Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Amen.
[00:00:08] Let's pray together this morning for the reading and preaching of the word both here and elsewhere.
[00:00:17] Our heavenly Father, as we come now to the reading and preaching of your word from two corinthians, we ask that your blessing would be on us, that we might hear not merely sounds in our ears, but take these truths to heart, desiring to apply them in our own lives and not merely be present or get through it or jump through some hoop. But, Lord, let us remember that your words, our seeds that are sown, our water that waters the seeds, the pruning hand that brings forth more fruit, this is what you do in our hearts. We ask that you would do it now, Lord, I do want to pray for those shepherds in other places and the ministry that goes out elsewhere. We pray this morning for our missionaries and those that are overseeing both local works like Roth, reason and Yuma, in regional places like the Ben Haup. And we ask that you would bless them and their work. We also pray this morning for Doctor campas, and we ask that you would be with him and his family, a former shepherd of some of the saints here. We ask that you in his final hours, would encourage him and strengthen him in the peace and grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. May we all, Lord, be prepared for our final days on this earth through strength and confidence in you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
[00:02:14] Let's hear God's word now from two corinthians, chapter ten, one through six.
[00:02:33] Second Corinthians ten, one, six.
[00:02:38] I, Paul, myself, entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.
[00:02:45] 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 showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh.
[00:03:05] 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, may God bless his word to us. Please be seated.
[00:03:56] Over the next few chapters, Paul is going to address his ministry.
[00:04:02] He's going to address the apostolic ministry.
[00:04:06] Over the next few chapters, Paul is going to give us warnings, instruction, confidence, encouragement, all kinds of very helpful things as we think about what it means to receive the word of God to receive the word of God through the ministry of apostles and prophets, also evangelists and teachers, ministers of the word.
[00:04:34] He is also, in these passages going to give us instruction and warning about those ministers of the word, what it means to be a true minister of the word, what it means to minister the word of God faithfully. This is important not only for people like myself, whose calling, one of my primary callings in life is to be a minister of the word, but for all the saints who have the responsibility to call ministers and elders as shepherds over them.
[00:05:11] What does it mean to be faithful in this regard? And these are really important things.
[00:05:20] Ultimately we are going to be thinking about Jesus Christ because the ministry of the word is the ministry of him.
[00:05:29] Who is he? What is he doing?
[00:05:32] What is the effect that he's having in our lives? What is the promise that he is making toward us?
[00:05:39] And we begin considering these things as Paul gives them to us here in chapter ten, verses one through six.
[00:05:48] I want to walk through these verses with you this morning and then think through some application at the end in thinking the of through what Paul says here in verses one through six, we're going to think about first a warning, then weapons and then a war.
[00:06:06] First a warning.
[00:06:09] So Paul begins in verse one with a lot of emphasis.
[00:06:14] I, Paul, myself, entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. He is coming, having written us already nine chapters of this letter. He is now coming with great strength and he is getting our attention.
[00:06:32] He is getting the attention of his original hearers and are as well the emphasis. You can hear it in the English, reflecting the Greek that's here.
[00:06:43] He is stepping in and speaking with great strength. What is it that he wants to say? Well, before he gets there, he also talks about the way in which he comes.
[00:06:55] Meekness and gentleness of Christ.
[00:06:59] He is coming in meekness and gentleness, although he also speaks very strong words.
[00:07:07] This is one of the things we'll want to pay attention to, how these two things go together.
[00:07:14] Meekness here refers to something on the inside of him. On the inside of him, it's a quality of being not, as one dictionary puts it, not overly impressed by a sense of one's self importance.
[00:07:33] That's a dictionary definition of the greek word. Behind meekness. There, the quality of not being over impressed by a sense of one's self importance.
[00:07:44] We might translate it. Humility. Right, humility.
[00:07:50] The second one, gentleness. Again, a definition on the greek word is making allowances despite facts that might suggest reason for a different reaction, gentleness.
[00:08:07] Here, the definition again, making allowances. Making allowances, overlooking things, giving space, these kinds of things, despite facts that might suggest reason for a different reaction.
[00:08:21] In other words, there are reasons why you could be severe and yet choose to give some space, choose to give some time.
[00:08:31] Perhaps when you are feeling hungry and tired and you snap at someone, and somebody could rightfully snap back at you and say, that was out of line. Right? Fair enough, true enough. But we all appreciate when someone says, instead of, that was out of line. Can I get you a snack?
[00:08:56] Would you like a nap? Can I give you. What do you need right now?
[00:09:01] That kind of gentleness. That's what's in mind here.
[00:09:07] Gentleness and meekness, not being overly impressed with a sense of one's self importance. Meekness and gentleness, making allowances despite facts that might suggest reasons for a different reaction. So there's an inward thing going on and an outward expression of that that's happening here.
[00:09:27] Now, these things are not against the authority that Paul has.
[00:09:32] Humility, meekness and gentleness are not. He's not stepping away from authority, his authority to do these things. He is acting in his authority in this particular mode. And that's important to remember, an authority is not always severe. Authority is not always exercised in a harsh manner and in a strong manner. Sometimes it's exercised in a humble and gentle manner.
[00:10:04] Not always, as we will see, but this is one mode of good leadership and authority and of the ministry of God's servants.
[00:10:16] So this is how he comes. He comes to them with meekness and gentleness. This is in his heart, and it comes from Christ.
[00:10:24] He's not choosing this as a way to just sort of grease the wheels or some sort of charming tack to kind of get their attention. He's doing it because he's a christian minister.
[00:10:36] He belongs to. He is owned by. He is a slave to Jesus Christ, who himself was lowly, meek and gentle.
[00:10:50] Well, this is who Paul is, and this is how he is coming.
[00:10:55] But there's this accusation that's floating in the air, which he is, I think, sarcastic about in the next, in the parentheses that you see in verse one going into verse two.
[00:11:07] If I could read it really sarcastic. Well, let me tell you the comment first, and then I'll read it in a sarcastic way to interpret that.
[00:11:15] So the accusation is that. Is this. Yeah, Paul, we know how you are. You're all scared when we're face to face, but when we're apart, you seem pretty bold, right? You perhaps have known people like this. Maybe you are a person like this from time to time when it comes to being online or over an email or something like that. Oh, you got all kinds of words, but then when it's in person, I don't know, things are fine.
[00:11:48] This sort of, basically, it's a charge of a disconnect. It's a charge against integrity. You are humble. And the word here, humble, is not like we were using it before, but here, it's like low status, right? You act like you're this low status, timid, afraid person when we're face to face.
[00:12:11] But then when you're away from us, your letters are all 1234. Strike. Strike. Strike. Strike.
[00:12:18] That's the accusation, among others, that Paul is receiving. This is an opponent's description, in other words. And so Paul says, I, paul, myself, entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I, who am now, imagine air quotes here, humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away.
[00:12:42] And then that leads to this comment, 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.
[00:12:58] Yeah, okay. Some of you are starting to get it right. I beg of you that basically, when I show up, I am not going to have to be the severe kind of person that you are accusing me of wimping out on when I come to face to face against those who are suspecting us of walking according to the flesh. So that's another accusation that they're leveling against him. Him, that he and his co laborers are walking according to the flesh, which is not a good accusation. It means walking according to a sinful, corrupt ways. They are charging Paul with being an ungodly man.
[00:13:40] And so he's sort of taking the accusation, and he's flipping it and saying, you'll see what's going to happen face to face when I am with you, when I have to confront those who are doing this. But he's also giving them space. He's giving them, in this passage and in the coming passages, a warning and a call to repent from these things. And he's calling, as you see at the end in verse six, when your obedience is complete. A little bit tough to interpret, but I think what he's saying is he's calling the corinthians to turn away from these false teachers, turn away from these false accusers, and obey the gospel. Hear the ministry of the apostles. Turn away from this dissension and these attacks that are happening towards a true ministry.
[00:14:34] Paul is not a wimp. Paul is not a man who doesn't know how to be tough and how to take things. We've seen that multiple times in this, in this letter and other places as well. Just one example from acts 20 113.
[00:14:52] He says, at one place, at one time, I am ready not only to be imprisoned, but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.
[00:15:03] Would that all of us be able to say such a thing?
[00:15:07] Not just, I hope to be, but I am ready too.
[00:15:12] Right, readiness.
[00:15:14] I am ready to be imprisoned and even to die for the sake of the Lord Jesus.
[00:15:25] So we get a sense of what's going on. Paul is receiving these attacks, attacks of being fleshly, attacks of being weak, of not being properly strong enough or having a disconnect in his integrity.
[00:15:45] And he says this is not the case and that he will come and rebuke those who are making these false accusations. That's verses one and two, the warning in verse three, we come to weapons, he says in verse three. For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
[00:16:13] Paul is doing kind of another sort of word thing here where before he sort of took their own words, right? And then sort of flipped it, right? He's doing something similar here. He says, yeah, we walk according to the flesh in the sense of in our bodies. We are human creatures, but not waging war according to the flesh, according to sinful and even worldly ways.
[00:16:39] The Bible uses flesh. Paul uses flesh in both of these senses. And that's helpful to understand a verse like this.
[00:16:48] So one Timothy 316, for example, Paul writes, God was manifested in the flesh.
[00:16:55] He's talking about Jesus, right? He's talking about Jesus taking on flesh and blood, a human nature like ours. Paul is not accusing God. He's not accusing Jesus of being sinful and corrupt. He's talking about his incarnation, which we rightly praise and not condemn.
[00:17:16] And this is the sense in which Paul means it. Here we walk, for though we walk in the flesh, human bodies, human people, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
[00:17:30] Instead, we wage war according to the spirit, as he explains in the next verse, verse four, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
[00:17:46] What does Paul mean here?
[00:17:48] He's talking about his ministry. And notice, first of all, how this metaphor of war, a metaphor which accurately captures what he is doing, really turns the dial up in terms of what he's doing and how we ought to think at least one aspect or one way of thinking about the ministry of the gospel.
[00:18:12] It is not merely arguments and word exchanges and thoughtful dialogue. There is an aspect of war that is going on. This is one of the things that we learn from a passage like this. And from this passage, Paul thinks about what he's doing as waging war. He says that in a positive way.
[00:18:37] And the weapons of his warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. So he talks about both what the weapons are and their effect.
[00:18:52] The weapons are not worldly tools, a great marketing plan, eloquence, lots of money, charm, handsomeness, good online metrics, great followers.
[00:19:07] These things are not the tools which he's depending on.
[00:19:14] They are not the tools that he's depending on as his primary source of strength. Now we know Paul has a measure of eloquence, right? We see it in his letters. We've talked about the usefulness of money, right, in the last few chapters. Chapters eight and nine were about the importance of giving and supporting and blessing one another and how money is an important part of life in the church. But these are the things that we, while God may use them, we are not depending on them. We are not depending on them, we are not trusting in them.
[00:19:51] These things Paul sets aside and is willing to go without in order to rely only and always on divine power.
[00:20:02] Divine weapons.
[00:20:06] He doesn't describe all of those weapons here, but we know what they are from other places particularly. They are the word of God. The proclamation, the powerful proclamation of the word of God, a strong thing described in the scriptures in many places, is being able to do things like create things out of nothingness.
[00:20:32] The word of God, which is described as being able to bring life out of death, to set people enslaved to sin and the devil free.
[00:20:45] Think about the words of Jesus.
[00:20:48] Little words like get up and walk or your sins are forgiven or to Lazarus come out right. The words of Jesus, though very simple, right? Words that are used in the most basic, the most basic vocabulary, the simplest of phrases, are filled with divine power.
[00:21:21] And it's that power. It's that word that truly true ministers, speak, administer, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, repent and believe in the gospel. It is the power of God. The kingdom of God is at hand.
[00:21:46] It's pretty simple, but the effect is to, as one here, we read here, bring down or destroy strongholds.
[00:22:03] It's not about getting people to like us.
[00:22:07] It's about pulling down strongholds people feel in their sin, in their according to the fleshness, protected, safe, fortified in their sins and in their lives. I get what I want when I want. At least if I can get the things that I want, then I'll be safe, like these kinds of things. And when we get them, we hope that they'll protect us. I've saved enough money. I've married the right person. I live in the right neighborhood. And on and on and on, God pulls down these strongholds, these strongholds of self protection, so that something would happen.
[00:22:52] The war that we read about in verse five. As we move from weapons to war, we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. To do what? Take every thought captive to obey Christ.
[00:23:10] In Colossians, Paul has this verse where he talks about God rescuing us out of a dominion of darkness to bring us into the kingdom of his son.
[00:23:25] He destroys the walls. He destroys the strongholds of sin, of rebellion, of death, of the curse. He pulls it all down. And he doesn't just leave us there standing in our defenselessness.
[00:23:42] He takes us captive. Right? He rescues us into his own service, into his own kingdom, that we would be captive to obey Christ.
[00:24:00] There's an end to which we are saved, to glorify God and enjoy him forever, to obey our savior. This was the great commission. Right.
[00:24:13] Go, therefore, right into all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded. He has this goal, this desire for us to move us away from self centeredness, self righteousness, and walking according to the which only binds us up, holds us in a stronghold which is really a slavery, a slavery which he rescues us from so that we would have freedom in obedience to Christ.
[00:24:55] This is the war that he wages.
[00:24:58] Christ is the winner of this war, the one who makes this whole thing successful by having his own body, his flesh destroyed, put to death on the cross.
[00:25:15] God comes in great weakness and in a mode that the world calls foolishness, the death of God, to exercise and show his great wisdom and power.
[00:25:30] God comes in this way so that the world would be shown to be as foolish and as weak as it really is and so that that he would be shown to be as infinitely strong and powerful as he is.
[00:25:44] And he comes not just doing this amazing thing, but with a particular message, a message that we describe as, again, very simply, good news.
[00:25:58] We describe as the gospel as good news that those who put their faith in Jesus are saved through his death, through his resurrection and his promise to come again.
[00:26:16] This is the war that God is waging, and this is the war that he wages through the ministry of his apostles.
[00:26:23] They take our air quotes, lofty arguments, our impressive air quotes, self confidence, and he just brings it all down.
[00:26:36] He does this, and God does this in all kinds of ways, as we see throughout his word.
[00:26:41] Sometimes it's really, really hard things that he brings us through in our lives.
[00:26:48] He takes us in our self deception, in our sin, in which we are unable to see how self deceived we are, unable to see how broken we are. And he just tears it all down.
[00:27:05] Sometimes it's through his providence when consequences start facing us, when the things that were protecting us get torn away and ripped away, things that we were relying on turn out to not be of divine power, but merely crutches to get us to the next day.
[00:27:27] Sometimes he does this in our hearts or in our minds, in all of these various ways. But it's good news when he couples these moments with a promise, the promise that when we see our brokenness, when we see our inability and turn to him, we'll find safety, we'll find protection, we'll find provisions. God is graciously tearing down the world's ways, the world's promises, our opposition to him, which leads to separation from him.
[00:28:02] And he's taking us captive, every thought of ours captive to Christ.
[00:28:10] This is why Paul has confidence in what he's doing, is because he knows he can't accomplish these things just by fancy words. He can only accomplish them through divine power, because these are divine things.
[00:28:26] So that's what he's saying.
[00:28:29] That's what he does.
[00:28:31] And that is his ministry of the gospel.
[00:28:36] But it ends, he ends in verse six with a reminder of a readiness to act, a readiness to act in punishment.
[00:28:48] So he says, this is what we do. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. He does that through divine power, divine means. And then he adds this in verse six, and a very important addition, especially in this context, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete.
[00:29:16] There's this readiness that he has an important theme in the scriptures, a readiness to do the hard things, a readiness to take those who are in the church, who exalt themselves, their thoughts, their ideas, their will, their powers, and to punish them.
[00:29:39] Punish here is not being mean. That's not what punishment means. Punishment here does not mean being cruel or angry in some sort of sinful way.
[00:29:52] Punishment here means enforcing the rules.
[00:29:57] Punishment, even more particularly here, means giving penalties for wrong doing.
[00:30:04] This is an important aspect of the ministry of the gospel, what we sometimes call the discipline of God and the discipline that he does in his church.
[00:30:17] Now, we know Paul is focused on the church here in particular, because in one corinthians 512, he says that he does not judge those who are outside of the church.
[00:30:28] It's not his job to punish and discipline those who are outside of the church and disobedient to the gospel.
[00:30:36] He promises them that there will be a coming judgment from which they should flee.
[00:30:43] But in terms of discipline, he does not judge those who are outside the church. Instead, he judges those who are in the church. We have examples of this. In one Corinthians five. Five, he tells them, you are to deliver this man. He says to the corinthians, you are to deliver this man to Satan for destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
[00:31:08] He names publicly and for all time after him. He names two people in one Timothy 120, Hymenaeus and Alexander. He says he had handed them over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme again. In both of these verses, we see the end to which discipline is happening. He is ready to discipline those who exalt themselves over God, who exalt themselves in their lofty opinions against the knowledge of God, the true knowledge of God, especially what comes to us in Jesus Christ.
[00:31:52] To those he do that, he is ready to deliver them over to Satan, as he puts it. Why?
[00:31:59] So that they may be saved in one Corinthians five, and so that they may learn in one Timothy 120, what are the ends of punishment? What are the ends of church discipline? It is to save us. It is to grow us and to teach us, to help us understand this. Paul, or I keep doing that. This is like the fourth time I've done this recently. The author of Hebrews talks about church discipline.
[00:32:37] The author of Hebrews talks about church discipline, and he helps us to understand it by putting it in the context of healthy households.
[00:32:46] He says, fathers who discipline you do it. Why? Because they love you. The Lord does the same. It's a sign of his love that he does these things, that he works in us and through his ministry in the church to save us, to teach us, to heal us.
[00:33:10] This is his goal.
[00:33:17] Let's sum this up and apply the word in some particular ways.
[00:33:24] What's Paul saying?
[00:33:26] Paul saying that the accusations against him, that he lacks integrity, that he lacks true power are false.
[00:33:35] They're false accusations.
[00:33:38] They're coming from people within the church who are, who are not coming in humility and gentleness, but coming with great self importance and self righteousness, and lifting themselves up over the apostolic ministry, over the word of God, so that people would be impressed with them.
[00:34:04] These arguments and pretend strongholds will be brought down and they will be brought down with divine power. It will be effective.
[00:34:20] And Paul does this in part through the preaching of the word, but also in part through the discipline of the word. He is ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete, as they turn to away from these false teachers and toward the true ministry of the word of God.
[00:34:46] A lot of theology, right? A lot of things going on here. But as we come to some practical applications of it, what do we learn?
[00:34:56] A couple things. I'll mention one, I think we have a warning.
[00:35:00] A warning against raising up our own strongholds of self protection, our own desires, to do it on our own, to be strong in our own strength, to be strong in the networks that we create, the wealth that we grow, whatever it is that we are, depending on some identity that we're trying to lean on.
[00:35:27] The warning here is not to raise up these strongholds, because in God's grace, but sometimes to our great pain, they are brought down.
[00:35:40] There's also a reminder here to those who are in authority and have the call of the ministry of the word.
[00:35:49] Pastors and elders, in particular those who are given the keys of the kingdom to bind and to loosen. The shepherds of the church who are called to exercise the ministry of the gospel are to not walk according to the flesh, to not depend on power or prestige or anything else, but to depend on the Lord, to depend on his strength, to depend on divine power.
[00:36:19] There's a book that came out recently, I don't know anything about it, but I heard the title and I really liked it, so I'm going to borrow it. The title of the book was lead with prayer, and it was a leadership book, and I just love that title so much. The book, again, I have no idea anything about it, but I love that title, lead with prayer.
[00:36:40] It has a kind of double meaning to me, one starting with prayer, always a good idea, never going to go wrong, but also the idea that the substance of leadership, the substance of shepherding is dependence, that we start not by. Okay, I gotta get really smart, okay, I gotta get it all together. Okay, I've got a. Whatever it is, but instead let's pray.
[00:37:10] It's an act and also a heart that is of dependence and of faith. And that is where shepherding and ministry always should begin. Whether it's the preaching of the word or the administration of discipline, the punishment or the protection or the provision of God's people.
[00:37:34] It always must begin with prayer, which is to say dependence and relationship and faith in the Lord. Who has made these promises, who exercises this ministry. Ultimately, we are servants of him, not the other way around.
[00:37:54] And always remembering that and leading and seeking to shepherd in that mode is key of first importance, as we see Paul here calling, or, I'm sorry, demonstrating for us on these things. This warning and this reminder, I think ultimately point us to the grace of God and the work that he is doing in us.
[00:38:25] Whether we are helping and serving other people or we are being served, it all comes through the work that he is doing in us.
[00:38:35] We must all lead with prayer, serve with prayer, walk in prayer, which is to say walking not according to the flesh but according to faith.
[00:38:47] May God grant us this faith. May God grant us this power. May God grant us the ability to serve one another according to the true ministry of the gospel. The good news of Jesus Christ.
[00:39:03] Let's pray.
[00:39:05] Our heavenly Father, we thank you for the great power and the glory that Jesus shows to us even through the cross.
[00:39:13] We thank you for his kingship and his rule, his mighty hand, that it is at work in this world, destroying, destroying what seem to be so strongholds of great strength, arguments of great power, people of a great prestige, all of them. Nothing in comparison to the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills.
[00:39:41] Nothing compared to him to you who rules in heaven with an army of millions upon millions of angels at your right hand, all ready to minister according to your word.
[00:39:58] Lord, the powers of this world pale in comparison to the awesomeness of your strength. The splendor of your majesty, of the supremacy of your rule.
[00:40:12] Humble our hearts before you. Let us be afraid where we ought to be afraid, to learn to fear you, our Lord and God, and not to put our trust and or our fear even in the things of this world.
[00:40:28] And Lord, also in your awesomeness and in your power, teach us to love you and to find our strength and our protection in you. Let us not turn aside to the people of this world that would have us be separated from the knowledge, the saving knowledge of God and stored. Bring us under the ministry of those who preach the gospel and who preach it according to your ways and your words.
[00:41:05] We ask, Lord, that in our own lives, as we come under your discipline of that which is formal and that which is informal and that which is hidden and that which is public. We ask that you would humble our own hearts that we might be saved, that we might learn, that we might grow, that we might serve you more and more happily captive to you.
[00:41:33] Lord, in our thought lives we pray for particular protection this morning and that your work would be in us.
[00:41:44] These, the quiet things, sometimes the loud things that go on in our minds, in our hearts. Lord, we ask that you would be at work not merely bringing us to this or that action but working deep, deep inside, in the patterns of our thought, in the systems of our thought, in the loves of our thought, in all of it. Lord, be at work in us. And may your glorious grace be evidently manifest among us, your people.
[00:42:22] You are truly marvelous. And we depend on you and your grace given to us in Jesus name. And so it's in his name that we pray. Amen.
