The full counsel of God
Here is one of those passages in the New Testament which make a forcible appeal to the conscience of every man who has undertaken or is undertaking to serve God in Holy Orders. The words are such as escape men at the turning points of life, at entering upon or taking leave of great responsibilities — compressed, fervid utterances of the deepest thought and of the strongest currents of feeling — of thought and feeling which for the moment will not, be pent up and restrained within the barriers of ordinary habit, or of studied reserve. St. Paul says that he had declared the whole mind — that is, the whole revealed mind — of God. Observe, of God. His language excludes that conception of religious truth which makes it merely the product of the truest, purest, deepest thoughts of the highest and largest minds among the sons of men. The whole counsel of God! It was God's Word, not man's; it was neither the result of a thoughtful speculation, nor yet an approximate guess, nor yet a c...