Sunday 4th June
Read 2 Corinthians 11:12-15
“And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. 13 For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15 It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.” (NIVUK)
The shoe seems firmly on the other foot here. The religious leaders in Jerusalem accused Jesus of being in league with Satan and now Paul accuses these false apostles of precisely the same thing. There are other similarities between the reasons for the accusations if anyone chooses to compare them – but the question is whether Paul is right?
We know that the religious leaders who accused Jesus were wrong. Jesus rebutted their accusation with a simple observation that a house divided against itself cannot stand. One can’t help but recall Paul’s observation in the first letter to the Corinthian church we have – where he expresses dismay at the divisions that have rumbled through the congregation (1 Corinthians 1). Perhaps it is those very divisions that give us the clue that Paul is correct?
The Corinthians have been deceived and divided. Many commentators note that deception is perhaps too easy today – quoting the great theologian Charles Hodge who observed that ‘Satan does not come to us as Satan, neither does sin present itself to us as sin, but in the guise of virtue’. We so rarely think about sin that we stumble into it with staggering ease. It becomes worse when that sin goes on to divide us. We do altogether too little work personally or corporately to identify error and stand up for truth.
Paul could just as easily exhort the Corinthians with the words he wrote to the church in Philippi. “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.” (Philippians 2:1-2) (NIVUK). Deception and division are dangerous – and like-mindedness and unity is to be pursued earnestly. Jesus called us to unity.
