Thanks be to God: Victory over Life!
My lesson Sunday will complete my series, “Thanks be to God!” which traced Paul’s five uses of that phrase through his epistles. Hopefully these lessons have helped prepare your minds for the Thanksgiving season.
Today we will be looking at 2 Corinthians 2:14, But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. Jesus gives us victory over life!
I do need to take a moment to add a couple of disclaimers about this passage and my lesson. First, Paul is not saying you will not have any trouble in life. In fact, 2 Corinthians is full of sorrow, suffering, and mental anguish, especially for Paul. The victory spoken of by Paul is should be filtered through his conclusion regarding his thorn in the flesh, 2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. In our weaknesses, disabilities, and trials, God’s power is stronger and even more apparent in our lives.
Second, contextually, Paul is addressing the sufferings of apostles and other servants for the cause of the gospel and specifically his suffering as an ambassador of Christ. Paul sees these sufferings as evidence he is doing the will of Christ. Far from being disabilities in the common sense of the word, his sufferings have led to the advancement of the gospel through the power of God. 2 Corinthians 12:10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
This is not to say the passage is not applicable to us, it is. However, we must see our victory in terms of our Christian witness. He is not saying that we will eventually get all of our wants or wishes. Far from it! He is saying that God works best in fragile, broken, or otherwise imperfect vessels.
2 Corinthians 4:7-11 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.
I’ll say more in the lesson. — Joey
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