I have read of a battle where the flag got far ahead of the soldiers. An officer called back to his superior and asked, “Shall we bring the flag back to the regiment?” “No,” came the reply, “make the regiment catch up with the flag!” The New Testament standard is far ahead of most of the church today. It is true that we have all kinds of people at various stages of spiritual development in our fellowships. But we must yet lower the standard to the poorest level of our membership. When Gideon’s three hundred won their battle the larger numbers who had not joined them in the conflict fell in at last and shared in the victory. We must major on our dedicated minority these days and not accommodate our program to the host who are not ready for spiritual warfare. But we can hope that in the triumph of the faithful few, many of these laggards will change their minds and join us.
But we must yet lower the standard to the poorest level of our membership . . . is this correct? I think it is supposed to say, “But we must NOT lower the standard to the poorest level of our membership.”