2 Corinthians 2:14-3:6
“Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?” (2 Corinthians 3:1)
It is frequently clear from Paul’s letters that being an itinerate preacher who worked in local communities only for a limited time before moving on (indeed, before being called by God to another place) was really trying on his leadership abilities and authority. He frequently has to make appeals – in multiple letters – to the time when he was with the church and, occasionally, his desire to return to them. It’s like he has to just keep resubmitting his resume again and again. And that’s nearly impossible to do. Which is why he doesn’t really do it.
I want you to think about a person you truly admire. How would you recommend that person to a group of folks they didn’t know? It’s hard. I love my wife. I love my best friends, Ben and Jake. But when I list out their best attributes, it doesn’t add up to who they are. Each of them are more than the sum of their parts.
Instead, the best thing I could do in commending them is to make clear just how much I trust and value them. How important they’ve been to me in times both good and bad. How the very definition of my life would read differently if each of them weren’t a part of my life.
I think this is what Paul is trying to express when he creates those binaries in the text – a letter in ink vs. a letter written “with the Spirit of the living God”; tablets of stone vs. tablets of human hearts; the letter vs. the Spirit.
Good character is nebulous in this way. It isn’t always about the best rule-follower (that’s more tablet of stone and letter of the law thinking right there), but the person who pursues faithfulness and excellence, whatever the circumstances. It isn’t always about documentable successes, but about holy, relational impact. Good character – having a share of the very character of Christ – is never going to fit neatly on a well-formatted, eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of paper the way resumes do.
In these trying times with their unprecedented challenges, seek ways to be a fragrant offering to God – that is, seek ways to inscribe love with more than pen and ink, but on others hearts; seek ways to pursue character over legalism. When you do so, you will become – to others – nearly indescribable and also indivisible from their own life and character.
Stay in. Be well. Pray often. Amen.
