All of Me

Notes

rely—convince myself—pepoithotes—different than faith. Not about trusting but relying / having confidence; but what exactly is the difference? Peith = persuade—to persuade is to talk into—we talked ourselves into this, as opposed to God simply stating and we trusting; maybe also faith is more about the person (or basis for conviction), but persuasion is about the argument

v. 8--”utterly burdened”—utterly = hyperbole—cf, “you always / neer; I’m starving--”we’ll see”; definition of hyperbole--exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally. surpassing all others—outside the category / greater than anything else in teh category

Cf v. 7—it seems the hard times create the capacity for comfort—your comfort can take up the space taht your trial created—but it doesn’t have to be you actually—to “share in” the suffering of others can create teh same space. So we are talking about empathic or vicarious suffering / comfort?? Somehow yes, since Paul sees both his suffering and his comfort as investments in their comfort. But what is the need for their comfort? Is he feeling extra sensitive because he has been so hard on them, and they have come to repentant sorrow? Or is it simply that to live with any depth of faith at all, they must be trained by suffering and comfort?

sentence of death--”responsive judgment”—conclusion—weighed the facts and gave a judgment

the point in all of this is that we have the tendency to magnify our problems—and to count on our strengths—and this happens by our own convincing—you can convince yourself of anything, whether affirming or disconcerting; all of this must give way to reliance upon God—it’s one thing to have faith in God, but this is about relying upon God—it’s about winning the persuasion argument; it’s about transferring theological ideas to inner judgments;

The Letters to the Corinthians Driven Back on God (2 Corinthians 1:8–11)

Often, a person who has undergone a quite simple operation will make it a subject of conversation for a long time to come. The short-story writer and folklorist H. L. Gee tells of two men who met to transact some business in wartime. The one was full of how the train in which he had travelled had been attacked from the air. He would not stop talking about the excitement, the danger and the narrow escape. The other, in the end, said quietly: ‘Well, let’s get on with our business now. I’d like to get away fairly early because my house was demolished by a bomb last night.’

CF “winning story time”

The Letters to the Corinthians Driven Back on God (2 Corinthians 1:8–11)

But Paul saw that the terrifying experience he had gone through had had one tremendous use: it had driven him back to God and demonstrated to him his utter dependence on him. The Arabs have a proverb: ‘All sunshine makes a desert.’ The danger of prosperity is that it encourages a false independence; it makes us think that we are perfectly capable of handling life alone. For every one prayer that rises to God in days of prosperity, 10,000 rise in days of adversity. As Abraham Lincoln had it, ‘I have often been driven to my knees in prayer because I had nowhere else to go.’ It is often in misfortune that people find out who their true friends are, and it often needs some time of adversity to show us how much we need God.

The New International Greek Testament Commentary: The Second Epistle to the Corinthians 3. Deliverance from Affliction (1:8–11)

But only God could give a response, or announce a verdict, of “Death!”

INteresting that the “received” in themselves is perfect tense—past with continuing effect. THey misread the moment, and yet were driven to understand that it wsan’t that the death-threat wasn’t real, but that it was only true if they were left to their own devices or abilities. One might think of it as “we were in over our heads. And in fact we are—it’s not that we are up to this, but rather that we aren’t the source of our own sufficiency”—he will say that later. The challnge really was too much for them. they didn’t need positivity (Cf Jana’s school competitions being cut)—they neede reliance upon a greater source. It didn’t just cause them to shift confidence in order to make them feel better. It was to bring them to a greater capacity of service—they could now bring more than their own resources to bear—they could work harder, accomplish more spiritually, and last longer, and experience more challenge than their own ability would have allowed. There seems to be some effect in Paul that there was two sides to this—he was freed from the burden of death staring him down, and he was empowered to operate no longer according to his resource-level.

Two important shifts—from self-reliance to God reliance; and from judging based on te himmediate outcome to judging based on the ultimate outcome; and maybe in this, coming to have confidence based on God, not outcomes. When my confidence is in God who raises from teh dead, what power can overcome his good works? And even if the worst happens, how can that actually be bad given that God can turn death itself on its head—Cf Abraham’s faith according to Hebrews, that God would simply have to bring him back. (so- God not outcomes, ultimate not immediate; and God not me)

What he learned in this deliverance is that deaths and dangers are never actually in charge, so they can’t be allowed to be in charge of his heart or his disposition. So two things—1- what if the worst happens? Well, God is a God who reverses the worst, so he can do the good thing with anything; and 2- since God is such a God, what can I set my sughts on now?

Can you imagine—most of us prefer to think- “ah, finally, that’s over! NOw I can get on with life!” For Paul, peril is part of life, and now so is God-reliance. This he can be not afraid and not have a tendency to avoid harm or danger or hard things; he will not be undone by any “sentence of death”—not because he replaced it with positivity, but with divine power

This sentence--”you’re a dead man” seemed to bith turn him to power, and free him from ?fear or demoralization. He had been driven to hopelessness. What he received wasn’t a guaranty about positive outcomes and experiences, but about ultimate deliverance every time. “Of course I’m a dead man—teh sentencing is over, but the hangman has been arrested!” Cf Pres. Jackson--”[chef justice] has made him free, let him carry it out” I’m not counting on an outcome here—I’m counting on a God Who is in charge of outcomes—one of three major shifts necessary for living our whole new life.

The real challenge—it’s perfectly natural to think that way. The problem isn’t that it’s so terribly dysfunctional to think this way, but that it’s terriby compromising and faithless to think this way, since living to the fullest of faith requires a different kind of reliance.

So self-reliance leads to rugged individualism AND limited function. (and other self- things)

Intro