Receive our blog posts in your email by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.
No course of lectures which I have ever heard has been a greater source of guidance and strength than the Stone Lectures of 1891. The lecturer was Professor Robert Ellis Thompson, of the University of Pennsylvania, one of our ablest economists and the foremost advocate, among university teachers of his time, of the theory of protective tariffs. He was also a devoted Christian minister and we had few preachers in America who could equal him in the weight and originality of his sermons. He had one famous sermon on “The Sending of the Apostles Two by Two.” After preaching it in the Walnut Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia a friend urged him to repeat it. Dr. Thompson replied: “Why, Sparhawk, that is the one hundred and fifty-third time I have preached that sermon.” It was a sermon worthy of an even longer tenure. — Robert E. Speer, The Finality of Christ (1933), p. 11
It was indeed a notable sermon that Robert Ellis Thompson preached and a theme that he developed over the years regarding the Apostles. He published:
The Sending of the Apostles, Two by Two: A Sermon (1890)
What Became of the Apostles (1890)
The Sending of the Apostles (1894)
The Apostles as Everyday Men (1910)
In these works, Thompson spoke of the individuality of each Apostle, and their respective contributions to the church, but also how they meshed together to help the Church united. They were fishermen, weak, impetuous, full of character and foibles, essentially ordinary men like all of us. Distinctive in their character, but not spiritual supermen of faith, they needed the grace of God as much as we do.
Why, you find that these twelve apostles were just men like ourselves, men of our frailties, men of our weaknesses, our failures, our doubts. We can look upon the story and see how Christ chose just such men as we are to take part in His ministry and form His first church, and we can feel that there is a place for us in His church. We can feel that we were represented in that first little company, that our doubts were met and overcome — our questions were answered, and that such as we are still welcome to His company as He goes on to do and to teach what He "began to do and to teach" in the Church of the Apostles (The Sending of the Apostles Two by Two (1890), p. 3).
Each Apostle has a name, and the list of names makes up a company that “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). But in examining the names one by one, we find that each character, standing alone, has little to commend itself to the wisdom of God in calling such men to such an important task. Yet, “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24) called these men and in doing so confounded the wise of this world, and brought remarkably unexpected unity to the early Church.
Who would have thought that Doubting Thomas and Matthew the Publican would have made good partners in the project to advance God’s kingdom in the earth? Or that zealous Peter and cautious Andrew would both as brothers have their particular contributions to make towards the Apostolic mission? But we see in the calling of particular men, somewhat unalike in comparison, but with traits and characteristics having much in common with the rest of humanity, that the Apostolic team has much to teach us about the nature of the Church and God’s wisdom in assembling such a diverse tapestry of men for one noble task.
So the Master made one whole man out of two halfmen. And so his chugch should go forth, two by two, each with the one most unlike himself, and therefore best able to help him. The sect spirit bids them separate on the ground of these innocent differences of temper and disposition. Christ bids them unite the closer through such differences, When we heed him, and become “rooted and grounded in love,” then shall we “be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge” (The Sending of the Apostles (1894)).
This is the great lesson for the Church taught by the calling of such unique, yet everyday, men. We are many, and we are not much to look at individually, but we are one in Christ, and Christ is “altogether lovely” (Song of Solomon 5:16) to behold. Our differences in personality and in gifts ought not to divide us, but rather to unite us in common cause as they did in the case of the Apostles. Having all been raised out of the same “miry clay” (Ps. 40:2), there is no room for pride, but there is plenty of work to be done in the Lord if we, by the grace of God, would once again “turn the world upside down.”
