Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Corinthians 9-13.

Today’s passage begins with Paul reminding the Corinthian Believers about the importance of giving generously to help those in need.  He tells us that we should give only what we willingly and happily desire to give, not out of a feeling of obligation.  He then writes that God will reward us according to how we give: if we give sparingly, we will be rewarded sparingly, if we give generously, we will be rewarded generously.  Further, the more we do for others, the more we will be able to do for others.

Having written that, I want to focus on Paul’s warning against being sucked in by those preachers who distort the Gospel message in order to benefit themselves.  In fact, some of those he is writing about take his very comments about God rewarding us for generous giving to make change the Gospel to be about material wealth.  Let us test the message of exciting preachers against Scripture; does the message they preach align with the message given us in Scripture?

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Corinthians 5-8.

Today’s passage begins with Paul continuing where he left off in yesterday’s passage.  Today he discusses how our earthly bodies are designed as temporary homes, tents, but that we will be resurrected into heavenly bodies which will be designed to be permanent, houses, if you will.  In our current bodies we are, to a degree, separated from God.  That separation comes about because of sin, but Christ died on the cross in order for us to be united with God, to be reconciled with Him.  We are separated from God because we did wrong, nevertheless, God took the action to be reconciled with us.  God has offered to make us anew if we are willing to be reconciled to Him.  This letter represents Paul’s attempt to do the same with the Believers in Corinth.  He writes that he regrets that he hurt them by his previous letter, but that he does not regret what he wrote because it lead them to repent from their sins.  Paul writes that he bears them no ill-will about the incident which led him to write that letter and asks that they hold a similar feeling towards him, and towards those involved in that incident.  Paul tells them, and us, that now is the time to be reconciled to God, and to each other.  It is not something we should put off for another day.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Corinthians 1-4.

When Paul writes about his planned visit to Corinth, he explains why he chose not to make that visit.  Apparently, he had heard about members of the Church in Corinth using the man who was sleeping with his stepmother as an example of how tolerant and loving they were and this infuriated Paul.  As I understand what he writes here, he was afraid that if he visited them he would say the wrong things to the wrong people.  He was afraid that he would speak with anger to people with whom he was not angry, hurting their feelings and creating a rift between him and them.  Which teaches an important lesson about not allowing our emotions to overcome our reason when dealing with others.  Closely related to that, Paul has apparently heard news indicating that the man at the root of the problem has turned from his sin and instructs the Church in Corinth to forgive him and bring him back into fellowship, another important lesson for us.

Paul transitions to speaking about the source of his confidence.  His confidence does not come from his belief that he had particular talent.  Rather, Paul’s confidence came from his trust in God.  Paul did not believe that he had any competence in and of himself to accomplish God’s will or to spread God’s word.  He believed that God would use him to accomplish God’s purposes and he believed that we should share his confidence.  And if we put our confidence in God we will not use any sort of deception or lies in an attempt to promote the Gospel.  In fact,  we should recognize that everything we do should be done in service to God, and that our ability to serve God only comes from God working within us, not from any skill or ability for which we can take credit.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Corinthians 15-16.

As Paul wraps up his letter to the Corinthians, he gives us the basic which everyone must believe about Jesus in order to be a Christian.

1. Jesus died for our sins
2. He was buried
3. He was raised from the dead on the third day as foretold by the Scriptures

Paul makes the explicit point that both he and all of the other Apostles (and apostles) taught these three things.  From there he goes on to emphasize one of those, one with which the Believers in Corinth were apparently struggling: that Jesus was raised from the dead.  Paul points out that if Jesus did not truly rise from the dead that all of those who preached about what he taught were liars.  If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then everything Christianity teaches is a falsehood and has no value.  Further, Paul writes that if one does not believe in the resurrection of the dead, one should not follow Jesus’ moral teachings, that without the resurrection of the dead Jesus’ teachings are bad advice.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.