Wednesday, September 4, 2024

A Little Foolishness...

 


II Corinthians 11:1  I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! 2 For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. 3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough

Paul has been treading very softly in the way he addresses this church, making sure he did nothing to act like a bully or in some way say something that would needlessly offend.  But he felt they had build a wall between him and themselves and were listening instead to other voices, false voices. He compared the way he felt to a jealous husband, imagining how Christ felt about the way this church was responding to Him.  Paul next unleashes a long list of things he had endured, sufferred and allowed in order to minister to them: he refrained from receiving support from them sio he would not be a burden; he fought of false teachers like a husband would fight off those attacking his wife; he was endured persecution aimed at him in every possibly fashion. Paul did all this for them. Could they not see how much he loved them? 

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