4:5
This verse sums up the difference between genuine gospel preaching and pseudo-gospel preaching. First, genuine gospel preaching preaches Christ, not man. Pseudo-gospel preaching builds up the preacher, true preaching always points to Jesus. Jesus is our saviour, He is the only way of salvation. Does this mean we are not to mention ourselves at all? No. Paul does mention himself, elsewhere he calls on people to imitate him! So we do mention ourselves, but we mention ourselves as “your servants” and for the “sake of Jesus”. False teaching will seek to lord it over the hearers, seeking to make the hearers the servants of the preacher, often involving the giving of money for the betterment of the preacher! But it isn’t just serving the hearers, it is serving the hearers for the sake of Jesus. Ie we do not aim to give people what they want, instead we aim to give them what they need in order to know Jesus better, to follow Him more closely.
4:6
“Let light shine out of the darkness” points back to creation (Gen 1:3). In the new creation He makes His light shine in the darkness of our hearts. This is to give us the knowledge of the light of God displayed in the face of Jesus. We need to recognise the darkness within us. One might think this is quite a depressing thought, but in fact it is a most hopeful thought. We all have times when we know there is darkness within us. This can be the darkness of sin, or the darkness of depression and fear and hopelessness. Or a combination of these things. But God brings His light to shine in our lives, to replace the darkness with light. And this light is found in Christ alone. If we want to be free we need to look to Jesus, we need to bow down to Jesus. There is no other way.
No comments:
Post a Comment