Tag: Christian Nationalism

Christ Who is Our Peace

Psalm 23:1-3 Abba God is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. Abba God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.  God revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for God’s Name’s sake.

Introduction

At the end of last’s week sermon, we ended talking about remembrance, hope, and prayer. For Christians, when we gather to speak of, read of, hear of, and consume together with Christ in our weekly fellowship and worship, we are remembering Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are not just remembering Christ but participating the work of God made tangible in Christ: the divine revolution and mission of love, life, and liberation in the world for the beloved. This is truly εὐαγγέλιον. And if this is truly εὐαγγέλιον, then it is also the source and foundation of our hope that exists to sustain us today.

In remembering and having hope we are led to pray, to bring ourselves deeply into God, to bend our knee (literal or figurative), to be creatures fully dependent on God. We remember, we have hope, and we pray, and it is this that is the beginning of all our activity within the walls of the church and without. As mentioned last week, “Prayer does not resign the believer to non-activity as if it is the final act in the face of trouble; it is the starting point. Prayer is how the believer unites with God and God’s passion for life, love, and liberation.[1] It is the bold request for God to enter in, to act; in prayer God is spoken to and from, in prayer God is remembered, so, too, the neighbor.”[2]

But the author of Ephesians isn’t done with us yet as if it’s just about remembering and hoping and praying. But that this remembering, hoping, and praying participates in making believers one with God and with each other in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and bringing them into the true peace that surpasses all understanding.

Ephesians 2:11-22

For [Christ] is our peace, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity… (Eph. 2:14-15)

So, the author of Ephesians verbally exhorts us (using an imperative!) to remember. To remember what? Not only Christ but who we were prior to being encountered by Christ in the event of faith. …remember that in the past you [were] Gentiles in the flesh, the ones who were called “The Uncircumcised” by the ones who were called “The Circumcised” in the flesh done by [human] hands (v. 11). But that isn’t enough; Paul asks his audience to remember, further, that they were for a time without Christ, having been alienated from the citizenship of Israel and a stranger of the covenant of the promise, not possessing hope and [were] without God in the cosmos (v 12). Paul is eager to recreate the situation for the Ephesians to cause more than just recall but real, heart-felt remembering,[3] pressing into the reality that apart from Christ they were dead in their false-steps and missing the mark (sin) (v 1), they were strangers to the promises of God, to Christ, and to the hope of God which is the hope of the reign of God in Christ.[4],[5] According to Ephesians, the Gentiles were overcome by their own desires, turned in on themselves, stuck in place by division, and consumed by hostility. This isn’t something that someone can work themselves out of, no matter how hard they try. For Paul, it is only through the encounter with Christ where one finds God, finds their neighbor, and finds themself; it is only in Christ where one finds true life, love, and liberation.[6] But at this time you who were once far off you became near by the blood of Christ (v 13). In other words, this is not done by human hands (χειροποιήτου in v 11), but by the love of God in Christ done by the power of the Spirit[7] as the down-payment in lives of the believers in Ephesus.

This is why Christ is the peace of everyone—for [Christ] is our peace (v 14a)—Children of Israel and Gentiles combined. Because, as Paul writes, the one who made both [the Israelites and the Gentiles] one and [the one who] destroyed in his flesh the division-wall of the fence, [and] the enmity [between the two], and [the one who] rendered inoperative the law of the commands and public decrees, so that the two might build in him one new peace-making humanity (vv 14b-15). There is now no longer us v. them, insiders v. outsiders, elected v. not-elected, Israel v. Gentiles, the circumcised v. the not circumcised.[8] There are not two groups, but one group. Thus, this peace Jesus brings in his own flesh, by the blood of the cross event and the glory of his resurrection is not just for privatized souls but for deprivatized humanity; it’s a socio-political event.[9] There is now no wall that keeps some in and some out, some included and some excluded; there is now (absolutely) no line—whether 2-D or 3-D—that can render some humans “good” and others “bad” based on which side of that line they fall because that line has been destroyed[10] and is now anathema for the believers and followers of Christ who benefit from the destruction of the division-wall of the fence by being included in to the heredity and mission of God by the work of Christ on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirits dwelling in their hearts.

And if the wall has been destroyed, so, too, division according to enmity,[11] which is the hostility and intolerance fomented between the two groups that was the fruit of the division wall; it is the anger of the kingdoms of humanity turned inward to tear humanity apart.[12] This includes the laws and public commandments used to make some clean and some unclean, some righteous and others unrighteous; these, too, like the wall and the enmity, have become inoperative in solidifying groups of people against each other. For Paul then writes, and so he might completely reconcile both in one body for God through the cross he killed the hostility in himself (v 16).By Christ’s work[13]—the mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation for the world—there is now no wall, thus no enmity, thus no law[14] that can keep anyone out and in this radical establishment of divine equity, there is peace[15]—true peace that is not contingent on one group suffering under the weight of another.

Then the letter continues, [Christ] came and brought peace to you (all) who were far-off and peace to you (all) who were near because through him we—both in one spirit—possess access to God therefore now you are no longer a stranger and sojourner but you are a fellow citizens with the saints and of the family of God (vv 17-19). In Christ, these two have become one[16] and together they will dwell in and with God and they will have real peace—the type of peace that threatens the principalities and powers of the kingdom of humanity. [17] But this peace brought by Christ is more than reconciliation with each other, it is also reconciliation with God, thus, these two who are now one become the dwelling place of God. [18] As Paul continues, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets—Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone—in whom all building is being fitted together and grows itself into a holy temple in the lord in whom you, you also were built together into the dwelling place of God in Spirit (vv 20-22). Boldly Ephesians declares, where there is a lack of enmity and hostility, division walls and lines, laws and commands geared to keep some in and some out, there God is and there the saints of God are; no one is excluded and left out and the church is caught up in this radical inclusion and equity, snatched into this divine peace that knows absolutely positively no walls or dividing lines.[19],[20]

Conclusion

The church is without excuse here, according to Ephesians. Peace—the very peace Christ brings through his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension—is peace that is not contingent on the kingdom of humanity but dependent on the reign of God. It is peace that arises in the communion of humanity with humanity, humanity with God, and humanity with creation; it is peace that manifests within and among humanity in its unity to the glory of God, which is in opposition to the “peace” (i.e. “security” (“control”)) of the kingdom of humanity that thrives on the humanity’s disunity. None of us who claim to follow Christ can afford to support systems dead set on dividing and conquering, oppressing and marginalizing, and fostering anger and fear; these systems are antithetical to the gospel of Christ and to the faith and praxis of the believer in the world before God and neighbor. None of us who claim to follow Christ can find peace (and hope) anywhere else apart from God: not in federal positions and presidents, not in parties and platforms, not in promises and progress made with human hands. We can only find true peace in our reconciliation with God, which is reconciliation with our neighbor, and, thus, these two combined give us reconciliation with ourselves because we have been made one with our neighbor and thus have become the dwelling place of God.

We cannot find peace by building the world we long for with human hands because as soon as we build it it has expired and must be torn down to allow something new to be born. We cannot find peace by turning the gospel into a law as if it can found a nation that would only gift life, love, and liberation to those who qualify. We cannot find peace by letting enmity and hostility be the mortar holding the bricks of the division-wall together. We cannot find peace by legislating Christianity because the doctrines born of the second word of God that form the tissue of the Christian Church inherently resist such socio-political ossification. We can and will only find peace by pressing further into God, clinging to God’s Word in Christ, and leaning into the guidance and leading of the Spirit of God, the guarantor of the new covenant, the down payment of our adoption into God, and the fertile soil making us one with God, with our neighbor, thus, with ourselves. It is only here, in God and with God, do we find true and lasting peace that surpasses all understanding.

[1] See Sölle, Choosing Life, pp. 92-93

[2] This portion is taken from, Lauren R.E. Larkin, “Leaving Heaven Behind: Paradoxical Identity as the Anchor of Dorothee Sölle’s Theology of Political Resistance,” PhD Dissertation (University of Aberdeen, 2024), 202.

[3] Barth, Markus, Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 1-3, The Anchor Bible Series (Garden City: Doubleday, 1971), 254. “Repentance, decision, and gratitude are called for, not a mental recollection only.”

[4] Barth, Ephesians, 257. “In Eph 2:12 a status of strangership is described, not an event leading to estrangement.”

[5] Barth, Ephesians, 259. \“Unless Paul flippantly denied or dispossessed the Gentiles of any hope he must have meant a specific hope. This ‘hope,’ then, could be understood as fostered in the minds of the Jews, because it was founded and guaranteed in the heart of God or ‘laid up in heaven’……It is the hope for the promised messiah from the root of David…”

[6] Barth, Ephesians, 254. “Paul’s thought moves from men in the grip of ‘flesh’ (2:11), over the work performed in ‘Christ’s flesh’ (2:14, to the operation of the ‘Spirit’ (2:18). Nothing can prevent the ‘Spirit’ from operating ‘in the realm of flesh.’”

[7] Barth, Ephesians, 255. “As the building of the temple by God is contrasted to the construction of temples by men, so circumcision of the heart…highly excels handmade circumcision.”

[8] Allen Verhey and Joseph S. Harvard, Ephesians, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2011), 93. “If it was especially the Jewish Christian who needed to be reminded earlier that all are ‘sinners,’ not just the ‘uncircumcised,’ not just the Gentiles, and that all are brought from death to life by the gift of God’s grace, not by ‘works’  of the law, the Gentiles are now reminded of the promises to Israel and that it is in the Jewish Messiah that they are given a share in them.”

[9] Barth, Ephesians, 262. “Christ is praised here not primarily for the peace he bring to individual souls; rather the peace he brings is a social and political event…”

[10] Barth, Ephesians, 263-264. “The combination of the two Greek nouns yields a composite sense: it is a wall that prevents certain person from entering a house or a city (cf. 2:19), and is as much a mark of hostility (2:14, 16) as, e.g. a ghetto wall, the Iron Curtain the Berlin Wall, a racial barrier, or a railroad track that separates the right from the wrong side of the city, not to speak of the wall between state and church.”

[11] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “In this case, the ‘enmity’ is as much the object of destruction as the wall.”

[12] Barth, Ephesians, 264. “The word ‘enmity’ defines the separation between Jews and Gentiles more specifically: this segregation implies intolerance, and is a passionate, totalitarian, bellicose affair. While the ‘enmity’ mentioned at the end of vs. 16 is the one-sided enmity of man against God, the ‘enmity’ of vs. 14 is mutual among men.”

[13] Barth, Ephesians, 265. “…the context of Eph 2:15 reveals that for the author (as much as for Paul himself) the death of Christ rather than the promulgation of new decrees stood behind the abolition of the divisive statutes.”

[14] Barth, Ephesians, 264. Wall, enmity, and law “Each of these terms throws light on the others; the author wants them to be considered as synonyms.”

[15] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 96. “…God seals a ‘new covenant’ in ‘the blood of Christ.” And in that ‘new covenant’ there is a new community, a community of both Jew and Gentile, a community that shares the memory of Christ and the hope of God’s promises with a common meal.”

[16] Barth, Ephesians, 272. “After showing that the church exists only as a unity, that is, as one new man created out of Jews and Gentiles, the apostle does not proceed to split t into halves.”

[17] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 97. “But this was not merely an idea, as the reality of baptism makes clear. This was not merely an ideal that exists outside history and toward which we must strive. This was and is a reality wrought in Christ on the cross and displayed in the churches when God initiates diverse people into Christ and into the church. Ideals are powerless against the forces in this world that divide and abuse, against the principalities and power that nurture cultures of enmity. But those forces are and will be finally powerless against the promise and reality of God’s future.”

[18] Barth, Ephesians, 274. “The church herself is not reconciliation but she lives form it and manifests it. She serves the glory of God inasmuch as her members mutually assist, support, and strengthen one another. Neither jews nor Gentiles nor any individual can independently claim after Christ’s coming to offer an appropriate residence For God but Jews and Gentiles together are now ordained by God to become his temple.”

[19] Barth, Ephesians, 324-325. “Now the church is the sign of his mercy, his peace, and his nearness the whole world. If God can and will use people are who are as tempted and weak as the Christian are, then he is certainly able and willing to exclude no one from his realm. The church lives by this hope and bears witness to it publicly.”

[20] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 98. “They are called to break down the walls and to perform this new social reality by forming friendships with the people on the other side of the aisle, or on the other side of town.”

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Walking by Faith

Psalm 20:1-2, 7 May Abba God answer you in the day of trouble, the Name of the God of Jacob defend you; send you help from God’s holy place and strengthen you out of Zion; Some put their trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will call upon the Name of our Abba God.

Introduction

“What now?” is the controlling question for this season of Pentecost. Paul is our faithful guide to answer this question. We’ve seen Paul exhort the Corinthians toward full dependence on God: dependence on the presence of God in the incarnate word of God and the indwelling of the Spirit of God. In whom does the Spirit of God indwell? The believers, the simple, inexpensive, breakable vessels. God trusts these “jars of clay” with God’s most precious treasure: God’s Word, the Proclamation of Christ, the bringing of God’s love, life, and liberation (in word and deed) to the beloved.

Last week we added another question to consider: “Will they?” Will those human beings deprived of God’s love, life, and liberation know we are Christians by our love? Paul moved his Corinthians—and us—toward the reality that these breakable vessels carrying God’s treasure are the epicenter of the comingling of the spiritual and temporal realms, through whom and with whom God works out God’s mission and divine revolution. This means that we must fix our gaze on that which cannot be perceived because it will never disappoint because it will never pass away. To fix our gaze on that which can be perceived will always disappoint because it will always pass away. And, For Paul, faith leads to acting/speaking into the kingdom of humanity the things that participate in the reign of God and in God’s mission and revolution of love, life, and liberation for the unloved, nearly dying, and the captive. “We, we believe, therefore we, we speak”; and we, we see, so we act. It is the Holy Spirit inspired believer who is the one who has eyes so fixed on that which cannot be perceived that they can also see that what can be perceived—within the temporal realm—fails the neighbor and hinders God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation from reaching them; and in seeing, they act/speak to open up the divine floodgates letting love, life, and liberation flow like water to the parched.

But that’s not all…there’s more to navigate in the collision of the temporal and spiritual realms.

2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17

For the love of Christ controls us because we are convinced that one died on behalf of all people therefore, all people died. And he died on behalf of all people so that the one who lives might no longer live for themselves but for the one who died on behalf of all people and the one who was raised. So then, from now on we, we have perceived and continue to perceive no one according to the flesh. … So then, if anyone [is] in Christ, [they are a] new creation! The old things passed away; behold! [everything] has become new! (2 Cor. 5:14-16a, 17)

Paul begins by tightening the tension of the spiritual and temporal realities for the believer: being confident at all times because we perceive while we are at home in the body we are away from home with the Lord—we walk by faith and not by visible form—we are confident and would rather be away from home in the body and be at home with the Lord (vv. 6-8). None of this is pitting the body (the σῶμα) against the spirit (the πνεῦμα).[1]  And, none of this denies that Christ is in the believer and the believer is in Christ by the presence of the Spirit.[2] What is happening is this: there’s an emphasis on walking by faith and not by visible forms. As we are here in the body, we are not able to walk bodily with Christ so we must (for now) walk in Christ by walking in both the spiritual and temporal realm.[3] In other words, as a whole person (spirit and body) we have one foot in the spiritual realm and one foot in the temporal realm while knowing all that we see is not all that there is; this means being caught up in and confronted by both the divine pathos and human antipathy perceiving what should be and what is not.[4],[5]

So, v. 9’s exhortation makes sense:[6] Therefore we eagerly strive –whether being at home or being away from home—to be well pleasing to Christ! In other words, this tension and paradox of earthly, Christian existence doesn’t mean Paul should check-out, rather it means he should really check-in because while Paul is not bodily with Christ he is with Christ by faith and Christ is with him; where Paul goes, there Christ goes, too.[7] Thus, Paul will expend himself, lose everything on behalf of the divine word of Christ and the divine deeds of love for the captives.[8] Paul will strive to do well in the mortal body so to appear before the tribunal of Christ and may receive back what has been lost because of what was accomplished—whether good or bad—in/by the body. This is not about heaven or hell, but about assessing works and their recompense; it’s about reward not status.[9] I’m placing emphasis in this thought on the verb translated as “may receive back what has been lost.” This verb highlights that what was lost bodily while participating in God’s mission and identifying with the beloved of God (the captive, the one fighting for their life and love in the world) will be paid back. I could say it another way: it is the one who picks up their cross to follow Christ who will find their life. What goes out and into the world on behalf of the neighbor, comes back when standing face to face with Christ.

Then, Paul focuses on Christ: one’s love for Christ and Christ’s love for all people[10] which motivates Christian activity in the world.[11] For the love of Christ controls us because we are convinced that one died on behalf of all people’ therefore, all people died.  It is the love of Christ shown through the cross that solicits the believer’s identification with Christ. Thus, as Christ’s death exposes the believer for who they are (sinner) the exposed one dies as Christ died.[12] Yet, it’s not only about identifying with Christ’s death, but also identifying with whom Christ identified: the oppressed, the hungry, the suffering, the sorrowful, the state disgraced and disenfranchised,[13] And he died on behalf of all people so that the one who live might no longer live for themselves but for the one who died on behalf of all people and the one who was raised. To follow Christ means to live and die as Christ did for the beloved of God—spiritually and temporally if necessary.

But not just identifying with Christ’s death but with Christ’s resurrected life and being recreated by faith. Thus, Paul can say, So then, from now on we, we have perceived and continue to perceive no one according to the flesh. … if anyone [is] in Christ, [they are a] new creation! The old things passed away; behold! [everything] has become new! The liberation of the believer by faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit is liberation into and for the well-being of the world, the neighbor, especially for those who are fighting to live, to love, to be liberated and all of it to the glory of God.[14] This recreation demands a change of address; the believer may live in the kingdom of humanity but her address is of the reign of God.[15] Thus, she has no excuse here according to Paul: not only does she walk by faith, she operates in the world by faith, refusing to judge anyone according to the flesh.[16],[17] She is a totally new creation, seeing the world differently, operating in the world differently, speaking into the world differently finding the source of her motivation in the word of God to the Glory of God.[18]

Conclusion

Christ came into the world not for Christ’s self, but for the world, for the beloved, for the neighbor, for you. And as those who have been adopted into God by faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit—living in, with, and among you—you are now grafted into and solicited to participate in God’s mission and revolution in the world to make this world better, to arrest if from the hands of those who are dead set on destroying it for their own gain, power, and ego. To walk by faith is to see by faith and if to see by faith, to speak by faith, act by faith, and to do it all as breakable vessels fully dependent on God carrying the valuable treasure of God’s love, life, and liberation within ourselves. To walk by faith is to walk with one foot always in the temporal realm and one foot in the spiritual realm, to be aware that you are, by faith, the epicenter of human and divine activity in the world to the glory of God and the well-being of the neighbor.

(This does not mean creating a calcified and static Christian nation-state, because the spiritual realm and the temporal realm can never be one and the same realm this side of Christ’s coming again; they always exist distinctly and alongside each other. The spiritual realm and its believers—whoever they are—are always there to highlight how the kingdoms of humanity fail not only other human beings but also God’s mission and revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world. Every day believers are new creations, letting that which is no longer helpful to human and cosmic thriving to slip away and, like midwives, ushering in that which is helpful to human and cosmic thriving. Thus, the believer must always liberated from the temporal realm by the spiritual realm by faith and by being a new creature everyday we can see that where there is not love we must bring love, where there is not life we must bring life, where there is not liberation we must bring liberation.)

[1] Harris, Second Corinthians, 395. “Paul has in mind the physical body as the locus of human existence on earth, the frail and mortal σῶμα ψυχικόν. His thought here is neither dualistic…nor derogatory…He is affirming that to be living on earth in a physical body inevitably means distance—indeed exile—from the risen Lord, who lives in heaven in a spiritual body.”

[2] Harris, Second Corinthians, 397-398. “The separation, Paul answers, is relative not absolute: though absent from sight, the Lord is present to faith, yet it is not until he is present also to sight that Christian existence will reach its true goal of consummated fellowship with him.”

[3] Harris, Second Corinthians, 396. “To be ἐν Χριστῷ does not yet mean to be σὺν Χριστῷ (Phil. 1:23). Unlike Christ, Paul had his residence on earth, not heaven, but he recognized that his true home, his ultimate residence, was πρὸς τὸν κύριον (v.8); in this sense he was an exile, absent from his home with the Lord…And if an exile, also a pilgrim (cf. περιπατοῦμεν, v.7). But as well as regarding his separation from Christ as ‘spatial,’ Paul may he viewed it as ‘somatic.’ It is not simply a case of Christ’s being ‘there’ and Christians’ being ‘here’; until Christians have doffed their earthly bodies and donned their heavenly, they are separated from their Lord by the difference between two modes of being, the σῶμα ψυχικόν and the σῶμα πνευματικόν.”

[4] Harris, Second Corinthians, 399. “…to lead a life of faith is to see only baffling, mirrored reflections of reality and to have incomplete knowledge…”

[5] Harris, Second Corinthians, 399. “…living in the realm of faith is indistinguishable from hoping for what is still unseen…”

[6] Harris, Second Corinthians, 404. “Paul’s constant ambition to know Christ’s approval (v. 9) was the direct consequence or obvious corollary of his awareness that death would terminate his absence form Christ and inaugurate a περιπατεῖν διὰ εἶδους πρὸς τὸν κῦριον (vv. 6-8). To entertain the hope of person-to-person communion with Christ after death (v. 8b) inevitably and naturally prompted the aspiration of gaining acceptance in his eyes before and after death.”

[7] Harris, Second Corinthians, 399. “‘Where the Spirit is, there is expectation.’ As long as Paul was required to ‘walk in the realm of faith,’ he was distant from the Lord and yet possessed of the pledge of the Spirit that a ‘walking in the realm of sight’ was to follow.”

[8] Harris, Second Corinthians, 405. “Vv. 8-10 well illustrate the interrelatedness of eschatology and ethics. Paul’s constant ambition to gain Christ’s approval (v. 9) was prompted by two facts relating to the future of his destiny of dwelling with the Lord (v. 8) and his coming accountability to Christ (v. 10).”

[9] Harris, Second Corinthians, 409. “Since, then, the tribunal of Christ is concerned with assessment of works, not the determination of destiny, it will be apparent that the Pauline concepts of justification on the basis of faith and recompense in accordance with works may be complementary. Not status but reward is determined ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ βήατος τοῦ Χριστοῦ, for justification as the acquisition of a right standing before God anticipates the verdict of the Last Judgment.”

[10] Harris, Second Corinthians, 421. “When Christ died, he was acting both on behalf of and in the place of all human beings.”

[11] Harris, Second Corinthians, 419. “No one doubts that believers’ love for Christ motivates their actions, but here Paul is concentrating on an earlier stage of motivation, namely the love shown by Christ in dying for humankind.”

[12] Harris, Second Corinthians, 421. “When Christ died, all died; what is more, his death involved their death.”

[13] Harris, Second Corinthians, 422. “The intended result of the death of Christ was the Christian’s renunciation of self-seeking and self-pleasing and the pursuit of a Christ-centered life filled with action for the benefit of others, as was Christ’s life…”

[14] Harris, Second Corinthians, 426. “…reflects a distinctive Christian outlook.”

[15] Harris, Second Corinthians, 423. “…‘for Paul, freedom means transfer from one dominion to another: from law to grace (Ro . 6:14) from sin to righteousness (Rom. 6:18), from death to life (Rom. 6:21-23), from flesh to Spirit (Rom. 8:4ff); or, as he puts it here, from self to Christ…’”

[16] Harris, Second Corinthians, 427. “Paul is affirming that with the advent of the era of salvation in Christ, and eve since his own conversion to Christ, he has ceased making superficial, mechanical judgments about other people on the basis of outward appearances—such as national origin, social status, intellectual capability, physical attribute, or even charismatic endowment and pneumatic displace…”

[17] Harris, Second Corinthians, 429. “…Paul is rejecting (in v. 16a) any assessment of human beings that is based on the human or worldly preoccupation with externals.”

[18] Harris, Second Corinthians, 434. “When a person becomes a Christian, he or she experiences a total restructuring of life that alters its whole fabric—thinking, feeling, willing, and acting. Anyone who is ‘in Christ’ is ‘Under new Management’ and has ‘Altered Priorities Ahead,’ to use the wording sometimes found in shop windows and …on roads.”

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