2 Corinthians (Program #3) -Introduction (3)

The apostle Paul after his strong rebuke and dealing with the Corinthians in his first letter had good reason to visit the city at his first opportunity. It would had given him the chance to answer first hand any misunderstandings and to sue any lingering stinging from his rebuke.

In the realms of public relations or human wisdom he surely would had taken this way. But Paul’s living was not directed by such things as “PR” in human wisdom. And though he was criticized by some of the Corinthians for delaying his coming after he told them of his desire to come.  We see the real reason for his delay. The reason was the Lord Jesus Himself. And Paul’s first concern which was not to live just a Godly life, but to live Christ, to live in perfect oneness with Him. This is the pattern that Paul had become not just to the Corinthians but to all of us.

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2 Corinthians (Program #2) -Introduction (2)

The apostle Paul was a remarkable person. He was used by the sovereign God to unveil much of the New Testament revelation. He also performed wondrous miracles and was a mighty evangelist. Yet in the book that had been understood to almost be his autobiography, he tells us that his only boast was in the singleness or sincerity or purity with which he and his co-workers lived and served the faithful God by living Christ. Listen to his words to the church in Corinth in 2 Corinthians chapter 1,

12 “For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in singleness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.”

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2 Corinthians (Program #1) -Introduction (1)

The apostle Paul’s first epistle to the believers in Corinth was of sixteen chapters and was full of his strong rebuke and argument with the church there. In that letter he subdued them and defeated them. Now in his second letter just as a parent would spend a long period of to comfort and encourage a child that had received the strong chastisement. Paul minsters to comforting ointment and the encouragement of love. Listen to his opening words in his cherishing epistle :

1:1-3 ” Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy the brother, to the church of God which is in Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassions and God of all comfort;”

This is a very subjective book, 2 Corinthians, where by Paul brings the Corinthians back to the experience of Christ and is a book that can lead us to experience Christ as well.

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2 Corinthians (Program #55) – Final Exhortations, Greetings, and Blessings (2)

The book of 2 Corinthians has a wonderful conclusions.  Paul after unveiling so many aspects of his own living and his own experience of Christ in this book, concludes with this 3-fold blessing.  2 Corinthians 13:14 “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  But this is not a blessing given in a merely religious way.  It’s a blessing that brings us into the very Triune God that Paul himself experienced, enjoyed and even lived out in his daily life.  Grace, love and fellowship were his portion and daily enjoyment of the very Triune God.  May we have Him as such a portion as well.

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2 Corinthians (Program #54) – Final Exhortations, Greetings, and Blessings

The apostle Paul concludes the two long letters to the church in Corinth in a most wonderful, sweet and loving way.  “finally, brothers” he writes in verse 11 of chapter 13, “rejoice, be perfected, be comforted, think the same thing, be at peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.  The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  Actually these concluding words, especially verse 11 gives us a marvelous summary or recap of all the crucial points of the whole book of 2 Corinthians.

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2 Corinthians (Program #53) – Paul’s Vindication of His Apostolic Authority (8)

The last four chapters of 2 Corinthians are known as Paul’s vindication of His apostolic authority.  On one hand it was something of a shame that Paul was compelled to make such defense on his own behalf.  It’s in this light that he says in chapter 11 “What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord but as if in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting.” (11:17)  But in the same section just a few verses later, chapter 12 he says “All this time you have been thinking that we are defending ourselves to you. Before God in Christ we speak; but all things, beloved, are for your building up.”  This apparent reversal left Paul vulnerable to the charge of being inconsistent.  Was he speaking foolishly not in the Lord or was he really speaking in Christ and before God?  The key is found in the last few words of that verse “…all thing, beloved, are for your building up.“

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2 Corinthians (Program #52) – Paul’s Vindication of His Apostolic Authority (7)

The concluding chapters of 2 Corinthians are Paul’s vindication of his apostleship.  His authority, especially with the believers in Corinth had been challenged and undermined by religious men  posing as apostles seeking to  lead them away from the simplicity and purity in Christ back to the Mosaic and Judaic practices of the old covenant.  It would be easy to consider that the points Paul makes in this portion would have little or any application to us. believers in a much different time and not necessarily in the capacity of leadership.  Yet as with all the Scripture the divine revelation contain in this portion is full of meaning and shows us once again a true pattern for all of us who desire to live Christ and experience Him day by day.

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2 Corinthians (Program #51) – Paul’s Vindication of His Apostolic Authority (6)

The church in Corinth was born directly out of the ministry and care of the apostle Paul.  Yet later, many of the believers there were affected negatively towards him because the accusations of false prophets that had come into Corinth, in an effort to draw the church away from their enjoyment of Christ and back to the Old Testament practice of law-keeping.  These ones claimed that they were the real apostles and that their knowledge and gifts far surpassed those of Paul’s.  So because many in the church were confused and no one stood up for Paul to make his case, Paul himself was compelled in the final chapters of this book to make his own “boast ” and to defend his own apostolic authority.  What he revealed to the church in Corinth in chapter 12 is some of the most remarkable speaking in all of the New Testament, for Paul himself tells of the incredible and mysterious vision that the Lord had permitted him to see in an effort to rescue the Corinthians.

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2 Corinthians (Program #50) – Paul’s Vindication of His Apostolic Authority (5)

At the end of 2 Corinthians the apostle Paul was compelled to make a vindication of his apostolic authority.   In the course of this defense, he described much of the sufferings and poverty that seem to be his constant companions during his ministry.  Judging his ministry by today’s common standards, it might seem to some that his work lack the Lord’s blessing.  Listen, “three times I was beaten with rods” he writes, “once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I had spent in the deep, In journeys often, in dangers of rivers, in dangers of robbers, in dangers from my race, in dangers from the Gentiles, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers in the sea, in dangers among false brothers; In labor and hardship; in watchings often; in hunger and thirst; in fastings often; in cold and nakedness.”

This kind of hardship and shortage even of the basic material supplies might seems strange to some.  How could this be the case of a genuine servant of the Lord?  But to Paul, it was quite the opposite.  For to his realization the Lord Jesus during His earthly ministry similarly suffered and Paul considered it an honor that the Lord would find him worthy to share in the sufferings.

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2 Corinthians (Program #49) – Paul’s Vindication of His Apostolic Authority (4)

Remember back to the very first problem that affected mankind in the Bible.  It was the serpent tempting the woman to eat of the tree of knowledge instead of the tree of life.  Now consider Paul’s word to the Corinthians addressing the impact that those claimed to be apostles upon them as they minister different Jesus to the believers in Corinth.  Chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians verse 3, “But I fear lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your thoughts would be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity toward Christ.” Paul’s fear was that the teachings of the so called apostles would have the same result as the serpent’s deception in Genesis 3, to distract the believers away from the enjoyment of Christ’s life and bring them to another tree, a tree that leads to death.

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