03 Why Paul Refused to Change to Win More Converts (2 Corinthians 2:5-17)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome back to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today is the third talk in our series on 2 Corinthians. We will be studying chapter 2, verses 5 through 17. Thanks for making Wednesday in the Word a part of your day. I'm glad to have you all on. We're continuing in 2 Corinthians today, picking up in the middle of chapter 2. Just to review, Paul opened his letter by describing the mutual Christian concern between himself and the Corinthians. He described the suffering and the trouble he went through as an apostle of Jesus, but he saw those troubles as benefiting the Corinthians in two ways. First, he suffered to bring the gospel to them. So just as people hated Jesus for speaking the truth, so they hate Paul as a representative of Jesus when he preaches the gospel. People beat him and seek to kill him. And that's just part of what it takes to preach the gospel. Second, God encourages Paul in the midst of his sufferings, and then Paul can pass that encouragement on to the Corinthians. So he sees both his troubles and his encouragement as being for their benefit in the end. For their part, he reminds them that they can pray for Paul in his troubles, and then they can experience gratitude and joy when God delivers him. But as we saw last week, not everyone in Corinth shared that concern. Some in Corinth had rejected Paul and don't believe he's an apostle. The end of chapter one and then the first four verses of chapter two give us a window into that conflict and what was going on. Putting the clues together, we learn that this letter, 2 Corinthians, is actually the fourth letter that Paul wrote to Corinth, but only two letters survive. So let me briefly review the timeline, which we went over in detail last week. Paul founded the church in Corinth during his second missionary journey, and that visit is recorded in Acts 18. After he left Corinth, he wrote his first letter to them, warning them to avoid those who pursue an immoral lifestyle. We call this the lost letter because no copy survives, and we don't know very much about its contents. In response to that lost letter, Paul received a letter from the Corinthians, and in response to that letter, he wrote what we call 1 Corinthians. So 1 Corinthians is the second letter chronologically, but the first one that survives. After that, he made a second visit to Corinth, and that visit is not recorded in Acts. We call this the sorrowful visit because things did not go well. After that sorrowful visit, Paul wrote a third letter to Corinth. He had planned to visit Corinth, but decided that another visit might be too painful, so he wrote a letter instead. We called this the severe letter or the sorrowful letter, and we don't have a copy of that one either. Paul sent Titus to Corinth with the severe letter, and then he traveled to Macedonia, where he planned to meet up with Titus and hear how the Corinthians responded to that letter. He was encouraged by the response that Titus brought back, but problems remain. And in response to that, he wrote this letter we're studying, which is his fourth letter that we call 2 Corinthians. Now, as we saw last week, Paul began defending his ministry. When he changed his travel plans, when he didn't return to Corinth as he had said he would, that caused some in Corinth to question Paul's commitment to them. They think he's kind of a flake, they can't count on him, he says yes, and he says no, and his word can't be trusted. Paul countered that by focusing on God's unchanging commitment to them. He said, just as Christ fulfills God's promises, so the Spirit serves as tangible evidence and assurance that those promises will be realized. They can look at their own lives and see the Spirit at work in them, and that should give them confidence that they do have genuine faith, and their faith rests on God's actions, not Paul's travel plans or Paul's commitment to them. They can have confidence that Paul preached the real, actual, true gospel to them because God has established them and sealed them with his spirit. Paul explained why he didn't come. He explains that he chose not to visit them because his relationship with them had deteriorated after the sorrowful visit. If he had come as planned, he suspected that would be another painful visit for them and he decided to spare them. And he insisted his conscience is clear. He has behaved toward them with nothing but sincerity and concern. And that brings us to two five, which is where we left off. And in verse five we learn some more specifics about what is going on in Corinth. Let's start with 2 Corinthians 2 5 through eleven. Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely, to all of you. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him, for this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. Any one whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven if I have forgiven anything has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs. All right, Paul is referring back to some event that probably happened during this sorrowful visit. And this is one of those places where we modern readers have limitations because Paul doesn't fully explain what he's talking about here. Now, of course, there's good reason for that. Everyone in Corinth already knows what he's talking about. They were there when it happened. They know the situation, they know what happened during the painful visit. Paul doesn't want to rehash all the details in this letter, stir up all those emotions again, or reopen the wound. So he doesn't go through what happened. He just talks about what they should do now, which means we modern readers don't know what he's talking about. We have to look at the clues we have and see if we can figure out what was going on. So here's what I think we know. The situation in Corinth seems to have centered around one man. We have this piece of information later in the letter. This is 2 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 12. So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God. So Paul refers to this offender in chapter 7 as someone who hurt someone else. Perhaps that was Paul. Perhaps Paul wrote the sorrowful letter in response to the situation created by this man. He may have written to explain how to handle the situation, and in that way he was testing to see if they would be obedient to the gospel and how they handled this matter. So, whatever the man was doing, the issue doesn't seem to have been settled by the end of Paul's visit, leaving the situation unresolved, which may be the reason it was such a sorrowful visit. Because it was unresolved, there were still tensions between them. Paul decided not to visit and wrote a letter instead. It seems the majority in Corinth responded with some sort of discipline toward this man who was causing the problem. In their discipline, they stood up for the gospel. From what we have in chapter two, it sounds like the man responded well to the discipline from the church because Paul now is urging them back off. Don't overwhelm him with excessive sorrow, but rather show him that you forgive him and love him. Now, as I read these clues, I think the offense, whatever it was, was probably directed at Paul. It sounds to me like Paul is saying, this man has caused sorrow, not primarily to me, Paul, but really to you, Corinthians. So even though this attack was directed at Paul, Paul's opinion is that he can take that kind of attack, and most of the harm was done to the larger church. And I think he's more concerned with how the situation is affecting the church than how it affected him. It sounds from these verses like he has already forgiven the man, but he's still concerned about the impact of the problem. So he says, You all need to forgive him. I will join you if I have anything left to forgive. But the big issue for Paul is not what the man did to him personally, but how his actions caused damage and division in the church. So that suggests to me that whatever this person did, it was part of the general problem in Corinth, where they were rejecting Paul and challenging his authority. Maybe this person became the focus of that division. And that's why Paul says, but you know, it's not really about me, it's about the impact on you as a church. Now, the big question scholars always like to ask at this point is who was this man and what did he do that caused all the trouble? And you can read in the commentaries, there's a lot of debate and speculation about it. From my reading, I think there are two main theories. First, some believe the offender is the man that Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. In 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote about a situation where a man was living with his father's wife, and he called on the church to treat that man as an unbeliever. And scholars speculate perhaps the church did discipline this man, and now Paul is worried that maybe they've gone too far, maybe this man has repented, and they aren't forgiving him or acknowledging his change. And that is possible, but it seems unlikely to me because, in my opinion, the language here seems more personal to Paul. I don't think the offender just committed a sin. He seems to have committed a sin against Paul. Perhaps he attacked Paul's reputation or his teaching or introduced the idea that Paul is not really an apostle and doesn't care about them anyway. Something like that. And that leads me to the second popular theory about who this offender was. And it's more along the lines I just mentioned. Many scholars believe this man may have publicly insulted Paul or publicly challenged his authority during the painful visit. Paul says the man grieved him personally, but he also grieved the church, which suggests to me this is some kind of leadership conflict or doctrinal conflict. Perhaps he publicly questioned Paul's claim to be an apostle or said Paul's teaching the wrong gospel or something like that. We do know a group within Corinth rejected Paul's apostleship, and maybe this man was a ringleader of that opposition. In the end, we have no way of knowing for sure. But my reading is that the best reconstruction is this man had somehow challenged Paul as an apostle in a loud or public way that both offended Paul and caused harm to the church. And when Paul visited Corinth to deal with the situation in what we call the sorrowful visit, this man probably said or did something at that visit, which is why Paul said, No, I don't want to visit again, I'm going to write a letter instead. Now the church seems to have responded with some sort of discipline. The man seems to have responded well to their discipline, and now Paul is urging them to acknowledge his repentance and accept him. Something like that seems to be the situation. Now, before we go on to the next verses, let me remind you what Paul is doing in the larger context. This is one of those sections where it's very helpful to remember the larger context. Paul is in the middle of a defense of his conduct. In particular, he's defending himself against the charge that he is not sincerely concerned for the Corinthians because he said he was going to come visit and then he didn't come at all. Some in Corinth have said, see, that proves that Paul's a flake. If he's not going to keep his word, then we can't trust him about anything. And as we've seen, Paul answered he didn't come because he wanted to spare them more pain and another sorrowful visit, and he thought it would be better to write a letter instead. Now at this point, Paul knows how they responded to the sorrowful letter. Titus took the letter to Corinth. He has now reported back to Paul in Macedonia about how the Corinthians responded, and they responded well. In the next verses, Paul steps back into the story to the time when he had not yet heard how they responded, and he's explaining why he didn't visit them after all. He continues, this is 12 and 13, and he's writing as if it's the time before he knows how they responded to the severe letter. When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, even though a door was opened for me and the Lord, my spirit was not at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there, so I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia. So as we've said, Titus carried Paul's sorrowful letter to the Corinthians. After he leaves Corinth, Paul naturally wants to hear how did the Corinthians respond? So rather than waiting in Ephesus, Paul decided to meet Titus halfway. Paul takes the land route around the Aegean Sea, so he's heading north to Troas, hoping to meet Titus there as Titus is returning from Corinth. But when Paul got to Troes, Titus wasn't there, so he keeps going and now he's north of Corinth in Macedonia. And he's telling them all this because he really wants them to understand how concerned he was for them. And so he highlights this very poignant detail. He was so upset and he was so anxious to hear their news that he passed up a ministry opportunity in Troas. When he got to Troas, some people there apparently wanted him to stay and teach them the gospel. I think that's what he means by a door was opened for me in the Lord. He had an opportunity to do some preaching there, but he was so upset by the situation with the Corinthians that he couldn't stay and teach. He really wants to know how they responded to the letter. He can't focus his mind on anything else. So instead of staying, he keeps going, hoping to find Titus on his route. He gets as far as Macedonia, North of Corinth, and so now the suspense is killing us. What happened in Macedonia? Did Paul meet Titus there? What did Titus say? Well, the unusual thing about 2 Corinthians is at this point Paul breaks off his story to talk about something else. And that something else takes us all the way through chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, and chapter 6. It is not until chapter 7 that Paul returns to the story and tells us what happened when he got to Macedonia. Now, presumably the Corinthians already know how they responded to the letter, and they can guess what Titus told Paul when the two of them finally met. Paul doesn't need to tell them, so he doesn't need to finish the story. And we modern readers can guess because he said he already knows how they responded to the letter, and it seems to have gone mostly well. But I'll give you a sneak peek from chapter seven so you know what he finally says. This is chapter seven, verses five through seven. And remember, this is one of those places where Paul is speaking of himself in the first person plural. He says, We hear, and he means I Paul. For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn, fighting without and fear within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoice still more. So finally, all the way over in chapter seven, Paul tells us when he met Titus in Macedonia, he heard the good news that the Corinthians responded well to Paul's last letter. So now let's go back in time to chapter two. Paul's in Macedonia, he's met Titus, he knows how the Corinthians have responded to his last letter. He writes this letter to send ahead of him before he visits Corinth again. But as we keep reading, we see the responses mixed. The Corinthians, by and large, they responded fairly well, but there are still some serious problems. Paul and the church are not fully reconciled. Someone in the church responded well to his letter, they mourned, they repented, and Paul recounts how eager they are to affirm their respect and love for him, but that comes later in the letter. Instead of telling us here in chapter two, hey, Titus brought good news, Paul starts defending himself again, because not everyone responded well. Some of the Corinthians are making various accusations against him, and Paul stops the story to defend himself. As we go through the letter, we'll see Paul continue to defend himself. And by the time we get to the end of the letter, he is deeply upset and somewhat sarcastic about the opposition in Corinth. So later in chapter 7, when he says he's rejoicing in the response to his letter, I think we have to see that in relative terms. They didn't do something drastic like kill Titus and say, Paul, we don't ever want to hear from you again. So that's good. That's a positive response. Some of them did agree with Paul to some extent, and they responded to his letter well. Many in the church were genuinely sorry Paul had to rebuke them, but we know the problem isn't over. One of the skirmishes is over, and he's glad that it came out the way it did, but the battle is still going on. So let's look at verses 14 through 17. But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God, among those who are being saved, and among those who are perishing. To one a fragrance from death to death, and to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God in the sight of God, we speak in Christ. All right, Paul is saying, I may have been too upset to minister to those in Troas, but God is always victorious. God is using me to proclaim his gospel. I'm just part of this great victory parade, but make no mistake, God is using my ministry to proclaim Christ to the world. In essence, Paul is saying, I may be a loser, but God is using this loser to achieve great victories. Now let me remind you again that Paul frequently refers to himself in the first person plural. Here he uses we, and I think he means I, Paul. And I think this is one of those passages where knowing that fact makes a difference. I think he is talking about himself and his ministry in contrast to the Corinthians and their reaction to it. Now, some might say, well, he could mean we, Paul, Timothy, and Titus, couldn't he be including those traveling with him or the other apostles? And that's why he's saying we. And there are some places where that is a very possible interpretation. But I think in this section, it's important to see that he's talking about himself, and in particular, he's talking about himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ. He's saying, I am a fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved. I am not like many who peddled the word of God, but rather as from sincerity, I speak as if God is standing right in front of me. He's making a claim about his own ministry and he's defending his apostleship as he does throughout this letter. Now let's look at this image he's using. He said, God always leads us in his triumphal procession in Christ. He's using the image of a Roman general who Who has been triumphant in victory and he's riding home to have a big parade through the streets. So when a general conquered another town or city-state, he would return home with this huge celebration, something like a big ticker tape parade celebrating his victory. The air would be filled with incense as the parade goes by, and with everyone lining the streets and celebrating this great victory. Now there's some question about the nature of Paul's analogy and how exactly he is picturing himself in this parade. One way to picture it is that Paul was one of the victorious soldiers in God's parade. The general, who had won some great battle, would be at the front. His victorious soldiers would march behind him, and we could picture Paul as one of those victorious soldiers who was in the battle and he's celebrating what the general has brought about. And that would make sense. You can see how that would be the case. The interesting thing though is that Paul uses a word that suggests he's not one of the victorious soldiers, he's one of the defeated soldiers, one of those who was led in triumph. So in this parade, the general came first, followed by his own soldiers, and after them came the defeated and captive soldiers and any people they had captured to make slaves. Those are the people who are being led in triumph. They're the defeated soldiers and the captives. To be led in triumph is to be one of the prisoners of war at the end of the parade, and that's the word Paul uses, the word that's more commonly used of defeated soldiers. So if Paul means to evoke that image, I think he would be emphasizing that God is the one who is victorious, he's the one responsible for the victory, and that Paul is one of those that God has been victorious over. And in this case, he would be a willing and grateful captive in God's victory parade. And I can see the argument on both sides. You can see how both ideas make sense in the context. I'm not sure which one you choose makes that much difference to his point, because he's not focusing on his role in the parade so much as on how people are responding to this parade, as evidenced by how they react to the incense. So Paul says his ministry is like this fragrant incense in God's Victory Parade. The crowds would burn incense to welcome home the conquering soldiers. And to the victorious soldiers, that's incense is the sweet smell of success. But to those prisoners of war and the captives following along in chains at the end of parade, that smell would be the bitter smell of death and defeat. And Paul is using that as an analogy to say the gospel has the same effect. To those who are perishing, to those who reject the gospel, it is an aroma from death to death. For them, God's victory parade only brings judgment and condemnation. But those who embrace the gospel find that aroma a sweet smell of life to life, because for them, God's victory parade brings mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Now, if you stop and think about it, Paul is making a pretty audacious claim. He's saying that God gave him a very important role in this victory. As an apostle, Paul preaches the gospel, and the gospel has the power of life and death. Paul proclaims this message to the people, and the people respond to it either by arriving at death and judgment or eternal life, depending on how they respond to what he teaches. Those who believe the gospel are like the victorious soldiers, and the incense smells sweet and wonderful, the gospel is sweet and wonderful. Those who reject the gospel are like the defeated soldiers and they hate the incense, they hate the smell, it smells to them like death and defeat. And all that reaction comes about because Paul preached the gospel to them. It is Paul's teaching that has this effect. And that's a pretty bold claim to make. Notice he immediately adds, Who is sufficient for these things? To make clear he's not boasting about himself. Paul is walking this fine line. He's making this claim about the incredibly important impact of his ministry, but he also wants to make clear that he's not bragging about himself. His job as an apostle is to preach the gospel, and understanding the gospel is a matter of eternal life and death for the rest of well, for all of us. Therefore, Paul's ministry is incredibly important, but it's not important because he, Paul, is personally a big deal. It's important because his message is a big deal. He says, I personally am not adequate to produce such a result. It is God working through me, me Paul, that produces this result. And in the next section, he's going to talk more about that explicitly. So we have this balancing act between Paul's ministry and the message he teaches. And Paul is walking this line of saying, My message is important and you guys need to listen to it, even though I myself am not very important. He concludes in verse 17, for we are not like so many peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God in the sight of God, we speak in Christ. Well, peddling is something you do when you're trying to make a sale. If I want to manipulate you into buying my product, I peddle it. I might exaggerate how great its benefits are, I might downplay any problems it might have. That's peddling. And Paul says, I am not peddling the gospel. I am not going to change it, I'm not going to distort it, I'm not going to try to make it more attractive to those who are perishing. I'm not trying to hide anything to push for the sale, and I'm not exaggerating anything to get a certain reaction. Instead, he says he speaks with sincerity, he speaks only what God has given him to say, and he speaks as if he was standing right before God when he says it. He views himself as answering to God, so he proclaims the message that God gave him to proclaim and no other. Now to the Corinthians, Paul's ministry might look like something of a mess. He's not the most persuasive speaker. He's not eloquent or charismatic. In almost every town he visits, people riot and beat him and run him out of town. So he doesn't arrive in the next town with a large entourage or a crowd of faithful followers singing his praises. Compare him to an elite rabbi or scholar, and Paul looks kind of like a loser. He experiences suffering, he experiences apparent failure, and many of his own people, the Jews, reject him. So if you just look from the outside, you might say, you know, Paul, I don't think you're doing a very good job. Maybe if you change the message a little bit, just improve your marketing tactics, employ a slicker, more entertaining presentation, then you might be more successful the way we Corinthians measure success. Maybe more people would listen to you. Maybe the elites would listen to you, and regular folks wouldn't beat you up so much. And Paul's saying, I'm not gonna do that. I am grateful that ultimately God is responsible for the progress of the gospel and God is winning. My job is to faithfully proclaim the good news of the gospel and let that message have its effect. Some are gonna hear it and live, others are gonna reject it and die. And of course, I, Paul, am not adequate for the task. No one is, but God is capable, and God uses an apparent loser like Paul to bring this glorious result about, and so it will be done. Now again, why is he saying all this? Because some in Corinth are questioning his integrity and his authority as an apostle. So he's painting this picture. Look, I am a loser. I am not adequate to do these things on my own, but on the other hand, this is what God is doing with me. So don't ignore me because this is important. Let me close by talking about the thing that really struck me from this section. Paul gives us a window on his very personal struggles as a minister of the gospel. Being a teacher is kind of a double-edged gift. On the one hand, teachers can give their students this great gift of knowledge and information, especially about what God says is true, and that's wonderful. It's a privilege, it's a joy to explain eternal life-changing truths to others. But on the other hand, the teacher has no real power to change anything because each student decides how to respond. For many endeavors in life, you're in control. You set out to do something, you take an action, you make it happen. So you want a clean kitchen, you wash the dishes, you get everything put back in its place. You need to get in shape, well, you commit to exercise. You want to learn to play the piano, you practice daily. In each case, you your efforts lead directly to the results, to the progress. You set the goal, you take the steps, you see the results. But teaching doesn't work that way. You can prepare the lesson, you can deliver it with clarity and passion, and watch it fall flat. The same talk will be loved by some and hated by others. The outcome depends on whether the student chooses to listen, to learn, and to understand. And ultimately, the outcome depends on whether God has given that person the ears to hear it. Whenever a teacher teaches, there's no guarantee that anything will change. The students can listen, ignore it, scoff, or they can take the message to heart, and the teacher really has no control over that. And that's what Paul's saying. Paul's saying, look at our relationship, look at my relationship with the Corinthians. Paul believes that his ministry is a great thing. He has taken great troubles upon himself to impart the gospel. It's a message of life, it's a promise that is certain to come true. But in a very real sense, Paul is helpless to ensure that they understand it. They ought to be proud of him, they ought to be delighted that Paul has invested his life in bringing this message to them. They ought to respond with faith and joy and gratitude, but how they actually respond is in their hands. And that's something Paul can't do anything about. So his teaching, his gospel ministry has this potential for great joy and for great sorrow, depending on how they respond. And Paul suffers greatly because he knows that his message brings eternal life, and yet he sees many in Corinth turning away from it. He's so anxious about their response that he can't teach the gospel in Troas, and he passed up that ministry opportunity just so he could find out how they're doing. Well, that really resonates with me. I mean, I could speak as a teacher, but it strikes me that all of us are in the same situation in relationship to the people that we love. All of us have the opportunity to teach and share our faith with our friends, our family, and our coworkers. Now we're certainly not apostles, and we may not even be stand-up teachers, but we all have the opportunity to explain the gospel to someone, including our children. So we have this chance to influence and encourage the people we care about and the people around us. And this ministry of encouraging those around us is a great and worthy task. But the outcome is not guaranteed. I have many prodigal family members. I'm sure many of you have prodigal friends and family, and their response may bring joy or it may bring great sorrow because in the end they decide what to do with the gospel. We can't decide for them. We can try to help, we can try to bring clarity, we can try to live what is true and encourage them, but in the end, they're the ones that have to decide. And this is especially true in raising our children. We have these high hopes and expectations about how our children will respond to the faith, but in the end, the response is up to them. We can't save them any more than we can save ourselves. And this passage is a good spot to remind ourselves that our job is to faithfully explain the truth God has taught us and then trust Him for the result. We're not to change the gospel, we're not to manipulate it or peddle it in an effort to get more numbers in the door, and we're not to change it so our prodigal children like it better. We can't save our family and friends, but we can faithfully live out the truth we've been taught and trust God to take care of the rest. Thank you for listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. The blog version of this podcast is on wednesdayintheword.com slash 2 Corinthians 3. You can hear all the episodes in this series on my website as well as find many other series there, wednesdayintheword.com. There's no charge, no spam, and no end. It's all free to help you improve your study skills and understanding of scripture. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please follow the podcast and leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coast. You can find more of Reggie's music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.