2 Corinthians
11
– 13
Verse 11:3 is the fear of most church planters:
But now I’m afraid
that as that serpent tricked Eve with his wiles, so your hearts and
minds will be tricked and you will stray from the single-minded love and pure
devotion to Him.
Imagine pouring your heart and soul into a
church plant only to have them stray from God! Paul is in a rough position with
the church in Corinth, since it appears they drift wildly from “the way”. After
this for the rest of the chapter Paul makes his case how much you can expect to
endure for Jesus. It’s not a road of easy, happy go lucky happenings, but
rather a narrow and difficult path. Today’s church seems to miss this in many
of their messages; we are not expecting resistance or trials along the way.
Verse 12:2 caught me in something I wanted to explore:
Fourteen years
ago, there was this man I knew—a believer in the Anointed who was caught up to
the third heaven. (Whether this was an in- or out-of-body experience I don’t
know; only God knows.)
Interesting how most translations include
the mention of the “third heaven”, but rarely is it ever talked about in
church. The common definitions among those who deal with the multi-heaven
theology is the first heaven is here on earth, the second heaven is on earth but is the domain
the demons and other entities move about and the third heaven is God’s domain.
So seeing into that must have been fantastic!!
Verse 12:7 talks about Paul’s “thorn”:
To keep me
grounded and stop me from becoming too high and mighty due to the
extraordinary character of these revelations, I was given a thorn in the
flesh—a nagging nuisance of Satan, a messenger to plague me!
It has never been said what his “thorn” was
a physical ailment to a tormenting by Satan to even a sin like homosexuality.
We will never know but often let it play into our agenda in our walk. All we do
know is it challenged Paul throughout his days.
Verse 13:4 sinks in a bit when you think
about it more:
Now it’s true that
He was crucified in weakness, but it’s also true that He lives by God’s
power. For we who belong to Him are weak in Him, but we will live with
Him by God’s power for you.
I read this initially and wonder if God’s
power is if we live in Jesus, but if we just “belong” to Him it’s not the same.
Jesus did die in weakness, but in the end revealed God’s power to all. Now how
cool is that?