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#16. "All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of God."
pp. 65 - 70
We can all sympathize with the apostle's reticence to speak of himself or of the
hardships he endured, yet what a wealth of practical teaching we should have missed had
he not for Christ's sake "become a fool" in his boasting. The priceless chapters four and
eleven in his second epistle to the Corinthians supply the necessary background against
which the frailty of the earthen vessel and the sovereignty of the Divine Power that
sustained him could be fittingly exhibited. In this same spirit we apologize, if an apology
should be needed, for any element of "foolish boasting" that may have appeared in this
series, but we are sure that the little that has been told, but emphasizes both the emptiness
of the earthen vessel and the fullness of Divine grace that alone made the witness of The
Berean Expositor possible.
Correspondence over the forty years of our testimony must necessarily be great and
varied. Much is precious but too personal for reproduction, yet a few further extracts
from fellow believers at home and abroad will, I think, bring this part of our testimony to
a fitting conclusion. Here is part of a letter received from a reader in Newburyport,
Mass., U.S.A., during the early days: "Words fail to express my heartfelt thanks for the
light that under God you have let into my life through your articles in Things to Come.
January number was almost a blank without you--I never heard of you until you
appeared in Things to Come. Have you no book or tracts of your own? If so please send
me them with your last book as noticed in T. to 100: I have had T. to 100: from its first
number. I like Dr. Bullinger, he seems to be so sincere and learned in Scripture--he
must continue with you, and you with him."
A student at Wheaton College, Ill., U.S.A. wrote in 1932: "I have started on the
course (a correspondence course) but before I went very far I noticed the lack of
mastery of my Bible. I did not know the facts of the Bible, to say nothing of the
interpretation . . . . . I am enjoying the monthly visit of The Berean Expositor. I
especially get much help from the expositions of different epistles (Colossians and
Romans, e.g.) and the Fundamentals of Dispensational Truth . . . . . My heart yearns to go
and teach the rightly divided word but it seems for the present for me to remain in
College and learn something of the worldly knowledge . . . . . May the Lord richly bless
you and Mr. Brininger and those called to the ministry of the rightly divided Word."
Another reader of Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.A. wrote: "Dear Mr. Brininger--I just want
to say how I thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ for The Berean Expositor and for
all those who made it possible for such a magazine to be published and sent out as it is to
many parts of the world. Though our number is very small yet we go on endeavouring to
be true Bereans, searching the Scriptures daily to see if these things are so. Personally
there have been things I could not see and in some cases hard to understand, but in every
case after time taken to `search and see' they were proven to be right according to
scripture."