Friday, February 7, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: 2 Corinthians 2-3
Key Verse
2 Corinthians 3:1 — “Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?”
Devotional Thought
Paul writes to the church at Corinth with a heart still tender from a painful visit and a tear-stained letter. He had rebuked them sharply for tolerating sin in their midst, and the correction had done its work—the offender had been disciplined, and the congregation had grieved. Now Paul urges them toward the harder grace: “ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.” Discipline without restoration becomes destruction. Paul knows Satan’s devices, and one of them is to let a church swing from laxity to severity and never arrive at love. In the middle of February, when winter has worn long and we are more aware of our own need for mercy, this is a fitting word. We are quick to wound and slow to welcome back.
Yet Paul’s own spirit was restless. He came to Troas and found an open door for the gospel, but he could not stay; he had no rest because Titus had not come with news of Corinth. So he pressed on into Macedonia, and there—as he describes it—God “always causeth us to triumph in Christ.” The imagery is of a Roman triumphal procession, incense burning as the victor leads his captives home. Paul casts himself and every faithful minister as that fragrance: “a sweet savour of Christ” to the saved and to the perishing alike. The same gospel, the same messenger, carries the smell of life to some and of death to others. No wonder he asks, “who is sufficient for these things?”
His answer comes in chapter three. Not letters of recommendation, not credentials, not human eloquence. The Corinthians themselves are his epistle, “written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.” He is thinking of Moses descending Sinai with the stone tablets, his face shining so brightly that Israel begged him to veil it. That old covenant was glorious, Paul says—but it was a “ministration of death,” and its glory was fading. The new covenant surpasses it, because the Spirit writes on hearts and gives life.
And here is the freedom we are offered: “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” No veil now. With open face we behold the Lord’s glory “as in a glass”—as in a mirror—and are “changed into the same image from glory to glory.” Not by our striving, but “even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” The God who forgives the repentant offender is the God who is quietly remaking us, one degree of glory at a time.
Reflection
- Is there someone you have corrected, or who has corrected you, whom you have never fully restored in love—and what would it look like this week to “confirm your love toward him”?
- When you consider your own life, what evidence is there that the Spirit is writing on your heart rather than merely on stone—and where do you still need the veil lifted?
Prayer
Father, we thank You that You are not a God of condemnation but of life, and that You have made us able ministers of a new covenant written by Your Spirit on hearts of flesh. Forgive us where we have wounded without restoring, and where we have held back the comfort we owe to the repentant. Give us courage to forgive as we have been forgiven, lest Satan gain an advantage among us. Lift the veil from our hearts, Lord. Let us behold Your glory with open face, and change us from glory to glory into the image of Your Son, in whose name we pray. Amen.