"For we are not peddlers of God's word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in His presence."
2 Corinthians 2:17
When Paul wrote these words, he was addressing a prevalent fact within Corinth and his world: not all teachers were true. There were false teachers in the apostolic period who were trying to corrupt or dilute the Gospel; Paul would often discuss this issue in his writings.
Now we sit with the codified Scriptures available to us with ease: many people have a copy (or even copies) of the Bible at home, there is an app for that, and God's word is made available to us on the Internet, that great database of human knowledge and existence. Surely we've moved past this issue, right? The only reason it's important now is so that we can understand historical context.
If only that were so. The teachers that Paul was addressing were corrupting the message of Jesus for their own personal gain, either monetary or (perhaps more often) politically. Throughout his letter to the Galatians, Paul addressed the Judaizers, a group who believed that Gentiles needed to first convert to Judaism before they could truly know Jesus. He said that these "false believers" had "slipped in to spy on the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus" (2:4). While the Law of God is good, this was never the question: throughout the rest of that letter, Paul stresses the point that man is saved not by works but by faith in Jesus Christ (2:15-16). Paul drives the point home in Galatians 6:12-15:
"It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that try to compel you to be circumcised- only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law; but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh. May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!"
Today, we need to be aware of false teachers; perhaps we need to be more vigilant than ever because of the sheer amount of unfiltered data and the rapid rate at which it spreads. Jesus came to bring about the Kingdom of God. Why, then, do Christians so often use the Gospel to further their own kingdoms? Friends, I urge you to explore God's word, to pray, and to listen. As God calls us to life and freedom through Christ, He calls us to change the world, reshaping it in His image instead of our own. And this can only be done when we are firmly rooted in Him, surrendered to the fact that He is God and we are not.
Bibliography
The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books: New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford UP, 1989. Print.
