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2 Corinthians 4:2 (ESV)

But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.

            This morning, I took time to read through the early chapters of 2 Corinthians, and to take notes on the flow of Paul’s argument. As we read this book, we see that there has been a rift between Paul and the Corinthians, and that has something to do with the expectations of the Corinthian church. It seems that the Corinthians wanted Paul to look and act like the well-respected communicators of their day. They wanted Paul to be like the celebrities who passed through cities and used clever rhetorical devices to inspire and move their audiences.

            Paul, instead of being commended with all the fame and adulation of one of the celebrity speakers, suffered and went through hardships. Paul did not have a big following touting his praise. Instead, Paul was a guy who kept getting run out of towns, who kept getting arrested, who kept being beaten, and who basically looked, in comparison to the celebrities, like a nobody.

            Paul was perhaps one of the most intelligent men ever to have lived. He most certainly could have matched wits with any celebrity orator of his day. But he refused to play that game. Why? Why would Paul not take advantage of the opportunity to make his name greater and to expand the influence of his ministry?

            Above, we see Paul’s simple answer to the question. Paul writes, “
But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” Paul renounces what he calls disgraceful and underhanded ways. Paul is not going to do anything to appear to be something he is not. Instead, Paul ties himself completely to the Scripture. He will not mess with Scripture. He will not tamper with the word of God. Instead, Paul is going to hold high the word of God, to refuse to play the game of the celebrity communicator, and to let God commend his message to the hearts of the people.

            Please note, this is not a man who did not contextualize. Paul said in 1 Corinthians that he was very willing to become all things to all men in order to see some saved (1 Cor 9:22). Paul was willing to put on and take off cultural practices in order to get the message of the gospel to the people. However, Paul was not willing to manipulate the people by playing the celebrity, nor was he willing to manipulate the message to make it more of what the modern man wanted to hear. When it came to the gospel, Paul preached only the one, true gospel that is clearly present in all Scripture.

            Is there a lesson here for us? I hope so. Let us be a people who hold fast to the word of God no matter what. Let us not feel the pull to make ourselves into the slick celebrity culture’s mold. Let us hold high the word of God. Yes, let us communicate in ways that the lost can hear and understand. But we must never change the message. We must never tinker with the Scripture. We must let the word of God say what it says, and we must trust God to do the work of heart change for his glory.

2 Corinthians 4:6-7 (ESV)

6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

            At the end of one paragraph and the beginning of the next, Paul sets in contrast two wonderful truths. Paul shows the Corinthians that he and those with him who preach the gospel have a great treasure. Then, as he opens the next paragraph, Paul makes sure that his readers understand that, though the treasure is great, Paul and his companions are weak vessels, not grand and worthy of such a treasure in themselves.

            For the past few chapters, Paul has been talking about the gospel of Christ. He drew a comparison between the gospel and the Old Testament law. Paul wanted to show that the message of Jesus far surpasses the law, even though the law in itself was a glorious thing.

            As Paul discusses the treasure that he has in the gospel, he refers to it as “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” As many have pointed out, this is a lofty statement from Paul, bringing into the discussion the values of the cultures that came together in Corinth. The Jews followed God, who led them with light in the sky. The Greeks treasured knowledge. The Romans in their empire treasured glory. Paul shows that, in the gospel, the message of God’s plan of redemption, we see light and knowledge and glory, the treasures of all people, all bound up in one central treasure, the person and work of Jesus Christ.

            If having the gospel is a treasure beyond the measure of any culture to claim, then who are we to claim to have it? Are we not full of ourselves to say that we know the one message, the one truth, that others have failed to see? Paul answers this criticism before it can even be raised.

            Paul argues that, if the treasure is great, the vessels containing it are weak. Paul refers to himself and his fellow ministers of the gospel as “jars of clay.” Paul wants the Corinthians to know that he does not assume, even for a moment, that he is the one who is special. He is but a weak, clay pot. The treasure is what is valuable. HE has no strength in himself. All his message, all his spiritual success, all his goodness comes from the gospel, not from himself.

            What Paul has written there is true of us too. WE have the message that is a treasure beyond measure. But we do not have it because we are special. We are not entrusted with the gospel to share because we are special. No, we are weak. We mess things up easily and regularly. But God’s message is still powerful. God’s Gospel is still glorious. We want the world to see that it is God’s strength not ours, that saves souls and changes the world. So let us be the people of God who highlight the treasure and downplay the weak vessels in which God has chosen to place it.

2 Corinthians 2:14-16 (ESV)

14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

            Have you ever noticed that people do not always agree on what smells good? I have in my mind a particular Japanese dish that my wife really likes. It is called natto, and it is a sort of smelly, slimy, fermented soybean paste (if you can’t tell, I’m not a fan). Here’s how to make it yourself! While I find this dish completely inedible, my wife, who is typically the most smell-sensitive person I know, loves it.

            Do you find it strange that I now have a gospel comparison to make? No, I do not think of Jesus as similar to Japanese beans; however, there is something to learn. Paul points out in the verses above that Christians who share the gospel are like a fragrance. To some, that fragrance is the sweet smell of life. To others, that fragrance is the reminder of death.

            In eternity, every person will be judged by God. Some will receive his mercy and grace because they have been found under the protection of Jesus. Others will find themselves under the judgment of God because they have not received Jesus’ forgiveness. To each, a reminder of who Jesus is will be a very different thing. To a forgiven person, the message of Jesus is life itself. To a lost person, the message of Jesus is foolish, repulsive, and altogether nonsensical—that is, until God opens their hearts to see its beauty.

            Learn from this as you share your faith. If a person is not being drawn to Jesus, your gospel presentation will not smell good to them. Don’t let that bother you. Don’t let yourself try to perfume the gospel with any scents that are beyond what it truly is. Just tell the truth in a kind, honest, open way. If they reject the clear gospel, they are not rejecting you.

            However, if a person is being drawn to Christ, the gospel will smell sweet, enticing, alluring. The very same gospel, the same honest and clear gospel, becomes the scent of life to someone who recognizes their sin and sees for the first time the offer of grace in Christ. Like before, you need not perfume the gospel by adding to it or hiding parts of it. Just tell the truth and watch God make it sweet to those he is saving.

            It would take a radical conversion of my taste buds and my olfactory nerves to make me ever desire natto. However, radical conversions do happen. It takes a radical conversion of a person’s soul to make the gospel of Jesus Christ smell sweet to their spirit, but God does those kinds of conversions. Let us be faithful just to tell the truth and watch God do what we know is impossible. AS we do so, he will get the glory and we will be, as Paul says, to some the smell of life to life and for others the smell of death to death. However, as we tell the truth of Christ, we will always be a sweet aroma to the God who sent us out to take his message to a lost world, and that is where our joy is found.  

2 Corinthians 1:9 (ESV)

Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

            When we struggle with the hardships of life, we need to recognize that there are biblical truths that counter our pains. We will see this in multiple places in the letter of 2 Corinthians.

            In the above passage, Paul has been telling the Corinthians about the hardships that he and his fellow workers had recently faced. IN fact, these men had suffered so greatly that they despaired of life. These guys felt like they were going to die under the oppression and the hardships that came into their lives.

            Now, stop and think. What do you do when you fear death? What do you do when it looks like the life you have is coming to an end? How do you continue to serve God? How do you continue to make it?

            In the verse above, Paul clearly finds hope in one simple truth: God raises the dead. This truth gave Paul and his fellow evangelists the hope that they needed to press on through the struggle. IF God raises the dead, then they need not fear even death.

            What would change in your life if you remembered very clearly the fact that God raises the dead. Take this beyond a simple doctrine that you ascribe to. Take it deep. What happens if you really believe, deep down in your bones, that God raises the dead?

            If you do not know Jesus, you had better let the fact that God raises the dead sober you. If God raises the dead, then this life is not all there is. If this life is not all that there is, you would be wise to think about where you will spend your eternity. If God is the One who raises the dead, then it is with God that you need to be right. And if you need to be right with God, there is only one way, by coming to God through Jesus (John 14:6).

            If you are a Christian, the fact that God raises the dead should change what you value, what you live for. If God raises the dead, we should be more passionate evangelists. If God raises the dead, we should be more willing to give up our comforts in the here and now. If God raises the dead, then we should be willing to take risks that others find absurd. If God raises the dead, we should be able to face suffering and death with hope.

            Paul was able to handle unbelievable pressure because he relied on God who raises the dead. Countless Christians today find hope in the fact that this life is not all there is. Today, why not consider what it really means that God will raise the dead? Why not consider what might change in your life as you come to truly take hold of this massive truth?

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (ESV)

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

            God allows us, at times, to suffer hardships. God comforts us. The question that we often ask is, “Why?” What is the purpose that God has for our hardships? What is the purpose that God has for what he allows us to go through?

            Look above at the opening verses of 2 Corinthians, and see a purpose for our pain that many fail to recognize. Paul, in writing to the church in Corinth, lets the believers know that God comforts us in our afflictions so that we too might comfort others with the comfort that we have received. The simple truth here is that, when we suffer and then receive the comfort of God, God is shaping our lives in such a way that we will then be able to help others through similar pains.

            The point that I would have us grab this morning, then, is that we need to not waste our pain. We need to not waste our grief. When we suffer, we will not like it—that is, of course what suffering is. However, when we suffer hardships, God is preparing us for a ministry. God is shaping us for a mission. As we walk through pain, we are made able, by the grace of Christ, to help others who will walk a similar path to ours.

            What pains have you experienced? What hardships have you suffered? How might God use your pain and comfort to help others to be comforted in their pain? How might your struggles be used by God to help others to receive the grace of Christ? You are a tool in the hand of the Father. He intends to use how he has shaped you—even through trial—as a way for him to touch other lives with his grace. 

1 Corinthians 15:16-17 (ESV)

16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

            In the early 20^th century there was a common movement to take the supernatural out of the Scripture. This was the beginning of the modern theological liberal movement. The idea behind such a change was not to destroy Christianity, but to “rescue” it from the ridicule of a scientific world that no longer accepted the concept of supernatural acts.

            However, a peek at 1 Corinthians 15 shows us that there is no way to rescue Christianity from the supernatural. The section above is a conclusion from Paul in a very simple piece of deductive logic. Paul was dealing with some in Corinth who were claiming that dead people do not live again—that there is no resurrection. Paul points out that, if they make such a claim, then they cannot claim that even Jesus came back from the dead. Then Paul concludes by telling the Corinthians, if Jesus is not alive—back from the dead—our faith is futile, useless, worthless, and we are still in our sins.

            The truth is, Christianity is not a faith that we can ever rescue from the ridicule of the world around us. This is because we believe things that the world cannot fathom. At the heart of our faith is the understanding that God the Son came to earth, that he died on the cross to pay the penalty for the sins of God’s children, and that he rose from the grave. As I told my daughter yesterday, the fact that Jesus rose from the dead proves 3 things to us:

1.      It proves that Jesus is who he claimed to be—Only God could come back from the grave, not an ordinary man.

2.      It proves that those who believe in Jesus really are forgiven—If the wages of sin is death, and if Jesus came back from the dead, then we know that the wages of sin are fully paid out to Jesus for anyone who is under his forgiveness. Thus, anyone who trusts in the resurrected Jesus is truly forgiven, his sin-penalty has been paid.

3.      It proves that those who trust in Jesus will live forever with God, even if they die—Jesus’ resurrection is a reminder for the people of God that, even if we die, we too will come out of our graves just like Jesus did so that we can live forever with God in the new heavens and earth.

But none of these things, none of these proofs, are available to a person who denies that Jesus has truly come back from the grave.

            One thing to learn here, Christians, is that we must not try to make our faith more acceptable to the world. We believe things they do not. That is what makes us different. We are not different than the world because we are better. We are different because we have been brought by God to trust in a miraculously risen Savior. We have been given a faith that is reasonable, but which is well beyond scientific proof. We have been brought by God to a faith that is supernatural, and which only makes sense to us once we have it. Let us not hide that faith, but share it with those who need the mercy of our Lord.

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1 Corinthians 9:15-18 (ESV)

15 But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting. 16 For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! 17 For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship. 18 What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.

            What do we tend to want to boast about? In general, it is true that we boast when we do something that costs us greatly. We do not boast about doing something we have to do, but when we do something that goes beyond. So, for example, a person does not boast about how well they breathed today or how they never gave up sleeping last night. No, we do not boast about what we have to do, that just would make no sense.

            The flow of Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 9 is interesting. He spends time answering the question of why he chose not to receive payment from the Corinthians, but instead chose to take a job as he preached to them. I intend to comment on the sacrifice that Paul made and what that says to us in a future post. But for today, I am fascinated with the “boasting” that Paul does right here.

            Paul says in verses 15 to 19 that he does not want to be deprived of his boast. I’m guessing that he is speaking in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way here. Paul has something to be proud of, and he does not want to lose it. Paul’s pride does not come in preaching the gospel to the Corinthians. Instead, his pride comes in the ability he has been given to preach to them without charge.

            It is not the joy that Paul expressed in preaching without financial benefit that I want to focus on today. Rather, it is what Paul says about preaching to the Corinthians that got my attention. Paul says that he can take no pride in preaching the gospel to them. Why? Paul says that he can’t take pride in preaching the gospel, because he could not stand it if he were not preaching the gospel to them. Sharing the message of God with the people of Corinth is so essential to who Paul is and what he does that he cannot imagine what life would be like did he not make gospel proclamation is mission. That is why Paul says, “For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!”

            Draw some personal application from Paul’s statement. Paul said it was a necessity, a drive, an unquenchable urge he had to preach the gospel. Paul says that he would experience woe, hardship, desperate sorrow if he were not to preach the gospel. Paul took no pride in his preaching, because preaching the gospel, telling the truth of the good news of Jesus, was life and joy to Paul. And telling the truth of Jesus to others can be, and should be, life and joy to us as well.

            God has given you and me a calling and a mission. We are called to make disciples of the nations (Matthew 28:18-20). We have been told by God that we are to be part of how he impacts the world with the gospel. We do not take pride in telling the world the gospel. Instead, we should tell the world because we love telling them about Jesus. We should tell them about Jesus because we find ourselves compelled by God to do so. We should have a drive, an urge, a passion for making the Savior known to those who do not know him.

            So, what if you don’t have that passion? Pray. Ask God to grant you the desire that your heart should have. Look to Scripture, study the gospel, and se its compelling beauty. Love Jesus, and watch as God stirs in you a desire to make Jesus known. Share your faith, and watch as God gives you a more full understanding of all the good we have in Christ (Philemon 6).

            Paul felt a drive to tell the world about Jesus. Today, ask God to give you that same drive. May it be true of you and me that we find no grounds for boasting in our evangelism. Instead, may it be true of us that we find it a necessity to tell others about Jesus. May we have hearts that cry out, “Woe to me if I do not share the gospel!”