So You’re a Priest: Super-Christians

This letter to the Corinthian church now takes a sharp turn. Far from the generally encouraging tone of the previous chapters, most of the remainder of the letter is critical of certain factions within the church. The remaining chapters need to be read as a group, and isolated verses should not be taken out of context from these chapters, because Paul’s tone is now frequently sarcastic, and sarcasm taken out of context can frequently lead us astray!

2 Corinthians 10:1-6

Commentary

v1 Timid … bold. The criticism of some in the church was that Paul talked tough in his letters, but was mild and unimpressive in person. We want our leaders (presidents or pastors, parents or spouses) to look and act like leaders. But Paul asserts that the way of spiritual power is found through humility and forbearance (meekness and gentleness, in the NIV).

"timid" … "bold". There is no such thing as quotation marks in NT Greek, so the punctuation here is the NIV’s attempt to convey Paul’s sarcasm. However, over the next four chapters, Paul is frequently sarcastic, but quotation marks are rarely used, leading the casual reader to take sarcastic remarks at face value.

Timidity and boldness are first of many pairs of contrasts Paul offers over the remaining chapters, including: obedience vs. disobedience (10:5-6); Paul’s gospel vs. a different gospel (11:5); Paul the fool vs. the super-apostles (12:11). Through this Paul offers up two visions of Christian life—one is focused on building up self, while the other is willing for self to be set aside while following God.

v5-6 The word for obedience has the sense of a change of action that comes by hearing: to hear God is to be changed. The world tells us to live by a certain set of rules, but when we finally hear from God, we have the resolve to live by those rules no longer.

Application

When I first became a Christian, I went to the assistant pastor at my church, Don, and told him, "I really want to study the Bible—really in depth." What I didn’t say out loud—but what I was thinking inside—was, "Hey, I’ve been to college and grad school. I am ready to dig into the Bible like most people can’t. I can be a super-Christian."

Studying with Don didn’t go quite as I had imagined it would. He’d give me reading assignments and then we’d get together and discuss them. When I’d offer up an opinion on what something meant, his typical response was, "Hmmm. That’s interesting." Sometimes he’d even say, "Hmmm. That’s interesting. How do you think that would work?"

I was continually frustrated and for a long time I did not understand what Don was up to. My worldly stronghold was mental—a bastion of ideas, a way of thinking that interacted with the world while keeping the world at a distance. In Jesus’ words, I was "ever hearing but never understanding" (Mark 4:12). If Don had tried to fight my ideas with new ideas, my Christian life would have been a mental game. Don would have lost me by fighting as I was used to fighting. I needed to struggle with these new ideas on a different level, learning to hear with my heart instead of my head, learning by doing instead of by studying.

I read these chapters, and I wonder if Paul could have seemed like Don to the Corinthians. Like me, the super-Christians in Corinth were puffed up and proud. While Paul modeled a spiritual life that was humble and self-effacing, they had the audacity to call him a dullard, a fool, a failure. Until they were willing to adopt a lifestyle that looked foolish, they would never be able to learn a new way to live.

Points to Ponder

v6 sounds a bit harsh, but try reading it like: Once you have begun to change your ways, being faithful to follow what you’ve heard God telling you to do, only then will we be able to go back and help you set right the things that you foolishly did out of disobedience.