For the most part, I've loved Paul’s second letter to Corinth. It’s encouraging and brutally honest. He’s very vulnerable, almost fragile with the people he loves. That makes for reading that pulls the reader in and helps him identify with the writer. But that also leads to topics we’d sometimes rather not deal with. That’s where I've been in this letter for the last several weeks.
Paul has some enemies. He calls them his “opponents”. They are people who swooped into Corinth after things in the church there were established and began to teach a different Gospel. They promoted themselves rather than Jesus. They elevated a posh lifestyle and de-elevated anyone who suffered or lived a lifestyle that walked in suffering. That leads to a great resort mindset in the church. It makes for a fun environment where people can enjoy themselves. The only problem with their culture is Jesus wasn’t in it. Jesus was a man of suffering. He walked in the pain of the people around Him. He didn’t invite pain, but He didn’t ignore it either. He was real. That’s what made Jesus such an enigma in His culture. People who masked their pain with money or status hated Him. They didn’t want to hear about hard things. They just wanted people to tell them how good they were. But people who couldn’t mask their pain were drawn to Him. The idea of a God who loves the hurt and enters into their pain was beautiful. They couldn’t get enough of Him.
Jesus walked the suffering road right to the cross. For the Church to put any other face on the One we worship is blasphemy. And for us to practice any other religion is heresy. This is why Paul dedicates a large portion of his letter to the undoing of his opponents. But the undoing comes in the weirdest way. Paul allows his full-on vulnerability to dismantle their arguments. If the church can’t see through their sham after he gets through sharing his motives, bless them and continue on.
Toward the end of the letter Paul starts (insert oxymoron) bragging on his weaknesses. What? Why would anyone do that? Anyone wanting to promote themselves would never take that road. But anyone wanting to put Jesus centerstage will never hesitate to put himself backstage. That’s exactly what Paul does. He says God gave him a vision of Heaven and Himself. It shook him to the degree that he was unable to speak about it for 14 years! He says God gave him a thorn to keep him from becoming conceited over his 90 minutes in Heaven. He begged God to remove it and He would not. Instead, God said to Paul “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” What does this mean?
God knows our tendencies to shy away from our weaknesses and put the shine on our strengths. He also knows our strengths are zip, notta, nothing compared with His glory, much less His ability to save one He loves. So, God says if you major on your strengths and you suceed, people will only see you. But if you major in your weaknesses and He accomplishes the work, people will only see Him. If the Church is going to survive, it is not because people see us. The world will only change if it sees Jesus. So like Paul, I say I’ll glory in my weaknesses so the power of Jesus can be seen!
We still have opponents today who teach the antithesis of a life that suffers with those who hurt and enters into the pain of those apart from Christ. They somehow have forgotten that this is not Heaven, and our goal is not to bring it down. Satan is leading this group and confusing a lot of people in the process. Their rally cry is to form a place where they can feel good about their lives and look good while going there. Everything done in this place is built around their own best ideas of success. This, friends, is not the Church. It cannot be. It must not be. We, the Church, must be willing to be like Jesus; to be real. If we want to be bound to Him, we must get down in the ditch with those who are struggling...and we must be honest about our own pains and hurts. It’s only in those moments of vulnerability will we see and know the grace of God that is able to stand us up and make us whole. What a shame it will be to live an entire lifetime and only know a grace of our own invention.
I challenge you today to take the hard parts of following Jesus right along with the welcome pieces. His grace has always been worth it.
Daniel Bramlett
Serving in the Need of Love