Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Corinthians 5-8.

Today’s passage begins with Paul continuing where he left off in yesterday’s passage.  Today he discusses how our earthly bodies are designed as temporary homes, tents, but that we will be resurrected into heavenly bodies which will be designed to be permanent, houses, if you will.  In our current bodies we are, to a degree, separated from God.  That separation comes about because of sin, but Christ died on the cross in order for us to be united with God, to be reconciled with Him.  We are separated from God because we did wrong, nevertheless, God took the action to be reconciled with us.  God has offered to make us anew if we are willing to be reconciled to Him.  This letter represents Paul’s attempt to do the same with the Believers in Corinth.  He writes that he regrets that he hurt them by his previous letter, but that he does not regret what he wrote because it lead them to repent from their sins.  Paul writes that he bears them no ill-will about the incident which led him to write that letter and asks that they hold a similar feeling towards him, and towards those involved in that incident.  Paul tells them, and us, that now is the time to be reconciled to God, and to each other.  It is not something we should put off for another day.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Corinthians 5-8.

Throughout his letters Paul references how our resurrected bodies will be different from our current bodies.  Here he compares our current bodies to a tent, contrasting that with an eternal house which will serve as our permanent homes after our resurrection.  I think his metaphor here does a wonderful job of making his point.  A tent can certainly be home, and a place where we have great comfort.  But a permanent building, a house, has much greater possibilities for comfort.  In the same way, we have a certain comfort living in our bodies, but we should desire the much greater comfort of living in the bodies which God will give us.  We should seek to live as Paul did, eagerly awaiting leaving our home in this physical body to be at home with Christ.  That means living in this body so as to prepare ourselves to spend time with Him.

In this passage Paul tells us not to be yoked together with unbelievers, a passage which when I was young was interpreted to me as meaning that a Christian should not marry a non-believer.  While the idea that a Christian should not marry a non-believer is correct, I have come to realize that is not what Paul is writing about here.  Rather, Paul is warning us against partnering with unbelievers to accomplish the ministry which God has given us.  One example of what he was writing about comes to my mind.  Many years ago, when I was still a young man, some young women I knew became active in an organization of Christian women who were fighting against pornography.  Some time after they became active in this group and had risen to leadership positions within it, they were approached by a secular feminist group which also was working to oppose pornography for the two organizations to work together.  The two organizations made common cause to combat pornography.  Because the two organizations were composed primarily of women (perhaps entirely, it has been too many years for me to remember one way or the other), their focus became the ways in which pornographers exploited women.  After another period of time the secular feminist group began using the partnership to advocate for abortion.  The Christian women failed to recognize that the secular feminists with whom they had partnered did not care about the immorality of pornography and opposing it was merely one more way of promoting their ideology.  This is but one example of where a group of Christians made common cause with non-believers to work on a goal which served God’s will only to have the cause coopted to for other purposes.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Corinthians 5-8

Paul makes a point here that the physical bodies we will have in heaven will be different, and better, than the physical bodies which we have here on earth.  He makes the point that we should not fear death because it will only be after the death of our earthly body that we will be able to live in our heavenly bodies.  In fact, Paul was eager for death so as to leave his earthly body and enter into his heavenly body.  As we live in these earthly bodies we continuously experience death, but once we enter into the heavenly bodies which God will give us we will never experience death again.  However, Paul was content to continue to live because as long as he lived he could serve God.  As long as we live in these earthly bodies we must seek to live not for ourselves, but for Christ.  Let us seek to make every action we take, every word we speak, bring glory to God.

When I began the previous paragraph I had a clear idea of what I wanted to write, and I thought it would be utterly clear.  I sought to make the point that we should not fear death, instead we should eagerly look forward to it.  This does not mean that we should seek out death for death’s sake, but what awaits us on the other side of death is more desirable than anything we have here.  We should not seek out death because as long as we live we can further serve Christ, which will bring us joy.  The great thing about Paul’s message here is that it provides us with the basis to not fear the consequences of serving Christ.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Corinthians 5-8

In yesterday’s passage Paul wrote that our heavenly bodies will be different from our earthly bodies in ways which we cannot comprehend, much the same way that a plant differs from the seed from which it grew (and this is about as far as that particular metaphor can be taken on that subject).  In today’s passage he writes about how he longs to be clothed in that new, heavenly body, not because of any desire to be rid of his current body, but because the heavenly body will be with Christ.  We should share Paul’s desire to leave our earthly bodies and enter into our heavenly bodies.  This desire should remove all fear of death from us.  Our desire for our future heavenly bodies should inspire us to serve Christ in all that we do.

We believe (well, I believe, and hope that you do as well) that Christ died for everyone.  This belief means that I must strive to live not for myself, but for Christ.  Living for Christ leads me to strive to be His ambassador to the world, calling on all I meet to come to God and receive His gift of life transforming salvation.