Gluten Free & God Seeking: What are Sufferings For in 2 Corinthians 4:7-15?

Sunday, April 7, 2013

What are Sufferings For in 2 Corinthians 4:7-15?

Who has never felt "pressed on every side but not constricted," or "cast down but not destroyed" (2 Corinthians 4:8, 9b)? I needed this Life Study of 2 Corinthians message this week because I found myself right in the middle of this chapter.

Even though it's a difficult topic to talk about, I found Witness Lee's sharing in this chapter very heart warming. He uses Paul's account of being pressed, constricted, persecuted, cast down, and bearing about in his body the putting to death of Jesus to underscore that it was in these experiences that Paul got constituted to become a minister of the New Covenant. I liked this particular part on page 96:

Paul was a person constituted of God....Therefore Paul's ministry was his being. What he preached and taught was what he was. He ministered his very being to others. As Paul ministered in this way, Christ was imparted into others, for Paul and Christ had become one. Paul was one with Christ and had been constituted of Christ. His ministry was the ministry of the Christ who had been constituted into his being. Without this kind of ministry, there is no way to have the church adequately built up or to have the bride properly adorned (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of 2 Corinthians. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1982, Print).

It was encouraging to see that God is using all kinds of pressing situations to constitute us so that when we gather together with other believers we have something real of Christ to minister to others. The song called The Comfort Abounds touches my heart because when we're pressed, we get to know "the Father of compassion and God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our affliction...." 2 Corinthians 1:3b-4a.