McCracken New Testament Reading; 61-65; 1 Corinthians 9:1 - 2 Corinthians 9:15

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ac Babebidwch jaillbadwch rhoffos'i gallau drifat Canadiaeth wef na o ratki, ac euchadydwch medd arms лиfニryr ei beth eu sy'n iplsag o'r barnabus yn ddai a'l o'n bwntwwyrch i'n mynd? Did you ever hear of a man serving in the army at his own expense or planting a vineyard without eating the fruit of it or tending a flock without using its milk? Do not suppose I rely on these human analogies in the law of Moses we read, a threshing ox shall not be muscled. Do you suppose God's concern is with oxen or is the reference clearly to ourselves? Of course it refers to us in the sense that the plowman should plow and the thresher thresh in the hope of getting some of the produce.

If we have sown a spiritual crop for you, is it too much to expect from you a material harvest? If you allow others these rights, have not we a stronger claim? But I have availed myself of no such right. On the contrary, I put up with all that comes my way rather than offer any hindrance to the gospel of Christ. You know, do you not? That those who perform the temple service eat the temple offerings and those who wait upon the altar claim their share of the sacrifice. In the same way, the Lord gave instructions that those who preach the gospel should earn their living by the gospel. But I have never taken advantage of any such right. Nor do I intend to claim it in this letter I had rather die.

No one shall make my boast an empty boast. Even if I preach the gospel, I can claim no credit for it. I cannot help myself, it would be misery to me, not to preach. If I did it of my own choice, I should be earning my pay. But since I do it apart from my own choice, I am simply discharging a trust. Then what is my pay? The satisfaction of preaching the gospel without expense to anyone. In other words, of waving the rights which my preaching gives me. I am a free man and own no master. But I have made myself every man servant to win over as many as possible. To Jews I became like a Jew, to win Jews. As they are subject to the law of Moses, I put myself under that law to win them.

Although I am not myself subject to it. To win Gentiles who are outside the law, I made myself like one of them. Although I am not in truth outside God's law, being under the law of Christ. To the weak I became weak to win the weak. Indeed I have become everything in turn to man of every sort. So that in one way or another I may save some. All this I do for the sake of the gospel. To bear my part in proclaiming it. You know do you not, that at the sports all the runners run the race, though only one wins the prize, like them run to win. But every athlete goes into strict training. They do it to win a fading wreath. We are wreath that never fades.

For my part I run with a clear goal before me. I am like a boxer who does not beat the air. I bruise my own body and make it know its master, for fear that after preaching to others I should find myself rejected. You should understand my brothers that our ancestors were all under the pillar of cloud and all of them passed through the red sea. And so they all received baptism into the fellowship of Moses in cloud and sea. They all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. I mean they all drank from the supernatural rock that accompanied their travels and that rock was Christ. And yet most of them were not accepted by God for the desert was strewn with their corpses. These events happened as symbols to warn us not to set our desires on evil things as they did.

Do not be idolaters like some of them. As Scripture has it, the people sat down to feast and stood up to play. Let us not commit fornication as some of them did and 23-doubt thousand died in one day. Let us not put the power of the Lord to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents. Do not grumble against God as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. All these things that happened to them were symbolic and were recorded for our benefit as a warning, for upon us the fulfilment of the ages has come. If you feel sure that you are standing firm, beware, you may fall. So far you have faced no trial beyond what man can bear. God keeps faith and He will not allow you to be tested above your powers,

but when the test comes He will, at the same time, provide a way out by enabling you to sustain it. So then dear friends, shun idolatry. I speak to you as man of sense, form your own judgment on what I say. When we bless the cup of blessing, is it not a means of sharing in the blood of Christ? When we break the bread, is it not a means of sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, many as we are, are one body, for it is one loaf of which we all partake. Look at the Jewish people, are not those who partake in the sacrificial meal, sharers, in the altar? What do I imply by this?

That an idol is anything but an idol? Or food offered to it anything more than food? No, but the sacrifices the heathen offer are offered in the words of Scripture to demons and to that which is not God, and I will not have you become partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons. Can we defy the Lord? Are we stronger than He? We are free to do anything, you say, yes, but is everything good for us? We are free to do anything but does everything help the building of the community? Each of you must regard not his own interests, but the other man's. You may eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience for the earth is the Lord's and everything in it.

If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you care to go eat, whatever is put before you, without raising questions of conscience, but if somebody says to you, this food has been offered in sacrifice, then out of consideration for him and for conscience's sake do not eat it. Not your conscience, I mean, but the other man's. What, you say, is my freedom to be called in question by another man's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I blamed for eating food over which I have said grace? Well, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you are doing, do all for the honour of God. Give no offense to Jews or Greeks or to the Church of God. For my part, I always try to meet everyone halfway, regarding not my own good, but the good of the many,

so that they may be saved. Follow my example, as I follow Christ's. I commend you for always keeping me in mind and maintaining the tradition I handed on to you. But I wish you to understand that, while every man has Christ for his head, woman's head is man, as Christ's head is God. A man who keeps his head covered when he prays or prophesies, bring shame on his head. A woman, on the contrary, brings shame on her head if she prays or prophesies bare-headed. It is as bad as if her head were shaved. If a woman is not to wear a veil, she might as well have her hair cut off. But if it is a disgrace for her to be cropped and shaved, then she should wear a veil.

A man has no need to cover his head, because man is the image of God and the mirror of his glory, whereas woman reflects the glory of man. For man did not originally spring from woman, but woman was made out of man. And man was not created for woman's sake, but woman for the sake of man. And therefore it is woman's duty to have a sign of authority on her head, out of regard for the angels. And yet, in Christ's fellowship, woman is as essential to man as man to woman. If woman was made out of man, it is through woman that man now comes to be. And God is the source of all. Judge, for yourselves, is it fitting for a woman to pray to God bare-headed?

Does not nature herself teach you that while flowing locks disgrace a man, they are a woman's glory. For her locks were given for covering. However, if you insist on arguing, let me tell you, there is no such custom among us or in any of the congregations of God's people. In giving you these injunctions, I must mention a practice which I cannot command. Your meetings tend to do more harm than good. To begin with, I am told that when you meet as a congregation, you fall into sharply divided groups. And I believe there is some truth in it. For dissensions are necessary of only to show which of your members are sound. The result is that when you meet as a congregation, it is impossible for you to eat the Lord's supper because each of you is in such a hurry to eat his own.

And while one goes hungry, another has too much to drink. Have you no homes of your own to eat and drink in? Or are you so contemptuous of the Church of God that you shame its poorer members? What am I to say? Can I commend you on this point, certainly not? For the tradition which I handed on to you came to me from the Lord Himself, that the Lord Jesus, on the night of His arrest, took bread, and after giving thanks to God, broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you, do this as a memorial of me. In the same way, He took the cup after supper and said, This cup is the new covenant sealed by my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me. For every time you eat this bread and drink the cup,

you proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes. It follows that anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of desecrating the body and blood of the Lord. A man must test himself before eating his share of the bread and drinking from the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment on himself if he does not deserve the body. That is why many of you are feeble and sick, and a number have died. But if we examine ourselves, we should not thus fall under judgment. When, however, we do fall under the Lord's judgment, He is disciplining us to save us from being condemned with the rest of the world. Therefore, my brothers, when you meet for a meal, wait for one another, if you are hungry, eat at home, so that in meeting together you may not fall under judgment.

The other matters I will arrange when I come. The reading concluded at the 34th verse of the 11th chapter of the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians. The first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, the 12th chapter, spiritual gifts. About gifts of the Spirit, there are some things of which I do not wish you to remain ignorant. You know how in the days when you were still pagan, you were swept off to those dumb, heathen gods.

However, you happen to be led. For this reason I must impress upon you that no one who says a curse on Jesus can be speaking under the influence of the Spirit of God. And no one can say Jesus is Lord except under the influence of the Holy Spirit. There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are varieties of service, but the same Lord. There are many forms of work, but all of them in all men are the work of the same God. In each of us the Spirit is manifested in one particular way, for some useful purpose. One man through the Spirit has the gift of wise speech, while another by the power of the same Spirit can put the deepest knowledge into words. Another by the same Spirit is granted faith, another by the one Spirit gifts of healing, and another miraculous powers.

Another has the gift of prophecy, and another ability to distinguish true spirits from false. Yet another has the gift of ecstatic utterance of different kinds, and another the ability to interpret it. But all these gifts are the work of one and the same Spirit, distributing them separately to each individual at will. For Christ is like a single body with its many limbs and organs, which many as they are together make up one body. For indeed we were all brought into one body by baptism, in the one Spirit, whether we are Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free men, and that one Holy Spirit was poured out for all of us to drink. A body is not one single organ, but many.

Suppose the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body. It does belong to the body nonetheless. Suppose the ear were to say, because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body. It does still belong to the body. If the body were all eye, how could it hear? If the body were all ear, how could it smell? But in fact, God appointed each limb and organ to its own place in the body as he chose. If the whole were one single organ, there would not be a body at all. In fact, however, there are many different organs, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, I do not need you. Nor the head to the feet, I do not need you, quite the contrary. Those organs of the body, which seem to be more frail than others, are indispensable.

And those parts of the body, which we regard as less honourable, are treated with special honour. To our unseemly parts is given a more than ordinary seamliness, whereas our seamly parts need no adorning. But God has combined the various parts of the body, giving special honour to the humbler parts, so that there might be no sense of division in the body. But that all its organs might feel the same concern for one another. If one organ suffers, they all suffer together. If one flourishes, they all rejoice together. Now you are Christ's body, and each of you a limb or organ of it. Within our community, God has appointed in the first place apostles, in the second place prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracle workers, then those who have gifts of healing,

or ability to help others, or power to guide them, or the gift of ecstatic utterance of various kinds. Are all apostles, all prophets, all teachers, do all work miracles? Have all gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues of ecstasy? Can all interpret them? The higher gifts are those you should aim at. And now I will show you the best way of all. I may speak in tongues of men or of angels, but if I am without love, I am a sounding gong, or a clanging symbol. I may have the gift of prophecy and know every hidden truth. I may have faith strong enough to move mountains, but if I have no love, I am nothing. I may dull out all I possess, or even give my body to be burnt, but if I have no love, I am none the better.

Love is patient, love is kind, and there is no one. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude, never selfish, not quick to take offense. Love keeps no score of wrongs. Love does not gloat over other main sins, but delights in the truth. There is nothing love cannot face. There is no limit to its faith, its hope, and its endurance. Love will never come to an end. Are there prophets? Their work will be over. Are there tongues of ecstasy? They will cease. Is there knowledge? It will vanish away. For our knowledge and our prophecy alike are partial, and the partial vanishes when wholeness comes. When I was a child, my speech, my outlook, and my thoughts were all childish.

When I grew up, I had finished with childish things. Now we see only puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. My knowledge now is partial. Then it will be whole, like God's knowledge of me. In a word, there are three things that last forever. Faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of them all, is love. Put love first. But there are other gifts of the Spirit at which you should aim also, and above all, prophecy. When a man is using the language of ecstasy, he is talking with God, not with men, for no man understands him. He is no doubt inspired, but he speaks mysteries. On the other hand, when a man prophesies, he is talking to men, and his words have power to build, they stimulate, and they encourage.

The language of ecstasy is good for the speaker himself, but it is prophecy that builds up a Christian community. I should be pleased for you all to use the tongues of ecstasy, but better pleased for you to prophesy. The prophet is worth more than the man of ecstatic speech, unless indeed he can explain its meaning, and so help to build up the community. Suppose, my friends, that when I come to you, I use ecstatic language. What good shall I do you, unless what I say contains something by way of revelation, or enlightenment, or prophecy, or instruction? Even with inanimate things that produce sounds, a flute, say, or a liar, unless there are notes marked definite intervals, how can you tell what tune is being played? Or again, if the trumpet call is not clear, who will prepare for battle?

In the same way, if your ecstatic utterance yields no precise meaning, how can anyone tell what you are saying, you will be talking into the air? How many different kinds of sounds there are, or maybe, in the world, nothing is altogether soundless? Well then, if I do not know the meaning of the sound the speaker makes, his words will be gibberish to me, and mine to him. You are I know eager for gifts of the Spirit, then aspire above all to excel in those which build up the church. I say then that the man who falls into ecstatic utterance should pray for the ability to interpret. If I use such language in my prayer, the Spirit in me prays, but my intellect lies follow, what then? I will pray as I am inspired to pray, but I will also pray intelligently. I will sing hymns as I am inspired to sing, but I will sing intelligently too.

Suppose you are praising God in the language of inspiration. How will the plain man who is present be able to say amen to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? Your prayer of thanksgiving may be all that could be desired, but it is no help to the other man. Thank God I am more gifted in ecstatic utterance than any of you, but in the congregation I would rather speak five intelligible words for the benefit of others as well as myself than thousands of words in the language of ecstasy. Do not be childish, my friends. Be as innocent of evil as babes, but at least be grown up in your thinking. We read in the law, I will speak to this nation through men of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners, and even so they will not heed me, says the Lord. Clearly then these strange tongues are not intended as a sign for believers, but for unbelievers, whereas prophecy is designed not for unbelievers, but for those who hold the faith.

So if the whole congregation is assembled and all are using the strange tongues of ecstasy and some uninstructed persons or unbelievers should enter, will they not think you are mad? But if all are uttering prophecies, the visitor when he enters hears from everyone something that searches his conscience and brings conviction and the secrets of his heart are laid bare, so he will fall down and worship God crying. God is certainly among you. To sum up my friends, when you meet for worship, each of you contributes a hymn, some instruction, a revelation, an ecstatic utterance, or the interpretation of such an utterance. All of these must aim at one thing, to build up the church. If it is a matter of ecstatic utterance, only two should speak, or at most, three, one at a time, and someone must interpret.

If there is no interpreter, the speaker had better not address the meeting at all, but speak to himself and to God. Of the prophets, two or three may speak, while the rest exercise their judgment upon what is said. If someone else sitting in his place receives a revelation, let the first speaker stop. You can all prophesy one at a time so that the whole congregation may receive instruction and encouragement. It is for prophets to control prophetic inspiration. For the God who inspires them is not a God of disorder, but of peace. As in all congregations of God's people, women should not address the meeting. They have no license to speak, but should keep their place as the law directs. If there is something they want to know, they can ask their own husbands at home. It is a shocking thing that a woman should address the congregation. Did the Word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people to whom it came? If anyone claims to be inspired or a prophet, let him recognize that what I write has the Lord's authority.

If he does not recognize this, he himself should not be recognized. In short, my friends, be eager to prophesy. Do not forbid ecstatic utterance, but let all be done decently and in order. The reading concluded at the 40th verse of the 14th chapter of the first letter of Paul to the Corinthian. The first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 15, life after death.

And now my brothers, I must remind you of the gospel that I preached to you, the gospel which you received, on which you have taken your stand, and which is now bringing you salvation. Do you still hold fast the gospel as I preached it to you? If not, your conversion was in vain. First and foremost, I handed on to you the facts which had been imparted to me that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised to life on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to seephus and afterwards to the 12. Then he appeared to over 500 of our brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, and afterwards to all the apostles.

In the end he appeared even to me, though this birth of mine was monstrous, for I had persecuted the church, and I'm there for inferior to all other apostles, indeed not fit to be called an apostle. However, by God's grace I am what I am, nor has His grace been given to me in vain. On the contrary, in my labours I have outdone them all, not I, indeed, but the grace of God working with me. But what matter, I or thee, this is what we all proclaim, and this is what you believed. Now if this is what we proclaim, that Christ was raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there be no resurrection, then Christ was not raised. And if Christ was not raised, then our gospel is null and void, and so is your faith.

And we turn out to be lying witnesses for God, because we bore witness that He raised Christ to life, whereas if the dead are not raised, He did not raise Him. For if the dead are not raised, it follows that Christ was not raised, and if Christ was not raised, your faith has nothing in it, and you are still in your old state of sin. It follows also that those who have died within Christ's fellowship are utterly lost. If it is for this life only that Christ has given us hope, we of all men are most to be pitted. But the truth is Christ was raised to life, the first fruits of the harvest of the dead. For since it was a man who brought death into the world, a man also brought resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all men die, so in Christ all will be brought to life, but each in his own proper place Christ the first fruits and afterwards at His coming those who belong to Christ.

Then comes the end, when He delivers up the kingdom to God the Father, after abolishing every kind of domination, authority and power. For He is destined to reign until God has put all enemies under His feet, and the last enemy to be abolished is death. Scripture says He has put all things in subjection under His feet, but in saying all things it clearly means to exclude God who subordinates them, and when all things are thus subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be made subordinate to God who made all things subject to Him, and thus God will be all in all. Again, there are those who receive baptism on behalf of the dead. Why should they do this? If the dead are not raised to life at all, what do they mean by being baptized on their behalf?

And we ourselves. Why do we face these dangers hour by hour, every day I die. I swear it by my pride in you, my brothers. For in Christ Jesus our Lord, I am proud of you. If as the saying is, I fought while beasts at Ephesus, what have I gained by it? If the dead are never raised to life? Let us eat ten drink, for tomorrow we die. Make no mistake, bad company is the ruin of a good character. Come back to a sober and upright life, and leave your sinful ways. There are some who know nothing of God to your shame, I say it. But you may ask, how are the dead raised? In what kind of body, a senseless question, the seed you sow does not come to life unless it has first died? And what you sow is not the body that shall be, but a naked grain, perhaps a wheat or of some other kind. And God clothes it with the body of His choice, each seed with its own particular body.

All flesh is not the same flesh. There is flesh of men, flesh of beasts, of birds, and of fishes all different. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. And the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one thing, the splendor of the earthly another. The sun has a splendor of its own, the moon another splendor, and the stars another, for star differs from star in brightness. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown in the earth as a perishable thing is raised, imperishable. Sown in humiliation, it is raised in glory, sown in weakness, it is raised in power. Sown as an animal body, it is raised as a spiritual body. If there is such a thing as an animal body, there is also a spiritual body. It is in this sense that Scripture says the first man Adam became an animate being, whereas the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit.

Observe, the spiritual does not come first. The animal body comes first, and then the spiritual. The first man was made of the dust of the earth. The second man is from heaven. The man made of dust is the patron of all men of dust, and the heavenly man is the patron of all the heavenly. As we have worn the likeness of the man made of dust, so we shall wear the likeness of the heavenly man. What I mean, my brothers, is this, flesh and blood can never possess the kingdom of God, and the perishable cannot possess immortality. Listen, I will unfold a mystery. We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed in a flash in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet call, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise immortal. And we shall be changed, this perishable being must be clothed with the imperishable. And what is mortal must be clothed with immortality, and when our mortality has been clothed with immortality, then the saying of Scripture will come true.

Death is swallowed up. Victory is one. Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and sin gains its power from the low, but God be praised. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, stand firm and immovable, and work for the Lord always, work without limit, since you know that in the Lord your labor cannot be lost. Christian giving, and now about the collection in aid of God's people, you should follow my directions to our congregations in Galatia. Every Sunday each of you is to put aside and keep by him a sum in proportion to his gains, so that there may be no collecting when I come. When I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to persons approved by you, and send them to carry your gift to Jerusalem. If it should seem worthwhile for me to go as well, they shall go with me.

I shall come to Corinth after passing through Macedonia, for I am traveling by way of Macedonia, and I may stay with you, perhaps even for the whole winter, and then you can help me on my way wherever I go next. I do not want this to be a flying visit. I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits, but I shall remain at Ephesus until Witsontide, for a great opportunity has opened for effective work and there is much opposition. Timothy comes, see that you put him at his ease. For it is the Lord's work that he has engaged upon, as I am myself, so no one must slight him. Send him happily on his way to join me, since I am waiting for him with our friends. If for our friend, Apollo, I urged him strongly to go to Corinth with the others, but he was quite determined not to go at present. He will go when opportunity offers. Be alert, stand firm in the faith, be valiant and strong, let all you do be done in love.

I have a request to make of you, my brothers. You know that the Stephanus family were the first converts in Akhaya, and have laid themselves out to serve God's people. I wish you to give their due position to such persons, and indeed to everyone who labors hard at our common task. It is a great pleasure to me that Stephanus, Fortunatus and Khayakis have arrived, because they have done what you had no chance to do. They have relieved my mind, and no doubt yours too. Such men deserve recognition. Greetings from the congregations in Asia. Many greetings in the Lord from Aquila and Priska, and the congregation at their house. Greetings from all the brothers.

Greet one another with the kiss of peace. This greeting is in my own hand, Paul. If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be outcast. Maranatha, come, O Lord, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love to you all in Christ Jesus. Amen. The reading concluded with the 24th verse of the 16th chapter of the first letter of Paul to the Corinthian. The second letter of Paul to the Corinthians. The first chapter.

The second letter of Paul to the Corinthians. The first chapter. Personal religion and the ministry. From Paul, a apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will, and our colleague Timothy, to the congregation of God's people at Corinth, together with all who are dedicated to him throughout the whole of Akhaya. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the all merciful Father, the God whose consolation never fails us. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we in turn may be able to comfort others in any trouble of theirs and to share with them the consolation we ourselves receive from God.

As Christ's cup of suffering overflows and we suffer with Him, so also through Christ our consolation overflows. If distress be our Lord, it is the price we pay for our consolation, for our salvation. If our Lord be consolation, it is to help us to bring you comfort and strength to face with fortitude the same sufferings we now endure, and our hope for you is firmly grounded, for we know that if you have part in the suffering, you have part also in the divine consolation. In saying this, we should like you to know dear friends, how serious was the trouble that came upon us in the province of Asia. The burden of it was far too heavy for us to bear, so heavy that we even despaired of life, indeed we felt in our hearts that we had received a death sentence.

This was meant to teach us not to place reliance on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. From such mortal peril, God delivered us, and He will deliver us again, he on whom our hope is fixed. Yes, He will continue to deliver us, if you will cooperate by praying for us. Then, with so many people praying for our deliverance, there will be many to give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor God has shown towards us. There is one thing we are proud of. Our conscience assures us that in our dealings with our fellow men, and above all in our dealings with you, our conduct has been governed by a devote and godly sincerity, by the grace of God, and not by worldly wisdom, there is nothing in our letters to you but what you can read for yourselves and understand too. Partial as your present knowledge of us is, you will I hope come to understand fully that you have as much reason to be proud of us as we of you on the day of our Lord Jesus.

It was because I felt so confident about all this, that I had intended to come first of all to you, and give you the benefit of a double visit. I meant to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and after leaving Macedonia to return to you, and you would then send me on my way to Judea. That was my intention. Did I likely change my mind, or do I, when I frame my plans, frame them as a worldly man might, so that it should rest with me to say yes and yes or no and no as God is true. The language in which we address you is not an ambiguous blend of yes and no, the Son of God, Christ Jesus, proclaimed among you by us, by Sylvainus and Timothy, I mean as well as myself, was never a blend of yes and no, with him it was and is yes.

He is the yes, pronounced upon God's promises, every one of them. That is why, when we give glory to God, it is through Christ Jesus that we say, Amen. And if you and we belong to Christ, guaranteed us his and anointed, it is all God's doing. It is God also who has set his seal upon us, and as a pledge of what is to come has given the Spirit to dwell in our hearts. I appeal to God to witness what I am going to say. I stake my life upon it. It was out of consideration for you that I did not, after all, come to Corinth. Do not think we are dictating the terms of your faith. Your hold on the faith is secure enough. We are working with you for your own happiness. So I made up my mind that my next visit to you must not be another painful one.

If I cause pain to you, who is left to cheer me up except you, whom I have offended? This is precisely the point I made in my letter. I did not want, I said, to come and be made miserable by the very people who ought to have made me happy. And I had sufficient confidence in you all to know that for me to be happy is for all of you to be happy. That letter I sent you came out of great distress and anxiety, how many tears I shed as I wrote it. But I never meant to cause you pain. I wanted you rather to know the love, the more than ordinary love that I have for you. Any injury that has been done has not been done to me. To some extent, not to labour the point, it has been done to you all. The penalty on which the general meeting has agreed has met the offense well enough.

Something very different is called for now. You must forgive the offender and put heart into him. The man's sorrow must not be made so severe as to overwhelm him. I urge you, therefore, to assure him of your love for him by a formal act. I wrote, I may say, to see how you stood the test, whether you fully accepted my authority. But anyone who has your forgiveness has mine too. And when I speak of forgiving, so far as there is anything for me to forgive, I mean that as the representative of Christ, I have forgiven him for your sake. For Satan must not be allowed to get the better of us. We know his wiles all too well. Then when I came to draw us, where I was to preach the gospel of Christ, and where an opening awaited me for the Lord's work, I still found no relief of mine. For my colleague Titus was not there to meet me. So I took leave of the people there and went off to Macedonia.

But thanks be to God, who continually leads us about captives in Christ's triumphal procession, and everywhere uses us to reveal and spread abroad the fragrance of the knowledge of himself. We are indeed the incense offered by Christ to God. Both for those who are on the way to salvation, and for those who are on the way to partition. To the latter it is a deadly fume that kills to the form of vital fragrance that brings life, who is equal to such a calling. At least we do not go hawking the word of God about, as so many do. When we declare the word, we do it in sincerity, as from God and in God's sight, as members of Christ. Are we beginning all over again to produce our credentials? Do we, like some people, need letters of introduction to you or from you? No, you are all the letter we need, a letter written on our heart. Any man can see it for what it is and read it for himself, and as for you, it is plain that you are a letter that has come from Christ, given to us to deliver.

A letter written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, written not on stone tablets, but on the pages of the human heart. It is in full reliance upon God through Christ that we make such claims. There's no question of our being qualified in ourselves. We cannot claim anything as our own. Such qualification as we have comes from God. It is He who has qualified us to dispense His new covenant, a covenant expressed not in our written document, but in a spiritual bond, for the written law condemns to death, but the spirit gives life. The law then engraved letter by letter upon stone. Dispense death, and yet it was inaugurated with divine splendor. That splendor, though it was soon to fade, made the face of Moses so bright that the Israelites could not gaze steadily at Him. But if so, must not even greater splendor rest upon the divine dispensation of the spirit? If splendor accompanied the dispensation under which we are condemned, how much richer in splendor must that one be under which we are acquitted?

Indeed, the splendor that once was is now no splendor at all, it is outshorned by a splendor greater still. For if that which was soon to fade, at its moment of splendor, how much greater is the splendor of that which endures? With such a hope as this, we speak out boldly. It is not for us to do as Moses did. He put a veil over His face to keep the Israelites from gazing on that fading splendor until it was gone. But in any case, their minds had been made insensitive. For that same veil is there to this very day when the lessen is read from the old covenant, and it is never lifted, because only in Christ is the old covenant abrogated. But to this very day, every time the law of Moses is read, a veil lies over the minds of the hearers. However, as Scripture says of Moses, when every turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

Now the Lord of whom this passage speaks is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And because for us there is no veil over the face, we all reflect as in a mirror the splendor of the Lord, thus we are transfigured into His likeness from splendor to splendor. Such is the influence of the Lord who is Spirit. Seeing the end that we have been entrusted with this commission, which we owe entirely to God's mercy, we never lose heart. We have renounced the deeds that men hide for very shame. We neither practice cunning nor distort the Word of God, only by declaring the truth openly. Do we recommend ourselves? And then it is to the common conscience of our fellow men and in the sight of God, and if indeed our gospel be found veiled.

The only people who find it so are those on the way to partition. Their unbelieving minds are so blinded by the God of this passing age that the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the very image of God cannot dawn upon them and bring them light. It is not ourselves that we proclaim, we proclaim Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake. For the same God who said, out of darkness let light shine, has caused His light to shine within us, to give the light of revelation, the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We are no better than pots of earth than where to contain this treasure, and this proves that such transcendent power does not come from us, but is God's alone, hard pressed on every side we are never hemmed in. Be wilder, we are never at our wit's end, hunted, we are never abandoned to our feet, struck down, we are not left to die. Wherever we go we carry death with us in our body, the death that Jesus died, that in this body also life may reveal itself the life that Jesus lives.

For continually while still alive we are being surrendered into the hands of death for Jesus sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be revealed in this mortal body of ours, thus death is at work in us and life in you. But Scripture says, I believed and therefore I spoke out and we too in the same spirit of faith believe and therefore speak out. For we know that He who raised the Lord Jesus to life will with Jesus raise us too and bring us to His presence and you with us. Indeed it is for your sake that all things are ordered so that as the abounding grace of God is shared by more and more, the greater may be the chorus of thanksgiving that ascends to the glory of God.

No wonder we do not lose heart, though our outward humanity is in decay yet day by day we are inwardly renewed, our troubles are slight and short lived and their outcome an eternal glory which outweighs them far. And while our eyes are fixed not on the things that are seen but on the things that are unseen but what is seen passes away, what is unseen is eternal. But we know that if the earthly frame that houses us today should be demolished we possess a building which God has provided a house not made by human hands eternal and in heaven. In this present body we do indeed groan. We yearn to have our heavenly habitation put on over this one in the hope that being thus clothed we shall not find ourselves naked.

We groan indeed we who are enclosed within this earthly frame. We are oppressed because we do not want to have the old body stripped off. Rather our desire is to have the new body put on over it so that our mortal part may be absorbed into life immortal. God Himself has shaped us for this very end and as a pledge of it He has given us the Spirit. Therefore we never cease to be confident. We know that so long as we are at home in the body we are exiles from the Lord, faith is our guide. We do not see Him we are confident our repeat and would rather leave our home in the body and go to live with the Lord. We therefore make it our ambition. Wherever we are here are there to be acceptable to Him.

For we must all have our lives laid open before the tribunal of Christ where each must receive what is due to Him for His conduct in the body good or bad. The reading has concluded at the 10th verse of the 5th chapter of the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians. The second letter of Paul to the Corinthians chapter 5 verse 11, personal religion and the ministry. With this fear of the Lord before our eyes we address our appeal to men to God our lives lie open as I hope they also lie open to you in your heart of hearts.

This is not another attempt to recommend ourselves to you. We are rather giving you a chance to show yourselves proud of us. Then you will have something to say to those whose pride is all in outward show and not in inward worth. It may be we are beside ourselves but it is for God. If we are in our right mind it is for you. For the love of Christ leaves us no choice. When once we have reached the conclusion that one man died for all and therefore all mankind has died. His purpose in dying for all was that men while still in life should cease to live for themselves and should live for Him who for their sake died and was raised to life. With us therefore worldly standards have ceased to count in our estimate of any man. Even if once they counted in our understanding of Christ they do so no no longer.

When anyone is united to Christ there is a new world. The old order has gone and a new order has already begun. From first to last this has been the work of God. He has reconciled us men to Himself through Christ and He has enlisted us in this service of reconciliation. What I mean is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. No longer holding man's misdeeds against them and that He has entrusted us with the message of reconciliation. We come therefore as Christ's ambassadors. It is as if God were appealing to you through us. In Christ's name we implore you be reconciled to God. Christ was innocent of sin and yet for our sake God made Him one with the sinfulness of man so that in Him we might be made one with the goodness of God Himself.

Sharing in God's work we urge this appeal upon you. You have received the grace of God. Do not let it go for nothing. God's own words are in the hour of my favour I gave heed to you. On the day of deliverance I came to your aid. The hour of favour has now come. Now I say has the day of deliverance dawned. In order that our service may not be brought into discredit we avoid giving offense in anything as God's servants. We try to recommend ourselves in all circumstances by our steadfast endurance in hardships and dire straits, flogged, imprisoned, mobbed, overworked, sleepless, starving. We recommend ourselves by the innocence of our behaviour, our grasp of truth, our patience and kindness by gifts of the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by declaring the truth by the power of God.

We wield the weapons of righteousness in right hand and left. Honor and dishonor, praise and blame are alike our Lord. We are the impostors who speak the truth, the unknown men whom all men know, dying, we still live on, disciplined by suffering, we are not done to death. In our sorrows we have always caused for joy, poor ourselves, we bring wealth to many, peniless, we own the world. Men of Corinth we have spoken very frankly to you, we have opened our heart wide to you all. On our part there is no constraint, any constraint there may be is in yourselves. In fair exchange then may a father speak so to his children, open wide your hearts to us.

Problems of church life and discipline. Do not unite yourselves with unbelievers, they are no fit mates for you. What is righteousness to do with wickedness? Can light, consort with darkness? Can Christ agree with billial or a believer join hands with an unbeliever? Can there be a compact between the temple of God and the idols of the heathen? And the temple of the living God is what we are. God's own words are, I will live and move about among them, I will be the God and they shall be my people, and therefore come away and leave them. Separate yourselves, says the Lord, do not touch what is unclean, then I will accept you, says the Lord, the ruler of all being. I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, such are the promises that have been made to us dear friends.

Let us therefore cleanse ourselves from all that can defile flesh or spirit, and in the fear of God, complete our consecration. Do make a place for us in your hearts? We have wronged, no one ruined, no one taken advantage of no one. I do not want to blame you. Why, as I have told you before, the place you have in our heart is such that come death, come life. We meet it together. I am perfectly frank with you, I have great pride in you. In all our many troubles, my cup is full of consolation and overflows with joy. Even when we reached Macedonia, there was still no relief for this poor body of ours. Instead there was trouble at every turn, quarrels all round us, foreboding in our heart, but God, who brings comfort to the downcast, has comforted us by the arrival of Titus, and not merely by his arrival.

But by his being so greatly comforted about you, he has told us how you long for me, how sorry you are, and how eager to take my side, and that has made me happier still. Even if I did wound you by the letter I sent, I do not now regret it. I may have been sorry for it when I saw that the letter had caused you pain, even if only for a time, but now I am happy. Not that your feelings were wounded, but that the wound led to a change of heart. You bore the smart as God would have you bear it, and so you are no losers by what we did, for the wound which is born in God's way, brings a change of heart to salutary to regret. But the hurt which is born in the world's way brings death. You bore your hurt in God's way, and see what its results have been.

It made you take the matter seriously and vindicate yourselves, how angered you were, how apprehensive, how you are longing for me awoke, yes, and your devotion, and your eagerness to see justice done. At every point you have cleared yourselves of blame in this trouble, and so, although I did send you that letter, it was not the offender or his victim that most concerned me, my aim in writing was to help to make plain to you in the sight of God how truly you are devoted to us. That is why we have been so encouraged. But besides being encouraged ourselves, we have also been delighted beyond everything by seeing how happy Titus is. You have all helped to set his mind completely at rest. Anything I may have said to him to show my pride in you has been justified. Every word we ever address to you bore the mark of truth,

and the same holds of the proud boast we made in the presence of Titus, that also has proved true. His heart warms all the more to you, as he recalls how ready you all were to do what he asked, meeting him as you did in fear and trembling. So happy I am now to have complete confidence in you. We must tell you friends about the grace of generosity which God has imparted to our congregations in Macedonia. The troubles they have been through have tried them hard. Yet in all this they have been so exuberantly happy that from the depths of their poverty, they have shown themselves lavishly open-handed, going to the limit of their resources as I contestify, and even beyond that limit, they begged us most insistently and on their own initiative to be allowed to share in this generous service to their fellow Christians, and their giving surpassed our expectations for they gave their very selves, offering them in the first instance to the Lord but also under God to us.

The upshot is that we have asked Titus who began it all to visit you and bring this work of generosity also to completion. You are so rich in everything in faith, speech, knowledge and zeal of every kind, as well as in the loving regard you have for us, surely you should show yourselves equally lavish in this generous service. This is not meant as an order. By telling you how keen others are, I am putting your love to the test. For you know how generous our Lord Jesus Christ has been. He was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich. Here is my considered opinion on the matter. What I ask you to do is in your own interests. You made a good beginning last year, both in the work you did and in your willingness to undertake it. Now I want you to go on and finish it, be as eager to complete the scheme as you were to adopt it, and give according to your means.

Provided there is an eager desire to give, God accepts what a man has, he does not ask for what he has not. There is no question of relieving others at the cost of hardship to yourselves. It is a question of equality. At the moment your surplus meets their need, but one day your need may be made from their surplus. The aim is equality. As Scripture has it, the man who got much had no more than enough, and the man who got little did not go short. I thank God that he has made Titus as keen on your behalf as we are. For Titus not only welcomed our request, he is so eager that by his own desire he is now leaving to come to you. With him we are sending one of our company whose reputation is high among our congregations everywhere for his services to the gospel. Moreover, they have truly appointed him to travel with us and help in this beneficent work by which we do honour to the Lord himself and show our own eagerness to serve.

We want to guard against any criticism of our handling of this generous gift, for our aims are entirely honourable, not only in the Lord's eyes, but also in the eyes of men. With these men we are sending another of our company whose enthusiasm we have had many opportunities of testing, and who is now all the more earnest because of the great confidence he has in you. If there is any question about Titus, he is my partner and my associate in dealings with you, as for the others they are delegates of our congregations, an honour to Christ. Then give them clear expression of your love and justify our pride in you, justify it to them and through them to the congregations. About the provision of aid for God's people, it is superfluous for me to write to you, I know how eager you are to help.

I speak of it with pride to the Macedonians, I tell them that Akhaya had everything ready last year, and most of them have been fired by your zeal. My purpose in sending these friends is to ensure that what we have said about you in this matter should not prove to be an empty boast. By that I mean, I want you to be prepared, as I told them you were, for if I bring with me men from Macedonia and they find you are not prepared, what a disgrace it will be to us, let alone to you after all the confidence we have shown. I have accordingly thought it necessary to ask these friends to go on ahead to Corinth, to see that your promised bounty is in order before I come, it will then be awaiting me as a bounty indeed and not as an extortion. Remember, sparse, sewing, sparse, reaping, so bountifully and you will reap bountifully. Each person should give as he has decided for himself, there should be no reluctance, no sense of compulsion, God loves a cheerful giver.

And it is in God's power to provide you richly with every good gift, thus you will have ample means in yourselves to meet each and every situation, with enough and to spare for every good cause. Scripture says of such a man, he has lavished his gifts on the needy, his benevolences stand fast forever. Now he who provides seed for sewing and bread for food will provide the seed for you to sow, he will multiply it and swell the harvest of your benevolence, and you will always be rich enough to be generous. Through our actions such generosity will issue in thanksgiving to God, for as a piece of willing service this is not only a contribution towards the needs of God's people, more than that it overflows in a flood of thanksgiving to God. For through the proof which this affords, many will give honour to God when they see how humbly you obey Him and how faithfully you confess the gospel of Christ and will thank Him for your liberal contribution to their need and to the general good.

And as they join in prayer on your behalf, their hearts will go out to you because of the richness of the grace which God has imparted to you. Thanks be to God for His gift, beyond words. The reading has concluded at the 15th verse of the 9th chapter of the second letter of Paul to the Corinthian. The reading has concluded at the 15th verse of the 9th chapter of the second letter of Paul to the Corinthian.

The reading has concluded at the 15th verse of the 9th chapter of the second letter of Paul to the Corinthian. The reading has concluded at the 15th verse of the 9th chapter of the second letter of Paul to the Corinthian.