5:20b We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become
the righteousness of God.
6:1 As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in
vain.
6:2 For he says, "At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of
salvation I have helped you." See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of
salvation!
6:3 We are putting no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our
ministry,
6:4 but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great
endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,
6:5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger;
6:6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love,
6:7 truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the
right hand and for the left;
6:8 in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors,
and yet are true;
6:9 as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see--we are alive; as punished,
and yet not killed;
6:10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having
nothing, and yet possessing everything.
"as having nothing, and yet possessing everything." How many times have we
heard people say they were raised in a family that "had nothing" but at the same
time said, "we had it all"? It sounds at first like a contridiction. But when
you hear what they didn't have (material wealth) and what they did have (relationship) one
begins to hear that relationship is more important than life (as we know it) itself.
Similarly, we who are sinful become righteous through the life, death, and resurrection
of Jesus. Like the family that possessed nothing, yet everything, we are blessed with the
gift of right relationship with God through Jesus. There is a parallel . . . I just
haven't finished it yet.
v. 1 - don't accept God's grace in vain. Yancey has a great book called "What's So
Amazing About Grace?"
v. 2 - God listens to us.
I'm churning around a theme that might be good for the entire Lenten season: Why we
repent. I'd welcome ideas.
Sally
Sally -
Yancey's book changed my entire life.
JG in WI
I see this passage as being another aspect of Mat. 6 in the reading this week. In Mat,
one of the main thing is "Don't do things just to be an example; Be secretive in our
devotion to God." But here, Paul said, "but as servants of God we have commended
ourselves in every way" and he started listing out his evidences of endurance and let
people know.
Where can we find the balance? Can one argue that the passage in Mat. 6 was intended to
Jesus's disciple (in training), and the passage here was the experience of Jesus's servant
(in ministering)? I don't know. But it seems intuitive that Mat. 6 was the foundation for
this passage. The discipline of devotion to God happened first, and enable Paul to
"collect" the evidences, which he used as illustrations later on.
But how would this passage speak to people in the congregation? What Paul was pleading
with people is that they should be reconciled to God, and that they would "not accept
the grace of God in vain" before went on to show that he and his partners did
everything they could for them. Does "not accept the grace of God in vain" meant
bearing fruits or enduring like Paul did?
Some of the connective terms here are very telling: 1) "through" and
"in" (tough times they went through) 2) "by" (causative list of
qualities) 3) "with" (weapons of righteousness) 4) "in" (opposite
spectrum of circumstances)
At the end, Paul presented the strange paradox of what the world see them, and the true
reality they experienced.
That could be something to built on...
Coho, Midway City.
Out of love for humankind, Christ experienced sin and suffering, so that the saving
power of God could penetrate the most forbidding and tragic depths of human experience. No
aspect of human life is ignored by the presence of God's grace. Because of this, Paul
announces that this day is a day of God's grace, an acceptable time to turn toward God's
mercy.
