The Acts of the Apostles (1911) — PDF Scan 277

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APOLLOS AT CORINTH 271 Paul had necessarily adapted Ms manner of teaching to the condition of the church. ^'I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual," he afterward explained to them, ^'but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. ' ' ' Many of the Corinthian believers had been slow to learn the lessons that he was endeavoring to teach them. Their advancement in spiritual knowledge had not been proportionate to their privileges and opportunities. When they should have been far advanced in Christian experience, and able to comprehend and to practise the deeper truths of the Word, they were standing where the disciples stood when Christ said to them, ''I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. ' ' ' Jealousy, evilsurmising, and accusation had closed the hearts of many of the Corinthian believers against the full working of the Holy Spirit, which ''searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. ' ^ * However wise they might be in worldly knowledge, they were but babes in the knowledge of Christ. It had been PauPs work to instruct the Corinthian converts in the rudiments, the very alphabet, of the Christian faith. He had been obliged to instruct them as those who were ignorant of the operations of divine power upon the heart. At that time they were unable to comprehend the mysteries of salvation; for ''the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are ^1 Cor. 3:1,2. ^ John 16:12. *1 Cor. 2:10, 18 — Acts