The church today is in trouble. Two recent surveys show that church attendance, even among professing Christians, is way down. Many people today also feel that while they acknowledge faith in Jesus, also want a Burger King style religion—the “have it your way” mentality of spiritual potluck—pick a little from Jesus a little from Buddha, a little from nature-worship. While there are, as the experts say, multiple causalities for this behavior, I want to focus on something in particular: we have let the world’s values and methods infiltrate the church and thus have weakened the appeal to pre-Christians of a transformed life and have weakened the bonds of continued fellowship of believers by making the church in many ways indistinguishable from the world.
I believe that was what happened in Corinth. Corinth was a very “cool” city—hip and happening. Into that atmosphere came supposed “leaders” who looked, acted, and sounded like people who could be trusted, but their doctrine did not mirror the character of Jesus but of this age: external impressiveness, focus on power and position, a focus on monetary gain, and a lethargy when it came to the transformation of character that each disciple should experience in Jesus. That was because they didn’t represent Jesus at all, but Lucifer, whose chief aim is to emasculate the believer and make them unusable to the King to help spread the gospel.
What better way to do that than make the church look just like the world around it. Sadly, we see this today too in slick marketing, the promotion of relative truth, of attracting attenders instead of building disciples, and of abandoning anything that makes people feel uncomfortable. Now, those of you who know me know that I’m not advocating some legalistic return to a bunch of rules and regulations, but if there is no transformation of character going on—and if the people of God act just like the people of this age we have to ask the question: what’s missing? Let’s see how Paul addresses this as we finish chapter 12:
11
Paul shouldn’t have had to defend himself against the con-men preachers that had come into Corinth. They had tried to show how much better they were than Paul. He should have counted on the church he founded to defend him, but they didn’t. This drove Paul to have to “boast” about his credentials. Interestingly, he chose to boast about weakness and difficulty because it is then that real strength comes out—from reliance on Jesus Christ and His power. The “super apostles” boasted about their external strengths and impressiveness while inside they were filled with evil motives. Paul boasts about external weakness and internal power by the Holy Spirit toward new life in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Paul may have considered himself “nothing” but “nothing” in Christ is so much more than “everything” in this age.
12
To be an apostle you had to have seen the Lord Jesus personally, been commissioned by Him, and performed miracles to attest to that commission (Acts 2:22 ). Paul was clearly an apostle by that definition. Paul says he performed the signs “with great endurance.” This word is also translated “patience.” Paul didn’t ride into town with his miracle-guns blazing, showing off his power in a Holy Spirit magic show designed to impress. He used the power of God to change lives on an as-needed basis. Jesus never performed miracles to impress, only to heal and show that He was of God.
We should never seek to impress others by our wisdom, knowledge, power, or abilities in the Spirit. This is where I part company with many of our more Pentecostal brothers and sisters. You are a tool in the Holy Spirit’s hands—not the other way around. The Spirit should work through you mightily but invisibly most of the time, at least not in a public show-offy way – even in a church service. The goal is to heal and show Jesus is the Messiah, not take you on some magical mystery tour of being “in the Spirit” or be a show-off.
13
Churches have always been in competition. It’s a natural human thing, but not a Jesus thing. Apparently the Corinthians thought they had a “second-rate” apostle because Paul didn’t demand big speaking fees like the “super-apostles.” Paul was bi-vocational among them. He earned his own money by working or getting support from other churches. He sarcastically says “forgive me!” But Paul’s message and methods were the same wherever he went. The problem with the Corinthians, and many times us today is that we fall back into wanting to be impressed by a big show, rather than focus on becoming better servants.
14 – 15
Paul founded the church on his first visit (Acts 18:1 ). He came again for what he called a “painful visit” (2 Corinthians 2:1 ) to correct people who persisted in sin. He had planned a third visit but postponed it when he discovered continued problems in the church, especially about their loyalty to their spiritual father. So now he’s coming again and he will still refuse to take money from the Corinthians. He doesn’t want their money; he wants their friendship, love, and loyalty. It was common in the first century for parents to save up an inheritance for their children. Paul, by not taking their money and working with his hands to earn his way while with them, was spending his time, labor, money—and himself to help the Corinthians, while avoiding any controversy around taking money caused by the behavior of the false apostles.
His plea is: “after I’ve spent my all in loving you more, will you still withhold your love for me?”
16 – 18
Verse 16 is a little hard to translate. The New Living Translation renders it this way: (2 Cor 12:16 ) “Some of you admit I was not a burden to you. But others still think I was sneaky and took advantage of you by trickery.”
The sense of it is that while some understood that Paul’s self-support was good, others saw a backdoor way to scam them through the collection for the poor in Jerusalem. The Corinthians had suggested the collection in the first place, but somehow they had twisted it around to suggest that Paul was going to rip off the fund once it was collected. Paul had explained earlier that he was taking special steps to ensure the integrity of the collection. Paul, in fact, would have no direct contact with the money.
He uses the example of Titus, whom Paul sent to clean things up in advance of his visit. The Corinthians loved Titus and respected him. Yet Titus, Paul says, was only doing the things Paul told him to so and that he learned from the Apostle.
19
Just so they didn’t mistake his words, Paul makes it clear that this is not a debate. It is not going to be up to the Corinthians to decide between him and the false apostles. This discussion was taking place before God who would be the ultimate judge. The purpose was not to put some down while lifting him up. The purpose was to restore the relationship of the Corinthians to Paul and to Christ so that would continue to make progress in their maturing in the Lord.
When we get into man-worship and other this-age type of behaviors in the church we take our focus off of the main thing which is becoming more like the Lord in all we think, say, and do—and then seek to be used as a servant to help spread the gospel, even through the difficulties we endure.
20
Though things had improved, Paul worried that many problems still remained. Perhaps the Corinthians wanted a super-impressive leader. What they were going to get instead was a father so concerned about his spiritual children that he would not let sin go un-dealt with. Paul worried about the sins that remained including “quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder.” What strikes me as funny is that often times we as the church focus on really minor issues involving style and cultural preference—like whether Christians dance, or what version of the Bible we teach from—all the while doing the things on this list and not even thinking about it. The Corinthians had split into factions, were jealous of each other’s success which led to angry confrontations as they tried to do everything to get themselves ahead—if needed slandering and gossiping about each other in order to put others down and lift themselves up. Arrogance (which is the opposite of servanthood) was how they could be described, and their services were filled with disorder as each one tried to show off their spiritual gifts to become more impressive.
It is so helpful for us to realistically examine our motives—as Paul said, we should do everything for the building up of one another, not the pushing down of each other in order to lift us up.
21
If things weren’t set right, Paul would be embarrassed and humiliated by the Macedonian brothers whom he was taking with him on this visit. I guess it would be a little like bringing a group of well-mannered children to visit another school. When the teacher comes in the room he finds the students running around like mad, throwing things at each other, not learning, except to be just like children with no discipline at all.
At the end of the chapter he hints that some of the behaviors he addressed in 1st Corinthians might not have been fully dealt with. The Greek words here suggest that the Corinthians were still either participating in or condoning the perverse sexual practices of the culture around them. He had told them how to deal with open, unrepentant sin of this kind—removal from fellowship (1 Corinthians 5:1-13 ). The suggestion is that if the church leadership didn’t set things right Paul would have to do this himself.
We are all broken in many ways, whether sins involving pride, or sins involving taking on the perversities of the culture around us. The idea isn’t to go around be judge, jury, and executioner for every weakness—but to create an atmosphere of growth spiritual and support for the weak. When sin gets out of control and especially attitudes about that sin (1 Corinthians 5:2 ) it is time for leaders to step in. The goal, as always, is to see people restored. But sometimes that means asking them not to attend until their heart attitude about the sin has been corrected. The leaders in Corinth were not stepping up and God will hold leaders accountable who simply wink at open, rebellious, unrepentant sin in their midst.
Conclusions
�Trust the Apostles message.
Don’t let slick sounding new doctrines sway you. Jesus passed His Word on to the Apostles, including Paul.
“Everything, dear friends, is for building you up” (vs 19)
Is that your aim in dealing with others? The sad thing is that sometimes we think judging someone else is to build them up when in fact it simply tears them down.
How do you want the Lord to find you? (vs 20 – 21)
This is perhaps the scariest thing of all. If Jesus came into your church or your home or your private study—what would He find? It should make us sit up and take notice and let Him deal with the garbage He identifies, while asking Him all the more to peer into our lives and continue that transformation process.
