Divine Jealousy Series

Pastor John Ortberg asks us to imagine picking your car up from the shop after a routine tune-up, and the technician says, “This car is in great shape. Clearly you have an automotive genius to take great care of your car.” Later that day, your brakes fail. You find out you were out of brake fluid. You could have died.

You go back to the shop, and you say, “Why didn't you tell me?” The technician replies, “Well, I didn't want you to feel bad. Plus, to be honest, I was afraid you might get upset with me. I want this to be a safe place where you feel loved and accepted.” You'd be furious! You'd say, “I didn't come here for a little fantasy-based ego boost! When it comes to my car, I want the truth.”

Or imagine going to the doctor's office for a check-up. The doctor says to you, “You are a magnificent physical specimen. You have the body of an Olympian. You are to be congratulated.” Later that day while climbing the stairs, your heart gives out. You find out later your arteries were so clogged that you were, like, one jelly doughnut away from the grim reaper.

You go back to the doctor and say, “Why didn't you tell me?” The doctor says, “Well, I knew your body is in worse shape than the Pillsbury doughboy, but if I tell people stuff like that, they get offended. It's bad for business. They don't come back. I want this to be a safe place where you feel loved and accepted.” You'd be furious! You'd say to the doctor, “When it comes to my body, I want the truth!”

Obviously, when something matters to us, we do not want illusory comfort based on pain avoidance. We want truth. (John Ortberg, Loving Enough to Speak the Truth, www.PreachingToday.com).

This is certainly the case when it comes to your car and your body, but even more so when it comes to matters of the soul.

So how do you discern whether someone is telling you the truth? How do you distinguish between truth tellers and fake peddlers of falsehoods, who just want to make you feel good for profit? How do you separate the true teachers from the false, who just want to exploit you for their personal gain. Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to 2 Corinthians 11, 2 Corinthians 11, where the Apostle Paul contrasts His legitimate authority with the illegitimate authority of the false apostles.

2 Corinthians 11:1-3 I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ (ESV).

Paul feels foolish having to defend his apostolic authority. But he does it, because he feels like a father who has a daughter engaged to be married, and he wants to deliver his daughter to her groom pure and chaste.

Paul was a spiritual father to the Corinthian believers. He had led most of them to faith in Christ, whom the Bible describes as the church’s bridegroom (Ephesians 5:22-32; Revelation 19:6-8). Now, as they anticipate their wedding at Christ’s Second Coming, Paul wants to zealously guard their purity, but they are in danger of going after other “suiters.”

2 Corinthians 11:4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough (ESV).

They put up with false teachers, who teach a different Jesus with a different spirit in a different gospel. As such, they are in danger of becoming unfaithful to their true bridegroom, Jesus Christ Himself, because they are being seduced by the smooth talking, so called, “super-apostles.”

2 Corinthians 11:5-6 Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things (ESV).

Paul may be unskilled in his oratory—an amateur in comparison to the smooth-talking false teachers—but he speaks the truth. He knows what he’s talking about. And he urges his readers to reject the rival suitors, the so-called “super apostles,” who try to seduce you with their smooth talk. Instead…

FOLLOW ONLY A LEADER, who, like a father, JEALOUSLY GUARDS your pure devotion to Jesus Christ. Welcome only those teachers, who encourage you to remain faithful to Jesus. Listen only to those who teach you to stay true to Christ, even if their speech is unpolished.