takes from them the earthly prop upon which they were wont to lean too fondly. But of this be assured: however God may lead His people about, He leads them by the right way.

3. Then, again; all the while God is thus leading His people about, He is instructing them. Have you not experienced this? A Christian has to grow in knowledge as well as in grace. As God continues His providential dealings towards us, we come to take a wider survey of the love and faithfulness and goodness of God in all His dealings with us. God instructs us in our own weakness and His all-sufficiency, our corruption and His grace, our own frailty and His constancy, our unbelief, and His unwavering faithfulness to His Word. And thus the believer is instructed; and he comes to take a bolder step, and to feel his stand more secure, as being anchored upon the Rock of Ages, and putting his trust in the sure Word of God.

4. And then we must notice, further, that it is said, “He kept him as the apple of His eye.” What a beautiful metaphor this is! Of all the bodily organs that God has given to us, the eye is the most exquisitely tender and sensitive. You know how the tiniest particle of dust will irritate and distress the delicate fibre's of this tender and sensitive organ; yet of all the organs of our body it is the most exquisitely provided for; and the very guards that God has placed about it are so sensitive and so quick to the perception of danger, that the very eye itself may be defended. Now, this is the figure that God makes use of in order to present His watchful guardianship over His saints. “He kept him as the apple of His eye,” watched him with unceasing vigilance, placed around him unnumbered guards, defended him with the utmost possible precaution for his real welfare, and thus Shielded and protected him from approaching danger. God thus guards and defends His people. It is said they are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.” And is there a man who walks this earth so happy, so truly blessed as the man who is thus under the guardianship of God? (Bp. R. Bickersteth.)

How are they his? By his own sovereign choice. He chose them, and set his love upon them. This he did altogether apart from any goodness in them at the time, or any goodness which he foresaw in them. He had mercy on whom he would have mercy, and ordained a chosen company unto eternal life; thus, therefore, are they his by his unconstrained election.
​
They are not only his by choice, but by purchase. He has bought and paid for them to the utmost farthing, hence about his title there can be no dispute. Not with corruptible things, as with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord's portion has been fully redeemed. There is no mortgage on his estate; no suits can be raised by opposing claimants, the price was paid in open court, and the Church is the Lord's freehold for ever. See the blood-mark upon all the chosen, invisible to human eye, but known to Christ, for "the Lord knoweth them that are his"; he forgetteth none of those whom he has redeemed from among men; he counts the sheep for whom he laid down his life, and remembers well the Church for which he gave himself.

They are also his by conquest. What a battle he had in us before we would be won! How long he laid siege to our hearts! How often he sent us terms of capitulation! but we barred our gates, and fenced our walls against him. Do we not remember that glorious hour when he carried our hearts by storm? When he placed his cross against the wall, and scaled our ramparts, planting on our strongholds the blood-red flag of his omnipotent mercy? Yes, we are, indeed, the conquered captives of his omnipotent love. Thus chosen, purchased, and subdued, the rights of our divine possessor are inalienable: we rejoice that we never can be our own; and we desire, day by day, to do his will, and to show forth his glory.
(Charles Spurgeon- Morning Devotion)

​I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments,
​and I will stain all my raiment. Isa 63:3
We Behold the Redeemer

DESERTED BY HUMAN FRIENDS. No human friends could understand or sympathize in the work of Christ. It is the fate of many men to go through life alone. They may have many relatives, acquaintances, companions, and derive much pleasure from their society; but they may never meet with a truly “kindred spirit. Them are two kinds of loneliness—the isolation of distance and the loneliness of the heart; and the latter is the far more complete and sad of the two. The fisherman, alone at night upon the sea, with no other living being near, no sound but the plashing of the wavelets, no sight but of the occasional struggling of a star through the clouds, may be in spirit at his cottage home upon the beach, and space and time are annihilated, and his heart peopled with many a dear familiar form. But far different is the loneliness of the heart! What solitude is there comparable to the spiritual loneliness of him who, with a soul filled with sadness, finds himself jostled in the midst of a gay and pleasure-seeking crowd? So is it with the man of transcendent goodness or genius. Such a one must, to a greater or less extent, be lonely. This it was which constituted the peculiar bitterness of the trial of Elijah (1Ki_19:14). It has often been said that the possession of a real and truehearted friend is at once the greatest and the rarest of earthly blessings; such a friend as was Jonathan to David. But if such friendships are rare among men, how utterly impossible was it that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, should find a friend and sympathizer, in the truest sense of those words, among the sons of men. Twelve chosen associates, indeed, He had, but they were utterly incapable, as long as He lived below, even of understanding Him, much less could they enter into, and sympathize with, the great work of His life and death. That work was essentially a lonely one. For--
1. He alone could accomplish our redemption.
2. Christ was alone in His foreknowledge. We often hear those who have passed through some heavy trial say, “ If I had known beforehand what I had to endure, I could not have borne it; I should have sunk under the appalling prospect!” So mercifully has our Heavenly Father, knowing our frame, hidden the things that are to be from our eyes. But there was this ineffable aggravation of the grief of the “Man of sorrows, that, to the suffering of the present, there was superadded the heavier prospect of the future.
3. Then, too, from the Divine purity and loftiness of His soul, Christ suffered far more than any mere man could suffer. The more refined and elevated a man’s nature is, the more sensitive he is apt to be; the keener are his sorrows, and the more ecstatic his joys. But sin, and death its punishment, the whole world’s burden of which rested upon the pure soul of the Redeemer, had for Him a dark and dreadful reality of horror, inconceivable by any of us whose innermost heart has been tainted with the love of sin.
4. Moreover, in another way, the grief of the Lord Jesus Christ in this world was what the sorrow of no mere man could be, the sorrow of the Creator in the midst of His mined works.
5. Yet again, in His power of omniscience He stood “alone.” “He that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.” If we could discern the secrets of all hearts, if the thoughts and desires of a crowd could be rendered audible to us, how continually should we be overwhelmed with shame and horror. But Christ knew all men.
​
LEFT ALONE BY GOD. When He foretold to the disciples their desertion, He added, “And yet I am not alone, because My Father is with Me.” But in the hour of His deepest agony there was an exception even to that companionship of eternity. Far otherwise has it been with the martyrs of Jesus, and with all His faithful people since, in the “article of death.”
Conclusion:
1. Christ “trod the winepress alone” for you. Mourn, therefore, and rejoice.
2. Christ will “tread the winepress alone” again: the winepress of the wrath of God.
3. It is oftentimes the lot of God’s people to be called upon in some degree to “tread the winepress alone.” Daniel had to do so. But remember for your encouragement that, in the highest sense, you never can be alone in the conflict. Your Savior met the world, the flesh, and the devil alone, that you might never have to wage a single-handed warfare, never be left without a higher Presence in the good fight of faith. (H. E. Nolloth, M. A.)

"Why is Your apparel red, and Your garments like one who treads in the winepress? “I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples, no one was with Me. For I have trodden them in My anger, and trampled them in My fury; their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, and I have stained all My robes. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed has come. I looked, but there was no one to help, and I wondered that there was no one to uphold; therefore My own arm brought salvation for Me; and My own fury, it sustained Me. I have trodden down the peoples in My anger, made them drunk in My fury, and brought down their strength to the earth.”
​
Why is Your apparel red: The prophet asks why the garment of the LORD is red, and the LORD answers, “I have trodden the winepress alone . . . their blood is sprinkled upon My garments.” This promise is fulfilled when Jesus returns to the earth, and this passage is clearly behind passages like Rev_19:13; Rev_19:15 : He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God . . . Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

I have trodden the winepress alone reminds us that this work of judgment belongs to Jesus Christ and He alone. Though we will be part of the heavenly armies that accompany Jesus (Rev_19:14), the work of judgment belongs to Him alone. The point is even emphasized by Isaiah: From the peoples no one was with Me . . . My own arm brought salvation for Me; and My own fury, it sustained Me.

In God’s great plan of the Ages, Jesus will accomplish two things alone. First, He atones for our sin alone. He alone hung on the cross, bearing the weight of all our guilt. Second, He judges the world alone. God does not need us to execute His ultimate judgment; we leave that to Him.

“You will hear one say, that such-and-such a good man was punished for his transgressions; and I have known believers who think that their afflictions were punishments sent from God on account of their sins. The thing is impossible; God has punished us, who are his people, once for all in Christ, and he never will punish us again. He cannot do it, seeing he is a just God. Afflictions are chastisements from a Father’s hand, but they are not judicial punishments. Jesus has trodden the wine-press, and he has trodden it alone: so we cannot tread it.” (Charles Spurgeon)

​Rev 19:13  And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. 
Rev 19:14  And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. 
Rev 19:15  And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 
Rev 19:16  And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. 

​For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. 1Cor 1:17-19
​Christ the Wisdom and Power of God

Apollos had gone straight from Ephesus to Corinth, Act_19:1. A party gathered around him, especially attracted by his eloquence and intellectual brilliance. Cephas was Peter, and around his name the more conservative elements gathered. Christ, stood for the promised glory of the Messianic kingdom. Paul was filled with dismay on hearing that a fourth division of the Church called themselves by his name. He told the Corinthians that whatever any of their human teachers had done for them, they had contributed only different phases or viewpoints of truth, all of which service sank into absolute insignificance as contrasted with the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.
The cross here implies not only the doctrine of the Atonement, but the humble bearing of the cross in daily life. There are many who wear a cross as an article of dress, but who evince nothing of its pitying, self-immolating, sacrificial spirit. Everyone needs a Calvary in the heart. Note from 1Co_1:18, R.V., margin, that being saved is a process, as well as an immediate experience. Oh to have grace to know the Cross, never to be ashamed of it, and to preach a crucified Savior in a humble, crucified spirit.
[F.B. Meyer]

As Paul repudiates the idea that he had given any countenance to the founding of a Pauline party, it occurs to him that some may say, True enough, he did not baptize; but his preaching may more effectually have won partisans than even baptizing them into his own name could have done. And so Paul goes on to show that his preaching was not that of a demagogue or party-leader, but was a bare statement of fact, garnished by absolutely nothing which could divert attention from the fact either to the speaker or to his style. Paul explains to the Corinthians--

I. The style of preaching he had adopted while with them
1. His time in Corinth, he assures them, had been spent, not in propagating a system of truth which might have been identified with his name, but in presenting the Cross of Christ. In approaching them he had necessarily weighed in his own mind the comparative merits of various modes of presenting the gospel, and he well knew that a new philosophy clothed in elegant language was likely to secure a number of disciples. And it was quite in Paul’s power to present the gospel as a philosophy; but he “determined not to know anything among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

2. Paul then deliberately trusted to the bare statement of facts and not to any theory about these facts. In preaching to audiences with whom the facts are familiar, it is perfectly justifiable to draw inferences from them and to theorise about them. Paul himself spoke “wisdom among them that were perfect.” But what is to be noted is that for doing the work proper to the gospel, for making men Christians, it is not theory or explanation, but fact, that is effective. It is the presentation of Christ as He is presented in the Gospels which stands in the first rank of efficiency as a means of evangelising the world. The actor does not instruct his audience how they should be affected by the play; he so presents the scene that they instinctively smile or find their eyes fill. Those onlookers at the crucifixion who beat their breasts were not told that they should feel compunction; it was enough that they saw the Crucified. So it is always; it is the direct vision of the Cross, and not anything which is said about it, which is most effective in producing penitence and faith.

3. The very fact that it was a Person, not a system of philosophy, that Paul proclaimed Was sufficient proof that he was not anxious to become the founder of a school or the head of a party. And that which permanently distinguishes Christianity from all philosophies is that it presents to men, not a system of truth to be understood, but a Person to be relied upon. Christianity is for all men and not for the select, highly educated few; and it depends therefore not on exceptional ability to see truth, but on the universal human emotions of love and trust.  (M. Dods, D. D.)

Christianity is like all science. The discoveries in science are such as to confound the wise in their own conceits, and overthrow the opinions of the prudent, just as much as the gospel does, and thus show that both are from the same God - the God who delights to pour such a flood of truth on the mind as to overwhelm it in admiration of himself, and with the conviction of its own littleness. The profoundest theories in science, and the most subtle speculations of people of genius, in regard to the causes of things, are often overthrown by a few simple discoveries - and discoveries which are at first despised as much as the gospel is. The invention of the telescope by Galileo was to the theories of philosophers and astronomers, what the revelation of the gospel was to the systems of ancient learning, and the deductions of human wisdom. The one confounded the world as much as the other; and both were at first equally the object of opposition or contempt.  (Excerpt from Albert Barnes comm.)

​"Of wise men - of the philosophers who in their investigations seek nothing less than God, and whose highest discoveries amount to nothing in comparison of the grand truths relative to God, the invisible world, and the true end of man, which the Gospel has brought to light. Let me add, that the very discoveries which are really useful have been made by men who feared God, and conscientiously credited Divine revelation: witness Newton, Boyle, Pascal, and many others. But all the skeptics and deists, by their schemes of natural religion and morality, have not been able to save one soul! No sinner has ever been converted from the error of his ways by their preaching or writings." 
(Excerpt from Adam Clarke)

​The Gospel as Preached by Paul

Amid all the diversities of doctrine and ritual there are some things which must be found in all Christian preaching: that Christ alone can save men; that He can save any man and all men; that He saves men completely and for ever. No man can be said to preach the gospel who does not make these thoughts central and controlling. He may preach very important and helpful truth; but until he makes Christ the ground, the motive, and the end of his teaching, he is not a preacher of the gospel. The gospel is good news. It is not the publication of the moral law. It is not telling men what they ought to be and do. The ministry of Christ was not needed to teach that lesson. Conscience proclaims it, and universal experience confirms it. It is not equivalent to the affirmation of the eternal and universal Fatherhood of the Holy One. It implies this, but it is more. That consoling thought is imbedded in the Old Testament. Paul affirmed more than that. In his preaching the person of Christ assumes central and permanent prominence. In Him the law of God is fulfilled and honoured. In Him the love of God leaps from the heavens to the earth links itself with the burden and guilt of humanity, challenges the powers of darkness and the might of death, achieving a practical and eternal victory. Fear rules paganism, hope smiles in the Old Testament, assurance is the ringing keynote of the gospel. So much for the contents of the gospel. It is crowded into this sentence: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”
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II. But does the world need such a message? Can we not get along fairly well without it? That is the very question which Paul discussed in Rom_1:1-32. What does the world need? Righteousness. That secured and the millennium would be there. But the one thing most needed is the thing most difficult to create and promote. It cannot be said that there has been any lack of earnest attempts. Confucius, Sakya-Muni, Zoroaster, and Socrates, tried to supply the want. But the multitudes were deaf to their appeal; and Rome at the zenith of her culture was but a “veneered brutality.” And mightily endowed as Judiasm was it failed to achieve even its own reformation. The men who boasted in the law trampled upon it every day. A mightier hand than that of Socrates, or of Moses, was needed to save the world. A more than human hand, though nerved by an inspired heart, must smite the ranks of evil.

III. But granting that the world needs just the help which the gospel declares has been brought to it. “will even this secure the desired result? To this we can only answer, first, if it does not then God is clearly and hopelessly defeated, for a greater than Christ cannot, come to the rescue; and second, if Christ be what the gospel affirms Him to be, the triumph of righteousness is a foregone conclusion. Hence the tone of victory in the New Testament is always in the present tense. “Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory.” “This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.” This is our highest assurance. It receives impressive confirmation in the historical triumphs of Christianity. Its moral conquest of the civilizations of Rome and Greece are unquestioned. Its restraining and reorganizing energy during the Middle Ages is freely admitted. Its profound and salutary influence upon modern life is beyond cavil; but there is a more direct and living proof of its power. Hundreds among you can bear testimony to the grace of salvation in Jesus Christ. What the gospel has done for you it can do for all.
​(A. J. F. Behrends, D. D.)