Pauls Godly Jealousy for the Corinthians

Well, good morning. Alright, so we are starting a new chapter today. And Paul, you know, it's interesting, as you go through, this is our, you know, we're in 2 Corinthians now, so we've been going through Paul, with Paul, talking about his dealings with the church in Corinth. And, you know, this is kind of the last part of that discussion.

I was thinking, if Paul had a telephone or texting, he could express himself, probably say, wow, good job, or that's terrible, but he had to write letters, right? So he goes into all these kind of modes, like now he's into the foolishness thing, and you think, well, foolishness? Why are you even talking about foolishness, Paul? Is it really foolishness? So it's really interesting. just amazing verses and hopefully we'll see what God has for us here. Okay, so let's take a look.

So I labeled this one Paul's Godly Jealousy for the Corinthians. So here's an outline. I just put it all up here. This is mostly from Constable actually somehow that got okay mostly from constable so basically we start the first six verses are this godly jealousy We're going to talk about then Paul's going to go into this section that talks about he has the freedom to minister without charge and he talks about men disguising themselves as apostles of Christ and then toward the end is this beautiful section which is very familiar where Paul enumerates it's just an incredible he enumerates what he suffered for Christ he was He was beaten. He was put in jail. All these, here and there, just incredible. It goes through all these verses and then it kind of wraps up at the end.

So I'm going to work on this outline a little bit more, but for today we're going to talk about godly jealousy from Paul. And also about his, he's going to talk about his apostleship and some really cool things in this section. Okay, so I'm not going to read the verses that have already been read. I'm just going to go ahead and write directly to the verses. So let's start off here.

He says, I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness, but indeed, you are already bearing with me. So the idea, I wish, or it literally could be, it's a particle which says, oh that, or would that, would that you bear with me? And the idea is to hold up, to bear with. He wants you to come alongside and listen to him, feel his heart, what he's all about here.

And so there's a similar verse where he urged, back in Hebrews, if you believe Paul wrote Hebrews I urge you brethren bear with bear with this word of exhortation same words we have here a little foolishness or you could say so-called foolishness let me move this out of the way so-called foolishness so and that's one of the things he's going to talk about foolishness and And it's really not foolishness, but he doesn't want to really have to talk about his authority, his apostleship.

He wants to preach the gospel, but he finds it necessary because there are men that had come into the church, and they get a name here. We haven't had a name for these people until now, but they get the name as eminent apostles or super apostles. Kind of sarcastically, they get that name. So Paul's going to talk about this group. Actually, some people think it could be one person. We don't know. And he says he calls this foolishness because he should not have to speak about these things. Indeed, you're bearing with me. They knew Paul. They knew him intimately from being there in Corinth with him and they knew it from his writings, his incredible writings. So they understood Paul.

But he's going to kind of show a side of him that maybe we haven't seen before. Okay, on to verse 2. So now he talks about this idea of jealousy. And we're going to see that in this section, starting in verse 2 through 6, we're going to see that He's going to appeal to the Corinthians concerning these super-apostles. And he wants to point out some of the dangers. And there's some real dangers he sees here with these so-called super-apostles putting out their message and their view of the Christ. And he's really concerned about that.

He says, For I am jealous, present tense, continuous action. He's jealous. He has this fervency for the Corinthians. to be jealous, eagerly, desiring greatly. Scripture talks about man's jealousy and God's jealousy. God's jealousy is a good thing, and Paul wants to point out that his jealousy is a godly jealousy. Human jealousy can be a vice, whereas divine jealousy can be a virtue.

And there's a wonderful verse that maybe we remember in Let's try John. John chapter 2 verse 17. His disciples remembered when he drove out the money changers that it was written zeal for their house will consume me. So Jesus was zealous for the Lord and for his house and for his message. Okay, so now we go on to the second part.

So here's kind of a picture he's going to draw here. This is going to be a picture of godly jealousy, and it's going to be his jealousy, his jealousy for the Corinthian believers. He feels connected, as a father would feel. He feels that he's born with these Corinthians, and he feels as a father with his daughter, giving his daughter in marriage. So we're going to see that picture.

So first part, he says, for I betrothed you, I betrothed you to one husband. Betrothed is the idea to fit to join, and it's used in marrying or giving in marriage. And it's a heiress tense, it's a fact, it's a past point fact. Because he did, if you think about it, he did.

He suffered with the Corinthians in person, and he saw them put their faith and trust in Christ, and that's kind of the beginning of this marriage picture, if you will. He betrothed them to one husband, Christ, So Paul pictures himself as a father of a virgin bride with the Corinthian church. And this is actually not a new thing that he said. Back in 1 Corinthians he said, Yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I have become your father through the gospel.

So he viewed himself as a father figure here. And then he goes on to say, And I actually like the non-linear, it's a little more direct. So betrothed is actually the subject here. It's the second aspect of betrothed. I betrothed you to present you a pure virgin to Christ. So presented here is the cause to stand. So here are several verses that kind of occurred to me here.

Ephesians 5.27 says that he might present, this is Christ, he might present to himself the church in all her glory having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing but she would be holy and blameless. So Paul pictured as a disciple of the Lord as his apostle that he was carrying out that to present this body of believers. So Paul's desire, this next bullet here, Paul's desire was to keep his daughter the Corinthian church pure. He didn't want her to go off Off-track he didn't want to go into sin to go to fall away from Christ and The consummation of this marriage is kind of pictured at the rapture when when the Lord comes for us So he pictures that this this virgin daughter Maintaining her purity and going on and meeting her husband our Savior Okay, so that's the picture that's painted in verse 2 so now we go on to verse 3 so now Paul has some Paul has a concern. He has a fear, he calls it. But I am afraid. And this is a familiar thing to be afraid about. We should be afraid about this.

But I am afraid, even as, or as, even as, the serpent, the devil, this is referring back to the, what's neat about this section is There are several videos out there that talk about Genesis as history. There is one that I have sent around to a couple of people. I think it is totally great. Genesis is history. What is cool about this section is Paul is going to refer back to what happened with Eve being tempted by Satan. that actually happened. He's going to say, and that can happen again. It's just not a one-time event. That deception can happen to you.

So it validates the Genesis account. So he says, as a serpent deceived, deceived is to beguile thoroughly, to deceive wholly and totally. And I don't think we quite realize, maybe we get on Eve's case too much, you know, she was really deceived, totally.

And her husband actually didn't help out that much, it doesn't seem like, because he was with her. I'll read that shortly. He was with her. Now, whether he was with her in every word that Satan said, I don't know. But anyway, he was with her. She was deceived, and it was a total and complete deception.

And you may argue, so what? When we read the account, you say, well, it doesn't sound like that was all that. I could have figured that out. Really? Okay. How many talking servants did you see? Anyway. All right. So, and this is deceived. It's a past point fact. Aristans. It's an event. It actually happened. That's what's really cool about this section. It's validating Genesis here.

So then here's a word used in Romans. In Romans 16, 18. By their smooth and flattery speech they deceive, same word, the hearts of the unsuspecting. And Constable has a concern too. He says genuine Christians can be and are being deceived by false teachers today. And I think I would agree with that. That seems to be happening.

It seems people are kind of falling away from really studying God's Word and they're going off and doing other things, which is sad. And the direct object here is Satan is deceiving direct object Eve. So the question is, how did this serpent deceive Eve? So we're going to go back to Genesis here after you look at this little section. It says the method Satan used was craftiness.

Or it's by his craftiness or in his craftiness. Or it's used cunning as a word, sometimes a translation for that word. The word is panogio. The word signifies the employment. of any and all means necessary to realize an end. I was thinking about that. In most sporting events, there are rules, right? If you cross a line, you get disqualified. Well, Satan had no rules. There were no rules, and God didn't step in. He had no rules, so you have Satan with no rules against Eve. So I don't know.

It's interesting. Alright. So let's go through the first six verses in Genesis. Unfortunately, I have it so small, I'm not sure I can read it from my monitor. I have to turn around and read it. But anyway. Anyway, so let's start out. Chapter 3, verse 1.

Now the serpent was more crafty. It's a Hebrew word, but very similar to the word in the Greek. But the servant was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. and he said to the woman indeed has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden the woman said to the serpent from the fruit of the trees plural notice of the garden we may eat but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden God has said you shall not eat from it or touch it or you will die so as we know It's interesting, Satan misspeaks, he speaks sort of an untruth, or an exaggeration if you will, we're going to see that shortly.

And then Eve, she doesn't exactly say everything, she kind of adds a little bit, well we can't touch it either. You know, we've done that, haven't we done it with our kids? Well, you know, and you can't do that. You add a little bit extra to really give it extra emphasis.

She should have just stuck with what God said, anyway. Okay, the serpent said to the woman, Now here's a direct out-and-out contradiction of what God said, and we'll see that shortly. The serpent said to the woman, you surely will not die. And then he adds his commentary, which is some bait. This is a bait for Eve.

For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. So I'm really not going to talk about verse 6. Verse 6 is where, you know, she sees it's good and she basically, he takes it and she eats it and she gives it to him. And notice he says, also with her husband. I know, I kind of picked up on that. Her husband is there and she ate. So they both ate it. So I'm going to go back.

I want to go through and look in detail at the craftiness of Satan. So here's what it looks like. And Constable had a couple of comments that were good here. Satan's first step was to plant a seed of doubt in Eve's mind concerning God's ways. So what I did here, I went back to chapter 2 where God gave the commandment. I put that up first and then we have, here's what Satan has. I have God said, Satan says. God says, Satan says. And I'm not so much concerned about Eve at the moment, I just want to see what are Satan's ways. That's what I'm looking for here. Okay, God said, this is from chapter 2. Genesis from any tree notice.

It's any tree of the garden you may eat freely But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat You know I looked at this and I said that's actually a pretty gracious statement He says there's more than one tree, right? I don't know how many for any of these trees you can eat, but I have one I have one rule one regulation don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and But look what Satan does.

He flips it around. He says, indeed, or could be, can it really be that God has said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? You see what he's done? He's taken this any tree, and he said, first of all, he misspoke. You can eat from all the other trees. There's only one tree. But the way he says it, just like we read earlier, you can't eat from any tree. So that's a misstatement.

His suggestion that God did not really want what was best for Adam and Eve, but rather was withholding something from them that was essentially good. Okay, so that's step one. Second point is that Satan's temptation was to deny God's word. So here's what God said, which we read this already. But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. That's what God said. Here's what Satan said. He said two things. He said, the serpent said to the woman, you surely will not die. And then secondly, he said, this is where he puts the bait out.

For God knows that in the day you will eat from it, your eyes will be open and you'll be like God knowing good and evil so he denies he denies he's denying what God has said he's saying God did not say that and he gives a motive to God that God had a motive behind this and God didn't have his motive was was a righteous motive but Satan makes it as well God's holding something back from you okay so that kind of sets the scene for the rest of the verse here so it says So what's Paul's point here in this verse? Where will Satan do his deception using the craftiness?

It's going to be in our thought, in your mind, in a man's perception it says. The thoughts of you should be led astray. Paul's concerned, he's fearful that the thoughts of you will be led astray. I really like this verse that Mike covered back in chapter 10 where it says, we're destroying speculations and every lofty Raised up against the knowledge of God and we're bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ So applying that you know, so that you know, it's it's a it's in it's a mind situation some some thought comes into our mind and it's been said that We can't control the thoughts that come to our mind. We all kinds of thoughts because we have a fallen nature and A lot of things come to our mind, but we can, what do we do with those thoughts? Do we act upon those thoughts? And that's where the Lord would have us act according to His standard and His righteousness, according to His Spirit that guides us.

So the thoughts of you should be led astray, to corruption, to subvert, that idea. And this is a fact. It's an heiress and it's a passive. It's possible that that can happen. These thoughts can lead you astray and you're being acted upon by the thoughts. You're letting them control your life.

They, Paul's critics, were leading the Corinthians astray. And so actually, Barnett, which Constable quotes, says, this is really interesting, the very future of the Corinthians as an apostolic church was in jeopardy. They had bought in so much into these super apostles. And it seems like that, this is kind of reading between the lines, is that Paul was not one of the original twelve. And somehow, the word apostle is used in a general sense for a person that preaches God's word in those times. So somehow they didn't put Paul in the category of the original twelve, it seems like. And that's why they went after him in that aspect, it seems like.

So, anyway. Okay, so the last part is from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. So I didn't have a lot, there wasn't a lot in this area here. The two words are simplicity, which is the idea of singleness of mind, or simplicity, not duplicity. And then purity, sincerity. Actually, the better translation here is it's not to Christ, it's in Christ. From the simplicity and purity in Christ. I tried to think of a verse that kind of fit, and this kind of came to mind.

Philippians 3.10. and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering, being conformed to his death. In the Christian life, in the Christian faith, God simply tells us what we need to understand. It can be complex, but it doesn't need to be complex. Okay, so now, verse 4, he's going to talk about some of the dangers.

And as a run-up to that, I'd like to talk a little bit, backtrack just for a second here, about the test of true teaching. So what does Paul, and Paul's going to allude to this, Paul's talked about this idea of his teaching and how his teaching is the standard. And you may think, well that sounds kind of arrogant of Paul. How can Paul say that his teaching is the standard?

Well, for several reasons. One of the reasons is that God particularly chose him out to be his messenger, his writer of the New Testament to proclaim God's Word. And also, it's not just, as we see in the New Testament, it's not just Paul's writing, it's the apostles' writing. So true teaching in the church age is whether the teaching is in agreement with what Paul and the apostles taught.

So the following, in fact, I called Mike about this. I'd seen the chart come across that kind of delineates this, and I thought, boy, you know, in essence, we could put up all of Paul's thirteen epistles. I mean, he had just a tremendous amount of teaching. But here are my top, top favorites. Okay, number one.

There's a distinction between Israel and the church. Paul taught that. Don't go back to the Old Testament. Don't go back and pull out things that are for Israel and make them part of the church. That's not what we're to do in the church age. Not to do that. Those are for Israel. We have things that are to the church. A biggie, we're not under law but under grace.

Our citizenship is in heaven. All believers, and this is so wonderful, are in a living union with Christ. We've been baptized into Christ, never taken out. We're positionally in Christ that cannot be changed. We can act contrary to that, but we have that. That's a permanent truth.

The Old Testament saints are never talked about of being in Christ. We have the marvelous place of being in Christ, in this living union with Him. We are blessed another incredible thing that the Old Testament Saints didn't have we're blessed with every spiritual blessing in in heavenly places in Christ Jesus and Here's one. There's no distinction between We're all one in Christ, but it doesn't mean that there aren't our ethnicity that the Jews have a very long history I've been listening to this thing that where Jews give their testimony that they've converted to Christianity and they have a wonderful history They say wow Look up my history.

Look where I came from this is This is what I should this is a real Jew a real Jew that trusts in Christ is there what a real Jew should be and it's just marvelous and But we're all one in Christ. One is not above the other. And we're all looking for the rapture. The Lord coming to gather us together with Him. So they're my favorites. There are many, many more.

So next we have, he's going to give three examples. He's going to give three examples of tests that were important to the Corinthian Church and important to us. First of all, It's an if statement if one comes and preaches another Person as Jesus whom we have not preached so he's saying I want you to compare Another if one comes and he's talking about these these super apostles false teacher They come in and they preach another person as Jesus whom we have not taught past point we taught you who Jesus what in the point in time you believe that that's who Jesus is and Take that and measure it against what you hear from these super apostles. So Paul and the apostles preached the true events about Jesus. This preaching of false teacher was contrary to the preaching about Jesus. So I found that J. Verne McGee had three statements that I really liked about this contrast between preaching another Jesus. So here are his three statements that I really like.

They all talk about central facts that are critical to knowing who Jesus is. If they deny the virgin birth, they are preaching another Jesus. If they deny that he performed miracles, they are preaching another Jesus. If they deny that he was raised from the dead bodily, they are preaching another Jesus.

And that's from J. Verne McGee. Okay, so next, the next point is, point two, or you receive a different in nature spirit which you have not received. So this made me think about, in our Sunday School class in 1 John, we talk about testing the spirits, and this seemed to fit, and he's talking here about spirits, something other than the Holy Spirit, So he's talking about spirits, and John talks about this beautifully. It says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, notice it's plural, to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. And then I love the test, this is just beautiful. And so here's the test. By this you will know the spirit of God.

Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God now I read some other people had a little bit different opinion about this these spirits but I thought that just really kind of nailed it for me at least this is something people come to you and they they say things and that's not what the Holy Spirit would be saying okay thirdly or you receive a different gospel which we have not preached all true believers have accepted the gospel of God which Paul preached okay but Paul warned about this before he was in this statement in Galatians we covered this back many years ago but it's just an amazing statement and here he was concerned about the Galatians I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by his by the grace of Christ for a different gospel Only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

So apparently that was happening and that was why Paul was very concerned. And here's the part, so then sarcastically he goes through all these three points. He talks about receiving another Jesus, another spirit, and another gospel. And then he's sarcastic. This is Paul's emotion. He says, you bear this beautifully. Oh, the Amplified has it. You bear this most beautifully tolerant of him, the one saying these things.

So these men are saying these corrupt things, but the Corinthians say, well, okay, that's okay, brother. You can say that if you want, and they're not pushing back on that. They're not saying, no, that's not the real Jesus. The Spirit is not right, and that's not the right gospel. They're not pushing back on that, and he's upset about that. So now he's going to kind of do what he calls bragging a little bit. He calls it foolishness.

For I consider myself not in the least inferior to the most eminent or super apostles. So he will talk about his apostleship here. So I took the Amplified Bible here. Yet I consider myself in no way inferior He's not behind any of these super apostles. He's not behind them. He's actually ahead of them. He doesn't lack behind. He's not inferior. To these, and I've amplified it really.

This is pretty sarcastic. To these precious extra super false apostles. I'll read that again. To these precious extra super false apostles. It's a mouthful. Okay. So the gospel says here that these eminent or super apostles were probably the false apostles who claimed to be eminent rather than the genuine apostles.

And part of his logic here is that this word for eminent or super is kind of a unique word that doesn't appear very often. So he kind of hangs his hat on that. I didn't go into it. I think it was necessary at the time for right now. Okay, and then this is kind of a pretty sarcastic verse which hopefully Mike will cover, not me. Okay, here we go.

This is Paul's foolishness. I have become foolish. You yourselves compelled me. So he says, I'm foolish because you Corinthians compelled me. You forced me into this. Actually, I should have been commended by you. You should have patted me on the back, basically. For in no respect was I inferior to the most eminent apostle, even though I'm a nobody.

I don't know. I don't know what that is to you, but just, whoa. You need to talk to somebody. Letters, I don't know. It's on there forever, right? As I say, when you write something, in the email and maybe if ever you know if you talk to somebody I sometimes I'll say that well Roger just talked to you don't if you write it down then maybe down the road they'll reread it and like what did Roger say to me so be careful all right last verse but even if I am unskilled in speech yet I am not so in knowledge in fact in every way we have made this evident to you in all things So, but even if I am unskilled in speech, as some of you say, so here's a verse, this is kind of amazing, the Corinthians opinion of Paul's speech. He starts off, for they say, and Mike covered this earlier, his letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is unimpressive and his speech is contemptible. You know, what I'm thinking here is that I don't think Paul was all that bad a speaker. I think these guys were just really slick talkers. And I have a little story just to go along with this one.

Bonnie and I were in England. We had the privilege of being in England for five years. We attended a British church. And it wasn't the Church of England. And they proclaimed the gospel and it was an okay church. But they would invite speakers to come occasionally.

So I had this one guy that spoke in the morning service. We had two services, morning and evening. So this guy came and spoke in the morning service. And this guy, he knew the Queens or Kings English now. He knew it, and he spoke it. And man, this guy, it sounded marvelous. But what did this guy say?

So after the service, this lady comes up to Bonnie, about Bonnie's height. That's why she talked to me. He says, do you know, is that man speaking, do you know who will be speaking in the evening service? If he is, I'm not coming. I didn't understand a word he said. And he said, why is he talking to an American? This is a British person. Shouldn't you be able to understand this person? We were just doing scratch their heads. Well, he knew King's English.

That's my opinion. But I don't know, he didn't speak to me. Alright, so I think that was the issue. Paul wasn't a silver tongue orator, I don't think. I think he just spoke the truth. So it says, but even if I am unskilled in speech, and unskilled is uninstructed, plain talk is good, right? Yet I am not so in knowledge. And boy, here's a couple of points. What is important? is more important than delivery or the speech. That's important. What you say is more important than the way you say it.

And Paul said, I gave them the truth. He gave them the truth. Macaulay kind of shares that. So Paul gave them the truth. Maybe not in the most flowery way, but he gave them, in plain Greek, or plain whatever it was, he gave them the truth. And then lastly, he says, but in everything, this is from Weiss, a Weiss translation, but in everything we made it plain. I think he did. Think about Romans. Think about Colossians. He made it so plain to us. We made it plain among all with a view for your benefit. Paul was a stickler for what he said and what he wrote and just marvelous.

Okay, so we're going to continue on next week with that and then just some last thoughts. This is from J. Vernon McGee. So he points out, we still face the problem today of preaching another Jesus, another spirit, another gospel. This kind of dates us a little bit. Some time ago, this is back in the 80s, I think, maybe, there was a music production called Jesus Christ Superstar. Basically, he says, that Jesus never lived. This is not the Jesus of the Bible. It's another Jesus.

Paul makes it very clear that he would rather preach the gospel than defend himself. He takes this because takes the time to do this because he loves the Corinthians. So this is really Paul's great love for the Corinthians, how he loved them so much that he wanted to make sure that they stayed on track, they didn't go off the rails, so to speak. Alright, so let's close. We thank you, Father. We thank you for this day. Thank you for the many marvelous things in your Word. We pray for your will to be done in this body. We thank you for this time. In Christ's name, Amen.