Text for the Week: 2 Corinthians 5

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:13-21

¹³ If we are crazy, it’s for God’s sake. If we are rational, it’s for your sake. ¹⁴ The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: one died for the sake of all; therefore, all died. ¹⁵ He died for the sake of all so that those who are alive should live not for themselves but for the one who died for them and was raised.

¹⁶ So then, from this point on we won’t recognize people by human standards. Even though we used to know Christ by human standards, that isn’t how we know him now. ¹⁷ So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!

¹⁸ All of these new things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of reconciliation. ¹⁹ In other words, God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation.

²⁰ So we are ambassadors who represent Christ. God is negotiating with you through us. We beg you as Christ’s representatives, “Be reconciled to God!” ²¹ God caused the one who didn’t know sin to be sin for our sake so that through him we could become the righteousness of God.

Questions

1. What does it mean to be “crazy” and how does it relate to being rational?
2. What does it mean that “we used to know Christ by human standards”?
3. Who are ambassadors of Christ, is it simply Paul and his companions or does this phrase include other Christians?
4. What does it mean to be an ambassador and how does this concept impact evangelism?

Background

Related Scriptures: Matthew 9:35-10:42, Romans 14, 1 Peter 3:8-15

Verses 14-15 point to the idea that Christ died for everyone and that everyone dies but some have found life in him. This gives purpose to the Christian’s message; we are helping others to hear the message and rise to life in Jesus.

To “recognize people by human standards” means to classify people by human categories, instead Paul wants people to simply recognize the believer-unbeliever distinction. But even with this distinction we must recognize that such a distinction is not about creating a social structure but simply to recognize where people are in terms of hearing the message of Jesus.

Recognizing Jesus by human terms likely means that Paul once saw him as something less than his divine status, probably as simply a teacher, healer, or failed revolutionary.

Paul is advocating that sharing God’s view of Jesus, as the savior, will help us see other people as God sees them.

 Paul uses reconciliation in a unique way, normally the party who does the wrong reconciles with the offended party by removing the reason for offense, however here God reconciles humanity by removing the offense.

Paul is telling us that even though Jesus had no direct experience with sin, he in some true way voluntarily connected himself to it.

For more background you can watch my video here

Reflection

What does it mean to be an ambassador? If we are going to understand the full weight of Paul’s message it is vital to understand the qualities that make someone an effective ambassador. The role of the ambassador, as Paul would have been familiar with it, would have been to represent the king of one’s home country to the king of another country. The ambassador was to meet with foreign dignitaries, pass along messages to that court from the ambassador’s king, and generally work to establish the right relationship between his home country and the one in which he was living. As it is today, being an ambassador was an important job that required wisdom and maturity- the term Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 5:20 is closely associated with “elder”. Ambassadors must be wise because they are treading in a liminal space, accurately representing and reflecting the king who has sent them, maintaining the distinctives of their homeland, while adapting and befriending the king and culture where they reside.

The metaphor of ambassador can be extremely helpful as we think about evangelism and being the light of the world as Jesus calls us to be. It reminds of several truths of our position as we seek to proclaim Jesus’ message as he called believers to do in Matthew 28. First, we live in a place that is governed by different laws, customs, and culture, though there might be times that such differences might make us look comical or quaint, there are also times where this could be a serious roadblock. Second, our job is not simply to proclaim a message and walk away like some kind of modern-day Jonah, we are called to see to it that we help establish the relationship Jesus desires. And third, we do not represent ourselves, but since we are the king’s presence we must act as the king acts at all times.

If we are going to be faithful ambassadors, we must ask ourselves what the message is that Jesus wants us to deliver and how must we deliver it. In a very concise summary Paul gives us the message we are to deliver in this passage. All humans are surrounded by and subject to death, yet Jesus has reconciled all people to himself and in that reconciliation, there is new life. The word “reconciliation” in this passage is special because it denotes that there was an offense given against Jesus and even though it should be our responsibility to own the offense and make restitution, Jesus has done this for us. Our mission is to live in a civilization that does not necessarily believe there is a problem and help those people understand there is both a problem they must recognize and that it has been resolved. To do this we must be so grounded this message that we exude it, we must reflect it as we reflect the culture of Jesus into the world. At the same time, we must be able to speak in a way that we are not immediately rejected by a culture that is radically different from that of Jesus. We must learn to speak the language of the people we are around so that we can communicate with them and accurately present Jesus’ message that they need to hear. As 1 Peter 3:15 reminds us we have a message of hope, not one of depression, grief, or wrath; we are presenting a joyous message that God is working in our lives providing us with light when all around is darkness. The message we have been tasked to present is already good, our job as ambassadors is to make sure everyone around us sees the truth and goodness of the message. Good and faithful ambassadors embody their king’s message for the recipients and that is what we have been charged with also.

Takeaway

Being a city on a hill as Jesus calls us in Matthew 5:14 means being a guiding light for people. In order to do this, we must think like ambassadors, people charged with improving relations between selfish nations. This involves learning how to accurately represent our king in a way that convinces the people we are called to live and speak with.