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

The Message of Second Corinthians

The very church that Paul had planted himself now had become so permeated with false Christianity that, when the apostle himself came to them, they rebuffed him and refused to allow him to teach within the church.

So Paul returned to Ephesus. From there he wrote a very short, sharp, caustic letter, rebuking and reproving them for their attitudes.

He met Titus and received word that the letter he had written had accomplished its work, and that the majority of the Corinthian Christians had repented of their rejection of his ministry and had begun to live again the life of Jesus Christ. A minority was still unyielding, so, from the city of Philippi, Paul wrote the second letter to the Corinthians which expresses so much of the anxiety and agitation of the heart that he experienced.

The first five chapters, particularly, are a wonderful explanation of what the ministry within the church ought to be.

He goes on, then, to set forth the wonderful ministry of the new covenant, not the old grim determination to clench your fists and set your teeth and try to do what God wants you to do – that is never Christianity – but the realization that he has provided in you the Holy Spirit to minister to you the life of a risen Lord in whose strength and grace you can do all that life asks of you.

He sets forth the resources of a Christian:
· First, there is the Word of God. The business of every Christian is to declare the the truth and light of God’s word.
· Second, there is the indwelling treasure, the mysterious indwelling Spirit of God to show that the power is not ours, but that it belongs to God.

· With this, Paul links the principles of the Cross. We are always being put into places of difficulty, pressure, hardship and trouble. Why? In order that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

· God has a great future ahead for us. The life we now live is the preparation for that life which is to come.

· Then he declares his motives in Chapter 5 – Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men; {2 Cor 5:11 RSV} – For the love of Christ controls us[constrains us, drives us to move out] {2 Cor 5:14 RSV}

· This brings us into a face to face confrontation with a great scriptural declaration of the transforming character of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This good news does what nothing else can do – a transformation by the implantation of a new life. God is entrusting
to us the message of reconciliation.

In Chapters 8 and 9, giving, he says, is to be the proof of love.

Now in Chapters 10, 11 and 12 we have a change of tone entirely. The weaker you are, the stronger Christ can be.

So Paul closes the epistle by addressing these people at Corinth as he addresses us today, “Examine yourselves,
whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves.”

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.