Friday | 15 November 2019
Paul stressed that the sufficiency of aggelos messengers to minister the New Covenant is not in themselves, but is from God. 2Co 3:5-6. In the first instance, the sufficiency of Paul and his fellow messengers was that they had been born as sons of God and had joined the fellowship of Christ’s offering and sufferings. This was their personal sufficiency. The Father had called and separated them, by the Holy Spirit, to be ministers of the New Covenant in Christ. Act 13:1-3.
God the Father made them sufficient for this call by joining them to the fellowship of Christ’s offering and sufferings. In this fellowship, the hearts of Paul and those who ministered with him were being circumcised and sprinkled by the blood of Christ. By this means, their conscience was being cleansed from their own projections and dead works so that they could acceptably serve God the Father. Heb 9:14. Moreover, they were recipients of the comfort of exanastasis, which overflowed as comfort and consolation to their hearers. 2Co 1:4-5. The sonship of these people had been written on their hearts, by the Father, as epistles of Christ. 2Co 3:2-3. This was their qualification for the ministry of the gospel of God to their hearers.
If the sufficiency of the aggelos, which included Paul and the apostolic administration who served with him, had been other than from God the Father, they would have been peddlers of the word of God. 2Co 2:17. A ‘peddler’ is a person who derives personal gain through the trading of goods. Peddling the word of God happens when a person misappropriates the word of God to verify their own identity through ministry expression in the church. Factors such as theological expertise, ministry success, natural capacity, or one’s connection with graced messengers, serve as the sufficiency, or adequacy, for the service of those who peddle the word of God.
Further Study:
2 Corinthians 3
Daily Proverb:
References:
2Co 3:5-6
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Act 13:1-3
Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away.
Heb 9:13-14
For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
2Co 1:3-5
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.
2Co 3:2-3
You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.
2Co 2:17
For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ.