“The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of the soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). We so believe that at Veritas! God’s Word is living and active, full of power to shape us as his people. I can’t wait to get into our new book study together. As a church, we are going to go through the book of 2 Corinthians. We’ll take 32 weeks to cover the 13 chapters.
We have a lot to learn from this letter! Corinth was quite the city. It was a strategically located city, both for the military and for profitable commerce. In Paul’s day, Corinth was likely the wealthiest city in Greece and a major multicultural center. Corinth was full of sexual immorality, greed, and pagan worship. There was a love of money and status, and the hard truth was that the city of Corinth was influencing the church of Corinth more than the church of Corinth was influencing the city of Corinth. Do you ever feel that way in the U.S., in Cedar Rapids, at Veritas, in your own life?
Paul had an interesting relationship with the church at Corinth. You can read about the starting of the church in Acts 18. The Lord spoke to Paul at night in a vision while ministering in Corinth, telling him, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people” (Acts 18:9b-10). That gives us a bit of a window into what it was like. Anytime someone is told not to be afraid it is because they are doing something scary. It was tough going—after an overwhelming rejection from the Jews in the city, Paul set up shop right next door to the synagogue and was reaching the Gentiles for a year and a half before being dragged to court in an attempt to shut him down.
After moving on from Corinth, Paul got an unfortunate report that the church was not doing well, which caused him to write a letter we know as 1 Corinthians. But a report came to him after that of further dysfunction. This led Paul to visit, which is described as a painful visit (2 Cor. 2:1). There were leaders in the church Paul sarcastically refers to as “super-apostles,” who undermined Paul and his ministry. The thinking was, How could someone so poor and plain be a true apostle in a culture that valued wealth and power so much? However, his painful visit and perhaps another letter had a positive impact, and much of the church was repentant of those super-apostles’ misleadings. Paul is addressing this in 2 Corinthians, which most likely is not truly the second letter Paul wrote to the church at Corinth (perhaps maybe the fourth letter).
Second Corinthians is Paul’s most personal, raw, and defensive letter. But I love that about this letter. Paul gets right after it, pleading with people he loves to not walk by sight, but by faith, to not live out the values of this world, but to live out the values of the Kingdom of God.
Church, we need to hear the message of 2 Corinthians, perhaps now more than ever. We don’t want to be a group of people who claim the name of Christ but reflect the culture just as much as our unbelieving coworkers and neighbors. We are not looking for “country music Christianity” where a song acknowledging God and going to church fits right in on an album full of getting drunk and exploiting women. We want to be a radically countercultural display of the Kingdom of God to our world. We want the echoes of Paul’s vision as he ministered in Corinth to ring loud in our ears, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people” (Acts 18:9b-10).
Veritas, let’s lean into this study. Be praying for God to revive us to wholehearted devotion to himself, leading us to walk by faith in the midst of our fallen world.
For further study, you will be able to find these books in our Resource Center during this message series.