Scripture Notes: Qualified (2 Cor 3)

In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul sets forth the basis for his ministry to the Corinthian Church. He and his fellow workers can have confidence, he says, but not in themselves, rather “through Christ toward God” (2 Cor 3:4). The Greek word for “confidence” is πεποίθησις, and it refers to a state of certainty, a trust, a reliance, and an assurance about the outcome. In Christ, Paul can be certain that God’s will for him and for his ministry will be accomplished.  

But this is not Paul’s doing. He explains, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our sufficiency is from God, who has qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant” (2 Cor 3:5-6). The words translated as “sufficient,” “sufficiency,” and “has qualified” all come from words with the same Greek root. The adjective “sufficient” translates the Greek ἱκανός, which could also be glossed as “fit,” “appropriate,” “competent,” “qualified,” or “able.” Paul knows that, on his own, he is none of these things. None of us are. 

Rather, our sufficiency, our ἱκανότης, our state of being qualified for something, our “fitness” or “capability,” comes from God. He gives Paul and us the grace to do His will and to carry out the mission He has set for us. God is the One Who has qualified us for ministry. The verb here is ἱκανόω, to cause someone to be adequate and sufficient for something, to qualify someone for something, to make something doable for someone, perhaps even to empower or authorize someone to act. 

God has done this for Paul and his fellow missionaries, making them able to be ministers of a new covenant, a covenant that fulfills all the previous covenants God has made with His people, a covenant mediated by Jesus Christ, a covenant designed to expand God’s family to the whole world. We, too, have received our qualification from God for our own role in this ministry. Will we accept it and allow Him to act through us to bring His life to the world?

Scripture Notes: The Song of Moses, Part 5 (Deuteronomy 32)

God has allowed His unfaithful people to experience the consequences of sin, to feel the curses of the covenant they have broken. But He will not leave them in that state. When they have fallen all the way to the bottom, when their “power” is no more, when they have realized that they can do nothing for themselves, then “the Lord will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants” (Deut 32:36). He will ask them where those “gods” they wanted to serve have gone to, and He will make them see that He is God and He alone. There are no others.

At that point, God will punish the enemies of His people. He allowed them to triumph only for a time. He has used them as a tool to teach His people a critical lesson. But He will not let injustice stand. He will now act on behalf of His people to avenge them and restore them and show them His love. 

Moses ends his prophetic song with an invitation to the nations to look upon and even praise the people of God and to understand how God works with, through, and in them. After all, God’s covenant family has the special task of telling the rest of the world all about God.

Scripture Notes: The Song of Moses, Part 4 (Deuteronomy 32)

God is angry at His covenant people for their infidelity. In turning to other “gods,” they have essentially told Him that He is not good enough, that He is not doing what they want, so they will find someone else who will.  God’s anger becomes like a fire, but we must remember that God is not throwing a tantrum. He is not angry like we humans get angry. His anger is a recognition of and response to human sin and especially to what that sin does to His beloved children. It ruins them. It breaks their relationship with Him.

So God declares that He will give His people a reality check. They will see the consequences of sin in all their horror. He will allow them to experience the covenant curses that they have brought down upon their own heads when they broke the covenant. Hunger, heat, pestilence, beasts, venom, the sword, all of these will fall upon Israel because of their disobedience. They have made it clear that they do not want God and His care, so God will make it clear exactly what they are choosing instead. They will even be scattered in exile because they have spurned God’s gift of the Promised Land, in which they were to have a home fit for perfect worship of God alone. 

It is not a pretty picture, and we might wonder why God would bring such terrors upon His people. Quite simply, God knows that this is the only way to wake them up. “For they are a nation void of counsel, and there is no understanding in them” (Deut 32:28). They cannot and will not see what is right in front of them. They refuse to discern the truth and live by it. So they will suffer the consequences.