IN NEED OF CONFIDENCE

Paul has raised the matter of our sufficiency to carry out Christ's ministry. "Who is sufficient (ἱκανός) for these things?" (2 Cor. 2:16). Where do we find our worthiness in ministry? When the task looms large, and our need is great where do we turn for confidence that we can accomplish the mission? What qualifies us for ministry?

Three times in 2 Corinthians 3:4-6 Paul uses variants of the word translated "adequate, sufficient or worthy" (ἱκανός) to answer his question. The adjective was primarily used in reference to a numerical quantity being large enough to meet a need which, by extension, came to mean competent or qualified when used of people (BAGD, p.374). For example, the word was used of a large quantity of wheat sufficient to meet the tax requirements. The neuter form of the adjective was commonly used for posting bail as security in a legal case (MM, Vocabulary, p.302). Sufficient to meet a need easily shifts into sufficient to undertake a task as Paul uses it here.

The adjective was used in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament (LXX) to translate a Hebrew word meaning need. ἱκανός was used to describe what someone needed to alleviate hunger, perform a sacrifice or help a friend. The word focused on the idea of need. This explains why the LXX uses ἱκανός to translate "Shaddai" the name of God. God is "El-Shaddai," the Almighty one who is sufficient for our needs! Paul follows the LXX usage when he connects our competency - adequacy - with our need. (TDNT, 3:728-729). God is sufficient to meet our insufficiency because He is "El-Shaddai."

Paul says "we are not adequate in ourselves" (ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτῶν ἱκανοί), but our adequacy (ἱκανότης) comes from God (ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ). Paul shifts from the adjective ἱκανοί to the noun ἱκανότης which refers to qualification or fitness to perform a task (BAGD, p.374). The relative pronoun beginning verse 6 (ὅς) points back to God in verse 5. God made us adequate (ἱκάνωσεν) to be servants! He qualifies us to became slaves. The verb means "to make sufficient," often carrying the connotation of empowering or authorizing someone to carry out a task (BAGD, p.374).

Now we can understand Paul's words opening verse 4. "Such confidence we have through Christ toward God." We have (ἔχομεν) confidence. The present tense verb indicates that we have confidence continuously in ministry - an assertion Paul himself needed to remember given his previous despair! We, too, need the reminder regularly in life. The word translated "confidence" (πεποίθησιν) is in the emphatic position at the start of this whole unit of thought. The noun comes from the perfect tense form of the verb meaning to depend on, trust in or place our confidence in someone (πείθω). The perfect tense of the verb can carry the force of "believe in" the sufficiency of God similar to its usage in the LXX (BAGD, p.639).

We have now come full circle in Paul's thought process. We are needy. We are not competent in ourselves. We are not qualified to even be servants of God. Who is qualified for these things? Not me! Not you! Nobody. We are qualified only as we recognize our neediness and His sufficiency. We become competent in His competency. The irony of our faith is that our confidence begins with our need. Our confidence in ministry develops as we discern His sufficiency in our need.

CONFIRMATION IN MINISTRY

How do we make it in ministry when others attack us and hard times overwhelm us? When conflicts erupt, and critics rise up, who replenishes our broken hearts? How do we stay faithful under fire? Paul wrestled with those questions as the waters of despair threatened to engulf him (2 Cor. 2:13 & 7:4). God comforted Paul with the positive report of their love for him (2 Cor. 7:6-7).

People! Changed lives! Heart memories! Paul says people are our "letters of recommendation" (2 Cor. 3:1). The expression "recommendation letters" (συστατικῶν ἐπιστολῶν), was a technical term for a common practice in the ancient world. An influential person would write a letter on behalf of someone else. Such letters were a form of credentialing. The recommended person would carry the letter with him to validate his request for help, hospitality, acceptance or employment (Witherspoon, Conflict & Community, p. 377).

Paul writes to the Corinthians, "You, yourselves (ὑμεῖς ἐστε) are our letter!" The pronoun is emphatic. People were his letter of recommendation, "having been written" (ἐγγεγραμμένη) on his heart. The verb is a perfect passive participle indicating the writing took place in the past with ongoing results in the present. The hand moving the stylus to write this letter on his heart was Christ himself because they were Christ's letter (v.3 ἐπιστολὴ Χριστοῦ, subjective genitive). He changed their hearts and wrote their story on Paul's heart.

Does Paul say they were written on "our" (ἡμῶν) hearts or that he was written on their ("your" - ὑμῶν) hearts? The best manuscript evidence reads "our" (ἡμῶν) hearts (Metzger, Textual Commentary, p.577). Paul carries the letter of recommendation wherever he travels like a man carrying a papyrus to authenticate his credentials (Rienecker, Key, p.459). He later writes that they were in his heart to live and die together (2 Cor. 7:3) - a beautiful expression of the Christian bond.

Paul's credentials were people, not paper, and they were written on his heart (and perhaps much maligned Timothy's heart as well since the pronoun is plural). The letters were written (v.3) not with "ink" (μέλανι) on "stone tablets" (πλαξίν λιθίναις) - a mixed metaphor - but with the "Spirit of the Living God" on "fleshy heart tablets (πλαξὶν καρδίαις σαρκίναις). The ending ιναις as opposed to ικος on the word "fleshly" (σαρκίναις) indicates the raw material used for writing rather than an ethical description of the writing (Moulton, Grammar, 2:378). Human hearts are the paper on which God writes his greatest masterpieces!

Everywhere Paul goes their letters are being known (γινωσκομένη) and being read (ἀναγινωσκομένη). The verbs are present tense participles indicating a continuous and repeated reading "by all men" (ὑπὸ πάντων ὰνθρώπων). Paul's heart is an open book for others to read the stories of God's grace written in human lives.

How does God confirm our confidence to "keep on keeping on" in the face of conflict and disappointment? God confirms our confidence as we remember the lives of those He has changed through us. God uses His people, and our good memories of people, to replenish our discouraged hearts for His work.

Lord, remind me of your converts when I am tempted to obsess about my critics!

NO MERCENARIES ALLOWED!

The preacher pollutes God's message when tainted by money. Paul addresses the temptation to preach God's Word with mercenary motives in 2 Corinthians 2:17. Many (οἱ πολλοὶ), not just a few, in his day, were huckstering God's Word and the same is true - if not truer - in our day. Money motives can quickly corrupt our preaching. We can get caught up in salary comparisons to the point that we compromise our message. The goal of prosperity dilutes the power of the message.

The word translated "peddling" (καπηλεύοντες) means to merchandise God's Word for a profit (Rienecker, Key, p.458). The word carried a distinctly negative connotation in Paul's day although the noun form merely referred to a retailer. The noun was used in the Septuagint for wine merchants who watered down the wine for greater profits (Isaiah 1:22). It was also used by philosophers like Plato to describe the sophists who marketed their teaching for the money. The word became synonymous with deceitful hawking of merchandise for unfair profits - profiteering (TDNT, 3:603).

The prophet Zechariah foresaw the day when "there will no longer be a Canaanite" in the Temple (Zechariah 14:21). The word "Canaanite" referred to the traders or merchants from Phoenicia who sold their wares in the Fish Gate and controlled the financial exchanges at the Temple (TDNT, 3:603). Jesus undoubtedly saw the same huckstering in the Temple in His day which led to His cleansing of the "robber's den" (Matthew 21:12-13). He drove them out with a whip. No room for mercenaries in the ministry!

How should we preach God's Word? We should preach out of sincere motives (εἰλικρινείας). The word means unmixed or pure (BAGD, p.222). Paul spoke about the unleavened bread of sincerity (εἰλικρινείας) and truth in contrast to the leaven of sin that corrupts the church (1 Corinthians 5:8). We must not water down the message or mix the Word with sinful desires to make us more successful in ministry.

The etymology of the word εἰλικρινείας is interesting. It comes from two words, εἰλη and κρίνω. The second word means to judge, but the derivation of the first word is questionable. It could mean "light of the sun" so the light/heat of the sun judges us by melting the covering (presumably wax that hid cracks in pottery) that hides our motives (TDNT, 2:397). However, the derivation of εἰλη is uncertain (Moulton, Grammar, 2:273). Sincerity emphasizes the sense of being tested or judged since κρίνω is foundational to the meaning, but we should not press the analogy to the sun very hard.

God tests our motives in preaching. We speak (λαλοῦμεν) "in the sight of God" (κατέναντι Θεοῦ). Literally, the adverb means "opposite" God although the figurative meaning "in the sight of" expresses the sense well (BAGD, p.421). When we preach God's Word we stand, as it were, opposite the tribunal of God. We stand before the judicial bench of our sovereign judge. The warning is stark. He sees through our mixed motives.

No mercenaries allowed!

THE SMELL OF CHRIST

We smell of Christ. We reek of the gospel. We are either the sweet smell of expensive perfume or the rank odor of a rotting corpse depending on the response of the sniffer. Paul writes, "We are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things?" (2 Corinthians 2:15-16)

Paul draws his metaphor from the spectacle of a Roman triumphal procession. We are the prisoners being dragged through the streets as trophies of God's grace on display before the world. Wherever the victorious Christ drags us we emit "the smell of the knowledge of Him" (την οσμην της γνωσεως αυτου) before the watching crowds who treat us so rudely according to the word picture Paul is painting (2 Cor. 2:14). The aroma emanating from us could refer to the practice of scattering spices along the triumphal path, or it could refer to the stench that rises from the bodies of the prisoners themselves (Witherington, Conflict and Community, p.366).

We are the fragrance of life to those who are being saved (τοις σωζομενοις). The word for "smell" used here (ευωδια) means a pleasant aroma, a delightful fragrance. The word translated "being saved" is a present tense participle in the passive voice. The rescuing is performed by someone else, namely Christ, and is a continuous ongoing process. People are being rescued as they sniff the perfume of Christ in our lives.

We are the stench of death to those who are being destroyed or ruined (τοις απολλυμενοις). Once again the participle is in the present tense emphasizing the ongoing aspect of the process. The form can be either middle or passive. The verb in the middle voice simply means to perish or die, and this is probably the force of the word as opposed to being destroyed by someone else. The word in the middle voice can mean simply to be lost (BAGD, p.95).

The significance of the parallel phrases "out of life into life" (εκ ζωης εις ζωην) and "out of death into death" (εκ θανατου εις θανατον) is more difficult to determine. We could make a case that the first phrase refers to the living one (a believer) leading the dead one (an unbeliever) into life, but the parallel phrase cannot be meaningfully understood in a similar way. The best way to understand these phrases is to see them as Semitic idioms. The Hebrews expressed a superlative - really alive or really dead - by repeating the word (Hughes, 2 Corinthians, pp.80-81, fn18). We are a living smell or a deathly smell to all we influence in this world.

Another analogy is possible although we cannot be certain. The Talmud and the Mishnah refer to the Torah as medicine. The Law is a powerful drug which can be either life-giving or lethal depending on the reaction of the one receiving the drug. The life-giving or lethal nature of the Law is not intrinsic to the Law itself in Rabbinic thinking but is the result that comes from the nature of those who are touched by the Law (Hughes, 2 Corinthians, p.81, fn19). Paul, with his Rabbinic training, could have also had this imagery in mind as he expressed these truths regarding the gospel.

Preaching the gospel is always effective one way or another. God's Word works to produce results in the lives of people for life or death. The smell of Christ in us will always accomplish its perfect work in others.

Who is adequate for such a calling?