2 CORINTHIANS (Letter 47, Larry Crabb’s 66 Love Letters)

You Will be Immersed In Tears Yet Filled With Deep Joy

So how do we live God’s story of slow change in us but also how do we find the energy to keep telling that story when so little of the slow change is visible in others?

Are we so hungry for the excitement of seeing visible growth that we settle for the kind of shallow change in us and in others that great music and passionate preaching can create?

C.S. Lewis wrote, “Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know that they have anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need forgiveness. It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind that law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power – it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk.”

Current culture actually believes woundedness is a more serious problem than selfishness.

When Christ first spoke directly to Paul, He said nothing comforting; He exposed Paul’s sin.

Paul couldn’t bear the thought of anyone settling for less than the power to live the new way of radical love, to walk the narrow road of self-denial to real life in community.

No one who fails to see their selfishness as their absolutely worst problem, no one who continues to believe that their feelings of emptiness and pain and loneliness deserve prioity attention from a grandfather-like God who simply wants all His little ones to feel good, will ever know the kind of hope that energized and sustained Paul through all his disappointments and discouragement.

2 CORINTHIANS: From Ray Stedman

Click here for entire Bible Summary from Ray Stedman

to be completed

2 CORINTHIANS – David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: Those who represent Christ must have a clear message and godly motives and methods, so that their integrity will be ovbious even amid slander.

Key Verse: Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:20-21

Key Action: Slander in the work of Christ is temporary; service for the cause of Christ is eternal.