Lead:

What if someone dismisses you — writes you off — for no reason or the wrong reason? Paul was. Let’s see how he responded.

Intro:

Some of you of a certain vintage might remember the television show Hee Haw. That’s where that’s from, and oddly I remember that stupid thing to this day. Not that country stuff like that was my bag, but when you grow up at a time and in a town with two and half television stations, sometimes you watch what you have available to you.

Yesterday I promised you that one of the things we read yesterday is something I’d get to today in our All Our Minds segment, so I’ll just remind you that after the opening we read where he’s responding to those in Corinth of accusing him of stuff. Today we’ll knock down the next couple chapters and then come back to it, asking ourselves, “What if we, like Paul, were wrongly accused or dismissed? What should we do?”

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Bible:

Passage: 2 Corinthians 3-4
Translation: NCV (New Century Version)
Verses: 36
Words: ~787

All Our Minds:

As we get rolling, bear a couple things in mind. One, there’s this ongoing dialogue here…Paul started this church, and we have two of the letters he’s written them. We can tell that there’s at least one, if not two more letters that we don’t have, and another visit in there somewhere. And remember what we know from 1 Corinthians? Corinth was a town of hero worship, and they clearly had their favorite preachers who very possibly had oration skills and outward social and financial success that Paul didn’t have.

“…you met another and thhhhppfff you were gawn…”

So, while it sounds like most of the people in that church were persuaded and touched by Paul’s letter that we call 1 Corinthians, Paul at this point is responding to people are still miffed. And they’re criticizing him. They though he was fickle, untrustworthy, etc., and I read somewhere in some commentary that they thought he was hard to understand and kinda weird. We know from other sources Paul was likely a puny, funny-looking guy who did not come across well as an orator. He was the opposite of charisma.

Now let’s relate to something else here. Most of this dialogue isn’t happening in person. It’s happening via writing. It might have been on parchment, but we have dialogue via email or other media too, right? Have you ever been misunderstood? I am so busted.

Anyway, here’s Paul, who doesn’t across well, isn’t being trusted, does’t have the right credentials, is being maligned. How does he respond? Paul Barnett puts it like this:

Paul’s reply, when reduced to basics, is that he has interrogated his conscience (verse 12) in prospect of the day of the Lord Jesus (verse 14), when, as he states elsewhere, ‘the Lord … will expose the motives of men’s hearts’. The testimony of his conscience is that, on that day, Paul will be shown to have behaved both in the world at large and towards the Corinthians with holiness and sincerity that are from God (verse 12). These motives have been operative, his conscience tells him, both in the former (lost) letter as well as in the present one. He had written so as to be understood, which in part he was; he now writes with the intention that the Corinthians will understand fully (verse 14), Their questioning of his motives is ill based. When the great and coming day arrives and everything is revealed he is confident that they will be boast of him.
The word boast, which is common in this letter, has an ugly and un-Christian ring to it. It must be remembered, however, that boasting of achievement was common among both Gentiles and Jews. As a matter of convention successful Roman soldiers commemorated their victories in wall paintings and in epic narratives. Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee in the temple tells us of the man’s confidence in his religious deeds. Paul’s opponents, the visitors in Corinth, appear to have boasted of their credentials and experiences to legitimize their mission; they ‘are boasting in the way the world does’, he writes (11:18). In using their style, but boasting rather of ‘weakness’, (12:9), of the ‘Lord’ (10:17), and, in this case, in God’s grace (verse 12), Paul is actually inverting their practice and throwing it back in their teeth. So far from revealing arrogance, which indeed it does in his critics, Paul’s boasting actually reflects his humility before the Lord. In particular the apostle is concerned to show that his motives, irreproachable as they are, do not arise from within himself, from worldly wisdom, but from God’s grace. Barrett comments that ‘out of the theology of the grace of God emerge, as gifts from God himself, the ethical virtues of simplicity and sincerity. This is the foundation of Paul’s argument in this paragraph; and it ought to be recognized by the Corinthians themselves.’
Continuing his defence, he turns now from his written to his spoken message (verses 18–19) which is, in summary, that God is faithful to his promises…(1)

So if we use Paul’s response as a model for our own, what’s that look like? Barnett continues

From God’s side, as well as from ours, everything is focused upon Christ and it is for this reason that the prepositions in and through are so important. Because God’s promises come true in Christ, we say the Amen (Hebrew, ‘it is true’) through Christ to the glory of God (verse 20). Christ is the ‘go-between’. God speaks to us in Christ and we, who have received the message, speak back to God through Christ. The apostle is teaching us that we may approach God by no other path and glorify him by no other means. Sin prevents us approaching God in our own right; but we may draw near through Christ.(1)

The bottom line

In part of my work I’ve run across people who won’t look at you if you don’t have the right pedigree, an advanced enough degree, whatever. And rather ironically, I just yesterday found a study by George Yancey at University of North Texas that was published in Journal of Religion and Society where he found that Christians that are progressive actually express more hatred toward conservative Christians than they do toward atheists. I don’t even think of myself as a conservative, per se, but I’ve certainly experienced someone writing me off because they’ve got their mind made up about who’s a good Christian and who’s a bad Christian.

I say this not for your sympathy…I say it because, probably like you, there have been times I’ve responded wrongly. Or wished I had the right credentials. Or wanted to challenge them to a duel. But what did Paul do that we can do? Three things:

Is your conscience clean? That’s between you and God. If not, make it right.
Have you attempted to communicate and pursue unity? Paul did, repeatedly. Even when he was in pain about it, he extended grace.
Are you trusting that justice belongs to the Lord? You don’t have to fix everyone else’s junk. They’ll be accountable for their own.

Wisdom:

Passage: Psalm 119:33-64
Translation: NCV (New Century Version)
Verses: 32
Words: ~525

Love you!

-R

ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.

Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.

Sources and resources:

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(1) Paul Barnett, The Message of 2 Corinthians: Power in Weakness, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 38–39.

And here’s the new translation we’re trying this week: New Century Version

Not cited directly today, but here’s the reference anyway: George Yancey, “Christian Fundamentalists or Atheists: Who do Progressive Christians Like or Hate More?,” Journal of Religion & Society 19 (2017)

Not used today, but stuff I like:

J. P. Moreland, “God and the Argument from Mind,” in Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources, ed. Khaldoun A. Sweis and Chad V. Meister (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 403. (link)

J. P. Moreland, Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), Kindle location 656-657. (link)

The Story of Reality, Greg Koukl — Love this book. A killer intro to the Christian worldview that is philosophically and theologically sound while being accessible to all readers.

How to Read the Bible Book by Book, Fee & Stuart — Just bought this myself (and haven’t read it), but Fee’s book on how to read the Bible for all it’s worth is a mega-best-selling classic.

#934: 2 Corinthians 3-4 | Wrongly dismissed? | Psalm 119:33-64