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 …always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. ¹¹ For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. ¹² So death is at work in us, but life in you.

‘…the apostle finds himself modelled on the gospel itself, living it out in his own person, his own body. And he has come to believe that this is not an accident. It is part of the deal, part of the commission.’ Tom Wright

We know that Paul and his team suffered physically. They were persecuted terribly, and endured many privations. They were repeatedly exposed to the danger of death. It stalked them. This may well be the experience of someone reading these notes. Perhaps for many it won’t be. But every death we have to die in order to live the Christian life, to share the faith, to advance the cause of the gospel, to serve the church, is the key to the life of Jesus being ”manifested” (10,11).

We can’t feel guilty if we live in a freer, more tolerant culture. We are where we are. We are living where God plants us (unless, we are Jonah-like in resisting His call to move elsewhere). But everyone who sincerely seeks to live a faithful life of Christian discipleship, anywhere in the world will have to do a lot of dying. (I’m also mindful that here in the west we are seeing a number of our freedoms being slowly, but surely, eroded. Who can say what we may have to face in the not too distant future?).

It is also the case that Christian leadership everywhere involves dying a thousand little deaths, day by day, moment by moment.

But, (12), just as Jesus’ death brings life to others, so a ministry patterned on Him will be life-giving. The church has always needed leaders who are willing to die. This is the cost of authentic ministry. I believe it was J.H. Jowett who said, ‘There is no blessing without bleeding.’

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰ always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. ESV

Many years ago, when I was a pastor of a church in Lancaster, I lived in the nearby coastal town of Morecambe. One day, after doing some pastoral visitation in the city, I decided to walk home. As I came down the hill into Torrisholme, a suburb of Morecambe, I noticed a car parked on the other side of the road. A few minutes later this same car was alongside me. The window was wound down, and a detective showed me his credentials. It transpired that a crime had been committed in that area the previous evening, and I fitted the description of the culprit! Anyway, after a few questions he let me go on my way. (I really did have nothing to do with it, I assure you). But here’s how I knew he was a genuine police officer: his credentials.

In this passage we see Paul’s fragility on display (and there is going to be much more of this to come in the letter). But in a sense we can say he is ‘showing his credentials’, as a genuine apostle.

Talk about kicking a man when he is down. It’s hard to imagine that his opponents would criticise him for his weakness, unfavourably contrasting him with themselves. But it does seem to be the case that this is what they were doing. They were such ‘superstar’ leaders: so charismatic, so powerful (or so they imagined).

But Paul states clearly that authentic Christian ministry is cruciform in shape (10-12). The only way to ‘Easter Sunday’ life and power is by ‘Good Friday’ dying. What a thought that the very life of Jesus can be ”manifested” in a fragile human body. A repeated theme in this letter is that it is through weakness that we experience such power.

‘To me, ’twas not the truth you taught, to you so clear, to me so dim;

But when you came to me you brought a sense of Him.

And from your eyes He beckons me, and from your heart His love is shed,

Till I lose sight of you, and see the Christ instead.’

One final thought for today: it is good to know that, in Christ, what comes against us doesn’t have to finish us (Rom.8:28). I am struck by the contrast between ”We are…but not…” One day we will be able to say of every trial, ‘It came to pass.’

PRAYER: Lord, I often feel so weak, overwhelmed really. The truth is I am weak. But I ask that in my weakness you will be seen, shining in your glorious strength. Cause other people to see your reality in me, for your glory.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. ESV

Paul never wanted the ‘jar of clay’ to be confused with the ‘treasure’.

Tom Wright, in his commentary on 2 Corinthians, talks about Sir Oliver Franks, who was the British Ambassador to the United States at the time the cold war began. He describes how he often needed to get urgent, top secret messages between Washington and London. There was a diplomatic bag which went back and forth each day, carrying confidential documents across the Atlantic by air. But when something was ‘really confidential, utterly top secret, and desperately urgent’ he wouldn’t put it in a bag that everyone knew was important. Rather he placed it in an ordinary envelope and sent it by regular mail. Tom Wright adds:

‘What Paul is saying is that there is no chance of anyone confusing the content of the envelope with the very unremarkable envelope itself. The messenger is not important; what matters, vitally and urgently, is the message…The Corinthians had been looking at the envelope – at Paul’s own public figure, his speaking style, and at the fact that he is in and out of trouble, weakness, and now near to death – and they have concluded that there is nothing at all remarkable about him. He ought to look more important than that, surely, if he really is a messenger with a message from the living God! No, says Paul: you’re missing the point. Precisely because of the vital importance of the message, the messenger must be dispensable.’

We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. NLT

I often think about ‘Sting’s song ‘How fragile we are’. I first heard it while driving in my car early one morning, and it immediately resonated with me. We are indeed ‘fragile’. We may not always like to let it show, but in our depths we know it to be so.

We have seen:

• We don’t preach about ourselves (5): Jesus Christ is Lord, and we are His servants. We know our place. We are not the message; we are the messengers. One of the ways some of us serve the Lord Jesus (if it is our calling) is by proclaiming Him. But we further see today:
• We don’t serve in our own strength (7): It is self-evident that there is a fragility about us. We are like easily breakable ”clay jars”. In ourselves we are weak, but what God has put inside of us is so powerful. When people see, and hear, us doing what we can’t naturally do, people glorify the God who empowers us. ”But we have this treasure in earthenware pots, so that the extraordinary quality of the power may belong to God, not to us.” Tom Wright translation

 For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. NLT

Although it is true that the gospel is hidden to many people, because there is a devil who blindfolds them (4), we should not despair. Because the same God who said, at the beginning, ”Let there be light,” (and there was light! Gen.1:3) is able to do the same in human hearts. His Word is His work. In His Sovereignty He can, in a moment of new creation (5:17) make ”this light shine” inside people, so that they do see Jesus clearly. Paul, of course, knew this so well from his own experience (Acts 9:1-19a).

‘The gospel isn’t about a different god, someone other than the world’s original creator, but about the same creator God bringing new life and light to his world, the world where death and darkness have made their home and usurped his role.’ Tom Wright.

When you have confidence in this God, and the message He has entrusted to your stewardship, you won’t play fast and loose with it; you won’t tamper or tinker with it, won’t distort it. You will rather, as Spurgeon is purported to have said about the Bible, just ‘let it out of its cage.’ It will do its own divinely appointed work.

This was certainly Paul’s reality. He knew only too well the power of the gospel (Rom.1:18).

 You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. NLT

Every preacher is meant to be, like John the Baptist, a signpost – pointing away from themselves to Jesus:

”The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29 (see also 1:19-27).

Let’s get their eyes on Jesus. We are not the message, and we must not get in the way of it. The Holy Spirit can only be expected to bless preaching that glorifies Jesus (John 16:14).

‘Paul is very concerned that the Corinthians might have supposed he regarded himself as the head of the organisation. He is simply a servant, a porter, a secretary, an assistant: he is merely someone who introduces people to the top man. He is one of the Messiah’s office staff.’

There is a famous quote attributed to Count Von Zinzendorf: ‘Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten’.

‘Jesus, lover of my soul
All consuming fire is in your gaze
Jesus, I want you to know
I will follow You all my days
For no one else in history is like you
and history itself belongs to You
Alpha and Omega, You have loved me
And I will share eternity with you

It’s all about You, Jesus
and all this is for You
for Your glory and your fame
It’s not about me
as if You should do things my way
You alone are God and I surrender
to your ways.’ Paul Oakley.

Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. NLT

In the Bible, Satan is described as having real power in this world. When he took Jesus ‘’… to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory’’, he said to Him, ‘’I will give it all to you…if you will kneel down and worship me.” (Matt.4:8,9). Jesus, of course would not pay him homage in that way, but He did not deny his ability to make the offer

Elsewhere in Scripture, Satan is described as ‘’the god of this world’’ (2 Cor.4:4), ‘’the prince of this world’’(John 14:30), and the ‘’ruler of this world’’ (John 12:31). 1 John 5:19 says: ‘’We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.’’

Furthermore, the book of ‘Revelation’ takes us behind the scenes of history, and shows us something of the raging spiritual conflict between Light and darkness

I remember a preacher saying that in evangelism we meet the devil, and so we need to pray. If our mission is ‘’to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me’’ (Acts 26:18), this can only happen by the greater power of God.

Make no mistake about it, God’s power is surpassingly greater. Satan can only operate with the Lord’s permission. He is always, in Luther’s words, ‘God’s devil’. Still, he has real authority in this world. Someone put it like this: ‘He is on a chain; but it’s a long chain.’

If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing.⁴ Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. NLT

Reading between the lines, one criticism of Paul was that he obscured the clear message of the gospel. This he refuted robustly, but he did admit that it is nevertheless ‘’hidden’’ for many people. However, he was not personally responsible for the hiddenness. There is a supernatural blindness caused by the devil. People just don’t get Jesus: who He is and what He has come to do – until, one day, they do! It is the testimony of every Christian, in some sense, that once they were blind but now they see.

‘The Message’ pictures the pre-Christian state in this way: ‘’ They’re stone-blind to the dayspring brightness of the Message that shines with Christ, who gives us the best picture of God we’ll ever get.’’

Although God does not want anyone to ‘’perish’’ (John 3:16; 2 Peter 3:) it is clear that as long as we remain blind to the beauty of Christ ‘’perishing’’ is our spiritual state.

Quite simply put, every conversion is an eye opening miracle.

Prayer: You might want to pray for someone you know who remains deaf to the voice of Jesus and blind to His glory.

We tell the truth before God, and all who are honest know this. NLT

Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display, so that those who want to can see and judge for themselves in the presence of God. The Message

One safeguard that will surely keep any preacher ‘true to truth’ is the recognition that we are accountable to Almighty God. How dare we change anything just because we don’t like it, or it doesn’t fit with cultural norms, or because we want to do what it says we shouldn’t, or…??? There may be so many reasons. But if we preach in the sight of God we will not easily or lightly depart from His Word. We will indeed tremble to do so.

”My hands have made both heaven and earth; they and everything in them are mine. I, the LORD, have spoken! “I will bless those who have humble and contrite hearts, who tremble at my word.” Isaiah 66:2 NLT

Paul may have had critics who charged him with changing the message, but he knew that such charges were illegitimate. Furthermore, he knew that genuine people would know that he was kosher.

If you stick to revealed truth in your preaching, you will have critics – perhaps fierce ones. But you will resonate with honest- hearted folk. They will recognise a ‘ring of truth’ about your ministry.

PRAYER: To paraphrase a part of a poem, Lord, keep your preachers ‘true to truth as truth is true to you’.