2 Corinthians 4:5-9 (The Message)
Remember, our Message is not about ourselves; we’re proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you. It started when God said, “Light up the darkness!” and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful.
If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken.
Natural disasters have a way of messing up schedules, so it has been quite a while since we last spent any time on Paul’s letters. In our original schedule, we would have finished with the seven “authentically” Pauline letters by now – but -- life happens -- fire happens -- and here we are.
In mid-June, we began with his first Letter to the Thessalonians – the first of his letters to be written (at least, first among the letters that remain to us). This was followed by Galatians. After Galatians we moved to Paul’s first letter to the community at Corinth, followed by a personal letter to Philemon, then Philippeans, which was followed by Paul’s second letter to the people of Corinth. We were interrupted halfway through 2nd Corinthians, and so that’s where we are rejoining Paul today.
If you can remember back that far, this letter is actually a paste-up of at least three separate letters – maybe more – that were for some reason preserved as one. In keeping with our mission to read these letters in the chronological order in which Paul would most likely have written them, we looked first into the last four chapters, which were, ironically, probably the first written.
The chapters we looked at showed us Paul dealing with the same old thing – the false teaching of the Judaizers who came around after Paul, convincing his converts that Paul had lied to them and they really had to become good Jews to be considered true followers of Jesus. We were dealing with cranky Paul, here in these four chapters – and rightly so.
Today we’ll start with the middle two chapters, 8 and 9. These really could have been written at any time in relation to the other chapters. They have a different tone than either the first or the last chapters. The subject of here is the collection that is being taken up for the churches of Jerusalem and the “holy lands.” Paul is no longer cranky in these two chapters, but ministerial and encouraging.
At this point in time, the Jerusalem communities would have been suffering from more persecution than Paul’s converted Gentiles communities. Early in the Christian years, the largely Gentile communities were somewhat ignored by the locals, as long as they did nothing to attract the attention of the Roman authorities. This wouldn’t last, of course, but for a while there was relative peace for them.
In contrast, right from the first the Christian communities in Judea were harassed by Jewish zealots who attacked them constantly and were not above using the Roman state against them when they could – just as they had used the Romans to kill Jesus. As a consequence, these communities struggled.
In this middle section, Paul is raising a collection from the Macedonian churches – among the very first of his converts – to help support the Jewish Jesus-followers. The Greek people have been generous in the past, and Paul expects them to be generous again. He is bringing Titus with him on these appeals, because apparently, Titus is a big favorite among the people. Titus is a Greek name, so chances are he was a local convert, rather than a Hebrew missionary. The people like him and trust him, so Paul offers them Titus, and praises them in advance for their generosity and general goodness.
And so, on to the opening chapters of this long letter which were the last to be written. Here we meet, once again, a loving, patient Paul. He begins by apologizing for not having come to see them sooner. It was the deepest desire of his heart to do so, he declares, but he has avoided them to spare them trouble from those enemies who had been dogging his path for so long. This abuse appears to have been in the past at this point and Paul is prepared now to forgive and forget and move on. In chapter 5 we are told: If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
Earlier, in chapter 4, Paul had reminded the Corinthians – and, I suspect – himself, of just why he is here. “Our Message is not about ourselves; we’re proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you.”
In these chapters, 1 through 9, Paul turns away from the problems that were constantly bedeviling his work, and back to the message and the truth that set him out on this task in the first place. God called Paul, as it is translated in today’s reading, to “Light up the darkness!”
This is the message, he says, that God called me to tell you. This is why I came here to be among you. This is what I was sent to teach you: The old way – the way of fear and punishment and spiritual death -- was struck down by Jesus of Nazareth when, by his life and death, he conquered sin and despair in this world. This is the new life we are promised. This is the forgiveness that was yours when you first heard me speak and turned your lives to following the way of Jesus. We are, all of us, a new people.
This has been a strange letter, at times, reading it back to front, pieces from here and there. But these first chapters especially are Paul at his best -- this errand runner for Jesus – preaching the love which was always the driving force behind everything he tried to do. Lighting the darkness.
Next week we will delve into Romans – the longest of the letters and the last of our seven – and the one that contains some of the best known writing in the New Testament.
In mid-June, we began with his first Letter to the Thessalonians – the first of his letters to be written (at least, first among the letters that remain to us). This was followed by Galatians. After Galatians we moved to Paul’s first letter to the community at Corinth, followed by a personal letter to Philemon, then Philippeans, which was followed by Paul’s second letter to the people of Corinth. We were interrupted halfway through 2nd Corinthians, and so that’s where we are rejoining Paul today.
If you can remember back that far, this letter is actually a paste-up of at least three separate letters – maybe more – that were for some reason preserved as one. In keeping with our mission to read these letters in the chronological order in which Paul would most likely have written them, we looked first into the last four chapters, which were, ironically, probably the first written.
The chapters we looked at showed us Paul dealing with the same old thing – the false teaching of the Judaizers who came around after Paul, convincing his converts that Paul had lied to them and they really had to become good Jews to be considered true followers of Jesus. We were dealing with cranky Paul, here in these four chapters – and rightly so.
Today we’ll start with the middle two chapters, 8 and 9. These really could have been written at any time in relation to the other chapters. They have a different tone than either the first or the last chapters. The subject of here is the collection that is being taken up for the churches of Jerusalem and the “holy lands.” Paul is no longer cranky in these two chapters, but ministerial and encouraging.
At this point in time, the Jerusalem communities would have been suffering from more persecution than Paul’s converted Gentiles communities. Early in the Christian years, the largely Gentile communities were somewhat ignored by the locals, as long as they did nothing to attract the attention of the Roman authorities. This wouldn’t last, of course, but for a while there was relative peace for them.
In contrast, right from the first the Christian communities in Judea were harassed by Jewish zealots who attacked them constantly and were not above using the Roman state against them when they could – just as they had used the Romans to kill Jesus. As a consequence, these communities struggled.
In this middle section, Paul is raising a collection from the Macedonian churches – among the very first of his converts – to help support the Jewish Jesus-followers. The Greek people have been generous in the past, and Paul expects them to be generous again. He is bringing Titus with him on these appeals, because apparently, Titus is a big favorite among the people. Titus is a Greek name, so chances are he was a local convert, rather than a Hebrew missionary. The people like him and trust him, so Paul offers them Titus, and praises them in advance for their generosity and general goodness.
And so, on to the opening chapters of this long letter which were the last to be written. Here we meet, once again, a loving, patient Paul. He begins by apologizing for not having come to see them sooner. It was the deepest desire of his heart to do so, he declares, but he has avoided them to spare them trouble from those enemies who had been dogging his path for so long. This abuse appears to have been in the past at this point and Paul is prepared now to forgive and forget and move on. In chapter 5 we are told: If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
Earlier, in chapter 4, Paul had reminded the Corinthians – and, I suspect – himself, of just why he is here. “Our Message is not about ourselves; we’re proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you.”
In these chapters, 1 through 9, Paul turns away from the problems that were constantly bedeviling his work, and back to the message and the truth that set him out on this task in the first place. God called Paul, as it is translated in today’s reading, to “Light up the darkness!”
This is the message, he says, that God called me to tell you. This is why I came here to be among you. This is what I was sent to teach you: The old way – the way of fear and punishment and spiritual death -- was struck down by Jesus of Nazareth when, by his life and death, he conquered sin and despair in this world. This is the new life we are promised. This is the forgiveness that was yours when you first heard me speak and turned your lives to following the way of Jesus. We are, all of us, a new people.
This has been a strange letter, at times, reading it back to front, pieces from here and there. But these first chapters especially are Paul at his best -- this errand runner for Jesus – preaching the love which was always the driving force behind everything he tried to do. Lighting the darkness.
Next week we will delve into Romans – the longest of the letters and the last of our seven – and the one that contains some of the best known writing in the New Testament.
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