A Damsel... Named Rhoda...," Acts But, Regardless, There Are Some Lessons 12:13
RHODA "A damsel... named Rhoda...," Acts But, regardless, there are some lessons 12:13. which we may gather from this vivid picture hoda means "a rose," and "this rose" in of Rhoda and her behaviour on the one side Rmy life has kept its bloom for many of the door, while Peter stood hammering, in years now, for some 2000 years, and is still the morning twilight, on the other side of the sweet and fragrant and will always be. What door. We can notice in the relations of Rhoda a lottery of undying fame it. Men will give to the assembled believers a striking illustra- their lives to earn it, and this servant-girl got tion of the new bond of union supplied by the it by one little act, and never knew that she Gospel. had it. And I suppose she does not know to- Rhoda was a slave. The word rendered day that, everywhere throughout the whole in one version "damsel," means a female world where the Gospel is preached, "This slave. Her name, which is a gentile name, that she hath done is spoken of as a memo- and her servile condition, make it probably rial to her." that she was not a Jewess. If we would want Is the love of fame worthy of being called to indulge in a guess, it is not at all unlikely "the last infirmity of noble minds?" Or is it the that her mistress, Mary, John Mark’s mother, delusion of ignoble ones? Why need we Barnabas’ sister, a well to do woman of Jeru- care whether anybody ever hears of us af- salem, who had a house large enough to ter we are dead and buried, so long as the take in the members of the church in great Lord knows about us? The damsel named numbers, and to keep up a considerable es- Rhoda was little the better for the immortality tablishment, had brought this slave girl from which she had unconsciously won.
[Show full text]