Commendations
This week's verses are on 2 Corinthians 3:1-3:
These verses are part of Paul talking to one of his churches about "ministry for profit" versus genuine ministry for Christ. Before these verses, he's talking about "hucksters" who preach primarily as a career move to make money. I think the question here is how do you tell who is a genuine minister from God, and who is just in it for themselves? In our modern age, and apparently in Paul's time as well, one might set up certification boards to sell licenses to preach, in order to show you which ministers had undergone some scrutiny and which might be doing their own thing.
But then how do you certify the certification board? And what if you certify someone and you made a mistake, or they fall from grace? We can all probably think of anointed ministers whose ministry started off fantastic, who had doctorates in divinity or ordinations from name brand denominations, who later descended into madness and predation of their flock. Maybe Paul is talking about that, or maybe these profit-based hucksters were selling endorsements of other ministers, in a sort of diploma-mill fashion. I don't think we know which he's getting at, but it doesn't matter.
Paul's position is that the church itself is the letter of recommendation of the leader's ministry, and that the members are letters written by God. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Paul doesn't need a document that says that he follows Christ and loves the church. The fruit of his ministry proves it. They can look at a thriving ministry where people know God and care for each other the way God cares for us.
In the same way, we are a sort of letter of love from God to mankind. Our actions and choices demonstrate God's values and his love to those around us. A good minister enables us to do that as naturally as possible. We don't need some kind of Christian diploma or outward circumcision to demonstrate our relationship with God. Our actions and values demonstrate that that is the case. In the same way as we've all probably got memories of licensed ministers who failed, we can probably (hopefully) think of quite a few more examples of people whose very essence made you feel God's heart.
When God laid down the law in the Old Testament, he had Moses hammer it onto stone tablets and carry it down to them. In the new reality Jesus died to bring us, God's message is delivered by the Holy Spirit and written into our hearts and minds. It's part of us, and being part of us makes our behaviour naturally tend towards the divine as the Holy Spirit works on us.
On a personal level, these verses can speak to us about where we put our confidence in whether or not we're real Christians. Do we commend ourselves based on our membership in such and such a church, or because we went to Bible school, or because our pastor is a particularly good speaker? Do we commend ourselves based on our public witness, prominently displayed office Bible, Christian t-shirts, etc? Or do we commend ourselves as Christians because of the words the Holy Spirit has written on our hearts, words which say that we're made clean, and which we find bending our thoughts and actions in a Christlike direction?
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? We don’t need letters of recommendation to you or from you as some other people do, do we? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone, revealing that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on tablets of human hearts.
These verses are part of Paul talking to one of his churches about "ministry for profit" versus genuine ministry for Christ. Before these verses, he's talking about "hucksters" who preach primarily as a career move to make money. I think the question here is how do you tell who is a genuine minister from God, and who is just in it for themselves? In our modern age, and apparently in Paul's time as well, one might set up certification boards to sell licenses to preach, in order to show you which ministers had undergone some scrutiny and which might be doing their own thing.
But then how do you certify the certification board? And what if you certify someone and you made a mistake, or they fall from grace? We can all probably think of anointed ministers whose ministry started off fantastic, who had doctorates in divinity or ordinations from name brand denominations, who later descended into madness and predation of their flock. Maybe Paul is talking about that, or maybe these profit-based hucksters were selling endorsements of other ministers, in a sort of diploma-mill fashion. I don't think we know which he's getting at, but it doesn't matter.
Paul's position is that the church itself is the letter of recommendation of the leader's ministry, and that the members are letters written by God. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Paul doesn't need a document that says that he follows Christ and loves the church. The fruit of his ministry proves it. They can look at a thriving ministry where people know God and care for each other the way God cares for us.
In the same way, we are a sort of letter of love from God to mankind. Our actions and choices demonstrate God's values and his love to those around us. A good minister enables us to do that as naturally as possible. We don't need some kind of Christian diploma or outward circumcision to demonstrate our relationship with God. Our actions and values demonstrate that that is the case. In the same way as we've all probably got memories of licensed ministers who failed, we can probably (hopefully) think of quite a few more examples of people whose very essence made you feel God's heart.
When God laid down the law in the Old Testament, he had Moses hammer it onto stone tablets and carry it down to them. In the new reality Jesus died to bring us, God's message is delivered by the Holy Spirit and written into our hearts and minds. It's part of us, and being part of us makes our behaviour naturally tend towards the divine as the Holy Spirit works on us.
On a personal level, these verses can speak to us about where we put our confidence in whether or not we're real Christians. Do we commend ourselves based on our membership in such and such a church, or because we went to Bible school, or because our pastor is a particularly good speaker? Do we commend ourselves based on our public witness, prominently displayed office Bible, Christian t-shirts, etc? Or do we commend ourselves as Christians because of the words the Holy Spirit has written on our hearts, words which say that we're made clean, and which we find bending our thoughts and actions in a Christlike direction?
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