I have been given this passage to preach on in a few weeks. The beauty of having that sort of lead time is that you really get to meditate and chew on the text. I like to print it out and carry it around with me so that I can ponder it in different settings and feel what it says depending on my mood, environment and time of the day.
2 Cor 5: 11Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. 12We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. 13If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.
14For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Cor 6:1 As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. 2For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.
Two phrases I was drawn to immediately were v1 ‘since we know what it is to fear God’ and ‘for Christ’s love compels us’. Paul says that because we know what it is to ‘fear God’ we try to persuade men (and maybe even women…)
It seems the fear of God is to be an underlying source of our motivation in sharing the gospel -a gospel that involves persuasion. And the second phrase speaks clearly of another primary motivator – ‘Christ’s love compels us’.
The second is probably more acceptable in more progressive circles, while the first may be seen as either poor motivation, or leading to poor action. Should we really try to persuade anyone?… Isn’t that imposing our will on them?
Paul seemed to think so and he did it fairly regularly. I think Paul knew what he was on about.
Those are some first impressions as I read and they will probably give shape to what develops. I sense there is something to be learnt in here about how we are motivated in the mission of reconciliation. I have a few weeks to see what develops and to explore it more fully so I imagine it will come into clearer focus as I do that.
I appreciate the challenge of preparing new messages because so much of the speaking I find myself doing around the place is quite repetitive – or at times I allow it to be so because I am lazy. Its so much easier to pull out one your ‘greatest hits’ than to develop a whole new message that might fly or might bomb.
North Beach Baptist have had me there a few times lately and each time have given me a set passage to speak on. When Craig gave me the date of this one I baulked at first – its a busy time with a number of other speaking commitments, but then I read the passage and felt something spark…
So ‘no’ quickly became ‘yes’.
I’ll be preaching it at East Fremantle Baptist in the morning and North Beach in the evening of August 31st
2 Cor 5:14-15 is always the bit that grabs me…
I wrote about this verse myself a while back http://brackishfaith.blogspot.com/2008/04/are-things-you-are-living-for-worth.html
For me the question I often hear when I read it is:
Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?
“Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord…” What is it to fear the Lord? Why does that fear cause Paul to persuade others? People don’t like the idea of “scaring people out of hell” but I wonder if there’s something to it, as long as Christ’s love compels us, too. I’m scrunching my eyes as I think of this, because it doesn’t sound right as I’m reading it, but I guess my thinking is that too often we run to the “love of Christ” part, and we don’t allow people to deal with our need to fear this awesome, all-powerful God who could wipe us out with His breath, or even a thought, if it weren’t for His tremendous love. Isn’t there room for both?
Great discussion people!
This is something I very much have been grappling with over at ,a href=”http://discipleoftheway.wordpress.com’>my blog, looking at the idea of legalism vs lawlessness.
The basic idea of my discussion is based around a teaching by John Bevere who basically says love keeps us from legalism and fear keeps us from lawlessness.
Just on your point Paul, my understanding of the ‘Fear of the Lord’ is that it isn’t a ‘scared’ fear, its not a ‘lets scare them into the faith’. My understanding of the Fear of the Lord is like a reverent fear, a respect. It’s seeing God in all his awesomeness, and responding because of it.
It’s a bit like when you see an awesome sunset, we ‘respond’ by saying something like ‘woah’ and then doing whatever we can to stay close to that sunset. The Fear of the Lord inspires us to follow his ways, because God is just so awesome!
Make any sense?