This is part 27 of a sermon series through 2 Corinthians. In today’s passage, Paul boasts of his spiritual rollercoaster ride—the highs, the lows, and the bumps along the way. Many of us don’t like rollercoasters: it’s a scary ride for some; an invitation to motion sickness for others; just plain uncomfortable for some; the cause of real injuries for others; a source of personal embarrassment for some; an annoyance at the distress of strangers for others. The oddballs enjoy the rush—subjected to heights, drops, jolts, screams, and surprises, they are nevertheless alive to tell the tale.
2 Corinthians 11:30-12:10
Commentary
v30-33 The drop—literally! Paul’s escape from Damascus is also mentioned in the story of his conversion (Acts 9:1-25). As one commentator notes, "... no crown of gold for his crowning victory. Rather, like a coward in battle, he ‘escapes’... in what may have been a fish basket!"
v1-6 The heights. Most theologians believe Paul is speaking of himself in these verses. In contrast to his super-apostle critics—who puffed themselves up by boasting about their visions and revelations—Paul refuses to speak in a way that would only glorify himself. (Note the sarcasm in v6: Paul says if he did boast, he would not be a fool, because he would be speaking the truth about his visions. What is he saying about his critics and their visions?) Regarding the inexpressible things of which he was not allowed to speak, are there not truths about God that we know and yet cannot communicate to others? Divine revelation often goes straight from God to a person without an intermediary.
v7-10 The jolts. Paul proclaims an important truth: our spiritual highs tend to make us conceited and think that we don’t need others. God’s disabuses us of this notion by sending us situations that expose our human limitations. (Even Satan’s messenger is ordained by God!)
Application
How would you describe a rollercoaster ride to somebody who had never ridden on one? It’s like falling—except for the slow climb to the top and the jolts & bumps after the big drop. It’s like a taking an airplane through a storm cloud—except most of us have never done that either, and an airplane in a storm doesn’t have much of a view. It’s like sailing through choppy swells—except the girders of the rollercoaster structure aren’t threatening to smash into your car. The best way to understand a rollercoaster is to ride one.
There are truths about God and our spiritual life that similarly are best learned first-hand. Grace is hard to understand until we experience it for ourselves. The power of forgiveness to heal (the offender or the one offended) makes no sense until one is involved in forgiveness. Waiting for God to act looks like passivity—or worse, idleness—unless God has even told us personally, "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps. 46:10). Humility looks like rolling over and playing dead if all we have ever known is standing up for ourselves and insisting on our own rights. The best way for others to learn about God is often not to tell all that we know but to let them experience God first-hand. But how if that going to happen if we don’t tell what we know?
During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave the disciples a parable about not telling everything they knew to people who weren’t ready to hear. "Do not give dogs what is sacred," he said (Matt. 7:6). "Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces." Isn’t this frequently what happens when we give people too much information about God?
The immediate context for this parable is Jesus’ more familiar counsel about hypocrisy:
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Matt. 7:3-5)
How often do we—with good intentions—try to intervene in the lives of others with pearls of godly wisdom only to have our advice discarded, trampled, and ignored? To us, the offenses in others are no mere specks; rather, their problems seem like huge disfiguring blotches, and we think, "How can they go on like this every day? I have to help them!"
This is exactly the situation in which Paul has found himself. Reading between the lines, his critics—the Judaizers—apparently claimed to have visions and revelations regarding the higher Christian life. Perhaps their visions supported their demands to adhere to the Jewish laws & customs even while being Christ’s disciples. Perhaps their revelations had the effect of puffing them up with a sense of their spiritual superiority. How tempting to try to set them straight, maybe even deflate their egos a bit. Certainly Paul has visions and revelations to stack up against anybody’s.
However, Paul does not tell everything he knows. While he owns his humble departure from Damascus, he refuses to own directly his rapture into the third heaven. [1] While his critics apparently have been quick to recount their ecstatic experiences, Paul refuses to reveal the details of his revelations. Dueling revelations is a fool’s game. Refuting his critics revelations by giving the details of his own would glorify anyone but himself and it would simply annoy his critics. Paul would be casting pearls before swine and becoming a hypocrite as well.
Actually, Paul does give some details of one revelation—not the grand revelation from the third heaven, but the revelation that came on the heels of the messenger from Satan. Weakness. Our weaknesses are the place where God often going to be found at work. Our weaknesses are the place where God’s power is going to be glorified. Paul’s strength is his intellect and his powers of persuasion (he’s an apostle of God, after all!) and yet that’s not the arena in which his critics will be silenced and his church in Corinth will be edified. Rather, God will work through his weakness—Paul’s pride, which must be suborned and silenced in the face of criticism—for the sake of showing the Corinthians a different way.
What Paul is doing is incarnational ministry. The best way for him to teach is to live out the lessons he wants others to learn: humility, forbearance, silence. As a pastor, I have found it rarely works to tell someone everything I know. The best way for most people to learn God’s truths is for me to sit with them while the Holy Spirit works on them. It rarely seems like the fastest way to learn, but it is frequently the best way for the lessons to take root and change lives.
God calls us to live incarnationally. The best way for others to learn about God is often not to tell all that we know but to let them experience God first-hand. We are called to tell what we know by living what we know living side-by-side with those who know not. It’s a rollercoaster ride: sitting with people while they complain that nothings happening right before the big drop; riding with them while they scream that this is horrible (and it’s all somebody else’s fault); enduring the jostling while they ask how much longer the ride is going to last. The best way to learn about rollercoasters is to ride with somebody who loves rollercoasters. The best way others to learn about God is first-hand, riding through life together with us.
Points to Ponder
Some think Paul’s thorn in the flesh was a physical ailment. Others think the thorn was a sin Paul with which struggled. Others (and I count myself in this group) think the thorn was a relationship—e.g. the Judaizers—that Paul could never quite make right. What do you think?
End Notes
1 - Whatever that may be. Certainly the point of this account is not to give any sense of heavenly geography.
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