Voices and influences
Albert Barnes
The Philadelphia pastor who rose at four every morning to write Bible notes for his own Sunday school, and sold a million volumes of them.
Summary
This site quotes Albert Barnes 8,265 times across 66 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived 1798 to 1870.
- Quoted here most in Isaiah: 746 of 8,265.
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Albert Barnes
- Lived
- 1798 to 1870
- Tradition
- Presbyterian
5 of 8,265 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Albert Barnes died in 1870 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts - Interpreters have differed in regard to the connection of this verse with the preceding.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
The rest of the quotation
It is evident, I think, that it is properly connected with the subject of pardon; and the sense must be, that the plans and purposes of God in regard to forgiveness are as far above those of people as the heavens are higher than the earth, Isa 55:
Isaiah 55:8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. BSB
He hath shewed thee - Micah does not tell them now, as for the first time; which would have excused them. He says, “He hath shewed thee;” He, about whose mind and will and pleasure they were pretending to enquire, the Lord their God.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
The rest of the quotation
He had shewn it to them. The law was full of it. He shewed it to them, when He said, “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him and to serve the Lord, thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command thee this day for thy good?” Deu 10:12-13. They had asked, “with what outward thing shall I come before the Lord;” the prophet tells them, “what thing is good,” the inward man of the heart, righteousness, love, humility. And what doth the Lord require (search, seek) of thee? - The very word implies an earnest search within. He would say (Rup.), “Trouble not thyself as to any of these things, burnt-offerings, rams, calves, without thee. For God seeketh not thine, but thee; not thy substance, but thy spirit; not ram or goat, but thy heart.” : “Thou askest, what thou shouldest offer for thee? Other thyself. For what else doth the Lord seek of thee, but thee? Because, of all earthly creatures, He hath made nothing better than thee, He seeketh thyself from thyself, because thou hadst lost thyself.” To do judgment - are chiefly all acts of equity; “to love mercy,” all deeds of love. Judgment, is what right requires; mercy, what love. Yet, secondarily, “to do judgment” is to pass righteous judgments in all cases; and so, as to others, “judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” Joh 7:24; and as to one’s self also. Judge equitably and kindly of others, humbly of thyself. […]
Micah 6:8 He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? BSB
(Compare Exo. 39:1-31.) Moses is now commanded to commit all that pertains to the offerings made to the Lord in the sanctuary to the exclusive charge of the members of a single family, who were to hold their office from generation to generation.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
The rest of the quotation
In the patriarchal times, the external rites of worship had generally been conducted by the head of the tribe or family, in accordance with the principle involved in the dedication of the firstborn Exo 13:2; Num 3:12-
Exodus 28:1 “Next, have your brother Aaron brought to you from among the Israelites, along with his sons Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar, to serve Me as priests. BSB
The leper was to carry about with him the usual signs of mourning for the dead. Compare Lev 10:6 and margin reference.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
The rest of the quotation
The leper was a living parable in the world of the sin of which death was the wages; not the less so because his suffering might have been in no degree due to his own personal deserts: he bore about with him at once the deadly fruit and the symbol of the sin of his race. Exo 20:
Leviticus 13:45 A diseased person must wear torn clothes and let his hair hang loose, and he must cover his mouth and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’ BSB
Chambers - (Margin, floors). Rather, a lean-to, which completely surrounded three sides of the building, the north, the west, and the south.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
1 Kings 6:5 Against the walls of the temple and the inner sanctuary, Solomon built a chambered structure around the temple, in which he constructed the side rooms. BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Albert Barnes 8,265 times across 66 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Albert Barnes was born at Rome, New York, on December 1, 1798. He was headed for the law. At Hamilton College he was converted, changed direction, and went to Princeton Theological Seminary instead, graduating in 1824. His first pastorate was Morristown, New Jersey, from 1825 to 1830. In 1830 he was called to the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, where he preached until 1867 — thirty-seven years in one pulpit. The habit that made him famous was the alarm clock. Barnes rose at four every morning and wrote until nine, before the day's pastoral work began. What he wrote were notes on the Bible for his own Sunday school teachers and Bible class — plain explanations, verse by verse, aimed at people with no Greek and no library. He published them, beginning with the Gospels in 1832. They did not stop. Notes, Explanatory and Practical eventually covered the whole New Testament and much of the Old — Job, the Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel — and sold more than a million volumes in his lifetime, an astonishing number for the period. Generations of American laymen learned their Bible out of Barnes. He was also tried for heresy. His 1829 sermon The Way of Salvation, and then his notes on Romans in 1835, were charged with departing from the Westminster Confession on original sin and the atonement; Barnes taught that Christ's death was a provision made for all rather than a payment restricted in advance to the elect. The Presbytery of Philadelphia suspended him from the ministry in 1835, and the General Assembly reversed the suspension in 1836. He was acquitted, but the fight was one of the fuses of the Old School–New School division that split the American Presbyterian church in 1837. Barnes stood on the New School side. He fought slavery hard and early. An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery (1846) took up the biblical arguments the Southern churches used and dismantled them one at a time; The Church and Slavery followed in 1857. The books were read widely in the North during the years the country came apart. His eyesight failed badly in later life, and he kept working with help. He resigned the pulpit in 1867 and died in Philadelphia on December 24, 1870, at seventy-two. What he left is unusual for a scholar. Not a monument — a tool. A working pastor's commentary, written before breakfast for people who had no one else to explain the text, still in print and still free more than a century and a half later. Sources: Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the New Testament and An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery; the published minutes of the Presbyterian General Assembly, 1835–1837; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church; George Marsden, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.
8,265 quotations across 66 books
Where this voice is quoted
Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly await the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“So that - God has so abundantly endowed you with his favors. Ye come behind - ὑστερεῖσθαι hustereisthai. You are not missing, or deficient.”
God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.
“God is faithful - That is, God is true, and constant, and will adhere to his promises. He will not deceive. He will not promise, and then fail to perform; he will not commence anything which he will not perfect and finish.”
My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.
“For it hath been declared unto me - Of the contentions existing in the church at Corinth, it is evident that they had not informed him in the letter which they had sent; see 1Co 7:1, compare the introduction.”
Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?
“Is Christ divided? - Paul, in this verse, proceeds to show the impropriety of their divisions and strifes. His general argument is, that Christ alone ought to be regarded as their head and leader, and that his claims, arising from his crucifixion, and acknowledged by…”
so no one can say that you were baptized into my name.
“Lest any should say - Lest any of those who had been baptized should pervert his design, and say that Paul had baptized them unto himself; or, lest any others should, with any appearance of truth, say that he had sought to make disciples to…”
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
“For Christ sent me not to baptize - That is, not to baptize as my main business. Baptism was not his principal employment, though be had a commission in common with others to administer the ordinance, and occasionally did it.”
For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
“For it is written - This passage is quoted from Isa 29:14. The Hebrew of the passage, as rendered in the English version is, “the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.””
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who…
“For after that - ἐπειδὴ epeidē. Since, or seeing that it is true that the world by wisdom knew not God.”
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.
“Because the foolishness of God - That which God appoints, requires, commands, does, etc., which appears to people to be foolish.”
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
“But God hath chosen - The fact of their being in the church at all was the result of his choice. It was owing entirely to his grace. The foolish things - The things esteemed foolish among people.”
Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”
“As it is written - This is evidently a quotation made from Jer 9:23-24. It is not made literally; but the apostle has “condensed” the sense of the prophet into a few words, and has retained essentially his idea.”
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.
“And I, brethren - Keeping up the tender and affectionate style of address. When I came unto you - When I came at first to preach the gospel at Corinth. Act 18:1 ff.”
I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.
“And I was with you - Paul continued there at least a year and six months. Act 18:11. In weakness - In conscious feebleness; diffident of my own powers, and not trusting to my own strength.”
so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
“That your faith - That is, that your belief of the divine origin of the Christian religion. Should not stand - Greek, “should not be;” that is, should not rest upon this; or be sustained by this.”
No, we speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, which He destined for our glory before time began.
“But we speak - We who have preached the gospel. The wisdom of God - We teach or proclaim the wise plan of God for the salvation of people; we make known the divine wisdom in regard to the scheme of human redemption.”
Rather, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.”
“But as it is written - This passage is quoted from Isa 64:4. It is not quoted literally; but the sense only is given. The words are found in the apocryphal books of Elijah; and Origen and Jerome supposed that Paul quoted from those books.”
For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
“For what man ... - The design of this is, to illustrate what he had just said by a reference to the way in which man acquires the knowledge of himself.”
The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment.
“But he that is spiritual - The man who is enlightened by the Holy Spirit in contradistinction from him who is under the influence of the senses only. Judgeth - Greek: “Discerns.” (margin); the same word as in the previous verse.”
Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly—as infants in Christ.
“And I, brethren - See 1Co 2:1. This is designed to meet an implied objection. He had said 1Co 2:14-16 that Christians were able to understand all things.”
What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, as the Lord has assigned to each his role.
“Who then is Paul ... - See the notes at 1Co 1:13. Why should a party be formed which should be named after Paul? What has he done or taught that should lead to this?”
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
“Anything - This is to he taken comparatively. They are nothing in comparison with God! Their agency is of no importance compared with his: see the note at 1Co 1:28.”
For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
“For we are labourers together with God - Θεοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν συνεργοί Theou gar esmen sunergoi. We are God’s co-workers. A similar expression occurs in 2Co 6:1, “We then as workers together with him,” etc.”
For no one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
“For other foundation - It is “implied” by the course of the argument here, that This was the foundation which had been laid at Corinth, and on which the church there had been reared. And it is affirmed that no other foundation can be laid.”
his workmanship will be evident, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will prove the quality of each man’s work.
“Every man’s work shall be made manifest - What every man has built on this foundation shall be seen.”
If it is burned up, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved, but only as if through the flames.
“If any man’s work shall be burned - If it shall not be found to hear the test of the investigation of that Day - as a cottage of wood, hay, and stubble would not bear the application of fire.”