Tuesday 27th June
Read 2 Corinthians 13:5-6
“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realise that Christ Jesus is in you – unless, of course, you fail the test? 6 And I trust that you will discover that we have not failed the test.” (NIVUK)
It may seem harsh of Paul to turn the tables on the Corinthians in this way – asking them to examine themselves to see if they are in the faith – yet his purpose remains gentle. All along Paul has been arguing that Jesus was crucified in weakness, not that he was weak. Jesus was gentle and meek in his dealings with others, but he was not a pushover (as the religious leaders regularly discovered). It is Jesus, who chose the path of weakness, that Paul wants the Corinthians to look at. For it is Jesus that indwells them and transforms them.
The simplest test a church can use to ‘examine themselves to see if they are in the faith’ (v5) is the simple test of ‘do they look like Jesus’? The sting in the tail for the Corinthians is if they pass themselves, which they are highly likely to do, then they are setting the very standard that Paul wants them to strive for – they will be like Jesus. They will be humble, gentle, meek and gracious and will cease to be proud and arrogant and judgmental. And, if they pass themselves, they can’t help but recognise that Paul is like Jesus too, and always has been. More than that, if they are found in Jesus it is the best and brightest mark in Paul’s favour – for he was the one who introduced them to Jesus.
This is not to say that every successful evangelistic outing qualifies you as an apostle! But it does put forward the challenge to us all – how many people look more like Jesus because they know you?
