2 Corinthians 11:1-15
I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do
bear with me! 2I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I promised you in marriage
to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3But I am afraid
that as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts will be led
astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4For if someone comes and
proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a
different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one
you accepted, you submit to it readily enough.
5I think that I am not in the
least inferior to these super-apostles. 6I may be untrained in speech, but not
in knowledge; certainly in every way and in all things we have made this
evident to you. 7Did I commit a sin by humbling myself so that you might be
exalted, because I proclaimed God’s good news to you free of charge? 8I robbed
other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. 9And when
I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for my needs were
supplied by the friends who came from Macedonia. So I refrained and will
continue to refrain from burdening you in any way. 10As the truth of Christ is
in me, this boast of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. 11And
why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do! 12And what I do I will also
continue to do, in order to deny an opportunity to those who want an
opportunity to be recognized as our equals in what they boast about. 13For such
boasters are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as
apostles of Christ. 14And no wonder! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel
of light. 15So it is not strange if his ministers also disguise themselves as
ministers of righteousness. Their end will match their deeds.
Paul has been defending his ministry. In previous verses he is talking about being “timid”
which is not necessarily a way that I have thought of Paul. However, he does talk about how the
followers of Christ live life different that those “of the world.”
Paul is concerned about others deceiving us, like the
serpent deceived Eve in the garden. The
challenge is that when we are being deceived there is generally some truth in
what the deceiver is saying to us. If
they were speaking to us and what they say is so untrue, we would not
believe. However, the lie that includes
some truth can deceive us. We may submit
to this readily, and even with this “little untruth” we submit to someone other
than the Jesus who is proclaimed in the gospel.
Have you ever been deceived?
How did you know?
I am not making a blanket statement here—so don’t get too
upset. I sometimes watch the religious
programs on TV (when I can’t find a reality show to watch! J
) I admit, sometimes I “like” the
message, but I have to admit, it doesn’t always line up with what I know and
understand about Jesus. When someone
preaches if we just believe more, send more money, and God will bless us with
riches and happiness, I know this not to be true. Yes, I do believe that God wants our faith
deepened, and that giving is a discipleship practice that fosters trust, as
well as the spreading of the gospel, but I know many who are not blessed with
riches. Many faithful have suffered—I think
of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King Jr. Jesus is not a do all I say and I will give
you riches and all you want. When that
is preached it can be appealing, but not true!
We have a God who instead realizes we are broken, and keeps
calling us anyway. God gives all of us
another chance. Our God is a God of
grace, who ultimately meets us in the cross, in our suffering. Yes, I do believe God desires what is best
for us, but life generally isn’t all gold and roses.
My prayer is that as we continue this journey of life, we
will be attentive to those who preach a false gospel. We will live lives in Christ, knowing that we
are already blessed, and that we can find joy in the sorrow, for we have
something more precious than gold and silver.
No comments:
Post a Comment