If you would please turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 10, we'll begin by reading this chapter in its entirety, and then we'll spend some time thinking about its meaning and its application to our lives. 2 Corinthians 10, verses 1 through 18. I, Paul, myself, entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away. I beg of you that when I am present, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh.
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. Being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. Look at what is before your eyes.
If anyone is confident that he is Christ's, Let him remind himself that just as he is Christ's, so also are we. For even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be ashamed. I do not want to appear to be frightening you with my letters. Where they say, his letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak. and his speech of no account.
Let such a person understand that what we say by letter when absent, we do when present. Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding. But we will not boast beyond limits. But will boast only with regard to the area of influence God assigned to us to reach even to you.
For we are not overextending ourselves as though we did not reach you. For we were the first to come all the way to you with the gospel of Christ. We do not boast beyond limit in the labors of others. But our hope is that as your faith increases, our area of influence among you may be greatly enlarged, so that we may preach the gospel in lands beyond you, without boasting of work already done in another's area of influence. Let the one who boasts Boast in the Lord.
For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved. But the one whom the Lord Command. Let's pray. Father Almighty, you are the one with whom we have to do. Your word is clear.
Your word is sufficient. Your word is right and everlasting. Help us today to submit ourselves both in mind and body to all that you have said. And if there be lofty, proud arguments that contradict your word. If there be intellectual or ethical commitments that are contrary to the truth.
And that we have allowed to become strongholds in our lives, destroy them. By the power of that same word which has spoken the universe into existence. God, may our every thought this morning be a prisoner of Christ. Yielded to and informed by the truth of the one who cannot lie. I pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, Paul has returned to a subject that he left behind several chapters ago, the subject of Corinth's rejection of Paul's apostolic authority. This has been a prominent theme, both in 1st and 2 Corinthians, but it seemed that the rupture in the relationship between Corinth and Paul had been repaired once and for all back in chapter 7.
So why is Paul bringing up old wounds all over again here in chapter 10? Why is this theme going to dominate literally the rest of this letter?
Well, the short answer is because the Holy Spirit wants it to. Paul is writing as an apostle under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And so what we read is exactly what God, in His wisdom, wanted to be written down. That being said, what might be God's reason for dealing so thoroughly and repeatedly with this topic of the church's relationship to apostolic authority?
Well, evidently, a right relationship to apostolic authority is a big deal. It's worth repeating because of the devastating consequence of not heeding what Paul through the Holy Spirit is saying. Back in chapter 7, it's obvious that some progress had been made in the restoration of Corinth and Paul's relationship. But the evidence and clues that come up in the remaining chapters, chapters 10 through 13, would suggest that while most of the Corinthian congregation had come around and had begun to accept and submit to Paul's authority, As an apostle, there was still evidently a small minority of Corinthian believers who were on the fence, enamored with these super-apostles, these false teachers who have come up time and time again in this letter. They were enamored with them, with their eloquence, with their human wisdom, with their rhetoric.
And so it is to this minority, evidently, that Paul must continue hammering home the importance of unqualified submission to the Word of God. You see, none of us are intellectually neutral. And the idea that we are intellectually or morally neutral is a lie. Humans are born with a sin nature that predisposes us towards sin, not holiness. And toward our own truth, not God's truth, and toward dependence upon self, not dependence upon God.
How did John put it at the beginning of his gospel? He didn't say the light has come into the world and people were disinterested in the light. He didn't say the light has come into the world and people were ignorant of the light. No, he said the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. Our starting point, our default position is not one of moral or intellectual neutrality when it comes to truth and goodness and beauty.
Our starting point is one of preferring the darkness. It's in our nature to prefer darkness over the light. It's in our nature to love the reality that our own minds can conjure up. It's not our natural bent to take God's word for it, or much less to take the word of God's messenger for it. I'll find my own truth.
Thank you very much. That's our approach to faith and ethics and life. And so in the verses that follow, Paul is going to expose that bent. That natural inclination that resides in all of us, apart from grace, and he's going to warn us of the danger and the folly of being our own arbiter of truth. of being the masters of our own fate, the captains of our souls.
First, Paul points out the danger of being dismissive of God's word. Verse 1. I, Paul, myself, entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away, I beg of you that when I am present, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. Corinth has been obstinate.
Corinth has been rebellious. And it's as if Paul is an upset parent who is saying to his stubborn child, don't make me come over there. When an authority talks like that, we know exactly what they mean. They're threatening discipline. I remember spending a Christmas at my uncle's house, and all of us cousins were sleeping on the floor in the basement.
I guess we were being too rowdy after bedtime one night, so my uncle yelled down from upstairs, it's time to be quiet and go to sleep. We got quiet for about 30 seconds and started crescendoing again. He hollered down from upstairs again: kids, be quiet and go to sleep. We complied for a hot minute and then started ramping up again. Finally, my uncle opened the basement door and came halfway down the stairs.
And I remember looking up and seeing his imposing silhouette, and he said in his most stern voice, do not make me come down there. I think within five minutes we were all fast asleep. It's as if Paul, like my uncle that Christmas, is saying in verse 2: Don't make me come, because if I come, it won't be pretty. I'll come to discipline. I'll come to fix what's broken.
And what was it that was broken at Corinth?
Well, we know from the rest of the letter exactly what was broken. Corinth was listening to false apostles and rejecting Paul's legitimate authority.
Now, we need to understand as we try to glean what God would have us learn from this passage of Scripture that in this context, we are not Paul the apostle. We are Corinth, the obstinate church. This letter is not written to show us how to be good apostles. It's written to show the church how to be a good church. And it begins by subordinating ourselves to the authority of the apostolic witness.
We understand that the modern day equivalent of subordinating ourselves to the Apostolic Witness is knowing and heeding the Word of God, the Bible, the Scriptures. That is God's truth. God's self-revelation, God's apostolic witness. And so where Paul was calling on Corinth to obey him, the Holy Spirit is calling on us to obey Scripture. to not be dismissive of the inspired word of God.
To not allow other allegiances, other loyalties to eclipse our commitment to the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. Corinth had been excusing themselves from Having to listen to and obey Paul because they didn't like what he said or they didn't like how he said it. We're guilty of the same error when we treat God's Word with contempt. When we say, I don't like that biblical doctrine, or I don't care much for how that truth in scripture makes me feel.
Now we're about to discover in the verses ahead some clues that reveal the nature of man's dismissiveness of God's word, clues that expose the kinds of allegiances that we allow to subvert Scripture. And it's going to be things like. Arguments. and lofty opinions. that subvert our unqualified subordination to the Word of God.
When my thoughts And preferences and scruples and expectations and private interpretations and so on shape my values and beliefs and practices more than does the clear teaching of Scripture: my life is upside down. I'm not submitting myself to the apostolic witness. I'm not ordering my life according to God's word. I'm not taking every thought captive. Rather, I'm being taken captive by lofty thoughts that rage against the true knowledge of God.
And this is dangerous behavior. It's a dismissiveness of the very thing God has given to us to direct our steps, to order our lives rightly. And when we dismiss this order. When we reject God's truth, God's instruction, God's authority. We incur the judgment that goes with that sort of rebellion.
It's a dangerous place to be.
Now we are safely removed by 2,000 years from obstinate Corinth. And it's perhaps easy for us to just shake our heads and wag our fingers at those silly saints who should have known better. But if God preserved something in his word, he preserved it for a reason. Evidently, we need the same correction that Corinth needed.
So let's take a few moments and think about the ways we are dismissive of God's word. In fact, Paul gets specific with Corinth and illustrates a couple of ways that this subtle shift of loyalty begins to manifest itself in the lives of Christians. We are dismissive of God's word when we elevate human intellect above simple obedience. When we elevate human intellect, above simple obedience. We see this in verses 3 and following.
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy Strong holds. Paul makes a distinction here between doing things in a fleshly way versus doing them in a godly way. In other words, he pits dependence on the flesh, the world's way of doing and thinking and evaluating, against dependence on God. The flesh has its own way of measuring what is true, what is right, what is beautiful.
Something is beautiful according to my flesh if I like it.
Something is right if it doesn't hurt anyone.
Something is true if it makes sense to my brain or supports my moral preferences. Paul is saying, we who bear God-given authority in the church don't operate on those fleshly principles. We come waging war against those fleshly principles. And that, in fact, is the very sign that validates our apostleship. We refuse to play by the world's rules.
We play by God's rules. We fight with weapons not of fleshly power, but of divine power. And because it's of divine origin, it actually destroys strongholds. A stronghold is a military outpost that's placed in a spot that must be held if victory is to be achieved. A stronghold is the place at which a war is won or lost.
It's the hill to die on. It's the line you must either hold or go down with the ship over.
Now Paul is obviously speaking metaphorically. Verse 5 identifies the literal strongholds that his apostolic ministry is seeking to destroy. Verse 5, we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.
So the hills to die on in the Christian life are at first intellectual in nature. The world and the flesh and the devil are always looking for arguments, reasons for dismissing God and God's Word. Our default intellectual posture again is not one of neutrality, but of opposition to truth and righteousness. We are easily enamored with opinions that seem credible, that seem intelligent. Paul calls them lofty opinions.
They're lofty because they exalt themselves above God and above the means by which we can know God.
So, we need something that's strong enough to overcome our love for lofty, godless arguments and opinions. Paul makes it clear that the destroyer of our intellectual strongholds is the Word of God. It is God's. Truth. which has been once and for all delivered to the saints, that changes us.
God's truth destroys the intellectual lies that we hide behind to avoid having to come to terms with our sin before a holy God. And that word changes us not only by convincing our minds, but also by producing the visible fruit of obedience. In other words, it convinces our minds, but it also convinces our wills. Paul asserts in the latter half of verse 5 That a proper esteem of the knowledge of God leads to proper moral behavior before God. True knowledge of God leads to obedience.
to God as every thought is taken captive. to obey Christ. Perhaps Corinth thought of themselves as an upstanding church. But their dismissiveness of God's word and the consequent disobedience to God exposed their hypocrisy. How do I know if I'm being dangerously dismissive of God's word?
Well, I know who I am listening to by observing who I am obeying. It's so easy for us to elevate our own intellectual loyalties above the Word of God. And when we do that, it won't be long before we begin to make a moral wreck of our lives. A right relationship to God's word, on the other hand, begins by prioritizing the knowledge of God, and that will always lead to obedience. In verses 7 through 12.
We begin to get insight into some of the arguments and lofty opinions that were holding sway over the Corinthian minds. One of those lines of faulty reasoning had to do with evaluating truth by what other people commended rather than by what God commended. Making value judgments based on appearances rather than on God's approval of this or that. In other words, the Corinthian mindset was one of evaluating truth by what I see versus by what God commends. If we assume that Paul's self-defense in these verses is addressing the specific accusations Corinth was bringing against him, Corinth thought, verse 8, that Paul bragged too much, that he was, verse 9, pushy to the point of being frightening, that he was a hypocrite who, verse 10, acted one way in person, another way in his letters, and that, verse 10, he, quite frankly, just didn't look the part of an apostle.
If Paul were all that he claimed to be, he would be nicer and more transparent and would carry himself better. Corinth was evaluating the ministry and message of a true apostle according to what they could see. According to what they thought they knew about human nature, they were placing great confidence in their discernment, not realizing that in dismissing Paul, On grounds of his appearance and personality, they were dismissing the very word of God. Paul answers all of Quant's objections. In verses 7 through 12, he explains to them, I'm not bragging when I say I'm God's apostle, because I'm actually God's apostle.
I'm not intending to frighten you with empty words. I actually mean what I'm saying. I do practice what I preach, contrary to the false teachers you're listening to, who stoop to the world's way of gaining recognition and credibility as they compare themselves to themselves in order to get recognition. But verse 12: when they measure themselves with one another, they are without understanding. Paul is telling Corinth that they are making judgments according to the world's way, the flesh's way of making judgments.
They were looking at outward appearance rather than seeking after that which God commends. When I was about 13 years old, I thought I understood fashion pretty well. I figured it was time for me to choose my own clothes. My mother and I often had differing opinions of what looked good or what was appropriate in certain social settings. We had many spirited conversations about my wardrobe.
But I began to notice that whenever I wore something that my mom had recommended. or made me wear. I got tons of compliments on how nice I looked. And when I made my own fashion decisions, well, crickets. The only conclusion I could draw from the whole thing was maybe I didn't know what I thought I knew.
Maybe my judgment when it came to fashion choices was not all that stellar. Maybe my mom's opinions and knowledge were more trustworthy than my own. Beloved, when it comes to questions of what things are true, or what behaviors are good, or what things are excellent, and beautiful, and worthy of pursuit. God's commendation. God's opinion, God's declaration is always, always right.
It doesn't matter if the whole world is in opposition to it. It doesn't matter if my own sensibilities run contrary. If God says it, it is so. If God commands it, it is right. If God commends it, it is good.
It really is a matter of whose word I am trusting, my own or God's. and whose approval I am seeking, the world's or God's?
Well, if we are prone to being dismissively neglectful of God's authority, How do we overcome that dangerous Tendency. The short answer is this, learn to love what God loves. Learn to love what God loves. We value the word and the commendation of those we love the most. The more we love God, the more our affections are captivated by Him.
the more we will love his instruction, his knowledge, his will. Let me draw your attention as we close to the last two verses of the chapter, verses 17 and 18. Paul says, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. Not in his earthly credentials, not in his reputation before the elites, not in his academic achievements or wealth or prominence. Verse 18, for it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but but the one whom the Lord commends.
To what do I look? for approval and validation. Because the answer to that question reveals what I love and ultimately who I will obey. If I love man's commendation, I will hold man's lofty opinions in high esteem. And I will obey those lofty opinions.
If I love God, I will make God my boast. I will make it my life's goal to honor the Lord by believing the Lord. I will take every thought, every affection, every moment captive in order to obey Christ.
So what is your posture? to the Word of God. When you sit down to read scripture, Or listen to it as it is preached, or observe the visible word in the sacraments? Do you come with skepticism and distrust? Do you come with disinterest and doubt?
When you encounter a doctrine that doesn't align with the cultural consensus of the day. Do you change the doctrine to accommodate the culture? Do you demand the right to sit in judgment of the word? Or do you humbly recognize that it is God's word that sits in judgment of you? In the private recesses of your heart.
Do you long to be thought of as the person who has the right answer? whose opinion sways the room. Whose influence is sought after and valued by all? Or are you content to make the Lord your boast? To know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Are you content to be thought a fool in the eyes of the world, but a child of the Most High? What is your posture to the Word of God? Because that truly does reveal your posture to the God of the Word. There once was a prominent preacher whose name you would probably recognize. This preacher held great influence over many souls as he shaped countless lives.
Through his preaching and teaching and writing, but there was a fatal flaw in his heart. He loved. fame. He loved the recognition of man. He loved the world's commendation more than God's.
And so after years of what appeared to be a very fruitful ministry, this preacher abandoned God in favor of his real idols, in favor of fame and pleasure and self. Church affection precedes faith. What I love becomes what I believe. What I believe becomes how I behave. How I behave becomes what I defend.
The lesson God would have us learn from Corinth is this. Be careful what you love. Be careful what you love. Be careful what you commend. Be careful whose approval you yearn for.
And it all begins by taking care not to entertain arguments and opinions that suppress or contradict the knowledge of God. Foster a love for God by demanding that every thought that goes through your mind must bow the knee to God's truth. Jeremiah said it this way. says the Lord. Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom.
Let not the mighty man boast in his might. Let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me. that I am the Lord. who practices steadfast love, Justice. and righteousness in the earth.
For in these things I delight, declares the Lord. Let's pray. Lord, there is nothing greater than to know you and to be known by you. There is nothing greater than to know you. and to be known by you.
But how our hearts are full of idols. And how dumb and blind and lame are those idols.
So, Holy Spirit, help us to see our worldly attachments for what they are. Help us to repent of our idolatries. And boast in you, and delight in you, and obey you. We know in our best moments that this is the way to true happiness. But Lord, our best moments, it seems, are so few and far between.
So make us steadfast. in our desire to know you. Make us steadfast in our pursuit of you. Make us diligent. and submitting our minds and our wills to your word.
May we know your truth. And may that truth truly set us free. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Mm.
