Campfire Scripture: Every weekday, take with food for maximum manfulness.

Book Author and Date:

Paul of Tarsus, the Christian persecutor turned Christian champion; missionary, apologist,  negotiator, bushman, survivor and all around badass. Paul wrote second Corinthians around 55-56 A.D. Almost no one disputes Paul’s authorship. The epistle bears his signature and highlights very personal, humble, details about Paul himself and his concern for the Corinthian church that would be unlikely to have been invented by an impostor.

Tags:

Righteousness, Christ, sin.

Context:

Second Corinthians, like first Corinthians, is a corrective letter that uses much strong language. In the first epistle he was taking many, many errors and much sin to issue. In this second letter he was demonstrating his authority and claim to apostleship. There were some false teachers arising who were challenging Paul’s authority. Having to do this was not something he enjoyed, because it was far more important to him to boast in Christ. Which is precisely what he was doing here.

What I Reckon:

God is making an appeal through us. We are the messengers of the Gospel. We are the example of righteousness to the world. There’s a lot of deep theology going on in this verse such as Christ’s sinless perfection, even whilst taking the punishment for sin on the cross he was still perfect and sinless.

So until Christ returns, we are the means by which Christ demonstrates His righteousness to the world. Man there’s not much to add to this verse, it really says it all… We are ambassador’s for Christ… the Father is appealing to the world through us… Christ took our sin, so that while we are still fallen sinners, we are made to look perfect to God because of what Christ did!

If that doesn’t fill you with a sense of responsibility I don’t know what will.

I want this blog to fill men with inspiration and know-how for becoming battle hardened warriors for Christ, not because it’s necessary (because nothing is necessary except to repent and believe in Christ), but because Christ deserves nothing less.

We cannot earn our salvation with works or righteousness, but we can be grateful for it. But we cannot be grateful passively, only actively.

References

All Campfire Scripture passages are taken from the New American Standard Bible, unless otherwise stated.

John MacArthur, 2006, The MacArthur Study Bible,  New American Standard Bible (1995 edition).