Many, but One.
It would seem as if in the slow progress of some men's minds the last discovery that they make is that truth is many-sided; they have gone on year after year mistaking a statement of truth for the entire truth itself, until at last, perhaps in communion with some larger-hearted disciple of another faith, they have found the statement far too narrow for the larger conceptions which have happily dawned upon them. In the text we have
I. The very first principle of Christian charity. The Gospel is the expression of God's endeavour to bring man to His own standpoint; and what is true of character must also be true of thought: the liberal-mindedness of a truly Christian man is not the indifference of one whose hold upon his own principles is so slight that it does not seem to him to matter what a man believes, but is rather the recognition of a great circle of truth in God's purpose, of which many differing statements may be simply segments, imperfectly seen. We constantly admit this principle even in the degrees of human knowledge. Truth has its dim and limited visions in dark places and the full blaze of its day and brightness, and the whole spirit of Christ's demand upon us is that not only shall we seek always to dwell in the fullest possible light which we can see, but, much more than that, we are to bear ourselves also with the reverence and the charity of men who believe that truth is greater and broader than any vision of ours can realise, and that the statement which to us appears a full light may to another, nearer to God, be miserably imperfect and insufficient.
II. With all the variety of service in the early Church, there was one thing in which the differing parties were absolutely at one: "They would that we should remember the poor, which very thing I also was zealous to do." The ministry to the needy was something concerning which there was no cause to dispute. The Apostles, on one side, are eager to make it a condition of service; the great Apostle, upon the other side, is even more eager to fulfil that condition. It is, I think, perfectly clear that the selfsame spirit which enabled them to take the broad catholic view of the Gospel which they preached would necessarily involve this desire to minister to the poor. In the history of men's thoughts of God we may almost compare the approach to Him to the approach to a fortified city. At the outer circle are the fortresses and defences: there are the polemics, the mere theologians, those whose chief activity is about the letter and theory of their religious faith. The next circle is the city itself: those who are chiefly concerned about God's government, whose chief speech is of law and order and justice. The next circle is the temple, the religious part of the city life: these are the devout, religious souls whose religion is yet something of a restraint. But beyond the temple is the home of the city's King, and there are the beginnings and the causes of all; whatever is there must determine all the rest. Christ's great Gospel is that there is love, and that for this love He came to fulfil God's great redeeming purpose, and it is essential that all who seek in any fashion to forward that purpose should date their inspiration from there.
W. H. Harwood, Christian World Pulpit,vol. 1., p. 379.
References: Galatians 2:9. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 248. Galatians 2:10. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. ii., No. 99; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 77. Galatians 2:11. Archbishop Thomson, Church of England Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 1; S. Pearson, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 42.Galatians 2:11-21. W. M. Taylor, Paul the Missionary,p. 186. Galatians 2:16. Homilist,4th series, vol. i., p. 214.