Wednesday, October 4, 2006

2 Corinthians Study: Our Union With Jesus' Sufferings

2 Corinthians 1:8-11
I always have meant to study one of the books of the New Testament besides the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles but never have. Luckily I was given 2 Corinthians: Power in Weakness (Six Weeks With the Bible) and that gave me the impetus to dig out my other reference books to start going through 2 Corinthians. How interesting that this is Paul's most personal book and that it focuses so much on suffering.

As always, I'll be sharing those bits and pieces that hit me between the eyes such as the commentary below which is from the above mentioned book. I especially like the point it makes about our feelings. I think sometimes that we think that feeling bad about something is like a lack of faith and trust in God. Paul is our example that such thinking is not right.
It may be easier to see God's kingdom advancing in the world through Paul's suffering than through ours. Constantly making missionary journeys and enduring persecution, Paul labors and suffers in his apostolic efforts to bring the good news about Jesus to people. Very few of us have Paul's focused sense of Christian mission. Our hardships and pains tend to be more ordinary, less "apostolic" than Paul's. Rather than being arrested and beaten for preaching the gospel, we lose a job or a loved one, or suffer rejection by a spouse or child, or develop a debilitating disease. Can these sufferings be a sharing in Jesus' suffering? They can, because Jesus has united us with himself. Because we are united with him by faith and baptism, we are members of his body. Thus he shares the sufferings encounter, and our sufferings become ways of sharing in his sufferings -- and opportunities to experience his encouragement.

Often, when things go wrong, we do not feel close to the Lord. But notice that Paul does not say that in his recent troubles he felt a powerful sense of connection with Jesus. Actually, he says that he felt "utterly, unbearably crushed" (1:8). It does not sound as if he had a sense of close attachment to Jesus then -- or, if he did, it does not seem to have given him serenity. For Paul, as for us, suffering is suffering. Sometimes what is most painful for us is the apparent absence of the kind God who previously showered us with blessings. In some cases -- the sickness of infants, for example -- we may simply be incapable of imagining how God might ever use such suffering for good. But again, Paul does not suggest that we can always grasp how our sufferings are a sharing in Christ's or how they will serve the coming of his kingdom.

It may be worth reflecting that, if our union with Jesus' sufferings is unseen and deeply mysterious, that does not make it different in principle from every other aspect of our relationship with him. In the Christian life, we always proceed on the basis of faith...

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