2 Corinthians 2:12-17

When I arrived in Troas I discovered that there was a God given opportunity for me to preach the good news about Jesus Christ.

I had hoped to meet Titus there so he could give me a report of how you had received my letter, and when Titus didn’t show up, I realized I would have no rest in my spirit until I found him and found out how things were going in Corinth.  So in spite of the opportunity at Troas, I felt I had to go ahead to Macedonia to find him.

I know that may not sound very encouraging.  You may be thinking that as an apostle I should live in a constant state of perfect peace, but it doesn’t work that way.  The peace of God sustains me in the midst of pressure, but that doesn’t mean that the pressure isn’t real and that I don’t feel it.  I am constantly, deeply concerned about all of the churches under my care.[1]

It’s almost impossible to overstate my emotional connections to the churches I have planted.  I think my feelings for all of you are very much like the feelings of a mother as she nurses her newborn child.[2]

We survive these things only be constantly and continuously turning every opportunity to worry and fret into prayer.[3]  It is not that we don’t feel the burden, but that we are constantly transferring the weight of that burden over to God.[4]

This is why I can honestly say that in spite of the anxiety I was dealing with that God was leading me in triumph as I went to Macedonia.  You could think of Christ as a victorious Roman general and think of us Christians as the soldiers following Him in a victory parade.  The smell of the incense being burnt during those parades fill the city streets of Rome.  Everywhere we go we spread the word about Jesus Christ and the knowledge of Christ fills the streets of those cities like the smell of that incense in a victory parade.

Not everyone finds this a fragrant aroma.  To those who find new life, the truth has a sweet smell while those who reject the truth find it to be like a stench in their nostrils.  In calling us to spread the gospel God has involved us in something that is so much bigger than we are that we can hardly grasp it.

This is why I absolutely refuse to try and please certain groups of people by softening or diluting the message in any way.  When I speak to you or write to you about Jesus Christ I am giving you a message that comes directly from God, and I am communicating it the exact same way I would if I were physically in His presence and He was listening to every word I am speaking and reading every word as I am writing it.

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[1] See 2 Corinthians 11:28

[2] See 1 Thessalonians 2:7

[3] See Philippians 4:6-7

[4] See 1 Peter 5:7

2 Corinthians 1:12-2:11

The grace of God is not only gives us everything we need to meet the challenges of life, but it has enabled us to conduct out lives in holiness and godly sincerity.  My conscience is clean in this matter, although I want you to understand that in “boasting” about this, I am boasting about the grace of God, not myself.  We have always done business in this way, especially where you are concerned.

I know that there are people in Corinth who are slandering me right now and they are doing everything they can to twist my words, so I want to speak clearly and plainly with you.  I am not that hard to understand.  Don’t look for hidden meanings in my words.  I’m a “what you see is what you get” kind of a man.

If you look for hidden or double meanings, or if you listen to what the people who are lying about me are saying about what I supposedly really mean, you won’t grasp the full import of what I am really saying to you.  And I want to make this clear from the very beginning:  when we stand before our Master in judgment, I honestly believe that I am going to be just as proud of you as you are going to be proud of me.

I feel this way because I am certain, once all of the confusion is past, and you really understand what you need to do, that you will do the right thing.  Being confident of that, I originally planned to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and then again on my way back.  I was thinking that the two visits would be a kind of a double blessing for both of us.

My intentions here were quite firm.  A spirit filled man isn’t the least bit wishy-washy the way some people are who operate while being dominated by the power of sin operating in their bodies.  I think if you examine my track record you will find that I am a man talks out of both sides of his mouth, saying “yes” one minute and “no” the next.

Our character in dealing with you is a reflection of the character of the God who indwells us and is transforming us into His image.  He is a rock.  He is absolutely, utterly reliable.  He doesn’t say “yes” then change His mind, and neither do we.

Silvanus, Timothy, and I preached Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to you, and through Christ God is saying one big, final “Yes!” to you!  

Through Jesus Christ God has said “Yes!” to every promise He can make and every blessing He has to give to us!  And as we experience God’s faithfulness we glorify Him by celebrating His faithfulness.

Let me once again put this into perspective by putting God in His proper place, at the center of everything.  God called us and told us to bring the message to you.  Then He poured out His Spirit on us so that the words we spoke to you conveyed the very power of the Holy Spirit.  You responded to the life and power of God in that message and came to live your lives as we do, “in Christ.”  We live for Him and He lives in and through us.

This wasn’t just some “decision” we made to become Christians, it was the power of God working to permanently and radically transform us.  It’s like when you want to seal a letter by pouring a little puddle of wax and then pressing your ring into the wax as it hardens.  The imprint of the ring is preserved in the wax.  Brothers and sisters, we are the wax and God’s Spirit is like the ring.  He has put His mark on us.  What God has already done in your life is like a down payment of everything He is planning to do in you, through you, and for you in this life and in the life to come!

So I can hear my critics saying, “Paul, if God is faithful, and His empowering life is inside of you like you say it is, then why didn’t you come to see us the way you said you were going to?  You’re a hypocrite Paul.  You’re not really who or what you say you are!”  To that I can only respond by saying that while God is transforming my character, I’m still mortal.  I’m not omniscient.  I received new information about conditions in Corinth that made me decide not to visit at this time; but I made this decision because I thought it was best for you, not out of any selfishness on my part.

If I had come at that time, I would have had to exercise my direct authority and probably would have had to excommunicate some people but, I thought there would be a better way to handle this situation than making a direct visit.  Everything I do is designed to help you come to the place where your faith is like a rock and your hearts are filled with joy!

But I will admit to at least some measure of selfish motivation in my decision to change my mind and not to come and visit you immediately.  There were issues that had to be dealt with and that could not be done without causing a considerable amount of stress and some serious emotional turmoil.  There was no way I was going to put all of us through that in a direct confrontation if there was some other way to deal with the situation.

You people are so precious to me, and under normal circumstances coming to visit you causes my heart to overflow with joy – which wouldn’t have been the case if I had to come and see you.

But I thought there might be a better way to handle it, so I wrote you a letter.  The bottom line is that I am confident that you will take the difficult steps and do the right thing as long as you are clear in your own minds about what needs to be done.  That way you would be able to resolve the situation, and when I finally visited you on my way back from Macedonia, we could devote all of our time together to the joyful fellowship we have in Christ, and not have to deal with these painful matters.

It wasn’t an easy letter to write; I literally wept as I wrote it.  And even though I asked you to take some difficult steps, I trust that you were able to sense that my only motivation in writing was one of love and concern for you.

Now, I know that we are all heart-broken about the Christian brother who got himself involved in that disgraceful sexual situation, but I am very proud of the way you handled it.

You excluded him from the Lord’s table and cut all social ties with him, and now I hear that he has repented!  That brings this whole matter to an end.  Welcome him back.  Comfort him.  Never refer to this matter again.  It’s over with.  Make sure that he understands that he has been welcomed back into the full warm embrace of Christian fellowship.

I am very pleased at the way you handled this situation; your obedience is a real display of Christian growth and maturity.

As for our newly restored brother, make sure he knows that you forgive him, that I have forgiven him, and that Christ Himself has forgiven him.

His full restoration to your fellowship will keep Satan from sneaking in and taking advantage of this situation, which is exactly what the Evil One intends to do if we drop our guard for even a moment.

2 Corinthians 1:1-11

From:  Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother

To:  the church of God in Corinth with all the rest of the saints in Greece

As you read this, if you can receive it in the same spirit of faith in which it is written, you will receive a deeper revelation of grace that will either reinforce or deepen the supernatural inner peace that comes to you through God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

May the God and Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, be blessed.  God is blessed when His creation lives in joyful harmony with Him and glorifies Him.  By reading and prayerfully meditating on this letter you yourself will be a blessing to God!

Our God is so beautiful.  He is the father of mercies.  The very throne on which He sits is called “the mercy seat.”  When Satan tempts you to believe that “surely God has lost His patience with me by now,” always remember that mercy is part of the very fabric of God’s being.  Mercy is as natural to God as breathing is to you.  As part of the conversion process you have said “yes” to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  While you are not able to express that in a life of perfect obedience at this point, what you can and must do is live a life of joyful admiration of the God of infinite mercy who has saved, is saving, and will continue to save you through all the days of your earthly pilgrimage and beyond.

Not only Is He the father of mercies, He is the God of all comfort.  No one knows how to help you and support you in a time of need the way He does.  When you are suffering, God wants to make a concrete impact on your life.  At that very moment in time in which your natural reaction is fear and despair, you must respond with faith!  The pressure is on!  That means God is going to do something!  He wants to help you in a way that is real and immediate.  When He does this, He’s not just helping you, but He is giving you an experience that you can share with others in their time of need so that they too can find God’s comfort in the hour of their distress.

While God comforts us in every type of suffering and affliction we face, what I am referring to here is the suffering and persecution that come to you because you are doing the will of God.  You must always keep this clearly in mind:  everyone who is a faithful follower of Jesus will pay some kind of a price for that obedience. 

(Now some of you may be thinking, “I haven’t suffered all that much.  I don’t live in a place where you can get thrown into prison for following Christ.”  But remember what the Master said.  “Be happy when people insult you and slander you because you are following me.  And here is why you should be happy.  Even this verbal abuse is very, very important to God.  It touches His heart.  He will remember it and you will receive a great reward for your faithfulness in heaven.”)[1]

So understand that God takes it seriously, whether the price you are paying is emotional or physical or both.  The important thing is that you must not think that this is something unusual – it’s part of the basic package.  But if you have the faith to receive it, God will comfort you every step of the way as you pay that price.  The cost of obedience and the comfort go together; they are inseparable. 

As your mind becomes renewed your whole way of looking at life changes.  Life isn’t just about you any more, it’s about the people you love and are trying to bless.  If we are called to suffer, instead of just focusing on ourselves, we think about it in relationship to you.  We think of it as the price we have to pay to bring you the message of salvation, and we think of how our testimony of how God helped us when the pressure was really on – we think of how our testimony will help you when the times get tough.  But if you are going to enjoy God’s comfort and support you have to patiently endure the sufferings.  Frequently the prayer that God answers, is not the prayer to make the suffering go away, but it is the prayer for the gifts of strength and courage and peace that you need to deal with the situation.

This is scary stuff.  We are sharing a something with you that you will have to pay a price for.  The only thing that gives us the courage to do this is the rock solid conviction that God will meet you in your hour of need in the same way He met us in our hour of need.

Brothers and sisters, I want to be totally honest with you.  When we were in the Roman province of Asia recently, the pressure got so great that, even if I escaped from the situation alive, I thought I might have a breakdown of some sort.

Some of the people in Ephesus who made their living by manufacturing idols were concerned that our growing Christian community was going to cut into their business profits; so they started a riot that threatened to engulf the whole city.  In the midst of the riot they started looking for me and when they couldn’t find me they grabbed some of my dear Christian brothers.  I tried to go out to speak to the crowd and bring a calming influence on the situation, but my friends physically blocked me from going outside.  They were certain that I would be torn to pieces if the crowd got their hands on me.  So there I was, trapped in this house and unable to do anything, while some of my dearest friends were in danger of being torn apart by a mob in the streets.  Not only that, if the situation had boiled over, hundreds and even thousands of people might have been injured or killed in the riot.  And the Roman troops might have come and used violence to restore order to the city.  I had visions in my head of my friends torn apart, innocents trampled in the streets, and half the city in flames, all because of me.[2]

You may be tempted to think of me as some sort of a spiritual superman, but it’s not really that simple.  Every human being has limitations and you don’t really know what they are until you are pushed to your limits.  But everyone has a point at which they will “fall to pieces,” as it were.  Once you become a Christian, as you grow in your faith, you find you have expanded powers.  In addition to your own natural strength and resiliency, you find your natural powers strengthened and augmented by the power of God as you learn to trust Him.  In other words you find that you can handle things in Christ that you simply couldn’t have handled without Him.

But every time you are placed under pressure that is greater than anything you have ever experienced before, it’s like a sentence of death – in the natural you are certain you are going to fall apart.  What you have to do in that new situation is trust God as you have never trusted Him before.  You were able to trust Him in some easier situations in the past, but will your faith rise up in this new trial to believe that He can and will meet this new need?  That is the challenge.  What you are really trusting in, brothers and sisters, is nothing less than the infinite power that raised Christ from the dead.

As your mind is renewed everything must begin to revolve around Him.  He is at the center of everything and you are not just part of Him, but you are part of His body along with all of your other brothers and sisters.  All of my hope is in Him.  He delivered me in Ephesus and He will deliver me in the days to come.  And the help I received from Him at Ephesus was not just the result of my own faith; I know that many, many people were praying for me; so all of us together will join in worshiping and praising God for my deliverance. 

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[1] Matthew 5:11, 12

[2] Ephesians 19:23-41

Modesty #1

Many thanks to my brother Wayne for suggesting that I revisit this topic in the light of the controversy surrounding the full body scans and pat downs being conducted at airports this holiday season.

When I was in high school I had an opportunity to visit Jamaica over Easter vacation.  I was told that the tree in the parking lot of our hotel was a fig tree, so I went to check it out.  I was expecting huge leaves because I had read that Adam and Eve used to leaves from this plant to cloth themselves after the fall.  I was surprised to find that the leaves were actually quite small.  That led me back to the Bible where I read that they did not make clothes for themselves.  Instead they made "loin coverings" (Genesis 3:7 NASB).  They had a need to cover a specific part of their bodies and I find their choice to be quite fascinating.

Why do we wear clothes?  The answer that most people would offer is that we have some sort of compulsion to cover up the sexual parts of our bodies.  The thought being that sex is somehow dirty and something we should be in some way ashamed of.  But clearly Adam and Eve were not trying to cover up the parts of their bodies that a member of the opposite sex might like to look at.  If they were trying to do that they would have needed to cover themselves from head to foot!  Consider the parts of the body that were not covered.  The breasts, the legs, the buttocks, and their faces were completely open to view.

Clearly sexuality was not the primary issue here.  Instead, they felt a need to cover their reproductive organs.  Why did they suddenly have this feeling?  What had happened to them?

By committing an act of sin, they found themselves infected with the power of sin.  Sin started as something that they did.  It was an action.  But they quickly found out that sin was also a power that had somehow infected their personalities.  Satan had come and had assaulted them from without.  All of the temptation had come from an external source.  But now they found that temptations were arising from within their very beings.  Their hearts had been corrupted.  And that corruption has been passed on to their descendants, and that is why the Bible asserts that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."  (Romans 3:23)  It is impossible for any of Adam and Eve's descendants to live a life of total purity in thought, word, and deed.

Now you might want to raise the objection that you, personally, have never felt a sense of shame connected in some way to your reproductive capacity.  That's a good objection.  Here's the answer.  You've never been clean.  You were born dirty and you don't know what it's like to be perfectly pure and sinless inside.  Adam and Eve knew what this felt like.  When sin entered their souls and bodies, they could actually feel the pollution inside of them.  This is what caused them to cover their loins and it is the unconscious basis for clothing to the very day. 

A Pay Day Prayer

Thank you for giving us this day our daily bread.

Thank you for life and strength and health to work

Thank you for an opportunity to work where I am wanted and needed

Thank you that I do not live in a mud hut and cook my food over a dung fire as millions do

Thank you that I have never once heard my children cry because they were hungry

Thank you for a standard of living that would make medieval nobility envious

Lord, let this be a settled thing in my heart.  I am a rich man.  I am wealthy.  I have more than I need and all too often more than I can intelligently use.

Please set me free from the illusions of materialism:

• That things will make me happy
• That I NEED something that I don't
• That my thoughts should not be filled with visions of stuff, how to obtain it, and how to use it

Please continue to grant me favor with my employers and wisdom in how to do my job

Please prosper my employers and bless them because they are a blessing to me

But help me to always, only, see You as the source of all I have and all I need.

Huston, we have a problem

Allah is pure will; he determines everything; and he can change his mind.  Because of this there is no such thing as right or wrong and there are no secondary causes.

Huston, we have a problem.

A good Muslim would probably take offense at the statement that there is no such thing as right or wrong, but if you modified the statement a little, he would agree with it.  "The will of Allah is right and that which is contrary to his will is wrong."  That second statement may sound very much like something we believe, but it is not.  It is miles and miles away from the way we think and what we believe.  As one Muslim teacher said, "Allah could blame you for another man's sins and cast you into hell forever, and that would be just."  It would be just because it was something that Allah decided to do.  Did you get that?

To the Muslim mind "right" has nothing to do with goodness, kindness, mercy, honesty, or fairness.  "Right" is "whatever Allah wants to do or wants me to do."  The other concepts are completely disconnected from the idea of "right."

Let me give you a couple of examples from the life of Mohammed.  When he first started out, he taught tolerance for other belief's.  Unbelievers were to be treated kindly.  The reason he taught this was that he didn’t have very many believers!  He had no way to impose his will on people.  As his power grew, tolerance went out the window.  He grew increasingly militant and began to teach his people to attack and kill unbelievers.

Here is another example.  Mohammed had an adopted son.  For whatever reason, Mohammed conceived of the idea that his son should marry a certain woman.  His son and the woman weren't too wild about the idea, but Mohammed said it was the will of Allah, so the marriage took place.  A short while later Mohammed dropped in to visit his son and accidently saw his son's wife in the bath.  In other words, he saw her without a Burka on.  In fact, he saw her naked.  To put it another way, it was the first time in his life he had laid eyes on her.  In Arab society at that time you didn't know what any woman outside of your own family looked like.  You had no idea.  You could probably get some sense of how much a woman weighed, but even that would be no more than an educated guess.  All you ever got to see were a woman's eyes.

What Mohamed discovered that day was that his daughter-in-law was an extremely beautiful woman.  And a short time later he came back with a new revelation.  It was no longer the will of Allah for his son to be married to this woman.  They must divorce immediately!  And so they did.  And then Mohammed married her; but not without controversy.  To the Arab culture of that period, this was almost as bad as marrying the daughter-in-law of your biological son.  People were very uncomfortable with Mohammed's actions.  But Mohammed wasn't done yet.  He had yet another revelation from Allah.  It turns out that an adopted son isn't really a son at all, he's just sort of a person who happens to live in your household!  These revelations are pretty convenient, aren't they?

But what about the conflicts in the revelations?  People noticed the conflicts and they were troubled by them.  But once again Mohammed "heard" from Allah.  When two revelations conflict, obey the most recent one!

What can we learn from this?

It makes it easier to understand how someone could strap explosives on to a mentally retarded person, send them into a crowded shopping area, and then detonate the explosives blowing up men, women, and children, some of which were undoubtedly devout Muslims.  Remember, the concept of "right" is completely divorced from concepts like fairness, goodness, truth, and love.  Right is what Allah wants.  Even if your conscience is bothered by it, if it's what Allah wants, it's "right."

The one true God has very little in common with Allah (who, if he exists as a single being, is probably a fallen angel).

God can't change.  He can't change because He is perfect.  The only way he could change would be for Him to get a little better or a little worse.  If He could get a little better, He wouldn't be perfect right now.  Being perfect means you can't improve; but he also can't become less perfect.  Real perfection means that it is impossible for you to become less perfect.  To become less perfect would require some sort of an inward weakness or susceptibility to change or decay.  God is not subject to change or decay.

This concept brings the greatest comfort to Christians as we contemplate our many sins and failures.  In the past few months the Holy Spirit has been teaching me about sin.  Sin is much worse than we think it is and we are much more badly broken than we think we are.  For reasons that are not entirely clear to me God has not made a provision for us to live in sinless perfection in this life.  What this means is that I am going to be a moral failure today.  It may fail less than I normally do or I mail fail more, but at the end of the day I will be a moral failure.

The only way I can avoid being a moral failure is to live today with absolute purity in thought, word, and deed.  I must be perfectly good without being the least bit proud of myself.  Every action, indeed, every thought, must be totally motivated by love and love alone.  I don't know how to do that.  I have never known how to do that.  None of this means that I can or should allow myself to live in a sloppy manner.  I can and should ask God for the grace to overcome the power so sin.  I can and should, over time, make progress in personal holiness and become more and more like Jesus; but I will never reach moral perfection in this life.  I will probably never have one day in which I am completely pure in thought, word, and deed.

When you have a baby, you expect to do some extra work.  You know you will have a nasty job on your hands keeping that baby clean because they baby will be born without control over his bladder or bowels.  But you don't let it get you down.  It's not a fun job, but your love for the little fellow motivates you to do the same messy job over and over again.  Eventually you will get out the M&M's or whatever and bribe the little booger into buying into the concept of using the toilet.  Oh happy day when the last diaper is finally put away!

But that happy day doesn't come for everyone.  You may have a child with a birth defect and they may never gain control over bladder and bowels.  I take care of people with intellectual disabilities.  Some have as much control as you or I do; some have no more control than a baby; and some manage a measure of control but continue to have the occasional "accident" their whole life long.

And so we keep cleaning them up because we love them.  When our hearts and minds are right there is something inside of us that is like the heart and mind of a new parent cleaning up a messy diaper.  We don't love the mess, but we sure do love that baby!  And every day I need God to clean me up and His heart and mind is always right and He does it with love, and nothing but love in His heart.

There is nothing I can do that will surprise Him.  He has never once said to Himself, "I know I made a covenant to forgive him, but I was certainly never expecting him to do that!"  God sees everything in advance, He never forgets anything, and He never changes.

Next time we’ll explain why they don’t believe in the law of gravity.