This Week's Focus Passage

‘What we are in word…are we also in deed.’

Focus Passage: 2 Corinthians 10:11

‘What we are in word…are we also in deed.’

Paul would have his readers and hearers to be conscious of the fact that he was not, by the grace of God, a Janus facing in two directions at one and the same time. He would have them to be aware that the ‘weighty and strong’ letters which he wrote were in no way inconsistent with his bodily presence and speech, as some were asserting. They were suggesting that he was one thing in his written word and yet another in his spoken word. We may easily be brought to reflect upon this as a perennial manifestation of the human condition since the fall. Surely, it is not difficult to read the Genesis narrative of Cain and Abel, and conclude, at least in our imagination, that Cain was subtle just as his father the Devil, saying one thing and doing still another. We see him in our minds eye speaking peaceably to Abel and then parting, yet returning with murder in his heart and cunning in his mind, sneaking up behind his brother with a club of some sort perhaps, and beating his more righteous sibling to death, spilling his blood upon the ground.

That was only the beginning. Ever since that terrible day, mankind has been saying one thing and doing another; their words and their deeds conflicting one with the other. Cain was duplicitous; Paul insists here in our passage that he, the apostle, was not in the least duplicitous, in spite of what his detractors were alleging. We should strive, as much as lieth within us, to imitate Paul and not to imitate Cain, who must needs eventually go out from the presence of the Lord. How refreshing that would be today if we were to bring our speech and our actions together into a consistency between them. There was a day—some of us are even old enough to remember—when a man’s word was his bond, as they said. It is extremely sad and must be lamented that such a day is hardly to be even in remembrance among us any longer. Rather many written contracts and innumerable attorneys are those things that are today considered absolutely essential to each and every proposed agreement between men. Yet this duplicity is inherent in mankind. Even these written agreements are commonly broken, and with the assistance of the same sort of people, that is, the attorneys that had presumably contrived them as unbreakable bonds of agreement in the first place.

How wonderfully different is the picture that is presented by the apostle Paul. And he has the support of his God and the testimony of the Word of the God who has promised and will do that which He has promised; who has said ‘I will do it’ and has done it. He would have us to be faithful to our word as well. His concern for honesty and faithfulness to our word is addressed in the book of Leviticus, in the sixth chapter where the law of sin-offerings is being laid down:

And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, if any one sin, and commit a trespass against Jehovah, and deal falsely with his neighbor in a matter of deposit, or of bargain, or of robbery, or have oppressed his neighbor, or have found that which was lost, and deal falsely therein, and swear to a lie: in any of these things that a man doeth, sinning therein……

….there is a sin-offering designated for the guilty that this sin may be forgiven. Note in the language of Leviticus that the Holy Spirit refers to dealing falsely in the matter of a bargain, of dealing falsely and swearing to a lie. These actions are sins. They are punishable; but they are forgivable through the Sin-Offering. When David has raised the inquiry in Psalm 15, Jehovah, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in the holy hill, his inspired response is that it is the one who walks uprightly. Walking uprightly includes—it should not surprise us—working righteousness. And working righteousness includes speaking truth in his heart, not slandering with the tongue, not taking up a reproach against his neighbor. David goes on to add to this litany that the one who would thus honor the Lord and them that fear the Lord extends to the faithfulness of his word to others. He says that this man is among those that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. This means that when this man has made a promise and even when the fulfilling of that promise proves to militate against his own interests, even his own well-being, that he will not rescind his pledge; he will not change that which he has vowed to do. His word is his bond. This is the behavior of the man of God pronounced righteous by ‘the man after God’s own heart,’ the prophet of the Psalms, David.

Although both David and Paul wrote under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, there is still a grand imprimatur when Christ Himself speaks to the matter at hand. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, He has clearly given us the same direction as found earlier in David, and later in Paul. In speaking of the issue of swearing, that is, the taking of oaths, the great Teacher, our Rabbi, has said in chapter five and verses 33-37, the following:

Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: but I say unto you, swear not at all; neither by the heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, for thou canst not make one hair white or black.

The next verse especially is the asseveration of the exhortations of David and Paul, the representatives of the Older and the Newer covenants. Jesus Himself exhorts us:

Let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: and whatsoever is more than these is of the evil one.

Considering this as found in the context of the Sermon on the Mount and even closer in context to the declaration that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, it would be most contextually propitious to exhort ourselves, ‘Let your light be light that is Yea, yea: let your salt be salt that is Nay, nay.’

David Farmer, elder

Fellowship Bible Church

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