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Monday 6 June 2011

2 Corinthians 4:1,2 - Presenting the word plainly

The church has a terrible habit of swinging between two extremes. On the one hand there is cheap prosperity and superficial triumphalism, and the other hand is you can only be in God's will if you are miserable. Both of these are nonsense. as always the best thing is to see what the Bible says, and Paul is teaching about the true nature of the victory and prosperity that we have in Christ.
We do have the victory and we are being transformed from one degree of glory to the next. Moreover,we have been given this "ministry", this service. God has called us to serve in building and proclaiming the kingdom throughout the world.
Now this ministry has been given to us through God's mercy. We were not called because we are good, or super qualified. We were called because of the grace of God. So even when things are difficult we do not lose heart, we keep going, because our life and ministry is not built upon our strengths and our success, but upon God's strength and success. 
So we have received this ministry by grace. It still has consequences, and one of these is to "renounce shameful and deceitful ways". We are dependent upon God for success, indeed it is His success that we are looking for, Therefore trickery and the like have no place in what we do. We should be utterly transparent and honest. Most of all we should present the word of God plainly. 
This does not mean we do not try and do things well. It is better to have a well prepared and well presented sermon than a load of drivel, but we never try to manipulate nor deceive people.

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