A letter of Recommendation

2 Corinthians 3:1-6

The blessing and curses of being in sales were you were always asking questions even when you had the answer but had a need to know how your customer would answer the question.  The apostle Paul is asking two question of the churches at Corinth, and he knew the answer to both, they were no, but he was not sure the Churches knew the answers.  The question is in verse one, “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you?”

It seems that the false teachers had asked for a letter of introduction or of recommendation.   Paul is saying, we do not need any such letter, nor do you from us, for we carry the image of a changed life, we have seen the transformation that only Christ can make in a person life.  Verse 2-3, state this very clear; “You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”  When Paul addresses tablets of stone a Jewish mind would go to the laws passes down to Moses, the Ten Commandments, I’m sure the church of Corinth was very aware of this.

As I read verses, 4-6, they are exciting to me for last week as Jan and I lay in bed before our prayer time the Lord blessed me with a review of a changed life.  My life before Christ was a life of fear, fear of being a dad, a husband of my job, and a life of no vision, no plans for the future, and fear to share any of this with anyone.  When Jesus showed up in my motel room as I read the Bible in the shelf by the bed, it open to Romans 10:9-10, and I agree it was Jesus I needed and by the faith He gave, I ask Him to forgive me and to come into my life, and He did.  We lay in the bed and recounted how our lives began to change, it is still changing, and I’m still a mess, but I no longer live in fear. 

Verses 4-6, “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”  If Paul is bragging it is not in himself but in Christ, for Paul had a clear understanding of what the Law of the old covenant address sin, but did not bring lasting life.  But the Spirit is about life, life now and eternal, often we seem to miss the now and look to the eternal.  All is a gift, even the faith to believe if you have doubts as Jesus to give you enough faith to believe that He will do as He has promised.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice