Forsaking the kaafirs and not being unequally yoked

The message of segregation that goes on in both the mosque and the church

Earlier this week, Tarek Fatah in his commentary on November 9 in the National Post “Spreading intolerance, one fatwah at a time” noted the teaching of influential Islamist clerics that the Koran forbade Muslims from making friends with non-Muslims (kaafirs) or even living among them unless the objective was to convert the non-Muslim to Islam. The purpose of such teaching, Fatah suggested, is to convince young Muslims to view their non-Muslim fellow citizens with suspicion and derision. No countervailing effort is being made, he said, at any level in the West to counter the Islamists’ hateful message of isolation, segregation and hostility.

As I read this article, the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:14 came to mind:

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

I recalled how, in my youth, I was taught that this verse meant that I, as a Christian, should not have close friends who were non-Christians. I especially should not date a non-Christian girl! Such a relationship was doomed to drag me down spiritually, it was said. And for the years, that is how I have tended to view this verse, as I suspect many have. A letter to the editor on Thursday in response to Fatah’s article referred to this same passage, in fact, the author proposing that the Bible actually teaches the same type of isolation and segregation as the Koran did. The only difference, he said, is that Christian churches have learned to ignore such exhortations!

I’m not so sure that this writer is correct, but I do think that Christians have been torn as to how to practice these verses if they are understood to be teaching a strict separation between Christians and non-Christians. I wonder if perhaps we have misunderstood Paul’s words, especially in light of the persecution that Jesus experienced for hanging around with sinners. And so I dug into 2 Corinthians 6 this week and was surprised to see how this verse, when taken out of context and viewed separately from the rest of the book, could be used to instill fear, suspicion and isolation in Christian youth in a similar way to how Koranic verses are being used to create Islamists.

It is vital that we see Paul’s words in the context of the book itself. In chapter 5:11-6:13, Paul is speaking of his being entrusted with God’s message of reconciliation, the Gospel, and urges the Corinthians not to receive this message in vain. The Corinthians risk doing this due to their propensity to embrace teachers whose message and methods run counter to Paul’s. Their gospel is not the gospel of Christ suffering on the cross to bring reconciliation with God and their ministry methods are not those of sacrificial service and a readiness to suffer (and even die) in order to bring this message to others.

It is in this context that 2 Corinthian 6:14-7:1 appears and should be interpreted. What Paul is calling for is for the Corinthians to recognize that they cannot follow Paul’s message brought to them sacrificially and in much suffering and follow these other false teachers whose message and methods are so diametrically different. The Corinthians are trying to yoke together two incompatible animals to the same plow. “Stop trying!” Paul says. The call here is to disassociate themselves from complicity with those who would attempt to propagate a false gospel within the church.[i]

Hence, the call here is not to pull away from the world or unbelievers in general, but from those who would seek to contaminate the church with false teachings. Indeed, only a church committed to such segregation can hold forth the true message of reconciliation to a needy world and be willing to sacrifice themselves in order to bring such a gospel to those who need it. Find me a church that is unwilling to sacrifice and suffer and you will likely have found one that is yoking together the gospel of Christ and false teaching similar to that which Paul’s opponents were teaching in Corinth.
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[i] c.f. R. Kent Hughes, 2 Corinthians: Power in Weakness. Crossway Books, 2006: 141; C.K. Barrett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians. Harper’s New Testament Commentaries. Hendrickson Publishers, 1973: 194-196

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What was Paul’s “thorn in the flesh”?

The conjectures as to what Paul’s "thorn in the flesh" (2 Cor. 12:7) was are legion. Many, if not most, commentators believe that was a physical ailment.  However, I think that the context in which this verse appears suggests quite a different answer, one that can provide tremendous encouragement to persecuted Christians.

The most extensive of all of Paul’s description of his afflictions for Christ’s sake is found in 2 Corinthians 11:23-12:10. It is at this point that Paul directly challenges those in Corinth who deny his credentials as a true apostle of God.

In 1 Corinthians, he has shown how God’s weakness in the cross of His Son, a weakness of suffering and self-sacrifice turned out to be God’s strength and power. He has maintained that his sufferings are linked with Christ (1 Cor. 1:3-11) and it is the world that rejects the method by which God has chosen to reconcile the world to Himself and sees only the shame and apparent defeat. In contrast, those who are being saved see it as fragrant offering to God (2:14-17). Paul contended that his sufferings are necessary to manifest the life of Christ (4:5-15) and argued that the messengers of the gospel must live lives in accordance to the gospel (6:1-13). Christ died on the cross for man’s salvation and cross-bearing messengers are those who will bear this message to mankind. God’s methods are consistent with His message.

Yet, the Corinthians persist in listening to teachers whose message and methods are at odds with the cross of Christ. In verse 23 Paul asks, "Are they servants of Christ?" The Greek wording used here does not concede that he believes that the "super-apostles" really are servants of God. The wording is more: "Servants of God are they? Well, if they are such (and it would be absurd to say such), I am more!"

The term "servant of Christ" is reminiscent of Isaiah's reference to the suffering Servant and the servants of the suffering Servant. One cannot call himself a servant of God if he denies the need to sacrifice and suffer for Christ’s sake. Suffering defines the servant of God.

In verse 23-30, Paul spells out the credentials he points to that prove that he is a servant of God:

…with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.[1]

Then in verse 31-32, Paul gives an example of the things that he will boast of

"The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands" (2 Cor. 11:23-33).

As we noted in our study of Acts, immediately following his conversion, Paul began to preach the gospel. As a result, a plot to kill him was hatched and he was forced to flee Damascus through a hole in the wall in a basket (Acts 9:25). This experience drove home to him an incredible truth that he never forgot.

Paul might have been tempted to feel proud of his revelation from Christ, his dramatic testimony of conversion, from persecutor to messenger of God. But then he remembers that his first attempt to share the gospel resulted in his being lowered out of a window in the wall in the middle of the night in a basket that was probably used to dump rubbish outside of the wall. Paul learned that this is what the messenger of God can expect!

What did you expect following Christ would be like when you first started following Him?

In chapter 12:1, Paul goes further. The super-apostles boast of the great visions that God has given them. "Well," says Paul, "let me break a 14 year silence and tell you about visions and revelations from God that I have received."

I suspect that at this point, the Corinthians would have leaned forward in eager anticipation of what Paul was about to write. This was the kind of message that they liked to listen to.

Paul refuses to go into too many details, however. He talks about having received a vision of heaven in verses 2-5, but Paul is clearly embarrassed at having to boast at all (verse1). He refers to himself as "a man in Christ" (in the third person) in order to emphasize that receiving this vision did not make him any special type of Christian.

All that Paul feels comfortable boasting about is his weaknesses (verse 5). And so he immediately discredits the wonderful vision that God had given him in verse 7: "So to keep me from being too elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated" (2 Cor. 12:7)

The Thorn in the Flesh

Given what Paul has just discussed in the passages just prior to this verse and that which he will refer to again in verse 10; a context of opposition and persecution for the sake of Christ, I would suggest that in verse 7-10 that Paul has not changed topics.  He is still talking about persecution.

The early church theologian Chrysostom took the term "Satan" in its general Hebrew sense of "adversary", and understood this "messenger of Satan" by which he was buffeted to signify "Alexander the coppersmith, the party of Hymeneus and Philetas, and all the adversaries of the Word, those who contended with him and fought against him, those that cast him into prison, those that beat him, that led him away to death; for they did Satan's business".[2] Augustine, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, Photius, and Theophylact and other early church fathers also saw this in the same light.[3]

More recently, R.V.G. Tasker wrote in regards to this passage "As there is nothing which tends to elate a Christian evangelist so much as the enjoyment of spiritual experiences, and as there is nothing so calculated to deflate the spiritual pride which may follow them as the opposition he encounters while preaching the Word, it is not unlikely that Chyrsostom’s interpretation is nearer the truth than any other."[4]

However we understand it, the fact is that this "messenger of Satan" was sent by God; Satan has only a limited freedom of action. God is ultimately in control. Nothing comes into the life of the believer that does not first pass through the sovereign hands of God.

That is not to say that Paul did not want this suffering removed from his life:

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (12:8-9a).

How exactly God said this to Paul, we are not told. The use of the perfect tense here, however, is illuminating, indicating that this was a past action with continuing results. In other words, what God told Paul regarding His grace being sufficient is still true for him at the time at which he is writing this letter. This was God's answer to Paul's prayer then and it still stands. And it is not a matter of accepting "second best." In Paul's mind, God’s grace in the midst of affliction is just as much an answer to prayer as deliverance because he declares, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:9b-10).

The key word here is, of course, "for the sake of Christ." Paul did not purposely go seeking for persecution. His only preoccupation was the cause of Christ, the spreading of the gospel, and these sufferings came to him as consequences of his pursuit after the purposes of God. There is nothing special in suffering for the sake of suffering. Suffering and persecution are only the inevitable results of spreading the gospel in a world that is hostile to God, the gospel, and His messengers.

Persecution reminds us who we belong to and proves that we truly are messengers of God.

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[1] Emphasis added.

[2] Philip E. Hughes, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1962 : 443. cf. 1 Tim.1:20; 2 Tim. 4:14

[3] A. Plummer, The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians. Cambridge University Press, 1903: 141

[4] Quoted by Hughes: 443-444

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Paul, Corinth, and Us

It is widely acknowledged that the parallels between first century Corinth and twenty-first century Western society are remarkable.  Let me share with you a few thoughts that will likely appear in my next edition of "In the Shadow of the Cross".

First century Corinth was a relatively new city, having been founded as a Roman colony in 44 B.C after the old city of Corinth has been totally destroyed in an earthquake a century earlier.  A metropolitan seaport, Corinth was intellectually alert, materially prosperous, culturally varied and religiously diverse.  Individualism was greatly valued and fiercely defended.  It was primarily a freedman town, ex-slaves who were aggressive, hard-working, upwardly mobile, financially successful and proud of their accomplishment.  They tended to be exploitive, ruthless and willing to take great risks. There were no elite or nobility in the city.  No code of conduct on how to behave oneself with one's wealth or in pursuit of it.  Power, possessions and pride were valuable to these Corinthians.  To rise in society was the overall goal of the Corinthian; boasting and self-display was the means of achieving that goal, and personal glory and power the reward of having achieving it.

Paul's relationship with the Corinthians was a difficult one.  His letters to them are very personal.  Paul stayed in Corinth for approximately eighteen months (a remarkably long time for him to be in any one place).  His time there was one of relative peace and calm.  When the Jews in Corinth rejected the gospel and Paul refocused his ministry to the Gentiles they did not raise up a riot as their counterparts had in other cities.  The only one case of persecution in Acts 18:12-18 is so mild in comparison to others, that Paul did not even feel compelled to leave for the safety of others.  We read that "he stayed for many days afterwards" (Acts 18:19). 

While 2 Corinthians 1:6 does refer to the Corinthians patiently enduring suffering, it seems apparent to me that the persecution facing believers in Corinth was considerably less than in other places.   Perhaps this may be in part due to the multicultural nature of the city which would have worked against organizing religiously intolerant mobs.  There were some Jews in the Corinthian community but there is little in Paul's letters to the church there that suggests a Jewish background.  Since most of the converts seem to have been Gentiles, the Jewish religious leaders (whose counterparts had instigated much of the opposition to Paul in other cities) may have felt that Paul was little threat to them. Or perhaps the number of Jews in Corinth were insufficient to mount an effective resistance.  Whatever the reason, the church was established there with little effective resistance.

Perhaps this relative lack of resistance to the gospel and its messengers is one of the reasons why the Corinthian Christians had such a difficulty understanding the role of suffering and persecution in the life of the follower of Jesus.

Given the Corinthian's pursuit of power, wealth and glory, it is inevitable that these would have been issues that the Christians there would have struggled with as well.  Humility was not viewed as a virtue; suffering and self-sacrifice were scorned.  Poverty would have been seen as a curse, even if done in the service of God.

To make matters worse, after Paul left Corinth, other preachers and teachers either arrived in the city or rose up from their own midst who had little regard for Paul and his teachings.  Indeed, what they taught agreed with Corinthian values completely; God's work is to be marked with power, prosperity, and pride.   Among other things, they maintained that Paul's sufferings were proof that he was not a true apostle or messenger of God.  To them, God's work was done in strength and power, not in weakness or suffering. 

The Corinthians were critical of Paul and his ministry in four areas:

1. His boasting: Boasting of one's accomplishments was of great value to the people of Corinth.   To project one's status was vital.  People paraded their wealth before others. Posted signs in public places declaring their latest accomplishments.  To be ignored or unknown was a great disgrace.  Personal glory became an ideal to be chased after.  When Paul denounced such boasting as taking the glory away from God and refuses to boast in any of his accomplishments but will only boast about those things which show how weak he is without the Lord, the Corinthians cannot understand this and they despise him for his weakness.  How can this man be great when he is so weak? Sacrificing for others is not noble, in their eyes. It is foolish.

2. His physical presence: Not only that, but they also disapproved of his physical presence.  He is weak (2 Cor. 10:10).  What is meant here is probably not so much his health or physical condition, but the way in which he treats the Corinthians; he is gentle, meek, rather than assertive and pushy.  He urges them to do the right thing, rather than bullies them.  This was not the way a true leader acts, according to Corinthian culture. A true leader is one who leads through intimidation and strength.  But Paul was committed to leading like Jesus; in servanthood, gentleness and meekness, not in power and force.

3. His speech: The Corinthians were also unimpressed with Paul's verbal skills.  In Corinthian society, public speakers were often not highly trained.  Speeches were not carefully thought through or reasoned, but geared for one purpose; to get an emotional response.  They were designed to appeal to popular tastes, to gain applause from the audience or a hearty "Bravo!" "Marvelous!" 

Some have mistakenly thought that Paul, when talking about wisdom in 1 & 2 Corinthians is speaking against worldly wisdom or intellectualism.  Not at all!  Intellectualism was not valued by the Corinthians!  That was part of the problem!  The content of a sermon meant very little just so long as it stirred the heart! People wanted to be amused by sermons, taken aback and overwhelmed by what was said.  Public preachers specialized in delivering sermons that shocked, speaking on sensational topics and powerful deliveries that would verbally assault the audience.  A good sermon was one that overwhelmed you with the power of its delivery more than with its content. How you said it became as or more important than what you said. There was little interest in doctrine in Corinth. People wanted to know about the power of the gods more than what they were like.

And so here comes Paul, presenting a well-reasoned, quiet message about the love of God and what God has done through the person of Jesus Christ.  He speaks from the wisdom of God rather than the wisdom of man which its emphasis on the sensational.  He relies on the power of the Spirit to change hearts rather than on the power of his words. Not very impressive - from a Corinthian perspective.

4. His support: The fourth way that Paul confounded the Corinthians was the way in which he had his financial needs met.  The Corinthians want to pay him for his services and Paul refuses to accept it.  He prefers to be self-supporting.  Paul knew that he was under divine constraint in relation to how he conducted his ministry.  In 1 Corinthians 9:15-18, he makes it clear that he would rather die than receive remuneration for his labour in the gospel.  To Paul, being self-sufficient was a matter of obedience of God.  If he could work, he needed to do so.  Otherwise, he was being disobedient to the Lord. This, however, bothers the Corinthians.  They see him as being poorer than they are and that reflects badly on them in society.  The stigma of a needy religious leader would have been impossible for them to appreciate, which is exactly why Paul does it.

In all four of these areas, Paul adopts a position entirely contrary to the prevailing culture in his desire to live out his ministry in a way that is consistent with his message of the cross.  In Corinth, we find a worldview in antithesis to the worldview of the cross and the suffering of Christ and His followers.  To the Corinthians, Paul must interpret his sufferings in such a way that they understand that God's methodology of the cross is to be the methodology of all who follow Christ.  This is how God wins His greatest victories; in weakness, not in demonstrations of power and strength.

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