Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 31-32 and 2 Corinthians 12-13

Jeremiah 31  - This chapter is maybe one of the most important biblical passages in Quaker “theology.” Jeremiah gives voice to his prophecy of the “New Covenant.” I don’t think scholars are sure of the origin of the Book of Consolation  (chapters 30 through 33}, of which this is a part. Laurence Boadt, in his Reading the Old Testament, says that they are “words of hope from a variety of different times and occasions. Some . . . are addressed to ‘Israel’ and probably were from the early days of Jeremiah’s prophetic work under Josiah when he was addressing the remnants of the northern kingdom of Israel. His comforting words are later reused to comfort the exiles of Judah who would be the “new Israel” (373). 

Jeremiah says God’s people will find pardon in the wilderness.  “I have loved you with an everlasting love. . .I will guide [you] to streams of water, by a smooth path where [you] will not stumble. For I am a father to Israel” (31:3 and 9).  They “will be like a well-watered garden; they will have everything they need. . . I will comfort them and turn their mourning into joy, and their sorrow into gladness” (31:12-13).

The two important messianic verses follow in verses 31:21-22. If you “google” around a little, you will find that there is a good deal of controversy over exactly how the verses should be translated:

1)     My Catholic Jerusalem Bible has the following: “Set up signposts, raise landmarks; mark the road well, the way by which you went. Come home, virgin of Israel, come home to these towns of yours.  How long will you hesitate, disloyal daughter? For Yahweh is creating something new on earth: the Woman sets out to find her Husband again.” The Jerusalem Bible note here indicates that there is a lack of clarity in the last line in Hebrew.  The Hebrew verb, which they translate here as ‘set out to find again’, means literally ‘to surround’, ‘to turn around something’ [or dance around it], or ‘to go looking for’. The Vulgate Latin edition, translated by Jerome in the 4^th century emphasized the messianic meaning by translating it as “the woman will surround the man” and this was interpreted as referring to Mary’s virginal conception of Christ.”

2)     And then comes the prophecy of the New Covenant:  “See, the days are coming—it is Yahweh who speaks—when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not a covenant like the one I made with their ancestors . . . Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts.  Then I will be their God and they shall be my people.  There will be no further need for neighbor to try to teach neighbor, or brother to say to brother, ‘Learn to know Yahweh!’ No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest [. . .] since I will forgive their iniquity and never call their sin to mind” (31:31-34). Cross references include all of the following: Ps.51; Mt 26:28; 2 Cor 3-6; Rm 11:27; Heb 8:6-13 and 9:15; 1 Jn 5:20.

For early Friends, this promise of a New Covenant that no man could teach, but only God’s Spirit, present in the human heart, was perhaps the most important verse of scripture. Here are Fox’s words about it:

“He it is that is now come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true; and to rule in our hearts even with his law; and to rule in our hearts even with his law of love and of life in our inward parts which makes us free from the law of sin and death. And we have no life but by him, for he is the quickening spirit, the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, by whose blood we are cleaned and our consciences sprinkled from dead works to serve the living God, by whose blood we are purchased, and so he is our mediator that makes peace and reconciliation between God offended and us offending, being the oath of God, the new covenant of light, life, grace, and peace, the author and finisher of our faith” (Journal 603).

While almost every Quaker will happily turn to these words of Fox to justify their conviction that the New Covenant means NO ONE NEEDS TO BE TAUGHT by anyone about the Way we must “walk,” few in my experience would say the other things Fox says here: that we have “no life but by [Christ]” or that it is through Christ’s blood that we are redeemed.

Jeremiah 32 - It is again 588/587 BC, during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem.  Zedekiah has Jeremiah imprisoned in Court of the Guard in the Royal Palace for prophesying Judah’s defeat. The Lord tells Jeremiah that his cousin Hanamel will come to sell him some of the family land in Anathoth and that he should buy it as an act of faith in the restoration promised by God (32:38-40), even in the face of imminent destruction.  He gives the deed to Baruch, his scribe to put in an earthen jar for safe-keeping. Then again, we hear the words of God to Jeremiah, words promising redemption:

           

“I am going to gather the people from all the countries where I have scattered them in my anger and fury, and I am going to bring them back to this place and let them live here in safety. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them a single purpose in life: to honor me for all time, for their own good and the good of their descendants. I will make an eternal covenant with them.” (32:37-40).

2 Corinthians 12 - Paul speaks of his visions and ‘openings” or revelations.  He speaks of someone he knows that he says was “caught up to the third heaven” (12:2) fourteen years earlier and “heard ineffable things, which no one may utter” (12:4). The NAB note indicates that this is just a more “distant” way of referring to himself, but I am not sure how this interpretation came about. Paul continues to speak of his dedication to the work of apostleship he has done. He acknowledges his weaknesses. He sees them as a way of keeping him humble. “I am content with weaknesses, insult, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong" (12:10). 

2 Corinthians 13- Paul warns the Corinthians that he will not be lenient with them when he comes the third time. They are looking for him to give “proof” that Christ is speaking in him, but Christ and he share the same power.  “For indeed he was crucified out of weakness, but he lives by the power of God.  So also we are weak in him, but toward you we shall live with him by the power of God” (13:4).  Then these wonderful words: “Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in faith.  Test yourselves.  Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” or better yet the JB translation, “Do you acknowledge that Jesus Christ is really in you? If not, you have failed the test” (12:5-6).

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 29 and 2 Corinthians 11:1-15

Jeremiah 29  - Jeremiah writes a letter to the exiles in Babylon and tells them to settle there, take wives, have families; it will be a long time (70 years), but he encourages them: “I know the plans I have in mind for you, . . . plans for peace, not disaster, reserving a future full of hope for you”  (29:11). I will let you find me.  Do not be deceived by false prophets there, in Babylon, or people who interpret dreams.  The King who remained and those with him will be destroyed. 

He also addresses a letter to Shemaiah, a false prophet who had encouraged leaders to punish Jeremiah for communicating such thoughts to the exiled community. In response, Jeremiah sends a message to the exiles, telling them that Shemaiah is a false prophet and should not be listened to.

2 Corinthians 11:1-15 – Paul tells the Corinthians that his “jealousy” for them is from God. It was he who brought about their marriage to Christ, and he had prayed they would go before Him as “virgins” – pure in their faith.  But, as in the Genesis story, things didn’t work out as planned; the serpent turned them [Christ’s Eve], away from simple faithfulness to a fallen condition and fallen relationship with God. They seem to listen to whoever comes to them and do not properly discern when these visitors paint a completely different picture of what the faith should be. It would be very interesting to know who these traveling ministers were, who claim to be “super-apostles” with greater authority than Paul. Some interpret Paul’s words as possibly referring to one or more of the original apostles of Christ; others think they might have been early leaders of high status in the church at Corinth. I think the “former” more likely. We know Paul had conflicts with some of these early "apostles", and his claim to equality of apostleship with them as the “last” apostle called by Christ (1 Corinthians 1) MUST have been somewhat controversial in the early days. Nevertheless, Paul calls these “super-apostles,” “false apostles, who lie about their work and disguise themselves to look like real apostles of Christ” (11:13).

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 27-28 and 2 Corinthians 10

Jeremiah 27 - Chapter 27 is the first of three chapters that apparently existed separately at one time; and each is about the “false prophets.”  The date of this first is supposedly 594 BC when an embassy of states—Edom, Moab, Sidon [south to north on the eastern side of the Jordan River]--conferred about what to do about Nebuchadnezzar. It is at the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign (c.598/597 BC). Jeremiah is called by God to make a yoke and to wear it as a sign to these leaders. There is nothing they can do to fight off defeat. Nebuchadnezzar will rule over all of them for a period.  He tells them not to resist and not to listen to optimistic, nationalistic prophets, who are just saying things they know the people WANT TO HEAR. Jeremiah communicates this Word to the conferring kings, to the king of Judah, the priests and people. At the end, there is a quick reference to the fact that one day they will be restored, but that day is not now.

Jeremiah 28 - Hananiah, another prophet from the town of Gibeon (north of Jerusalem), prophesies that the temple vessels taken by Nebuchadnezzar will be returned in two years along with Jehoiakin, son of Jehoiakim (Zedekiah’s brother) and other exiles. Presumably to prove his point, Hananiah removes the yoke that Jeremiah is wearing as a sign of their need to “submit” to the Babylonians, and breaks it, saying “Yahweh will thus break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar.”  Competing prophecies from reputable prophets – this must be a very difficult thing for the leaders and the people to deal with.

Jeremiah says the truth of prophecy must be tested over time. Only by the fruits, the results, will the people be able to discern the true prophet. Jeremiah leaves, but after a time Jeremiah gets another word from Yahweh. “Go and tell Hananiah that he may be able to break the “wooden yoke” that Jeremiah was wearing, but “he will replace it with an iron yoke. . . he will put an iron yoke on all these nations and . . . they will serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia” (28:14). Jeremiah also tells Hananiah that he will die because he has misled the people. He does die soon after. 

2 Corinthians 10 - Paul describes himself as one who bullies them only when he is away (in his letters).  But he fancies he will have to do so in person to people who accuse him of “ordinary human motives” (10:3).  He does not fight with fleshly weapons.  They are assailing his authority – he defends it as given to build them up, so he won’t neglect to use it.  He resolves to be more like the man of his letters when he is with them.  He returns to the theme of boasting [see Jeremiah 9] urging them to come off believing in pretensions others have made and to recognize that Paul’s position of authority--his boast--derives from a commission from God.

The amount of time Paul devotes to this theme—of boasting, of seeing himself in conflict with others who are trying to denigrate his authority or puff up their own status in the church—indicates that there must have been some pretty caustic words going around and challenges among those preaching and teaching as to their relative status in the leadership. Ah! Some things NEVER change.

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 22 and 2 Corinthians 5

Jeremiah 22 - In 588 BC, Jeremiah goes to the King of Judah and says, “Practice honesty and integrity – rescue the man who’s been wronged from oppressor.”  If you do, the monarchy will prosper; but if not, the palace shall become a ruin. Again, as in Jeremiah 7, God’s promise is seen as conditional. Nothing God establishes can continue in power unless the inward spirit continues.  There are no eternally sacred outward things (!!!)  “You were like a Gilead to me, like a peak of Lebanon.  All the same I will reduce you to a desert” Everything God does outwardly is to evoke in the minds and hearts of human beings questions – “When the hordes of the nations pass this city, they will say to each other: Why has Yahweh treated such a great city like this?” (22:8)  They did not stay loyal to the covenant they made.

           

Now the references to Judaean kings seems to flip back in time: Of Jehoahaz, Jeremiah recounts that he will be deported to Egypt. 2 Kings 23:31 says he was 23 when he took over and reigned only three months.  He is said to have done evil, was taken prisoner by Pharaoh Neco. Then Jeremiah rebukes Jehoiakim, who followed Jehoahaz briefly, for injustice and for trying to prove his rank, his status, by indulging in outward show of things, particularly his dwelling.  “. . .your eyes and heart are set on nothing except on your own gain, on shedding innocent blood, on practicing oppression and extortion” (22:17). He will not be mourned.

Then, in 597 BC—18 year-old Jehoiachin becomes king. Jeremiah tells him that God will deliver him into the hands of those who seek his life.  Of his seven sons, all born in exile, none will become king—one grandson, Zerubbabel, will preside for a time after the return, but not as king (NAB note).                                                       

2 Corinthians 5 – Paul, the poet, continues - When the tent we live in is folded up there is a house built by God for us.  We “groan and find it a burden being still in this tent” (5:4).  We do not want to leave the mortal tent, but we want to put the immortal garment over it - “to have what must die taken up into life” (5:4). In the law court of Christ, “Each of us will get what he deserves for the things he did in the body, good or bad” (5:10).  In part it is this “fear” of God’s judgment that impels Paul to “try to persuade others” (5:11). But everything he does, he does out of love—if he appears crazy, if he uses his reason—he is simply trying to get us to understand that Christ “died for all. . .so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him. . .” (5:15).  This is the ministry of reconciliation—reconciliation of the human with the divine, reconciliation of man with man, of man with woman, of man with the creation.  “For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (5:21).

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 21 and 2 Corinthians 4

Introduction and Context: The next chapters of Jeremiah can be confusing because they make continual references to historical events and people that the earlier chapters seem to ignore. I may have already said something about the historical context, but here it is again:


Josiah, the reformer-king, died on the battlefield of Megiddo in 609, trying to stop the northward march of Pharaoh Neco, who was at that time allied with the Assyrians.  After Josiah’s death, his son Jehoahaz was slated to become king, but the Egyptians carried him off to Egypt and put another son of Josiah’s, Jehoiachim, on the throne. Jehoiachim agreed to pay tribute to Egypt. But in just a few years, the power politics of the region shifted. The Chaldean (Neo-Babylonian) Empire under Nebuchadnezzar II defeated Egypt at Carchemish in 605 BC, and Jehoiachim changed allegiances; the kingdom of Judah began paying tribute to the Neo-Babylonians and did so for three years before the king attempted to rebel.  Nebuchadnezzar led a decisive assault on Jerusalem and it is believed Jehoiachim died in this assault (598). His son Jehoiachin, only 18, became king but was king only for three months. Jerusalem fell, and the young king was taken to Babylon, where he would remain for 40 years in exile. Nebuchadnezzar placed Zedekiah on the throne. He, Zedekiah, was a brother of reformer-king Josiah and uncle of the young, exiled king. Zedekiah agreed - for a time - to be a tribute-paying vassal of the Neo-Babylonians. He would be the last Judaean king.

Jeremiah 21 – Zedekiah is the king. Two leading officers of the Temple go to Jeremiah and ask him to appeal to the Lord to see if He doesn’t have some miracle up His sleeve to save them from the humiliation and dependency they are suffering as a kingdom.  Instead of comfort, however, Jeremiah tells them the Lord plans to fight against them Himself “in anger, and wrath, and great rage!” (21:5) If Zedekiah attempts to rebel, Judah's army will be defeated and everyone will be killed or captured by Nebuchadnezzar.

In words that both echo and mock the speeches of Moses, Jeremiah says, “See, I am giving you a choice between life and death.  Whoever remains in this city shall die by the sword or famine or pestilence.  But whoever leaves and surrenders to the besieging Chaldeans shall live and have his life as booty” (21:9). Sometimes - most times, I think - we read Jeremiah's words without really putting ourselves in his times and context. Just imagine what it might have been for some prophet to go to the President of the United States and tell him the Soviet Union was going to win the Cold War and that it would be God's Will if they did because of our long-standing unfaithfulness on matters of justice and faithfulness to a covenant we made with God. Imagine how he would have been received. That is exactly how he is received in his time. 

2 Corinthians 4 - Paul continues to defend the manner in which he has proclaimed the gospel—having been accused of being obscure or veiling it in some way.  He claims rather that some are not able to “hear” the gospel because “the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers” (4:4). Paul denounces the watering down of the word.  His way of preaching is to state “the truth openly in the sight of God” and leave it to others’ consciences and to God.  If there is a veil, then it is on those who “are not on the way of salvation” (JB 4:3).  God brings light to illuminate the darkness, and it is he who shines in our minds to radiate the knowledge of God’s glory.  We are only “earthenware jars” – “we see no answer to our problems but never despair. . .”  “We carry with us in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus too may always be seen in our body” (4:10). See Luke 9:22 for Jesus’ statement of his gospel—“whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

“So death is at work in us, but life in you” (4:12).  “Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (4:16). “[W]e look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal” (4:8). Great stuff, Paul.

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 20 and 2 Corinthians 3

Jeremiah 20 – Jeremiah enters the court of the Temple to prophesy his message of disaster, and he is taken into custody, scourged and chained near the northernmost gate, the Benjamin Gate.  On his release the next morning, he prophesies against the chief officer responsible for his sufferings. Jeremiah is anxious about the hate closing in on him—as perhaps Jesus was too. “Whenever I speak, I have to cry out and shout, ‘Violence! Destruction!’ Lord, I am ridicules and scorned all the time because I proclaim your message. But when I say, ‘I will forget the Lord and no longer speak in his name,’ then your message is like a fire burning deep within me. I try my best to hold it in, but can no longer keep it back” (20:8-9).

How dreadful it must be to have a message so hard for people to hear from God that it undermines the prophet’s ability to live any kind of normal life with his people. Jeremiah knows the ultimate power of God to vindicate his (Jeremiah’s) reputation, and he knows that the tests God burdens us with are just in the long run, but the pain of it is overwhelming at times. For now, Jeremiah is desolate: “Why did I come forth from the womb, to see sorrow and pain, to end my days in shame?” (20:8)

2 Corinthians 3 - Paul commends the community for being such a great witness. But he actually doesn’t need to commend them. They themselves are “letters of recommendation . . . written on our [Paul’s and the church’s] hearts for everyone to know and read . . . [letters] not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, and not on stone tablets but on human hearts” (3:2-3).

Everything of importance for Paul rests on the Spirit – his commendation of them, his “qualifications” or credentials to be and “administrator of this new covenant" (3:6). He goes on to compare the salvation offered by Moses through the outward letter of the Law with the salvation offered by the Spirit.  He calls the one that came by Moses a “ministry of death” (3:7), not because it was bad — it wasn't. It was glorious (3:7). But it was transient, but the ministry of the Spirit lasts forever (3:11).

The understanding the Jewish leaders have of God’s will, their obsession with the outward Law, veils their minds in Paul’s view. But the “veil is removed only when a person is joined to Christ” (3:14). When Moses “turned to the Lord” (3:16) – the Spirit – the veil was removed. This happens with all people, Paul assures us, not just with Moses. He ends the chapter with this: “Now this Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, with our unveiled faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness of the Lord, all grow brighter as we are turned into the image that we reflect; this is the work of the Lord who is Spirit”  (3:17-18).

This language is beautiful, but it is also complicated. I think I get it. What we "turn to" to guide us in our spiritual journey, and the power of the Spirit that illuminates it for us, determines in large measure what we ourselves become. We are "the image" of that "looked-to reality," the mirror that reflects it. The eyes we bring to that reality have a large part in determining exactly how transformative the "reflective" experience is in our lives.

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 15-19 and 2 Corinthians 1-2

Jeremiah 15 – The Lord tells Jeremiah that things have gotten so bad, even Moses and Samuel would not be able to convince Him to take these people back.  “I will make them an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem” (15:4).

In 2 Kings 21, Manasseh was 12 when he become king and reigned 55 years.  He rebuilt the high places his father had destroyed; he erected altars to Baal and a sacred pole, altars in the temple for the whole host of heaven.  He immolated his own son by fire, practiced soothsaying and divination, reintroduced the consulting of ghosts and spirits. His son Amon did more of the same for two years.  But then Josiah came to the throne at the age of eight. 

It is more obvious from the passages in this chapter that, though the disgraces and sufferings brought upon Judah are seen as from the Lord -- “I was weary of sparing you” 15:6 -- there is definitely a sense here that these are sufferings that have come about “naturally” as we would say, “historically” from the wrong choices and stupidity of a people who have lost their way morally. 

           

The prophet is in anguish: “Woe to me, mother, that you gave me birth! A man of strife and contention to all the land! I neither borrow nor lend, yet all curse me” (15:10). “Why is my pain continuous, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?  You have indeed become for me a treacherous brook, whose waters do not abide!” (15:18) The Lord tells Jeremiah that he too must repent and be a pure “mouthpiece.” (15:19).

Jeremiah 16 - The prophet is told he should not marry, for the “sword and famine will make an end” of the children of this generation.  And Jeremiah is told he must not grieve for his people because “I have withdrawn by peace from this people” (16:5).

He must not rejoice with them either, for God will stop their joy.  When they ask why, he is to tell them it is because both previous generations and this generation too have forsaken the Lord.  But Jeremiah also prophesies a restoration that will be equated with Israel’s first redemption from the slavery of Egypt. The restoration of the people when they repent will be a new story of liberation like the one of Moses (16:14-15).

Jeremiah’s prophesy extends also to the “heathen.”  Someday they too will realize the gods they worship are “empty idols of no use” (16:19), and they too “shall know that my name is Lord” (16:31).

Jeremiah 17 - Jeremiah tells them they will be enslaved. “A curse on the man who puts his trust in man, who relies on things of flesh, whose heart turns from Yahweh.  He is like a dry scrub in the wastelands: if good comes, he has no eyes for it, he settles in the parched places of the wilderness, a salt land, uninhabited. A blessing on the man who puts his trust in Yahweh, with Yahweh for his hope, he is like a tree by the waterside that thrusts its roots to the stream: when the heat comes it feels no alarm, its foliage stays green; it has no worries in a year of drought, and never ceases to bear fruit” (JB 17:5-8)

           

Then more deep words: “More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it? I, the Lord, alone probe the mind and test the heart, to reward everyone according to his ways. . .” (NAB 17:9-10)

The man who puts his trust in human beings, into the kind of shallow values and pursuits that are characteristic of human striving, shall be like a barren bush.  But the man who trusts in God, in things of the spirit, he shall be like a tree planted beside the waters.  For the life of the person rooted in the stream will endure hardship.  As far as why the human heart seems so inclined to put his trust in superficial, material and passing things, this is a mystery “beyond remedy” he says.

 “Heal me, Yahweh, and I shall be really healed; save me and I shall be saved. . .” (17:14).

The chapter ends with prayers for justice (as between Jeremiah and his enemies) and reminders about the importance of the Sabbath.

Jeremiah 18 - Yahweh is likened to a potter who finds flaws with his work and refashions it to perfect his creative intention.  God does change his mind if people repent and changes his mind too if we enter apostasy.  “Sometimes I threaten to uproot and tear down and destroy a nation or a kingdom.  But if that nation . . .turns from its evil, I also repent of the evil which I threatened to do” (18:7-8). Blessings are not guaranteed. The passage is interesting for its universality; it is not directed to Israel alone.  Yahweh says, “my people have forgotten me!  They burn their incense to a nothing.  They have lost their footing in their ways, on the road of former times, to walk in tortuous paths, a way unmarked.  They will make their country desolate.” (JB 18:15).

The men of Judah plot against Jeremiah, seeking to destroy him by using his own words against him (perhaps those words which could be interpreted as disloyal to the nation – his advice on surrender, for example).  Jeremiah looks to God to keep him in mind (JB v18:8-20).

Jeremiah. 19 – He continues preaching his message of doom. A plot is devised to silence Jeremiah.  He calls God’s wrath down on them.  He uses the breaking of the jug as a symbol of what God, the potter, will do.

2 Corinthians 1 - In his opening and thanksgiving, Paul refers to God as the “God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged. . .” (1:3).  We are strengthened by God that we may be equipped to pass on that strength to others, to make them feel that there is a source of strength and comfort for every affliction in our God. He tells them something they apparently already know—that he had to pass through some severe affliction in Asia, an affliction that “utterly weighed” him down; but he was delivered.

He speaks of knowing that he has conducted himself toward them “with the simplicity and sincerity of God” through God’s grace (1:12).  He had planned to come to them on his way to Macedonia and then to return through Corinth again back to Judaea.  But apparently he had to change plans and go from Troas (NW Anatolia]; they are disappointed, but he isn’t coming so as not to inflict pain on them.  He wrote scolding them, not to cause them pain but to show his love. 

2 Corinthians 2 - He urges them to show love to “wrong-doers” they may have in their community. He will not argue with them for having forgiven them (2:10). He speaks of the opportunities that are created for the gospel - just by the “odor” or aroma believers give off—“an odor of life that leads to life” (2:16). 

George Fox refers to this as well—see page 27 of his Journal where he says, “All things were new, and all the creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter.”  Everything that touches the salvation work of God has this aroma.

Daily Scripture and Thoughts On It

The Scripture readings I am doing right now are all from the letters of Paul. I am reading his letters and trying to put them into the context of the story told by Luke in Acts. I am presently re-reading 2 Corinthians. Any commentary I make is in italics:

2 Cor. 10 - Paul describes himself as one who bullies them only when he is away (in his letters). But he fancies he will have to do so in person to people who accuse him of “ordinary human motives” (3). He does not fight with fleshly weapons. They are assailing his authority – he defends it as given to build them up, so he won’t neglect to use it. He resolves to be more like the man of his letters when he is with them. He returns to the theme of boasting [see Jeremiah 9] urging them to come off believing in pretensions others have made and to recognize that Paul’s position of authority--his boast--derives from a commission from God.

The amount of time Paul devotes to this theme—of boasting, of seeing himself in conflict with others who are trying to denigrate his authority or puff up their own status in the church—indicates that there must have been some pretty caustic words going around and challenges among those preaching and teaching as to their relative status in the leadership.

2 Cor. 11 - Paul’s “jealousy” for them is from God. He arranged for their marriage to Christ. But as in the Genesis story, the serpent turned them [Christ’s Eve], away from simple faithfulness to a fallen condition and fallen relationship with God.

Paul has a little irony in his tone here. He asks them to “put up” with his foolishness; they “put up” with it when others preach a different message. Again, he refers to competing “apostles,” men who call themselves or make other feel they are “super-apostles” (5). Are they charging money for their preaching and thus making people feel they are getting something of greater value? Paul preached for free (supported by brothers from Macedonia). There are counterfeit apostles, “Satan going about as an angel of light.” They apparently are claiming to be more “Jewish” than Paul, for he reasserts his “Jewish” credentials here. They may also be claiming to have worked harder, but he here boasts of his many sufferings in Christ—39 lashes at the hands of the Jews (5 times); beatings with rods (3 times); a stoning; a shipwreck; dangers of all kinds; sleepless nights, hunger and thirst; fastings; exposure (25-29). He tells of his escape from the hands of the governor of Damascus, “let down in a basket through a window in the wall” (33).

There is a lot of emotion in this letter about the rivalries, divisions, boasts of superiority and travails suffered in these early days. So, the divisions in the church are from the beginning. Still, we must try to settle them, overcome them. If Paul anguished over this, it is something still worth working on.

Daily Scripture and Thoughts On It

The Scripture readings I am doing right now are all from the letters of Paul. I am reading his letters and trying to put them into the context of the story told by Luke in Acts. I am presently re-reading 2 Corinthians. Any commentary I make is in italics:

2 Cor. 7 – Paul expresses his belief that together they can put off all that keeps us from being perfect in holiness: “let us wash off all that can soil either body or spirit, to reach perfection of holiness in the hear of God” (1). Still this hope of personal and communal perfection does not blind him to the fact that the wider community of churches is full of “trouble on all sides: quarrels outside, [and] misgivings inside” (5). He commends the “suffering” that the Corinthians have gone through that led to some repentance or change in them. “To suffer in God’s way means changing for the better and leaves no regrets, but to suffer as the world knows suffering brings death” (10).

2 Cor. 8 - Paul talks of the generosity of the Macedonians to encourage a like offering by the Corinthians. He links his concept of giving in the Church to Jesus’ giving of himself to make us rich in grace. “Remember how generous the Lord Jesus was: he was rich, but he became poor for your sake, to make you rich out of this poverty” (9). Also interesting here is a concept of “equality”, which Paul develops—that when some in the Church have a surplus, that surplus should be used to bring a degree of equality to those who have less—and that it would work the other way too had others a surplus and the people of Corinth had need of other’s help. There should be “equality” of status in the church (13-14).

Daily Scripture and Thoughts On It

The Scripture readings I am doing right now are all from the letters of Paul. I am reading his letters and trying to put them into the context of the story told by Luke in Acts. I am presently re-reading 2 Corinthians. Any commentary I make is in italics:

2 Cor. 5 – Paul, the poet, continues - When the tent we live in is folded up there is a house built by God for us. We “groan and find it a burden being still in this tent” (4). We do not want to leave the mortal tent but we want to put the immortal garment over it. “to have what must die taken up into life” (4). In the law court of Christ, “Each of us will get what he deserves for the things he did in the body, good or bad” (10). In part it is this “fear” of God’s judgment that impels Paul to “try to persuade others” (11). But everything he does, he does out of love—if he appears crazy, if he uses his reason—he is simply trying to get us to understand that Christ “died for all. . .so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him. . .” (15). This is the ministry of reconciliation—reconciliation of the human with the divine, reconciliation of man with man, of man with woman, of man with the creation. “For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (21).

2 Cor. 6 - Do not neglect the grace God gives to you. This present moment, this time between Christ’s coming into the world and his return “is the day of salvation” (2). The marks of His presence are the following:
- fortitude (endurance) - capacity to suffer afflictions and constraints
- purity
- knowledge
- patience and kindness
- a spirit of holiness
- genuine love
- truthful speech
- able to demonstrate God’s power
- armed with the “weapons of righteousness”
- always rejoicing.

He warns about harnessing yourself to unbelievers. “[W]hat fellowship does light have with darkness?” (14) What this harnessing is is the question. It cannot mean a lack of love or concern, a failure to reach out to those who are lost. But it must mean at least accepting or being indifferent to the standards, values and habits of “the world” (the mass of unbelievers). Mennonites use the following passage to justify removing themselves—“ . . .we are the temple of the living God; as God said: ‘I will live with them and move among them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore, come forth from them and be separate,’ says the Lord, ‘and touch nothing unclean; then I will receive you and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty’” (16-18).

This is not exactly a Catholic vision. How shall this be reconciled to the Catholic openness to all that seems good and worthy in the secular world. How indeed shall the Catholic notion of “countercultural” be reconciled to this same openness? See the Avery Dulles article of 1998 where he tries to describe an approach to such reconciliation. Seeing this comment again in 2011, I do not completely recall the article referred to here, but I think he was talking about the need for us to tell our stories of faith, so that those caught up in the worldly culture around us can see that there is an alternative approach to living in this “tent.”

Reading this again in 2011, I wonder if this last part of chapter 6 is not a little self-contradictory. Paul is so articulate about Christ’s joining himself to us in our sinful state, though he himself had no personal sin. But now, as he is encouraging us to join ourselves to Christ, he tells us to stay away from those who have not done so. I think we must do as Christ did and live our lives among those who need his love and his salvation. We must not be like them but if we separate ourselves completely, we are not following his example.

Daily Scripture and Thoughts On It

The Scripture readings I am doing right now are all from the letters of Paul. I am reading his letters and trying to put them into the context of the story told by Luke in Acts. I am presently re-reading 2 Corinthians. Any commentary I make is in italics:

2 Cor. 3 – Paul commends the community for being such a great witness. He doesn’t need to commend them. They themselves are a “letter of recommendation” “from Christ. . .and written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God”(3).

Everything is resting on the Spirit – his commendation of them, his “qualifications” or credentials to be and “administrator of this new covenant" (6). Then he goes on to compare the salvation offered by Moses through the outward letter of the Law with the salvation offered by the Spirit. He calls the one that came by Moses a “ministry of death” (7), not because it was bad — it wasn't. It was glorious (7). But because the ministry of the Spirit is so much more glorious, it makes the older one pale by comparison (10). The veil that veiled Moses’ face in Exodus continues to veil the understanding of many who read the old covenant.

He ends the chapter with this: “Now this Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, with our unveiled faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness of the Lord, all grow brighter as we are turned into the image that we reflect; this is the work of the Lord who is Spirit” (17-18).

This language is beautiful, but it is also complicated. I think I get it. What we "look to" to guide us in our spiritual journey, and the power of the Spirit that illuminates it for us, determines in large measure what we ourselves become. We are "the image" of that "looked to reality," the mirror that reflects it. The eyes we bring to that reality have a large part in determining exactly how transformative the "reflective" experience is in our lives.

2 Cor. 4 – Paul continues to defend the manner in which he has proclaimed the gospel—having been accused of being obscure or veiling it in some way. He claims rather that some are not able to “hear” the gospel because “the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers” (4). Paul denounces the watering down of the word. His way of preaching is to state “the truth openly in the sight of God” and leave it to others’ consciences and to God. If there is a veil, then it is on those who “are not on the way of salvation” (JB 3). God brings light to illuminate the darkness, and it is he who shines in our minds to radiate the knowledge of God’s glory. We are only “earthenware jars” – “we see no answer to our problems but never despair. . .” “We carry with us in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus too may always be seen in our body” (10). See Luke 9:22 for Jesus’ statement of his gospel—“whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

“So death is at work in us, but life in you” (12). “Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (16). “[W]e look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal” (8).

Daily Scripture and Thoughts On It

The Scripture readings I am doing right now are all from the letters of Paul. I am reading his letters and trying to put them into the context of the story told by Luke in Acts. I am presently re-reading 2 Corinthians. Any commentary I make is in italics:

2 Cor. 1 - In his opening and thanksgiving, he refers to God as the “God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged. . .” (3). We are strengthened by God that we may be equipped to pass on that strength to others, to make them feel that there is a source of strength and comfort for every affliction in our God. He tells them something they apparently already know—that he had to pass through some severe affliction in Asia, an affliction that “utterly weighed” him down; but he was delivered.

He speaks of knowing that he has conducted himself toward them “with the simplicity and sincerity of God” through God’s grace (12). He had planned to come to them on his way to Macedonia and then to return through Corinth again back to Judaea. But apparently he had to change plans and go from Troas (NW Anatolia]; they are disappointed, but he isn’t coming so as not to inflict pain on them. He wrote scolding them, not to cause them pain but to show his love.

2 Cor. 2 - He urges them to show love to wrong-doers they may have in their community. He will not argue with them for having forgiven them (10). He speaks of the opportunities that are created for the gospel - just by the “odor” or aroma believers give off—“an odor of life that leads to life” (16).

George Fox refers to this as well—see page 27 of his Journal where he says, “All things were new, and all the creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter.” Everything that touches the salvation work of God has this aroma.