By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
June 9, 2024
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2 Corinthians 4:13–5:1 (ESV)
13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, 14 knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. 15 For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. 16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 1 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
Over the past few weeks I have thought a great deal about what our purpose as believers is in the world today. I introduced the more eastern concept of being your brother’s keeper, and highlighted that that is what we are to do. I discussed the western philosophical concept espoused by Plato and how that philosophy can be found in the writings of Paul. I mentioned how Paul would often take the philosophical ideas of one place and merge them with the more eastern or Hebraic mind.
I do not know if anyone followed my train of thought. But I think it is important to notice when Paul does this because it should give us some insight in how we should interact with our present world. Paul used the words and philosophies of the Gentile world to help him explain the deeper things of faith. Often we do not recognize it. He is using those concepts as illustrations and we often assume that he equates these concepts with spiritual authority. Which leads some to believe that there are two churches in the ancient world: the first being the Church of Jesus and the second being that of Paul, or even the Church of John and that of Paul because one follows the teaching found in john’s Gospel and epistles more closely and the other follows the writing of Paul.
We can see this in the pages of our scripture. Paul is often quoted when dealing with moral regulation and John is often quoted when expressing moral liberty. Paul often appears to be the moral legalist, and John the the gracious liberal. We get these ideas not because Paul is the moral legalist, but because of who Paul is writing too and taking those writings out of context.
Context is important. We learn to use context early in our education, especially when we encounter a word we do not fully understand. We use the words surrounding that unknown word to give us clues as to what that word might mean. But context goes beyond the surrounding words. Context also includes paragraphs, books, society, and cultures. When we look at the news context is important. When we look at history, context is important. When we look at philosophical thought, context is important. When we read scripture this broader understanding of context is just as important.
These words. These inspired words were not dropped into the minds of humanity and written down on paper without thought. God instead through the inspiration of the Spirit used the knowledge of an individual within their own context to convey a message. We can look at the words and say that they are inspired, God breathed, and that they bear authority. But if we want a fuller understanding as to what God was whispering into the hearts of the authors we need to study context. We need to broaden our understanding as much as possible, learning how the people of those ancient cultures and days thought. We need to see how they viewed the world in their own context so we can understand what the Spirit of God is saying.
Taking scripture out of context can hinder faith. I would venture to say that the vast majority of the problems we face within the church is due to taking scripture out of context. I would venture to say that the vast majority of the challenges we face when people outside the church make claims that scripture contradicts itself is because scripture is taken out of context. I would venture to say that each of us are guilty, and that I myself am probably the worst.
We do this constantly because we want scripture to speak to us in the moment. We want it to help us as we make our way through the struggles of life. There is nothing wrong with that. When I read through the pages of scripture while facing a struggle and a verse seems to speak to my soul’s condition, it is inspiring and comforting. It helps me in that moment and it guides my next step through the journey of life. But when I say that my understanding in that moment is what the author meant when they wrote those words down, I have taken that passage out of context and may be hindering a broader understand as to what God is teaching us.
Paul is probably the greatest victim of contextual mishaps. Largely because his approach is so progressive. Yes, his approach is progressive. When he says that he becomes all things to all people, when he speaks to the Jews as a Jew or when he speaks to a Gentile as if he were a Gentile, that is just what he is, progressive. He is speaking to those people within that particular community, using their own language and understanding as a guide for his conversation. And Platonism or Stoicism were the closest philosophy to Hebraic understanding he found.
This does not mean that this line of thinking is the deeper meaning or message that Paul is speaking of. We need to remember that Paul is of the Hebrew mind. It is Western thought that speaks of law and commandments, where Hebrews speak of teachings. We from our western mindset look at the ten commandments and see them as the rules God established, this is a Hellenistic understanding. This is often how we approach scripture as a whole. We see rules, where God was instead calling us into a conversation.
Why do I again bring this all up? Because there is Platonic language within today’s passage. Corinth was a remarkable city. It sits on an isthmus or a relatively thin span of land between two bodies of water. To the south east of Corinth is Athens and to the north west is Delphi. These are two very important parts of Ancient Greece. Delphi was the home of a great oracle. Within this cult women would enter a chamber to breath the vapor. As they breathed this vapor, they would then enter into a trance and utter prophecies that many ancient rulers would then take as omens pointing to the future success or failure in their endeavors.
Athens is often regarded as the capital or center of the Hellenistic culture. Plato and Socrates lived in this city. Athens became the birthplace of philosophy and in turn the birthplace of western civilization. But Paul is not speaking to the people of Athens or Delphi, he is writing to Corinth.
Because of the importance of the cult at Delphi and Athens, many people would want to travel between the two. To go by land would mean traveling through mountains. Mountains in ancient times were impassable, so they found a different route through the seas. Ancient Greece was not like nations we know today but was instead a conglomeration of various city states. These cities would often go to war with each other. Athens was one of the primary city states another was Sparta. For someone to travel from Athens to obtain a prophecy from Delphi, you must travel a great distance through treacherous waters controlled by Sparta, they would travel around a third of Greece to reach a narrow waterway that opens into the Gulf of Corinth, about a mile and a half wide. Many made this journey, and they passed by this narrow stretch of land, the Isthmus of Corinth. Somewhere along the course of history people decided that it was safer to unload the ships, and carry the ship and the cargo across this narrow strip of land. So Corinth became this port city where sailors, religious practitioners, philosophers and tradesmen all met as they waited for their ships to be carried back to the water.
Corinth, because it was halfway between Sparta and Athens, and an important port opening toward the prophetic Oracle of Delphi, became a city great importance. It was a often seen as a neutral city and even became one of the sites of the Panhellenic games, what our modern Olympic Games were modeled after.
Paul speaks to the people of Corinth using the language of these multifaceted population. He mixes the east and west. The political and the common. The secular and sacred, and as he writes he gives us direction to how we can speak to our eclectic cultures today.
Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
This is continuing what we spoke about last week. We have a treasure in jars of clay. The treasure is the knowledge or the wisdom of Christ. And the jar of clay is our bodies. This light, this wisdom of God is within us. In the platonic view the spirit resides in the body, but the body is corrupt and can harm the spirit. When the body dies the spirit is released into the the spiritual realm. Many Christians would say this is the view that we have as well. But it is not a Hebraic view.
We believe, Paul says, we believe knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. This is the difference between the Hellenistic and Hebraic views. In the Platonic view the body is just a shell encasing the spirit, only the spirit maters. That is not the faith that Paul teaches. He teaches that we will rise, just as Jesus rose.
We will rise. Our spirits will not just go to heaven, but our bodies will be restored. And we will physically and spiritually be reunited with God. Once again becoming fully alive as God intended.
Paul is telling us, that we are more. What we do in this world matters. Our actions affect both our bodies and our spirits, as well as the lives of those around us.
What you do matters. What you say. How you act toward the person next to you is important. It is important not just because it can harm your spirit, but because it can distract us from what we were created to be.
I speak in this manner. I mention how the philosophies of western civilization are used within scripture because it should encourage us to think more holistically. Today we have many competing ideas. Some say one idea is more Christian than another, but the reality is that all are a mixture of religious and secular philosophies. These ideas have become so ingrained within us that it can become difficult to distinguish the origin. This leaves us wondering how we should proceed as the culture seems to be at war with what we believe. What should we stand firm to defend?
Paul speaks from a Platonic perspective because it has some common ground with the message the Messiah presented. We are more than body. But we are also more than spirit. Our bodies will eventually fail us. They will eventually return to the dust from which they were created, but something does remain. “Our inner self is being renewed day by day.” Paul tells us. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
How are we reacting as the culture seems to press in on us? What is our response to various social constructs being overturned? This is what Paul is speaking to. We get caught up in arguing the theological implications of spirit and the body and how they seem to differ between Paul and John, but we fail to see that Paul is using common language to speak of a deeper reality. Both Plato and the Christian agree that the body will die and return to dust and the spirit will live on. But this is not the argument Paul is leading us to, that is merely place where philosophy and religion meet. How are we going to respond when the philosophies of the world go one way and the church goes another?
This is where we find ourselves today. We are in the final battles of a culture war that was started generations ago and is coming to an end before us. How do we respond? This light momentary affliction, which is what it really is, a light momentary affliction, is preparing us for something. How are we responding? Are we responding according to the teachings of Christ or are we responding as the world would respond? Are the things we are showing to the world what we truly believe?
“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
This community, this city, state and nation will rise and fall. This is inevitable according to the cycles of history. But something will remain. Something that God created and God will restore. The land and it’s people. Those are the things that God is most concerned with and those are the things that God will restore on the day of judgment. Your business will rise and fall. Our government will rise and fall. Do not get me wrong I believe that we live in the greatest nation on earth but this nation is only great because the people within have found a way to adapt, we have a system of government that can and should adapt. It should adapt because it is not God breathed. It was formed by imperfect people living in a cultural context that is foreign to us today. But the only way that we will survive is if we look beyond this current situation and look to something beyond. The same power that raised Jesus from the grave is available to us. The same power that inspired the apostles to boldly go and teach through out an empire is still available to us. What we once knew might be coming to a close, but that does not mean it is the end. The previous generations have taught us something.
A man named Daniel Dietrich wrote a song a few years ago that I feel sums up my feelings. The Song is called Hymn for the 81%. it says:
I grew up in your churches, Sunday morning and evening service, knelt in tears at the foot of the rugged cross. You taught me every life is sacred, feed the hungry, clothe the naked. I learned from you the highest law is love.
And I believed you when you said that I should trust the words in red to guide my steps through a wicked world. I assumed you’d do the same so imagine my dismay when I watched you lead the sheep to the wolves.
You said to love the lost, so I’m loving you now. You said to speak the truth, I’m calling you out. Why don’t you live the words, that you put in my mouth, my love overcome and justice roll down.
Where is our focus?
For Paul, he used the things of this world to preach the gospel of hope. He used the imperfect philosophies of a broken world, to point to something greater. To point to the one that could overcome the brokenness and provide hope. But where is our focus?
Are we seeking the things seen or unseen? Are we seeking power or hope? Are we willing to suffer for the moment to show a confused nation that there is a greater hope beyond this fleeting moment? Very early in my ministry we had the WWJD fad going through the church. What Would Jesus Do? What would Jesus do in our community today? Where would his focus be if he was standing among us right here at this moment? This is what Paul is getting at with his philosophical discussion. The world’s philosophies point one way but the teaching of Jesus point another. One is seen the other unseen. One was build by human hands and the other by the eternal hands of heaven. One excludes the ones outside itself where the other focuses on bringing the outside in. Where is our focus? What would Jesus do?
Previous Messages:
Living Stones
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church May 03, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili 1 Peter 2:2–10 (ESV) 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have…
Endure
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church April 26, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Query 4 (Faith and Practice of EFC-MAYM pg 61) Do you provide for the suitable Christian education and recreation of your children and those under your care, and…
Ransomed to Love
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church April 19, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili 1 Peter 1:17–23 (ESV) 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time…
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