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.
.jpg?width=640)
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
Now about brotherly love, you do not need anyone to write to you, because you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.
“But as touching brotherly love - The “peculiar charity and affection which one Christian owes to another.” Doddridge; see the notes on Joh 13:34. Ye need not that I write unto you - That is, “as I have done on the other points.””
and to aspire to live quietly, to attend to your own matters, and to work with your own hands, as we instructed you.
“And that ye study to be quiet - Orderly, peaceful; living in the practice of the calm virtues of life.”
Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope.
“But I would not have you to be ignorant - I would have you fully informed on the important subject which is here referred to.”
After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
“Then we which are alive - Those who shall then be alive; see 1Th 4:15. The word here rendered “then” (ἔπειτα epeita), does not necessarily mean that this would occur immediately.”
Now about the times and seasons, brothers, we do not need to write to you.
“But of the times and the seasons - See the notes, Act 1:7. The reference here is to the coming of the Lord Jesus, and to the various events connected with his advent; see the close of 1 Thes. 4.”
For you are fully aware that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
“For yourselves know perfectly - That is, they had been fully taught this. There could be no doubt in their minds respecting it.”
While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
“For when they shall say, Peace and safety - That is, when the wicked shall say this, for the apostle here refers only to those on whom “sudden destruction” will come; compare Mat 24:36-42 notes; 2Pe 3:3-4 notes.”
For you are all sons of the light and sons of the day; we do not belong to the night or to the darkness.
“Ye are all the children of light - All who are Christians. The phrase” children of light” is a Hebraism, meaning that they were the enlightened children of God.”
For God has not appointed us to suffer wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
“For God hath not appointed us to wrath - This is designed as an encouragement to effort to secure our salvation.”
Therefore encourage and build one another up, just as you are already doing.
“Wherefore comfort yourselves - notes, 1Th 4:18. And edify one another - Strive to build up each other, or to establish each other in the faith by these truths; notes, Rom 14:19. Even as also ye do - Continue to do it.”
Make sure that no one repays evil for evil. Always pursue what is good for one another and for all people.
“See that none render evil for evil - See the notes on Mat 5:39, Mat 5:44. The meaning here is, that we are not to take vengeance; compare notes on Rom 12:17, Rom 12:19. This law is positive, and is universally binding.”
Do not extinguish the Spirit.
“Quench not the Spirit - This language is taken from the way of putting out a fire, and the sense is, we are not to extinguish the influences of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.”
but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.
“Prove all things - Subject everything submitted to you to be believed to the proper test. The word here used (δοκιμάζετε dokimazete), is one that is properly applicable to metals, referring to the art of the assayer, by which the true nature and value of…”
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your entire spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“And the very God of peace - The God who gives peace or happiness; compare notes, Rom 1:7. Sanctify you - See the notes at Joh 17:17. Wholly - ὁλοτελεῖς holoteleis. In every part; completely.”
Brothers, pray for us as well.
“Brethren, pray for us - A request which the apostle often makes; notes on Heb 13:18. He was a man of like passions as others: liable to the same temptations; engaged in an arduous work; often called to meet with opposition, and exposed to peril…”
I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.
“I charge you by the Lord - Margin, “adjure.” Greek, “I put you under oath by the Lord” - ενορκίζω ὑμᾶς τὸν Κύριον enorkizō humas ton Kurion.”