2 Corinthians (Program #40) – The Minister’s of the New Covenant (13)

2 Corinthians chapter seven is very unique in the New Testament. It’s hard to find even a thread of teaching or doctrine in this chapter. But rather we are allowed into Paul’s heart to touch the deep and intimate feelings that he has regarding the believers in Corinth.

7: 3…”you are in our hearts...”
7:4… “I am filled with comfort, I overflow with joy in all our affliction.”

This is the apostle, fully restoring and fully reconciling those whom he had previously rebuke for their many failures and sins in his first epistle to the Corinthian church.

Although we may only see his tender emotional feelings been expressed here. Under all is his strong desire for the church in Corinth even all the believers and the entire body of Christ to be brought up to the standard that he revealed in another of his epistle, Ephesians. Ephesians 4:16

16 “..all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.”

To see this link between 2 Corinthians 7 and God’s eternal purpose in Ephesians is rare glimpse into the depth of the riches in God’s word.

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2 Corinthians (Program #38) – The Minister’s of the New Covenant (11)

2 Corinthians is a marvelous book giving us both a detailed biography of the apostle Paul and a clear understanding of the goal of the New Testament ministry.  The goal as we have seen is for the believers and unbelievers alike to be fully reconciled to God.  That means that both in fact and in our experience, there is no barrier, no hindrance, nothing separating us from enjoying God and living Christ.  This is the ministry that Paul and the other apostles were commissioned with.  Further, it should be the goal of our own Christian life.  We have been saved many years ago, having settled that question of our eternal destiny once for all.  But do we live a life that’s fully reconciled to God?  This was Paul’s question to the believers in Corinth as well.   Listen 5:20 of  2 Corinthians say:

“On behalf of Christ then we are ambassadors, as God entreats you through us; we beseech you on behalf of Christ, Be reconciled to God.“

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2 Corinthians (Program #37) – The Minister’s of the New Covenant (9 & 10)

Any study or serious consideration of 2 Corinthians brings you to Paul’s explanation of both the New Testament ministry and the New Testament ministers.  The ministry in chapter 5 is called the ministry of reconciliation and the work of the minsters was to fully reconcile both unbelievers and believers fully into God.  In chapter 6 the focus now turns to the ministers themselves.  And what these ones were and what really we all should be in our being.  In another word, we get a very detailed view of the kind of living that qualifies one to be a genuine minister of the New Covenant and an ambassador of Christ.

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2 Corinthians (Program #35) – A New Creation in Christ Becoming God’s Righteousness (2)

The New Testament Ministry described in the epistles of Paul is characterized as the ministry of reconciliation and the ministry of the Spirit. While the Old Testament Ministry is called the ministry of death and the ministry of the letter.

The apostle according to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and ultimately the believers as well become ambassadors of this New Covenant ministry of reconciliation.

2 Corinthians  5:20, “On behalf of Christ then we are ambassadors, as God entreats you through us; we beseech you on behalf of Christ, Be reconciled to God.”

What is it to be fully reconcile to God according to this verse?  We will explore the New Testament ministry of reconciliation today.

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2 Corinthians (Program #16) – A Pattern of Living Christ for the Church

The apostle Paul’s two epistles or letters to the Church in Corinth are definitely related. But if we read carefully we can see that really they are in two different realms.

The first letter dealt with many major problems in the Church. Problems that are in many ways still plague the Church today. The solution that Paul presents in 1 Corinthians is for the believers to live Christ for the church. And this is the link to the other realm that is clearly presented in 2 Corinthians. For in this book more than any other in the Bible, we see the pattern of person living Christ for the church not merely spoken of but demonstrated. The apostle Paul and even other apostles with him really lived this pattern.

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2 Corinthians (Program #8) – The Ministers of the New Covenant (1)

All believers have their favorite verses, verses that just seem to minister particularly to us in our situation. But one verse that deserves to be on every list is 2 Corinthians 3:18, listen to the apostle Paul in this marvelous verse,

18 “But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.”

Why is this verse so particularly important? Because it brings us face to face with the Lord Jesus in an intimate and personal way. But also in a way where by we are infused, transfused even transformed by Christ Himself as the very life giving Spirit.

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2 Corinthians (Program #6) – The Ministry of the New Covenant (2)

Metaphors play an important role in Scripture. Webster says a metaphor is the use of one set of words to describe or illustrate a similar point.

John uses the technique when he speaks of Jesus approaching him in the gospel. “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Surely he wasn’t saying that Jesus was a literal “lamb”. But the metaphor or picture gives us a much richer and clearer understanding.

The apostle Paul was also very fond of metaphors, particularly when conveying his deepest thoughts in teachings. We see it used intensively in 2 Corinthians. For example in 2 Corinthians chapter 2:14 he says “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in the Christ”  Here, the metaphor is the triumphant possession of captured and vanquished folks after a Roman battle. And Paul says that we, the believers had become such vanquished ones in the train of the victorious Christ.

Now, we come to another marvelous metaphor in the very next chapter, chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians begins this way:

1-3 “Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some do, letters of commendation to you or from you? You are our letter, inscribed in our hearts, known and read by all men, Since you are being manifested that you are a letter of Christ ministered by us, inscribed not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone but in tablets of hearts of flesh.”

Living letters of Christ. This is our topic today.

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2 Corinthians (Program #1) -Introduction (1)

The apostle Paul’s first epistle to the believers in Corinth was of sixteen chapters and was full of his strong rebuke and argument with the church there. In that letter he subdued them and defeated them. Now in his second letter just as a parent would spend a long period of to comfort and encourage a child that had received the strong chastisement. Paul minsters to comforting ointment and the encouragement of love. Listen to his opening words in his cherishing epistle :

1:1-3 ” Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy the brother, to the church of God which is in Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassions and God of all comfort;”

This is a very subjective book, 2 Corinthians, where by Paul brings the Corinthians back to the experience of Christ and is a book that can lead us to experience Christ as well.

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1 Corinthians (Program #55) -Dealing with the Collection of the Gift and Conclusion

In his first epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul dealt with eleven serious problems that had overtaken the church there. Then in chapter 15, the next to the last chapter, after dealing with all of these matters specifically he points them to the unique solution to all the problems both of the church life and our human life and that is the reality of the resurrection life of Christ as our portion, the new creation. That brings us to the conclusion of the book, Chapter 16.  And as he begins this final chapter its’ almost as if he puts the Corinthians on the test, the most vigorous of tests to see if his words concerning living in the reality of the resurrection had penetrated. He challenges them on the matter of money and material possessions. And this matter of money is still testing all of His believers even today.  We will fellowship this and see the sweet conclusion to the book of 1 Corinthians.

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1 Corinthians (Program #51) – Dealing with the Gifts (7)

When we come to a topic it’s crucial and central in the Bible as the church, we would naturally assume that the Bible has much to say on how the meetings of the church should be conducted. Surprising however the Bible is almost silent on the subject. Except from one particular portion in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 especially verses 26-40. And even though the section has 15 verses it is really just one verse that show us the basic principle for how the meetings, the gatherings of the believers should carry on. Listen to 1 Corinthians 14:26 “What then, brothers? Whenever you come together, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.”

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