Matthew 10:2

Matthew 10:2

Brotherhood in Christ.

The world is covered with a network of brotherhoods. The first and simplest relationships run in and out in every direction, and multiply themselves till hardly any man stands entirely alone. This network of brotherhoods, like every evident fact of life, sets us to asking three questions: (1) What is its immediate cause? (2) What is its direct result? (3) What is its final reason?

I. The natural relations which exist between man and man have one at least of their purposes, and one of their most sacred purposes, in this that they are God's great system, along whose lines He means to diffuse His truth and influence through the world. Every higher and more spiritual influence avails itself of this same first fact of related human life, this fact that no man stands alone, but each is bound by some kind of kinship in with all the rest.

II. If religion spreads itself among mankind along the lines of man's natural affections and relationships, the results which we may look for will be two: (1) the exaltation and refinement of those affections and relationships themselves; and (2) the simplifying and humanizing of religion. We all know how the natural relations between human creatures all have their downward as well as their upward tendency, their animal as well as their spiritual side. The lusts of power and pride, and cruelty and passion, all come in to make foul and mean that which ought to be pure and high. What is there that can keep the purity and loftiness of domestic life? What is there that can preserve the colour and glory of the family like the perpetual consciousness, running through all the open channels of its life, that they are being used to convey the truth and power of God? The father who counts himself one link in the ever-developing perpetuation of truth among mankind, handing on to his children what has been already handed down to him; the brother who without struggle or effort feels all that he believes flowing through this life into the open life of the brother by his side; are not these the men in whom brotherhood and fatherhood keep their true dignity, and never grow base, jealous, tawdry, or tyrannical? Everything keeps its best nature only by being put to its best use.

Phillips Brooks, Twenty Sermons,p. 76.

Reference: Matthew 10:2. J. Foster, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 366.