If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.
- 2 Corinthians 2:5-11
In the section of his letter right before this passage, Paul wrote about feeling pain, causing pain, and avoiding more pain in the future. He also ended verse 4 with a statement about not wanting to grieve the Corinthians but instead desiring that they know his love for them. This passage echoes those same themes.
Scholars debate whether Paul is writing about a certain individual in this section or whether it’s general commentary. Paul does not name names, but some think that this refers back to the person guilty of incest in 1 Corinthians 5. However, others disagree with that as this letter is too far removed from that situation. Paul does not name any particular person he may or may not have had in mind.
In verse 5, Paul shares that for anyone who has grieved (or caused pain to) the Corinthian church, the result is not that Paul is caused pain but that everyone in their congregation is caused pain. One person’s sin against the congregation will be felt by the entire congregation, and Paul too as he feels responsible for them, though to a lesser extent.
Verse 6 gives us insight into discipline within the church at Corinth. Whatever Paul is writing about that was disciplined was clearly a public matter within the congregation. We don’t know what methods they used for discipline then, whether it was some kind of formal gathering, whether the punishment had been decided upon by a few people or a general vote, etc. But Paul indicates that the punishment was inflicted “by the majority,” and that punishment should be sufficient. We often like to keep reminding people of their wrongs, even after they have been appropriately disciplined, and Paul is cautioning against that here.
Discipline should serve not just as a punishment for a wrong that was committed but also to change the person. Paul emphasizes this in verse 7, instructing the people to forgive and comfort the individual. The point is not for that person to continue feeling sorrowful for what he did but rather to learn from it and be able to move on with life. Forgiveness involves healing from whatever wrong was done rather than continuing to remember and bring up the incident to continually punish the offender.
Another part of forgiveness is affirming love for the offender, as Paul writes in verse 8. If there has been a public discussion of the sin and a public punishment handed down, then there should also be a public reaffirmation of love to reinstate that individual back into the community, after he has been appropriately disciplined. This would also affirm God’s forgiveness in that person’s life. The community of the church would show God’s forgiveness in a tangible way to that individual by showing him their forgiveness.
In verse 9, Paul reveals that he was testing their faith and commitment. If the Corinthian church responded properly in carrying out discipline, then Paul would know that they were following his teachings and therefore working toward becoming better disciples of Jesus Christ. They would both need to start and end the disciplinary act appropriately in order to pass this test and prove that they view Paul as an authority over them to give them instruction on how to carry out such matters. It appears that the Corinthian church had passed Paul’s test.
Since they acknowledged that they do see Paul as an authority to teach them, Paul also needs to express forgiveness to the individual who requires this discipline (verse 10). But he also notes “if there was anything to forgive,” which implies that this may or may not have been an actual situation; it may have been general teaching rather than addressing a specific issue with a specific individual. Paul brings up Christ when discussing forgiveness, as it was Jesus who taught multiple times that forgiving one another is essential to living out the Christian faith. Forgiveness must be granted to keep unity in the church and for the sake of their relationships with one another.
Another purpose for this forgiveness is so that they do not give in to Satan’s evil schemes (verse 11). Withholding forgiveness from an individual who has repented and received appropriate discipline would bring disunity and grudges into the church, which are of Satan and not of God. Satan already had a hold on the individual when he committed the sin, and a lack of forgiveness would only increase that. There must be punishment for sin, but it must be administered in love and for the sake of correction, not just for punishment’s sake. The goal is reconciliation and repentance through forgiveness.
This is a powerful section of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians because it has great practical implications for our lives today. Paul urged the Corinthians to forgive and comfort the person who had caused grief with this sin. We, too, are called to heal broken relationships by extending forgiveness to those who have wronged us.
We are to reaffirm our love for them, even when it’s difficult because of how others have treated us. This reaffirmation of love is essential to build a community that is known for its love and unity. As Christ has loved us, so are we to love those in our Christian community.
Spiritual warfare is still a real thing in our world, as Satan seeks to lure us into sinful actions, which could then drag down an entire community if we’re not careful. Paul warns the Corinthians not to be ignorant of Satan's schemes. Unforgiveness and division within the community can create an opportunity for the enemy to hinder God’s work through us. Forgiveness is a spiritual weapon against the forces of evil, and we need to remember to use it.
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No story works well without a villain or without a dark trial to overcome. The Gospel is the greatest story ever told, and the reason why so many of these great epic stories resonate with us so well is because they actually encompass the Gospel and reflect the true epic of the Gospel. I have discussed the author of this epic (God) and the setting of this epic (creation which includes mankind), and now I’ll deal with the villain (sin).
Many debate who the original sin was done by, Adam or Lucifer, but this misses the Gospel. The Gospel is for man. Only man can be redeemed; the angels cannot. God gave no provision for the salvation of the angels because the angels were not made in God’s image. So even though Lucifer fell before Adam sinned, his sin does not count when considering the Gospel. Lucifer’s sin makes him the primary villain of the whole Gospel account for being the instigator, and his final judgment will be executed as prophesied in Revelation 20. However, Lucifer (Satan) is just an instigator. He has no real power or authority. He has no legal right to rule anything. He is called “the god of this world” or “the prince of the power of the air,” but he actually has no official position. He is a lowly worm, and when God fully exposes him for who he truly is, we will all gape in awe as to how this little worm could wreck the whole world so well with his craftiness and deceptions. And yet it was this craftiness and deception that tricked Adam and Eve to rebel against God and thus bring all of mankind into sin and rebellion against God.
I am not going to go into the whole account of Genesis 3 here, but I want to emphasize what their sin did. Adam and Eve’s original sin was more than just a personal choice. That is why we are not held responsible for their actual, physical decision to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We are instead held under a “federal headship” law that is passed down to us. We understand this notion in government where decisions not made by us are imposed upon us by our government. Adam acted as our federal head, our “governor” in this regard, and when he sinned, he submitted all his progeny to the law of sin of death. We each have this propensity towards sin that we inherit from Adam. This propensity towards sin is actually not full-blown immorality as many tend to think. It can more accurately be described as the desire and longing to do things your own way and to replace God as the ruler of your life. And because sin is the desire to go against what God says, all immoral ideas and actions are full game.
Because our nature is to sin, God will deal with that one way. However, we are directly responsible for our own transgressions. We know full well what God’s standards and His commands are, and we intentionally defy them anyway. That is why Adam’s sin was so treasonous. It was not a mere eating of a fruit; it was a direct defiance of God. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, God is holy, righteous, and just. He will not and cannot let that go without dealing with sin. And deal with it, God did. That very day. He confronted Adam and Eve, cursed them for their sin, and yet did not slay them on the spot. He instead gave a promise for a Savior and then demonstrated how that Savior would do His work by slaying an animal and using its skins for clothing, giving the first picture of the substitutional atonement.
God did not leave Adam and Eve to their own devices. However, sin had entered the world, and it would be permanently cursed. God will destroy the whole universe and rebuild it when all things are said and done. Sin escalated quickly with Cain and Abel, the first prototypes of the reprobate sinner and humble believer. Cain sought to do things his own way, and when that did not go his way and Abel was doing things right, it burned him and he murdered Abel over it. The world would get excessively worse to the point where only Noah and his family would be spared when God chose to wipe out all life except for those on an ark that Noah built.
As we continue through the Old Testament and world history, we see continual depravity growing and a departure from God’s ways. But we always see a group, a remnant, some who submit to God and His ways. It started with Abraham and continued through Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Moses continued the line of faith but as we get into the Judges and Kings, again, only a few of God’s people would remain walking with Him. Everyone still sought their own things, their own ways, doing what was right in their own eyes, and rarely giving God a second thought. As a whole, it has only gotten worse with each generation, however, with each generation there has been a group loyal to God. God has brought nations to judge other nations, used natural disasters to destroy armies, and made generals commit horrible blunders they would never make otherwise to steer the course of history and to protect His people. And the day will come when God will return in His glory and put an end to the rebellion once and for all.
Man is desperately wicked. I know personally what my own propensities are, and I am at the mercy of God to restrain them because I cannot. I know if God were to turn my sin loose and let it run its full desire, I’d easily have people seeking my head for the things I’d do. I am not the hero of my story. I may be a “protagonist,” but I am no hero. I can hardly call myself a damsel who needs to be rescued. I am a villain. I am an anti-hero. My story on my own will only bring death and destruction. And no one is different. Our hearts are so wicked and deceitful and beyond saving that it is simply a miracle of how the patience of God and His longsuffering to save us. But didn’t I say we cannot be saved? Yes, I did, and that is the Gospel. That sinful heart has to be put to death, removed entirely, and replaced. This is why Jesus said we have to deny ourselves to follow Him. The sinful self is judged and will be judged, and yet, God still seeks mercy and restoration. How does he do that? Though Jesus Christ. That is for next week.
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I call God as my witness —and I stake my life on it—that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth. Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm. So I made up my mind that I would not make another painful visit to you. For if I grieve you, who is left to make me glad but you whom I have grieved? I wrote as I did, so that when I came I would not be distressed by those who should have made me rejoice. I had confidence in all of you, that you would all share my joy. For I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you.
- 2 Corinthians 1:23-2:4
In the previous passage, we saw that Paul had changed his travel plans, which affected his visiting Corinth. He defended his actions by appealing to God’s faithfulness. In this passage, he shares how it is in the Corinthians’ best interest that he did not make that extra visit to them as he had originally planned.
He starts out here by saying that it was to “spare” them that he did not return to Corinth (verse 23). This implies that he would have been harsh to them during his visit, most likely for everything he called out and rebuked them for in his previous letter to them. He is very emphatic on this point, saying that God is his witness and he stakes his life on it. He really wants the Corinthian church to understand that his lack of a visit was in their best interest and that things went as God intended.
Some believe that verse 24 is to counteract the Corinthians’ claims that Paul was trying to act like a tyrant or a dictator over them in his instructions. But that is not the case with Paul; he desires to serve them and work with them to help them grow in their faith and fulfill their mission of living out and spreading the gospel message. Everything that he does is for their joy and so that they will stand firm in their faith, which will honor and glorify God while spreading the gospel. Paul wrote similar words to the Philippians: “Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith” (Philippians 1:25). This is Paul’s mission, not to tyrannically guide every aspect of their lives.
This is one of those passages where the chapter break doesn’t really make sense because it is at this point where chapter 2 begins. Paul is in the middle of his thought here, so since he continued on, we will too.
We see in verse 1 that Paul made up his mind not to make “another painful visit” to the Corinthians. This implies that it was Paul’s decision, not something that was out of his control based on various circumstances. It is believed that Paul made this decision while in Ephesus after hearing about how the Corinthian people were insulting him. We’ll learn a bit more about this in next week’s passage of 2 Corinthians 2:5-11. Paul wanted his time with the Corinthians to be joyful, not painful, so he changed his plans and did not make that extra visit to them.
Paul admits in verse 2 that his decision not to make the visit was also due to his own emotions. The Corinthians were a congregation that brought him joy, so if he had a negative visit with them, then he would lose that source of joy. If he caused them pain, then he would feel that pain also.
Verses 3-4 reference a letter by Paul to the Corinthians, which is often known as the “sorrowful letter” or the “severe letter.” We do not have manuscripts of this letter today, but we can make inferences about its contents based on Paul’s other writings to this congregation. If Paul needs to express condemnation toward the Corinthians, perhaps it would be better received via letter rather than in person so as not to affect their relationship as much. We can often convey our thoughts and feelings better in writing as it gives us the opportunity to choose our words more carefully than when we’re having a discussion in the heat of the moment.
Paul’s “severe letter” to the Corinthians took the place of a harsh in-person visit from him, which is why a few verses prior in 1:23 he said that his lack of a visit was to spare them. That way, they could get all the negativity out of the way and have a good visit in person when he was able to come back to Corinth. He was confident that the Corinthians would receive his letter well, and while it may take them some time to process it, they would once again become joyful with Paul and see that he is doing all of this for their benefit.
Whatever Paul wrote in this “severe letter” greatly distressed him. He emphasizes in verse 4 that his point in writing that letter was not to make them mad but to show them his love for them. Paul is showing them discipline – not correcting them out of anger or condemnation but out of love and a desire for them to live the lives that God has called them to. Paul was genuinely concerned for the Corinthians, and he was trying to make sure they knew that.
It is often hard to receive correction or discipline from someone else, and we can often mistake someone’s motives in correcting us. We can easily misunderstand others’ intentions, and that is why good communication is so important. In Paul’s day, communicating across distances was significantly more difficult than today, and it took much longer. While there are benefits to slower communication, such as giving people time to cool off and think with a clear head before responding, it could also give them more time to dwell on what Paul said and possibly misinterpret it.
But regardless of the speed of our communications, we need to make sure that we have the same attitude that Paul had – providing discipline and correction to others when needed, but only out of deep love for them. We also need to accept discipline and correction when it is provided to us by those who love us. We need to make sure to listen to those who are correcting us and not make assumptions that are not true. While we are all fallible humans who make mistakes, often things that may not feel great to us are really for our own good, just as Paul was showing his love for the Corinthians by changing his plans.
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God is the Creator. He made everything and He set the stage for the grand theater we call “life.” He wrote the script and made each and every one of us characters in this big play. I am an author of both fiction and nonfiction books, and in my fiction writing, I create characters through which I tell my story. Some characters are good, some are bad; some are redeemable, some are not. When I develop my characters properly, they begin to get their own voices and are able to tell me, the author, what they would do in certain situations. That directs how I move the story. Many authors have this saying, “If your characters don’t talk back to you, you haven’t developed them well enough.” God has fully developed each of us, knowing the number of every hair on our bodies and knowing our every thought. And that is what He uses to carry out this grand epic called “history.”
In order for God to showcase His glory, His might, His love, His grace, and His justice, He needed a stage on which to carry it all out. This is “Creation,” the physical universe that we all live in. God is the creator. There is no other option. All the proposed deities never created anything; they only manipulated what was there. Only the God of the Bible created “ex nihilo,” out of nothing. There was no physical anything – no time, no space, no matter, nothing. Then God who is outside this physical universe, just like I, an author, am outside the world I create for a story, spoke and it came into being.
I know it is not a popular notion among Christians, but I have a friend who plays Dungeons and Dragons. While I do not play myself, I have enough “gaming” background to actually understand the principles behind the game and how it works. I can say much of the backlash comes from a lack of understanding of what it is. I can see some legitimate concerns, but few have demonstrated an understanding of the game/system to correctly express them. The game is simple: players in a group choose a character to be, and they can pick and choose a variety of skills and traits that the character would have. They use that character to role-play through many different situations and scenarios set up by a Dungeon Master who is the master storyteller. The point in bringing this up is that the Dungeon Master can “speak” things into existence such as (to use my friend’s example), “It rained pink flamingoes,” and then it rains pink flamingoes in the game’s world. This is about as good of an analogy as I can give to explain how God creates by speaking things into existence.
God did not use natural means to create. He spoke it into existence. He also did it in six days, six normal days as understood by mankind. This is vital because it reveals the character of God as being holy, as being “other than” us. He created in a way that man would never consider if he were making up a story. He did not create over many long years of natural processes. Not only does science not support those models, but God is not going to share His glory with another. He is not going to allow man to figure out how He created lest we try to steal His blueprints and proclaim ourselves to be God in His stead. God also did not create instantaneously. While He absolutely could have done it any of these ways, He purposefully did not want to be deemed a super “magician” who just waved a magic wand. He was not going to let Himself be relegated to mythology easily. So He created in six days; everything in the natural universe was done and made in those six days. Nothing was done before and nothing was done after.
God also did something that none of the other models did with creation: He completed it as “very good.” The curse of sin was not present. Weeds and thorns did not grow. There was no hint or record of death of any kind upon the completion of creation. Everything served its purpose, demonstrating God’s creative power and mind, while also keeping track of so many intricate details that it completely surpasses man’s capability. Only a true God with all possible knowledge could create what we see in this universe.
Then to top it all off, God created mankind. Man is unique among all other creatures. Not only is man’s physical design so spectacular that he can do more things holistically than any other animal. True, man cannot fly, swim as deep as fish, or run as fast as cats or dogs, but we can climb, swim, run, use tools, fight, and do things that many animals who have their specialties cannot do. Above all that, man is made in the image of God. Unlike any other animal, man alone has the capacity to be a reflection and a picture of God on this physical earth. Man is the only being that has an understanding of “ought,” of morality, of “should or should not.”
The Creation gives us the backdrop for the greatest story ever told – the Gospel. Man is at the center of the story. The Gospel is about God’s dealings with man. But it goes deeper than that. God is a Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It has been said that the Father so loved the Son that He created mankind who would rebel against Him, and yet out of that rebellious population, a remnant would be chosen to be a bride for the Son whom He would get to enjoy for eternity. The Gospel is about how God comes to rescue man from his sin and displays the most creative and counter-intuitive manner to bring in salvation that only God could come up with. It makes no sense to those who think in the flesh, but to those who have been saved and look at eternity, it is the most glorious thing.
This week and last week have all been about the setup for the Gospel. Next week, we’ll introduce the villains of this great epic story: the devil and mankind.
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Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity. We have done so, relying not on worldly wisdom but on God’s grace. For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that, as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Because I was confident of this, I wanted to visit you first so that you might benefit twice. I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia, and then to have you send me on my way to Judea. Was I fickle when I intended to do this? Or do I make my plans in a worldly manner so that in the same breath I say both “Yes, yes” and “No, no”?
But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silas and Timothy —was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.” For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
- 2 Corinthians 1:12-22
As Paul begins this section of his letter, he first defends his previous conduct. Paul is likely making these statements because some in Corinth have brought these charges against him, so he is providing his response here. We do not have any documentation of the actual allegations against Paul, other than his replies we see here.
In verse 12, he appeals to the testimony of his conscience and his relationship with the people of Corinth. Paul believes that he has acted with integrity and sincerity, though of course, he would never claim to be perfect in his actions (see 1 Timothy 1:15). The Corinthians know Paul and his fellow workers for the gospel, and that relationship would also validate Paul’s character and what he says here. It is not through worldly wisdom that Paul could act with integrity but only through the grace of God.
Paul has not written anything to them that they were not able to understand (verse 13); he has spoken in plain language to explain God’s truth to them as best as he can. Even if they have not fully understood everything that Paul wrote to them, they will come to understand it better as they continue to grow in their faith and live out the Christian life (verse 14).
In verses 15-16, we see some of Paul’s travel plans, and this itinerary seems to contradict what he wrote in 1 Corinthians 16:2-8. His plans from 1 Corinthians seem to be Ephesus, Macedonia, Corinth, then possibly Jerusalem. In this letter, his route appears to be Ephesus, Corinth, Macedonia, back to Corinth, then Judea. It appears that his plans changed between the two letters, now indicating the need for a second stop at Corinth.
These changing plans may make Paul seem fickle to the Corinthians, giving those who opposed him reason to accuse him of not sticking to what he said (verse 17). They accused Paul of operating on impulse and feelings rather than keeping his word – saying yes one day but saying no the next.
Paul was distressed enough by that claim that he invoked God’s faithfulness as a means to defend himself in verse 18. It is as if Paul claims that God Himself is confirming to the Corinthians that Paul is trustworthy, though not as trustworthy as God Himself, of course. His message to them is not both yes and no at the same time, meaning that his message is not unclear to them. He is preaching the gospel to them, which they have already understood and would continue to comprehend.
Paul, Silas, and Timothy have all preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Corinthians, and that message is always, “Yes” (verse 19). There is no inconsistency or indecision in Jesus nor in the gospel message. While the people delivering that message are flawed humans, the God they proclaim has no flaws in Him.
All of God’s promises found fulfillment in Jesus Christ, thus the message was always “yes” to any promise that God made (verse 20). God’s message is always consistent, whether delivered to the Corinthians or to anyone else throughout history. Paul’s saying “Amen” confirms that he agrees with the gospel message of Jesus Christ that he has been preaching. As Paul confirms how he is preaching the gospel truth consistent with God’s faithful character, do the Corinthians really think he would act in such a non-Godly manner in trivial worldly things like his travel plans? Of course not.
Paul has defended himself by acting by the Holy Spirit, reiterating God’s faithfulness, proclaiming the unambiguous gospel message of Jesus Christ, and then by using the response of “Amen” as confirmation. Now, Paul points to how their faith is firmly grounded in Jesus Christ (verses 21-22). The four verbs in this passage all have God as their subject. The first (making them stand firm) is a legal term that a seller would use to guarantee that a purchase is valid. Here, is used in a form that implies how God is continuously strengthening them and validating their faith.
The next three verbs are one-time past tense actions – anointed, put His seal on them, and put His Spirit in their hearts (verse 22). These actions all happened when they became believers in Jesus Christ. They have been marked as God’s own people and commissioned for service in God’s Kingdom when they believed the gospel message. Paul is confirming their status as believers in God’s Kingdom, both here on earth and into eternity.
What does all of this mean to us? Just as Paul claims, we are all called to live with integrity and Godly sincerity. All of our actions and decisions in our lives should reflect this because of our commitment to following Jesus with our entire lives. Like Paul, we can appeal to God’s faithfulness in all aspects of our lives, no matter what challenges or accusations we are facing. God is unchanging, and He will always be faithful to His followers. God’s promises are always trustworthy, which He has proven throughout the Scriptures. Finally, like Paul, Silas, and Timothy, we are called to proclaim the gospel message to others, sharing with them how God has fulfilled all of His promises and gives us hope, redemption, and eternal life.
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One of the greatest blunders that many evangelicals have made is changing the Gospel presentation to starting with God and who God is to “God has a wonderful plan for you.” This not only makes the Gospel about man, how precious man is, and how God needs man, but it spits on the face of God and basically turns him to a pansy. When the focus of the message is wrong, it paints a wrong picture about God and those are not secondary issues we can just set aside.
The Gospel starts with God. The first words of the Bible are: “In the beginning, God…” It all starts with God. It was God’s plan to create a universe, a setting in which mankind would rebel against God and in which He would come down and rescue His people from their sin. God is the originator, the orchestrator, the plotter, the planner, and the architect, and He will finish everything that He started. But first, we have to know who God is, because if we get God wrong, none of the message of the Gospel is going to work. God is who the Gospel is about. He is the hero of the story. He’s not a mere genie who assists man in his own story, nor even merely the wise mentor, but the hero. And a severe problem we have today is we think we are the heroes of our own story. Hint: we aren’t. We are the damsel in distress in the best-case scenario. In reality, we are the villain. We are the ones who sinned. We are the ones who rebelled. We are the ones who deserve the cheers and jeers from an audience that wants to see the villain go down. We are the ones over whom the people will rejoice to see justice to be met. And God is going to see that justice is done. It is God who this story is all about, and when all is said and done, it will be God who eternity is focused on.
Who is God? I have both blog posts and a book about the character and attributes of God – who He is and what He is like. Of many different attributes, I will emphasize a few. First, God is the Creator. I’ll deal with this more next week, but the Gospel starts with God as creator. Being the creator means God not only knows but also controls every intricate detail about His creation. This is called sovereignty. This is a dreaded word in today’s soft evangelical world, where God is more treated like a divine butler, or a needy, sissified God who needs man, or a shampoo model who breaks if you breathe near them. God is sovereign. That means He rules over all things, including our circumstances. He can change them in an instant, and they are all there to establish and build God’s plan and God’s kingdom.
Many people do not like the idea of God as sovereign because it takes self out of the equation. One thing I will be addressing in this series is the deadly teaching and belief that we can come to God on our terms. It comes in many forms, but we have to understand that God is God, and we are not. We do not have a say in how reality works, and we most certainly do not have a say in what God should or should not do. In every case when we do that, we are projecting ourselves onto God and telling Him that He should do what we think should be done. Sometimes out of His compassion and love for us, He will. But sometimes for other purposes we cannot know nor understand at the moment, He does not. God has a much bigger plan involved than we can imagine, and it has many more pieces in play that we can understand. Sometimes He allows suffering due to consequences of sin and other times to train and prepare us for something much bigger. We don’t know why God allows some to sin against others in very grievous ways but part of what triggered me to write this seriously is to show how the Gospel is also for the victims of such sins. We know that God is still good despite the evil decisions of man.
God is a holy, righteous, and just God. This means when we sin against Him, He does not and will not let sin go unpunished. A wrong has been made, and He cannot let that slide or that would be unjust. Yes, God does and has allowed very evil things to happen, but they never happen without consequences. Nobody sins without consequences. Some are immediate, some are not, but our sins will find us out and justice will be had. Even for those who repent, there are still consequences. Just ask David. God forgave him of his sins regarding Uriah and Bathsheba, but he would deal with violence the rest of his life and it would be a permanent blemish on his record.
Yet, God is also kind, merciful, and compassionate. He is strict about His law and requires absolute, 100% perfection to keep it, but He also knows the propensity of the heart and weakness of man. He knew man would sin and rebel against Him, and as a means of showcasing His glory, He chose to create man anyway so He could save us from ourselves. God loves us enough to let us choose to do what we want to do, even if it hurts us, but He also loves us enough to come and save us when we come back to Him. However, His love and mercy work side by side with His righteousness, justice, and sovereignty.
So God gets all the glory, salvation is only offered when God offers it and on God’s terms. He gives man zero say on the terms – only to accept or reject them wholesale. As we will see as this series progresses, don’t mess around with God, because He is not messing around Himself. He has an agenda, and it’s His agenda. While He does indeed care for His children, He deals with things so that He gets the glory and His kingdom is advanced.
If we are going to preach the Gospel correctly, it must be God-centered, not man-centered. The Gospel is about God and what God does; it is not about man and how special man is that God needs to come get us to meet His needs. God has no needs, especially not any “needs” that could be fulfilled by sin-cursed people like you and me. We need Him, and the sooner we recognize that, the much better outlook we’ll have because it is not about us, nor dependent upon us. And that means we can rest and rely on God to do the heavy lifting. Life is so much easier to handle (not saying it will be easy, but easier to handle) when we can just roll things off for God to handle than try to deal with them ourselves.
Next week, we’ll look at Creation – how God designed everything at first, how He incorporates the Fall, and the eventual restoration of the creation.
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We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
- 2 Corinthians 1:8-11
Last week, we began looking at this introductory section of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. In that section, Paul emphasized how God is our comfort in times of suffering, and we should then comfort others. Here, Paul tells us a bit more about those sufferings and the hope that he has in spite of that.
In verse 8, he desires to inform the Corinthian church about what he’s gone through, though he does not go into great detail. Paul’s reference to “in the province of Asia” is vague, so scholars do not know exactly where this trouble occurred. Scholars believe that it had likely occurred recently, given that Paul still seems to be emotional from this experience. It is likely that the Corinthians would have known the specifics since Paul does not elaborate.
Scholars do have some ideas on what Paul’s great affliction in Asia was, though these are all speculative. Some believe it was his fighting with wild beasts in Ephesus (1 Corinthians 15:32). Others believe it was him suffering 39 lashes 5 times from the Jewish leaders, which he mentions later in this letter (2 Corinthians 11:24). It could also refer to the riot at Ephesus (Acts 19:23-41) or perhaps another time when people attempted to kill Paul. Or it may refer to persecution that Paul experienced somewhere from people who opposed him (Acts 20:19, 1 Corinthians 16:9).
However, this does seem to be a unique experience for Paul, at least up to this point in his life. It was incredibly overwhelming to him and his travel companions, and they basically gave up hope. They felt they could not endure it, and they did not think they were going to live through it. The rare Greek word translated as “despaired” in the last phrase implies that there is absolutely no opportunity to get out of a particularly oppressive circumstance. They did not think God was going to sustain them on earth through this affliction.
Paul reiterates that sentiment in the first part of verse 9: “Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death.” He fully expected that his time on this earth was done. But, God clearly delivered Paul and his companions from this terrible experience! Paul equates being so close to death and then being given life again with resurrection. He knows that it was only God who brought them through that affliction, and he shares this with the Corinthians so they can see what a miraculous work God did in Paul’s life. This was not to bring Paul and his companions any glory but rather that they would rely on God. God is the only one who can raise the dead, and Paul can now relate to that, being given a new lease on life.
God had delivered them from a deadly situation, and Paul believed that God would do that again in the future (verse 10). Note that Paul doesn’t say that he hopes never to be in a similar situation instead. He does not try to avoid future suffering. Instead, he knows that he will be put in this kind of situation again in the future, and he trusts that God will deliver him again. Whether that deliverance is on this earth or to leave this life and spend eternity in heaven, Paul does not know. But he fully trusts in God to provide deliverance through suffering, rather than hoping that God would simply not let him go through that kind of suffering again.
Paul also knows that the prayers of the Corinthians and other churches of the time will help sustain him and his fellow workers for the Kingdom (verse 11). The people should pray to thank God for delivering Paul so that he may continue to spread the gospel message of Jesus Christ on this earth; his work was not yet done! Many will give thanks for God sparing Paul’s earthly life at that time because he would continue to spread the gospel to more people.
While we don’t know exactly what Paul experienced, we do have the opportunity to know the God who delivered Paul through it. We want God to deliver us from suffering rather than delivering us through it, but that is often not how God works. We need to go through difficult times in our lives in order to see God as the one who delivers us, sustains us, and comforts us no matter what. Stories like Paul’s, even if we don’t have many details, can encourage us just like Paul writes: “He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again.”
God is a God of deliverance. Sometimes that means delivering us here on this earth, or sometimes that means delivering us to eternal life in heaven with Him. But either way, take comfort in the fact that although we cannot (and should not) avoid suffering on this earth, God is there to deliver us through it, just as he was for Paul.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
