Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Corinthians 9-13.

The passage begins with Paul continuing the discussion on giving which he began in yesterday’s passage.  He goes to great effort to make sure that the Corinthian Believers understand that he does not think that they need to be convinced to give, he is merely writing to remind them to gather the moneys they wish to donate.  Pastors who struggle with preaching on giving can take heart that Paul similarly struggled.  For the rest of us, what Paul writes about reaping according to how we sow.  This is one of those passages which can be hard to fully understand.  Paul is not promising that if we give generously we will become rich.  He is promising that if we give generously, God will reward us greatly.

I have always wondered how to write about Paul’s “boasting” in this passage.  I finally realized today how to express that.  Paul was telling them not to be impressed by credentials, but by the content of the speaker’s argument.  “The other guy tells you to be impressed because he is an Israelite.  So am I. Not important.”  Paul goes on from there to show that while he has every bit as good credentials as those who were trying to turn the Corinthian Believers against him, he never made a point of those because they were not important.  Those who were arguing against Paul were guilty of two logical fallacies.  First, they appealed to their own authority based on their credentials, rather than asking their listeners to evaluate the validity of their arguments.  Second, they made ad hominem arguments by claiming that Paul was trying to take advantage of the Corinthians.  Paul points out that this second attack was also hypocritical because those making them were profiting more from the Corinthians than he ever had.

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.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Corinthians 1-4.

There are a couple of minor points I want to highlight out of what Paul writes in today’s passage.  Paul begins by mentioning that he had gone through some terrible troubles in Asia, troubles which were so severe that they were more than he could withstand.  Paul writes that he experienced such troubles in order to experience God’s comfort in such troubles and to teach him to rely on God rather than on himself.  His experience gave him confidence that God would carry him through any future troubles which he might experience, and it gave those who witnessed it comfort from knowing that God had rescued him and would do likewise for them in similar circumstances.  Paul transitioned from that to speak about why he did not visit Corinth as he had originally planned.  As I read what Paul wrote, he did not visit Corinth as planned because he was not sure that he would be able to control his anger over the situation and might have said something he would later regret.  We should follow his example and avoid allowing our emotions to influence us when we debate in the Church.

Later in today’s passage Paul writes that his confidence comes from Jesus and that he has no competence in and of himself to claim anything.  Any competence which he has to accomplish anything comes from God working through him.  As a result of this knowledge, Paul refuses to use any deception or distortion to convince others of the gospel.  I think that his point here is one of utmost importance.  We are not smart enough, knowledgeable enough, or wise enough to know how to “massage” the facts in order to get others to make the right decision.  Therefore we should present the facts and the truth plainly about whatever subject we are discussing.  Let us trust God’s Spirit to make clear to those who hear us what is the right decision for them to make.  We must not make the mistake of thinking we are enough smarter or wiser than those to whom we speak to make their decision for them by distorting the facts which we present to them.  This is important on whatever issue we discuss, but even more so when presenting the Gospel.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Corinthians 15-16.

This passage contains one of Paul’s best descriptions of what the good news of the Gospel is. It is right up there in importance with Romans 10:9-10 where he writes, “If you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”  Here Paul writes that we must hold firmly to the gospel which he preached.  That gospel was, and is, that Jesus died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He was raised from the dead on the third day.  Paul expands on to make clear that he means a literal, physical raising from the dead, not a spiritual, or figurative raising from the dead.  The gospel message has no meaning or value without that part, and without the part where we who put our faith in Christ will also experience such a literal, physical raising from the dead.  The suffering and hardship of this life become pointless if our existence ends with our death.  So, let us preach to those around us and seek to draw them into faith in Christ so that they might also experience the joy that comes through oneness with Him and the eternal life which He offers.  This message was the part which was “foolishness to the Greeks.”  And all too many today want to find wisdom in the Gospel without being willing to accept the “foolishness” of the resurrection of the dead.  As Paul tells us, if Christ was not resurrected from the dead, the entire New Testament is built upon lies and has no redeeming value.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Corinthians 12-14.

I love the fact that chapter 13, the “Love Chapter”, is in the middle of today’s passage, because that allows us to see it in the context Paul intended.  Obviously, this placement lets us know that love is a gift from the Holy Spirit.  Equally obvious, if we read it in this context we do not miss Paul’s message that love is the most important spiritual gift, that without love all other spiritual gifts have no value.  However, there is one point about what Paul tells us about love that we miss most of the time: we have a limited ability to choose which spiritual gifts we receive. Certainly, each and every one of us can ask the Holy Spirit for the gifts of love, faith, and hope in the knowledge that the Spirit will grant our request.  We can even be confident that the Spirit will give us more of those three if we ask for it.  If we desire other spiritual gifts we may ask for them as well, and if our request is truly to serve the will of God, we will likely be granted the gift we request.  There are limits to this ability to request the spiritual gifts we desire, because as Paul points out, the Body only needs so many eyes, or ears, or fingers.  So, aside from faith, hope, and love, there are conditions as to whether the Holy Spirit will grant us the gift(s) we desire.  The first condition being that our desire for that particular gift must be rooted in faith, hope, and love (most importantly in love).  The second condition being that the Body of Christ must not already have enough members who have that particular gift.  In fact, Paul tells us that we should look at the Body of Christ around us through the lens of love and request that gift which it is most in need of at this moment.  This may mean joyfully embracing a role which the world would consider demeaning.  Those who truly love as Paul describes love will never see it that way.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Corinthians 9-11.

Well, I know what parts of today’s passage I want to comment on.  I even have an idea about how those parts fit together.  Now I just need to see if I can put my thoughts down in writing.  Paul writes about his freedom and self-discipline.  He tells us that he has freedom to do as he pleases, but he uses that freedom to serve those who hopes to convince to follow Christ.  He continues by saying that he disciplines himself to serve Christ and others so as to not miss out on the eternal life which comes through faith in Christ.  Having given these examples from his own life, Paul goes on to write about how we should use our freedom.  The important part of his message is that while we have the freedom in Christ to do anything, we should only do those things which are beneficial and/or constructive.  Further, he writes that we should seek to do not what is in our best interests but what is in the best interests of others.

He applies this lesson to his message on our approach to the idol worship going on around us (and do not fool yourself, idol worship is just as much a part of modern society as it was in Paul’s day).  I like how he makes his point.  First, he makes the point that we cannot consciously take part in the ceremonies of idol worship, but we need not worry about doing so as an incidental part of our lives.  He tells the Corinthian Believers that while they may know full well that most of the food available in the market was offered to idols as part of its preparation, they need not worry about that.  Go ahead, buy the food and consume it without asking whether or not it had been sacrificed to idols.  For that matter, if your pagan neighbor invites you to share a meal with them, go ahead and join them.  Eat what they give you without inquiring whether or not it was part of a sacrifice to idols (which Paul points out would be a sacrifice to demons).  But, if they, or someone else, should inform you that eating it is part of their worship of other gods, then abstain.  Paul points out that the point of your abstinence is not your own well-being, but a service to the one who made you aware of the idol worship you were being asked to join.  I see Paul’s instructions here as a practical application of Jesus’ command to be “wise as serpents, but innocent as doves.”

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Corinthians 5-8.

At the end of yesterday’s post I mentioned that we have to interpret what Paul wrote about division in the Church in light of his instructions regarding Church discipline.  Today’s passage begins with Paul discussing a specific application of Church discipline.  Throughout history Christians have either over-emphasized Paul’s teachings about divisions in the Church, or over-emphasized his teachings about Church discipline.  As importantly, we rarely see the connection between what Paul writes about this specific instance on Church discipline and what he says immediately afterwards about lawsuits among Believers.  When speaking about Church discipline, Paul writes that we should only apply what he is writing to those who claim to be a Believer.  He explains that by saying that we are called to judge those inside the Church, not those outside it.

Before I go on to discuss what Paul says about lawsuits, I want to look at those whom he says we should not associate.  Now, we always remember that he tells us not to associate with those Believers who are sexually immoral and/or greedy. but we sometimes overlook one or more of the other sins which he writes about.  OK, we generally remember that idolatry and being a drunkard are things which Believers should avoid.  However, if we remember that we should not be a slanderer we tend to forget that the person spreading the slander does not need to know that what they are saying is false.  Which was why the Church used to teach the truism, “If you can'[t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all”   We should all attempt to practice that.  The final sin which Paul writes we should not tolerate among Believers is swindling.  We typically get that, but Paul makes a further point on that.  We should allow a fellow Believer to swindle us before we take them to a secular court.  If we have a dispute with another Believer, we should take that dispute to another member of the Church for resolution.  Some Church bodies establish formal groups for resolving such disputes, but Paul’s wording suggests to me that if we have a disagreement with a fellow Believer we should agree on another Believer to resolve the dispute.  I do not mean that those Church bodies which establish a formal group to resolve such disputes are wrong, just that we as Believers should be willing to seek informal “judges” of our disputes.  Sometimes the person with whom we have a dispute will, rightly or wrongly, believe that the formal body cannot be trusted to judge the disagreement without bias.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Corinthians 1-4.

It has always seemed to me that Paul makes the primary point in this passage that we will rarely convince unbelievers to become Believers by the wisdom of our arguments.  In fact, he argues that the Gospel is foolish to those who are unbelievers.  Only after we have been touched by the Holy Spirit do we begin to understand the wisdom of God and the Gospel.  Having said that I want to note that Paul makes this point in the middle of explaining why we should not make a big deal about which teacher of the faith we follow.  I was not sure where I was going with this, but as I wrote I thought about those nondenominational congregations which explain why they are nondenominational by referencing this passage.  Every time I hear someone make that claim I think about the fact that they are failing to read the final phrase of verse 12 in chapter 1, which reads, “and still others say, ‘I follow Christ.”‘”  Paul makes the point that we should not try to hold ourselves up as better than others because we follow the teachings of this person, or of that person.  Rather than seeking out how studying the writings of Paul, or Martin Luther, or C.S. Lewis can make us wiser than others, let us seek how studying those writings can make us better servants of Christ than we were yesterday.

I want to highlight that many people try to use this passage to convince others to not hold their fellow Believers to a standard of behavior.  Yet later in this very same letter Paul calls on the Believers in Corinth to call out a member of their group for his sinful behavior.

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