?The Sermon Bible Commentary ? Luke (Vol. 1)?(William R. Nicoll)

?The Sermon Bible Commentary - Luke (Vol. 1)?(William R. Nicoll)

Editor
Sir William Robertson Nicoll CH (October 10, 1851 - May 4, 1923) was a
Scottish Free Church minister, journalist, editor, and man of letters.
Nicoll was born in Lumsden, Aberdeenshire, the son of a Free Church
minister. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and graduated MA at
the University of Aberdeen in 1870, and studied for the ministry at the
Free Church Divinity Hall there until 1874, when he was ordained minister
of the Free Church at Dufftown, Banffshire. Three years later he moved to
Kelso, and in 1884 became editor of The Expositor for Hodder & Stoughton, a
position he held until his death.
In 1885 Nicoll was forced to retire from pastoral ministry after an attack
of typhoid had badly damaged his lung. In 1886 he moved south to London,
which became the base for the rest of his life. With the support of Hodder
and Stoughton he founded the British Weekly, a Nonconformist newspaper,
which also gained great influence over opinion in the churches in Scotland.
Nicoll secured many writers of exceptional talent for his paper (including
Marcus Dods, J. M. Barrie, Ian Maclaren, Alexander Whyte, Alexander
Maclaren, and James Denney), to which he added his own considerable talents
as a contributor. He began a highly popular feature, "Correspondence of
Claudius Clear", which enabled him to share his interests and his reading
with his readers. He was also the founding editor of The Bookman from 1891,
and acted as chief literary adviser to the publishing firm of Hodder &
Stoughton.
Among his other enterprises were The Expositor's Bible and The Theological
Educator. He edited The Expositor's Greek Testament (from 1897), and a
series of Contemporary Writers (from 1894), and of Literary Lives (from
1904).
He projected but never wrote a history of The Victorian Era in English
Literature, and edited, with T. J. Wise, two volumes of Literary Anecdotes
of the Nineteenth Century. He was knighted in 1909, ostensibly for his
literrary work, but in reality probably more for his long-term support for
the Liberal Party. He was appointed to the Order of the Companions of
Honour (CH) in the 1921 Birthday Honours.

01 Chapter 1

Verse 3-4
Luke 1:3-4
Scripture and the Authority of the Church.
I. St. Luke tells Theophilus that it seemed good to him to write in order
an account of our Lord's life and death, that Theophilus might know the
certainty of those things in which he had been instructed; and this, as a
general rule, might well describe one great use of the Scripture to each of
us: as individual members of Christ's Church, it enables us to know the
certainty of the things in which we have been instructed.
II. Our individual faith, although grounded in the first instance on
parental authority, yet rests afterwards on wholly different grounds;
namely, on the direct evidence in confirmation of it which is presented to
our own minds. But with regard to those who are called the Fathers of the
Church, it is contended sometimes that we do receive the Scriptures, in the
end, upon their authority; and it is argued that, if their authority is
sufficient for so great a thing as this, it must be sufficient for
everything else; that if, in short, we believe the Scriptures for their
sake, then we ought also to believe other things which they may tell us,
even though they are not to be found in Scripture; In this argument there
is the great fault that it mistakes the question at the outset. The
authority of the Fathers, as they are called, is never to any sound mind
the only reason for believing in the Scriptures. In truth, the internal
evidence in favour of the authenticity of the Scriptures is that on which
the mind can rest with far greater satisfaction than on any external
testimonies, however valuable. It has been wonderfully ordered, that the
books, generally speaking, are their own witness. When, therefore, we are
told that, as we believe the Scriptures themselves upon tradition, so we
should believe other things also, the answer is, that we do not believe the
Scriptures either entirely or principally upon what is called tradition;
but upon their own internal evidence, and that the opinions of the early
Christians, like those of other men, may be very good on certain points,
and to a certain degree, without being good in all points and absolutely.
T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iv., p. 236.
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Verse 5
Luke 1:5
Man's Extremity-God's Opportunity.
Reflect:-
I. On the low ebb to which the fortunes of the house of Israel were reduced
at the period when St. John the Baptist was miraculously born. The very
language in which the sacred books are written, had long ceased to be a
spoken language. The noble spirit of the ancient days had, in a great
measure, died out. The very nationality of the Jews had been broken up.
Mixed races inhabited Galilee; aliens dwelt in the cities of Samaria; Judea
itself had become a conquered province. An Idumæan was king, and even he
was but the viceroy of a higher Gentile power. A Roman governor dwelt at
Cæsarea, and had his law court in the capital. The descendants of Abraham
were heard to declare: "We have no king but Cæsar."
II. The state of religion and morals. What a degraded people the Jews must
have been, that the very ministers of religion should have deserved such
reproaches as our Lord showered down upon them in the twenty-third chapter
of St. Matthew's Gospel! Their shameful way of evading the law of God-even
the law of nature-by a system of quibbling traditions; their shameful
violation of the law of marriage; their neglect of the Fifth Commandment;
their hollowness about the Fourth; all that happened in the highest
quarters in the matter of our Lord's betrayal, death, resurrection, showing
such an utter contempt for truth, justice, right;-you cannot read and weigh
the story carefully without feeling that the race must have been degraded
and corrupt; that, indeed, things had sunk to a miserably low ebb
everywhere.
III. Now it was at such a time as this, that the message of the Angel
Gabriel to Zacharias, as he officiated in the Temple at Jerusalem, conveyed
the first tidings of the coming Gospel. When night was darkest the day
began to dawn, and the first faint streak of light-the harbinger and
earnest of the glory that was to follow-was that message of the Angel. The
lesson is to us a consolation, a help, and a warning. Be content to leave
the future of thy Church, thy country, in the hand of God. In His own good
time He will work-work wondrously, but not yet. The night is darkest before
the springing of the day. The gathering clouds are meant to conceal the
coming glory. Let the shadows, therefore, yet deepen apace, and be thou
patient.
J. W. Burgon, Ninety-one Short Sermons, No. 60.
References: Luke 1:6.-Preacher's Monthly, vol. i., p. 40. Luke 1:6-80.-A.
B. Bruce, The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 14. Luke 1:8-23.-Ibid., p. 41.
Luke 1:10.-Preacher's Monthly, vol. vii., p. 175.
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Verse 15
Luke 1:15
I. What makes people great in the sight of men? Several things do this; but
birth, money, and talents are the chief things which give this kind of
greatness.
II. What makes people great in the sight of God? It is not any of the
things which lead to greatness in man's sight. A person may be born of the
greatest king that ever lived, and be as rich as Stephen Gerard, and have
many talents, and yet be never great at all in the sight of God. And then,
on the other hand, a person may be born in a garret or a cellar, and never
have any money to call his own, and no talent at all to to do anything that
men call great, and yet may be really great in the sight of the Lord. What
made John the Baptist great? And, what will make others as great as he was?
The answer is-Obedience. It was simply his obedience which led to all
John's greatness. He did just what God wanted him to do. He did nothing
else, and he did this all the time. And if we obey God, as John did, it
will make us great in His sight too. All the greatness which people get in
men's sight is little and empty; but it is vast, wonderful, substantial
greatness which they get who become great in the sight of God.
III. Why is it better to be great in the sight of the Lord than in the
sight of men? We may answer the question by saying that it is so for three
reasons. (1) Greatness in God's sight is better than greatness in man's
sight because it is more useful. Great men in God's sight are more useful
than others by their example. Now the most useful thing that can be done to
anybody is to make him a Christian. But there is nothing like the influence
of a Christian's example to help to make others Christians. (2) This
greatness is more lasting than the other. Greatness in man's sight-a
greatness that connects itself with birth, or money, or talents merely-will
soon pass away; but greatness in God's sight-a greatness that connects
itself with our being made good and holy-will never pass away. (3) It is
within the reach of all. This is not true of greatness in the sight of men,
but it is true of greatness in the sight of God. But there were three
things in John's case that we must remember if we want to succeed: (1) John
began early; (2) John had the Holy Spirit to help him; (3) John gave up
everything that was likely to hinder him from becoming great.
R. Newton, Rills from the Fountain of Life, p. 71.
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References: Luke 1:15.-J. Keble, Sermons for Saints' Days, p. 257; J. H.
Hancock, Christian World P