Truth: 2 Corinthians 13

In Summary:
Paul is wrapping up his letter to the Corinthians. He has now written them at least twice, and possibly more, but this will end his recorded correspondence with the church at Corinth. He has exhorted the church to stand for what is right in the midst of a culture that had little use for Christianity, and to clean up the church from the infiltration of worldliness. While 2 Corinthians 13 is its own chapter, we should also see at as somewhat of a conclusion to his work with that church. It is possible that he visited the church later, and that is the opening subject of this chapter: he reminds the church that he intends to come and visit them, to see if they are walking in obedience.

As Paul finishes his correspondence, he draws the Corinthians to a very direct point: they need to examine themselves to see if they are in the faith. There is a callback here to 1 Corinthians 11, where he gives the same instruction regarding taking the Lord’s Supper. He is providing them both a closing challenge for the individual and the church: test yourself and the group behavior. What should the test be? There are the actions of moral obedience that function as a starting point, but he gives the final test in 13:11. Those who are truly in the faith, who have examined themselves, will be able to live in peace with each other, will grow in their faith, and will be unified about Jesus. His closing sentence is a clear statement of the Trinity: the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14, NASB). If we follow Jesus, we will show grace to one another. If we are children of God the Father, we will have love for one another. If we are indwelt with the Holy Spirit, we will have fellowship (not just meal-sharing) with one another.

How are we doing with that in the church today?

In Focus:
Let us put 2 Corinthians 13:8 into our focus for the day. Paul says that we do nothing against the truth, only for the truth. What does that mean?

First, it has a philosophical connection. That which is “the truth” can be opposed, can be argued against, but cannot actually be destroyed. Truth is neither a negotiable item nor an issue of perception. Truth does not depend on a certain point of view, though points of view can affect one’s access to the truth.

Second, there is a practical connection. Truth is not stronger, more true, or the opposites because of anything someone does. In this concept, Paul is speaking of those things which are unchanging truth. It is not “the truth about who really discovered America” but a deeper concept, an unchanging reality that is universal.

Third, there is a personal connection. Paul asserts that the truth does not need anyone, and in so doing implies that he knows this truth, that he presents this truth, and that even if all the Corinthians bailed out on the truth, it will still be true. This was as big of a deal in the Greco-Roman Empire and its pluralism as it is for the modern world.

In Practice:
Practically speaking, we are not really that different from the world of Paul. Philosophically, many different schools of thought lay claim to holding the truth. The overarching viewpoint of the current day is that no one can possibly be certain their particular view is absolutely right, and so we live in a pluralistic society where the only absolute claim that is acceptable is that no one can make absolute claims. We also find ourselves concerned about defending the truth or about assaults on the truth, and while there are knowledge problems where facts are assaulted as “not true” when they are, or alternates are presented that are “not true” but claimed that they are, the ultimate truth is still unassailable.

And then we hit the personal connection: do we know the truth? And if we do, do we live like it? If the Gospel is true, that God put on flesh, dwelt among us, that Jesus died for us and rose again, then do we show that in our lives? Because if the ultimate truth is Jesus (John 14:6 might be relevant here), then we ought to live that out.

Instead, though, our lives and churches invest a great deal in attempting to “defend” the truth or stressing that something will “disprove” our faith. For example, consider the investments in archeology with hopes of “proving” the Bible, or our fears when CNN runs something they claim “disproves” the resurrection (which has never been successfully done). We sit and wait on those rather than acting on the truth as if it were true and unassailable. We live like God needs our help rather than acknowledging how deep our need for Him goes.

I suggest that we invest more of our time in learning the truth through the Word of God than we spend in trying to defend the truth. There is a value in defending the faith, defending the truth, but in many ways the church has become like a hospital that has learned to keep out bacterial infections and forgotten how to treat patients. The floors are clean but we are not entirely sure what we are supposed to be doing as we walk on them.

Alongside that, may we also recognize that how we live may obstruct other people’s view of the truth, but it does not change the truth. Likewise, our own heroes can point us to the truth but they are not the truth. Let us strive to fixate our thoughts on Jesus Himself, and never be so addicted to one of His representatives that that person has power over our grasp of the truth.

In Nerdiness: 

1. Writing to the Corinthians: there are some who advocate that 1 Corinthians 5:9 indicates a letter before 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians 2:3-4, 7:8 indicate a letter between 1 and 2 Corinthians. The Baker Exegetical Commentary volumes, the NICNT volumes, the Pillar NT volumes, all are worth consulting on this matter. (I’m not discounting others, those are the ones I looked at.)

2. Paul’s citation of Deuteronomy 17:6, about needing “two or three witnesses” is interesting here. He places this in context with his warnings to the church: I warned you once, I’ve warned you again, and so now my warnings are established seems to be what you have in 2 Corinthians 13:2. If that is so, then it should inform our own understanding that “two or three witnesses” may not automatically mean two or three impartial observers.

Thorns, Visions, Leaders, and Fellowship: 2 Corinthians 12

In Summary:
Well, we’ve reached one of the great “weird” chapters of the New Testament. 2 Corinthians 12 sees Paul speak of “a man” who was caught up to the third heaven and saw Paradise and heard “inexpressible words.” And then, Paul speaks of his thorn in the flesh, some unclear “messenger from Satan” that is there to keep him humble. It’s a perfectly clear chapter apart from that. Well, except for the identity of “the brother” that Paul sent with Titus. 2 Corinthians 12 provides fertile ground for speculation and imagination.

Which we will indulge in up to a point, but there comes a time to move from that to the more profitable exercise of exegesis: striving to understand the contents of the text. It is entirely possible to not understand a portion of a chapter and still grasp the overall meaning that God has put in the text. After all, while God requires us to have the Holy Spirit illuminate the text for us to fully understand the text, He didn’t give it to us to ponder, be confused by, and then never read. The word of God is given that we may know the Word of God in Christ Jesus.

So, we’ll put most of the speculations into the “In Nerdiness” section where it belongs and focus on the rest of the chapter.

Paul is continuing to defend his status and role as an apostle. A word might be useful here about why he needs to do this. At this point in the growth of the church, they have two primary sources for Truth in the church: the Jewish Scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) and the teaching of the Apostles who told them about Jesus. The church is not yet in possession of the New Testament (not written, mostly, yet), so what they know about Jesus comes from the Apostles, the eyewitnesses of the Risen Jesus. That makes being considered an “Apostle” a big deal because your teaching is authoritative and trusted. Paul needs to demonstrate and hold his claim to this status so that his teaching about Jesus is considered accurate. And when you look at the folks who opposed Paul: the Judaizers who wanted to add Jewish law to the Gospel; the folks in Corinth from 1 Corinthians who were sexually immoral; the people who tried to use the Gospel for profit—it’s a good thing he did! The Truth remains the same, with or without defenders, but it is far easier to know it if someone trustworthy proclaims it!

In Focus:

For a focal verse, let us move past the visions and thorns and look long and hard at 2 Corinthians 12:20. Here, Paul expresses his concern that his arrival in Corinth will find the church tied up in jealousy, temper, disputes, arrogance, and a host of ego-driven problems. Ego-centrism is diametrically opposed to the Gospel: you cannot be full of self, driven by self, and serving only yourself and also follow Jesus Christ as Lord. It just does not work—and Paul is reminding the Corinthians of this.

He wants to settle as many of their disputes with him, and by extension, with each other, before he gets there so that his time with them is a time of building up, not breaking down. He then commands them to repent of impurity, immorality, and perversion before he gets there—because they cannot be right with each other until they get right with God!

In Practice:

What does this look like for us? After all, we have the Bible so we don’t necessarily need Apostles, right? I think the argument should be made that the Apostles are the eyewitnesses of the Risen Christ, and so we do not have Apostles, whether we need them or not. (And if we needed them, God would have loopholed them so we would have them. He didn’t, so we don’t.)

The issue at stake for us is two-fold: leadership and fellowship. Leadership first: while we are not dealing with the exact same qualifications as an Apostle of the first century, those who would lead a church today should look long and hard at what Paul uses to justify himself: his sacrifice, which was real. Not some nebulous “I could have made millions as a something else” sacrifice or a “look how hard this is, somebody bring me a Fresca” type of ranting, but rather as a “How can you think I’m doing this for myself when you see how much trouble it is? If this was for me, I’d mail it in, go fishing with somebody…” He has worked and shown himself to be true.

We need to consider the same thing in our leadership: too many times, we allow a natural gifting to overwhelm our good sense or a feeling of amazement at one great moment. But the moment does not always make the man: the church must be more aware of how they invest authority in leaders and must put more effort into preparing leaders.

Second, we must consider fellowship. There can be no true fellowship in the midst of strife, jealousy, disputes, slanders, and so forth—so what do we have in our churches? There are problems among us because we are not repentant of our sins, and that drives us to lash out at others rather than fix our own hearts. Let the impurity go from each one of us, and we might be astounded what God will do with our relationships with each other.

In Nerdiness: 

As discussed above:
1. “I know a man:” almost all of the commentaries I have take this as autobiographical, and just the manner of speaking in that era. Especially when Paul goes from “knowing a man” who had these visions to he, Paul, having a thorn so that he didn’t get arrogant because of the visions. Hard to figure that he got the thorn if he didn’t have the visions, true?

2. “The third heaven:” really? We want to talk about that, too? Sure thing: it is either the “third heaven” which is above the heaven the birds fly in and the heaven the stars are in and is, therefore, Eternity-type heaven, or there are levels to eternity that we don’t understand. Dante picked that view, for both Heaven and Hell. Either way, Paul has a vision of the unseen things, and he is not permitted to talk about it.

3. Okay, he cannot talk about it—he heard “inexpressible words.” That particular phrase is sometimes used to move speaking in “tongues” into speaking in “heavenly languages” which nobody understands, but that doesn’t work, because a human is not allowed to speak those words. No, we do not know what they are…and probably will be so engaged in the presence of Jesus in eternity that we’ll forget we care.

4. The Thorn in the Flesh, a Messenger from Satan! Paul’s great problem. It’s been suggested that he has poor eyesight, that he has some other illness, or that he has a relational issue. Perhaps this is his expression of frustration, “Why, Lord, do I have to keep battling the same stupid arguments about Judaizing or legalism, over, and over, and over again?” Whatever it was, it was not going away—and Paul had to cope with that. God does not solve all of our problems. He instead provides us Himself, and that is a far better solution.

Lights and Deception: 2 Corinthians 11

In Summary:

Paul continues to work through the challenges to his leadership in Corinth and the wider Christian world of the time. While the focus of 2 Corinthians 11 is his relationship with the church at Corinth, an Apostle would have been respected, should have been respected, by all of the churches of the time. As such, he is defending not only his work in the one local church, but also his work throughout the body of Christ.

Reading through this chapter, it is important to recognize that Paul is going to use several contextually-normal rhetorical devices to make his point. He’ll refer to his ‘foolishness’ and to his skills and his effectiveness. He will also point out that he is personally committed to the Corinthians and contrast that with the manner in which others have, apparently, treated them. Verse 20, for example, makes it clear that some bad things have happened to the church at Corinth, yet the Corinthians seem unwilling to reject the people responsible for those occurrences. Perhaps they were too afraid to cross up the celebrity apostles of the day by rejecting them outright.

Paul highlights, as the chapter comes to a close, that one of the marks of a true apostle is his willingness to face danger for the sake of the Gospel. Paul testifies to his experiences, not in the abstract, of dangers faced for the Christ he serves. The wolves, on the other hand, tend to flee the risks of the work. We do not have records to see what they claimed, but one can almost fill in the gaps: that if Paul had any sense, he would have avoided the dangers, the robbers, etc.., and Paul is embracing the danger as part of the task.

In Focus:

For a focus, though, let us move off of Paul and onto 2 Corinthians 11:14. Here we see the most insidious problem that churches will face: the masquerade. Take from verse 13 through verse 15 as a unit and the picture becomes clear: those who are false prophets are agents of Satan, out to destroy.

And Satan uses deception to advance his purposes, just as his servants disguise themselves as God-honoring servants. As we consider this, the dangers come into view: the first glance at a false prophet, a deceitful worker, will look like someone who is doing good things for the Church. After all, these men had deceived the churches which learned from the Apostles themselves! Their deeds will, eventually, expose them as false but not before they lead many astray.

To that end, Paul warns the church at Corinth: BE AWARE, but also do not be so surprised. They should expect this.

In Practice:

And so should we: deceivers still come around and try to destroy churches. They come in many flavors, and we need to address a few of those here.

First, there is the willful deceiver. This is the person who knows what they are doing is wrong, and comes deliberately to do wrong and bring harm to the people of the church. There are more of these than you would expect! They prey on our unwillingness to ask probing questions, our unwillingness to push back against a forceful personality, and our over-willingness to let people do whatever they like, for fear they’ll leave!

Second, there is the unwitting deceiver. There is a bit more to be pitied in this person, because they are not aware of their errors. They still take people along with them, and need to be corrected. But the malice is absent. These tend to come in two basic types. You have the ones who have slidden, over time, away from a solid faith. They started off good and Christ-focused, but issues pushed them off the mark into a bad place. Usually it happens in response to someone’s sin: a good example is the youth teacher who becomes legalistic about all forms of boy/girl interaction in response to sexual sin on the part of a few. They are deceived (and deceiving others) that hyper-legalism will substitute for a vibrant relationship. The other portion of this group tends to be those who follow false teachers. Perhaps it is because of an old relationship, perhaps because of a personal blind spot, but these folks recycle the bad teaching of a wolf without knowing what they are doing. You can find this when someone frequently brings in the same author/speaker/video presenter and will accept no questions of that person’s ideas. Having a favorite author/speaker/presenter is no sin, but treating that person as infallible is absolutely a problem.

So, what do we do about it?

Three quick thoughts:

1. Know the truth yourself, to the fullest of your ability. That requires effort and diligence, which means you need to treat your Christian walk as a responsibility and not a dessert party. You have to work at your growth in Christ. It will not be automatic.

2. Be willing to ask questions. You need to listen to the answers, because at some point you have to decide if someone is trustworthy or not, but ask questions. Ask good questions: not the fluffy ones but the real ones. The ones that are revealed as much in a life as they are in words. If someone professes one thing but you have never seen evidence of the other, that should be a clue.

3. Be careful of the cynicism that rises up in you as you encounter deceivers. It is absolutely true that some folks are out to use you, abuse you, or otherwise harm you. It is certainly false that everyone is out to do so. Now, avoiding cynicism is not the same as having no defense—the wise person locks their car, the cynic never takes it out of the garage. Both are trying to avoid it being stolen, but one is still using their resources for life.

(and someone who has had many bad experiences will, understandably, need more times of staying in the garage.)

4. Seek the wisdom of others. It is tragic the number of times that we treat others as non-existent when we need help. Many wise people in your life probably feel like Cassandra: shouting the truth and being fully ignored by those in need. Ask for help, and be fully forthcoming in your requests. It is very, very difficult to give wise counsel to those who only tell half the problem.

5. When you identify a deceiver, do not keep it to yourself. Pass that information on to those who need it! Not out of malice, but out of compassion for others.

In Nerdiness: 

1. Take note of 2 Corinthians 11:7-9 when some use Paul’s occasional tent-making as a justification that ministers/preachers should never be paid. Here Paul expresses that his wages for working in Corinth were supplied by other churches—he was not always working outside of teaching/preaching! We should also take from this, though, an additional thought: when our churches can sustain multiple ministers, is it not worth considering that we should be like the Macedonians and fund a minister to a church, that he may serve without straining that church? Usually we want the excess spent on more of what we want, or we send it off, but there are many areas in need of a solid, local Gospel witness, that are only a few miles from large churches—but while the large church adds a fifth, sixth, seventh, full-time employee, the church a bit further away lacks the resources for one minister. We could do better about sharing as Baptists, this much I do know.

2. We assemble parts of Paul’s biography from the end of the chapter, but we cannot fit all of those details into the narrative of Acts. So, we don’t know where his shipwrecks were, all of his floggings, etc..

The Image of a Warrior: 2 Corinthians 10

In Summary:

2 Corinthians 10 continues Paul’s defense of his work and his role as an apostle of Christ. He is dealing with a spectrum of accusations and here actually presents some of them. For example, v. 10 lets us know that Paul was accused of being “unimpressive” in person, that he was hard to listen to (or, perhaps, too easy to listen to and not lofty and elevated). He talks about his work, and does so to contrast what were apparently self-promoters in the church.

That’s a challenge to deal with, because the simplest way for Paul to shut them down is to point out how awesome he is, rattle off the fullness of his credibility. He could have demolished a bad argument or two, but in the end, he would have looked a bit more like a jerk and less like an apostle. That’s self-defeating: let me prove I’m a better Christian by shouting you down and shutting you up. It may seem reductionist, but that’s worth considering: is that the argument you are making?

This is not Paul’s point. Now, I think it’s worth noting that he’s wrestling with two different issues here. First, there are those who are pseudo-apostles, trying to make a living preaching a Gospel they do not really believe. They are working to fit the mold of roving sage, just as the many philosophies of the Greco-Roman World had. They could talk the talk, but the life was not quite there. It may have been a virtuous life, but it was a dead life as well. They were impressive, though, and that made life a bit tougher for Paul. The missionary that flies coach/standby always looks a bit more disheveled when they show up to preach than the guy who stepped off his private jet, though. Paul was in a similar situation: he looked a bit more worn because he was not using his resources to look good or travel in luxury. He certainly did not need his own multi-million drachma personal transportation, either. Jesus walked until He needed a colt to fulfill His Word; Paul was much more interested in being like Jesus than anybody else.

The second group was a bit tougher to straighten out. Some of the other Apostles, from the original Twelve, were also traveling and preaching. And, because they had walked with Jesus, they were often received in high honor. It is likely, given the other references to “I follow Peter…” and other mentions of the Apostles in both Corinthian letters, Paul is dealing with the church getting a bit too fanboy of some of these Apostles and comparing Paul to them. It’s not fair to do so—Peter or John can talk about being in storms that were stilled, seeing the 5,000 fed. And Paul does not want to outdo those. He just needs the church to listen to the Word of God instead of becoming idolaters of Apostles. We have trouble with this, too, because we take our heroes of the faith and make them untouchable. Yet all of them were human. They suffered, they struggled—Lottie Moon had bad days; Dietrich Bonhoeffer had some odd theology; the Venerable Bede wasn’t always venerable! 

Paul, then, is trying to assert the validity of his ministry without taking a shot at Peter, but also nudging aside impostors. No wonder he had some trouble!

In Focus:

The verses I need to focus on the most right are 2 Corinthians 10:3-4, so let’s go there. Paul goes straight to the heart of many of our problems: we walk around in the flesh. Our lives are lived in the body, in a sin-soaked world, surrounded by troubles and internally challenged by our old sin nature. We walk around in the flesh. That is the reality now just as it was then. 

But we do not war according to the flesh—we do not go into conflicts driven by winning the way the flesh wins. (Check Ephesians 6 if you want to know if he’s consistent.) We war with weapons designed to fight the spiritual battles around us. Paul is highlighting that we are not always going to look like we are rightly equipped, but the standard is the spiritual issue.

He goes on, and in verse 5 brings forward taking every thought captive for Christ. The war, ultimately, is about self-control so that the glory of God shines through us and others see the grace of Christ. The matters at hand are far more important than true and false apostles, but come all the way back to the Creator of All. If someone is truly an apostle, then see Jesus shine through them.

In Practice:

Well, I wish this were easy. But it’s not. My first tendency is to war according to the flesh, because my enemies are in the flesh. Sometimes they are outside of the church, and I just want to rise up and force my way onto the world rather than winning the world to Christ. Sometimes, my enemies are within the church, and I’d like to use a bit of aggressive negotiation to bring them to my way of thinking. I get short, snappy, angry, and question the salvation and humanity of my opponents. But that is the way of the world—see the modern political climate and realize just how dreadful that is when brought into the church!

And, finally, I do war with myself as if the problem is merely flesh. As if I can correct myself with earthly means when the problem is spiritual rot. The solution is to live growing in obedience to Christ, not to merely discuss my own wretchedness.

It is far better practice to advance obedience to Jesus than to attempt to flatten the flesh. He is a big enough God to clear His own space.

In Nerdiness: 

I’m so far out of the habit that I’m struggling to do this whole thing, much less catch nerd notes…

1. Fortresses=ὀχύρωμα=ochyroma and this means…”fortresses.” Is he talking about spiritual powers? Or just deeply dug-in sinful responses in our lives? Great question….

2. Paul’s reference to “regions beyond” in v. 16 suggests he wanted to travel past Greece. This could be Italy, though in Romans he references a desire to go to Spain. 

3. Note the challenges to Paul’s rhetoric: that he writes aggressively but speaks calmly. But is that not sometimes necessary? Clarity in print can be mistaken as harshness.

Never Equally Returned: 2 Corinthians 9

In Summary:

Whenever we give something away, there is always a concern. What if I need this later? What happens if I run short? This concern may not be completely universal, but it is common enough to see it in action in Corinth. Paul spent 2 Corinthians 8 reminding them about how they should be participating in the offering for the saints in Jerusalem, and now tightens his focus on the motivation for their giving.

Paul reminds the Corinthians that their giving will not go unnoticed. Starting with 2 Corinthians 9:8 and following, he expresses that God is capable of supplying their needs. The Corinthians need not fear that they will not be able to do the work of God if they give in obedience now, because He will take care of their needs.

The Corinthians are also nudged about the idea that a few of the Macedonians are coming with the brethren to carry the offering—and they wouldn’t want the Macedonians to find them unwilling, would they?

A final general note from this chapter: Paul is clearly more concerned in the character of the givers, not the quantity of the gifts. If they are becoming generous and cheerful, then they are doing well. If, on the other hand, large amounts are being given grudgingly and sparsely (in comparison to ability), then they are failing. Keep in mind that a willing, generous dime reflects spiritual maturity better than a grumped million from someone who won’t notice it.

In Focus:

Taking a longer look at 2 Corinthians 9:10, though, there is something important to take note of. Paul uses the image of agriculture to speak of giving. He highlights that the God who provides seed for the sower will also supply the needs of the Corinthians. The concept is that, by giving, the Corinthians are planting a “seed” which God will then multiply into a “harvest.”

Now, if we are not careful, this will go in a very bad direction. What is that direction? The idea of a clear correspondence between the giving of money and the sowing of a harvest in material wealth. It is crucial to read the whole verse in the context of the whole unit (2 Corinthians 9:6-15), and in context of the book and the whole text of Scripture.

The harvest is of righteousness. Paul speaks throughout the passage of the ability to provide for their need for grace (v. 8), good works (v. 8), righteousness (v. 10), thanksgiving (v. 11), and the confession of the gospel (v. 13). While there are areas, such as in 2 Corinthians 9:13, that can (and should) be understood to reference God meeting the material needs of the Corinthians, nowhere does this support a reading that giving some leads to a definite material prosperity. It is instead given that they will be able to grow in generosity—which is not the same as material wealth.

In Practice:

The practical side of this is threefold:

First, the command on the believer is clear: our giving should be cheerful and constant. Just as a farmer does not sow only once in a lifetime, but at all times that the season is right for it, we should give in the appropriate season. When is that? At all times when there is a harvest to reap. What is that harvest? How about the one in Luke 10:2? Here we see that there is a harvest ready immediately—which means it’s time to keep planting.

Second, that the harvest is not automatically of the same category as the seed. Here we depart from the pure agriculture picture: one does not plant rice seed and harvest oak trees, but with God you just may see something like that. One plants, perhaps through financial giving, and then harvests righteousness in your own life, salvation in others, or grace in your growth. From this, we grow onward and are more generous—not only with the same seed but with new seed, drawn from the new harvest.

Third, that it is in God’s good time that we see that harvest. It will be in time to meet the needs He sees.

In Nerdiness:

2 Corinthians 9:7: God loves a “cheerful” giver. Now, with appropriate credit to Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies, we need to remember something here. “Cheerful” comes from the Greek word that eventually gives us the word “hilarious.” However, “hilarious” in modern English does not have the same meaning as “cheerful (hilarion)” in the Koine Greek. Therefore, the idea that has popped up from preachers and televangelists, that one should “laugh through their giving” or other nonsense, playing on hilarious, is just wrong. It has no basis in the text. “Cheerful” rather than “morose,” yes, but giving isn’t a knee-slapping manner. It’s one of the clearest ways that the Kingdom of Eternity crashes into the Kingdom of Now, because their economic systems are fundamentally different.

Now, it is easy to try and massage this passage into instructions for the routine, proportional giving that we as believers should be doing to support kingdom work through our local churches. But I don’t see it here—this is about special projects, about tasks beyond the local church. Tithing comes in other places—though we can learn about the character of the generous, the ungenerous, and the God who sees all.