(This entry is one week late)
Discovery: Even as Paul is defending his apostleship in the later half of 2 Corinthians, we see his true feelings for the Corinthian church come through.
1. Paul clearly loves the Corinthian church. v. 2: "I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy..." He treats them as if they were his own children and he wants the very best for them.
2. Paul is also worried about them. v. 3: "But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be lead astray from your sincere and pure devotion." Paul wants the church to hold to a "sincere and pure" faith. One that is devoid of personal agenda's, politics, power, prejudice, or self-centeredness.
3. Paul is protective of the church. v. 4: "For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you received a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough" Paul warns against being lead astray by those either adding to or taking away from the essential message of the gospel. Any form of heretical teaching takes us away from the core essential truth of Scripture which tells us that we are sinners redeemed by grace.
4. Paul defends his apostleship again to the church: In vv. 5-12, Paul speaks to this issue. We will not get into this section here but Paul makes it clear that it is not his eloquence, preaching style, giftedness, or strength of personality that qualifies him as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is his life, example, and love for the churches that sets him apart and that will ultimately prove his apostleship.
Paul ends our section by warning the church to be aware of false prophets within their midst. In vv. 13-15, Paul states that these false prophets masquerade as apostle of Christ. His warning is that we have to very careful who listen to and how we discern the message they are telling us.
Application: Discernment does not come naturally. It is something that we need to learn, practice, and apply. Discernment ultimately requires effort.
Discernment is a synonym for perception. In Isaiah 6:9 it says, "Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing but never perceiving." This verse helps us see that there is a difference between "seeing" and "perceiving." In the same way, discernment requires hearing, seeing, feeling, and thinking through the various things that we hear in our lives and taking the time and effort to discern and perceive what the intended message is really about.
I shared a number of "tools" that we have in learning to discern the various things that we hear. Here are just a few of them:
1. Cross checking with Scripture.
2. Consulting with someone you trust who is older or more spiritually mature than you.
3. Doing some homework and getting a historical and contextual understanding of a specific topic or issue.
4. Comparing it with the life of Jesus and to ask the basic question of "what would Jesus do?"
I don't mean to trivialize this discipline of discernment. There is no cookie-cutter way of doing it nor is it a simple as following a 1-2-3 step approach. I am personally challenged nowadays to do a little of #3. I realize that it is really easy as a Christian or as a Christian leader to give out or follow really glib "one-liners" and spiritual "sound bites." But the good news of Jesus should never be reduced to this. I am challenged to have a bigger picture of God and to have a bigger picture of the church by having a historical and global perspective of God. I want to be able to lead our congregation through the various theological challenges and controversies that always see to come our way by discerning them through both a historical and global perspective. I believe this is the best way in becoming both mature and responsible world Christians.
Prayer: Help me Lord put in the effort to grow in the area of discernment. Help me not have a impulsive or knee-jerk reaction to things but teach me to press into difficult issues and to discern and learn from them.
